You have to trust your judgement knowing you will make mistakes. I always say you have to be relaxed about that and smiling knowing that you have a bomb in the right hand and a hand grenade in your left and that it can explode in your face because you were wrong.
Is this the most bizarre statement a football manager has ever made? It’s certainly in contention for the title.
He’d have been put out to stud or to graze or whatever it is they do to old horses that are slow and useless.
They shoot some of them, don’t they?
…but that didn’t stop the chants. Interesting point of view from le Saux himself over a rumour that became ‘fact’ like that Marc Almond story.
Who ate all the pies makes a good point about John Terry’s behaviour in the United v Chelsea match.
In times past we have criticised teams like Man United and players like Roy Keane for their aggressive approach to referees. Remember Keane’s vein bulging as he screamed at Andy D’Urso? However, they are nothing to Terry and Chelsea who have been getting worse and worse in recent seasons, and now it’s at a point where Chelsea players are almost constantly putting hands on the official.
Terry’s attempt to snatch the red card out of Mike Dean’s hand was childish and pathetic but also the action of somebody who now has no respect for the man in the middle. It’s like he is trying to decide what is right and wrong, like he’s trying to overrule the official. It’s arrogant and very, very wrong.
Nothing will happen though. The FA just don’t have the balls to punish an England captain the way he should be punished.
Updated: As suspected, Terry gets away with it.
I was watching the United - Chelsea game yesterday hoping for a good game of football, some goals, some fights, some aggro. Unfortunately Mike Dean ensured the contest was over on the half hour when he red carded Jon Obi Mikel for a challenge on Patrice Evra.
A yellow card was as much as it merited but out came the red. Nonsense and game spoiled. Now, according to Martin Tyler on Sky Sports that was the 14th red card he’s shown in 20 games. That is an amazing statistic and surely it is way, way beyond the average for most referees. Basically in 75% of matches he referees he gives a red card.
That needs to be investigated because it’s not right. What compounds his red card error is the fact he awarded a penalty to United after a blatant dive by Louis Saha. It was the sort of dive that wouldn’t fool a Sunday league referee so you have to ask serious questions of Dean for that. Also, it was the kind of dive that should be retrospectively punished by using video evidence. If Saha got a three game ban for blatant cheating it might make him think twice about doing it again.
In conclusion then - Mike Dean is really very crap and spoils games of football that people pay a lot of money to go and watch. I don’t believe that in 3/4s of the games he referees a red card offence takes place.
Anyone know where we can get referee stats and compare his red card tally to the others?
I suppose you’d have gotten long odds at the start of the season for Jose Mourinho to be the first Premier League manager to lose his job. It’s all a bit ant-climactic now that it has happened though.
We know the relationship between the manager and Abramovich has been non-existent for quite some time now and Chelsea’s relatively stuttering start to the season did nothing to help it. You wonder did Abramovich blame the manager’s style of football for the 24,000 crowd the other night. Hard to take when you see an Arsenal side assembled for a small percentage of what you spent playing great football and packing in 60,000 each time.
Some people will miss Mourinho and his character. Not me. I’ve always thought he was an arrogant, offensive man who lacked the basic manners to be able to treat anything he said in a tongue in cheek fashion.
What’s sure though is that Chelsea are much worse off. He might not have been a very nice man but he was a very good football manager and Abramovich will do extremely well to find someone half as good. Avram Grant? Not a hope.
On a yellow card playing against a team with a reputation for making the most out of any contact you’d think a player with as much experience as Pennant would know to stay on his feet. His silly tackle and the subsequent acting from the Porto player ensured Liverpool finished the game with 10 men.
I’m not sure it made any difference to the scoreline though. Even with 11 Liverpool looked content to play for the point and defending with 10 men just made them more resolute.
It is funny though. Liverpool went out and brought in exciting, attacking players in Torres, Babel and Voronin but Benitez has this fixation with playing a fairly dour kind of football, especially away from home in Europe. Personally I think Liverpool could have taken Porto apart if they’d given it a go but Rafa seems to be a safety first kind of guy.
On being the biggest club in London:
“You know, there’s 13 different teams in London, top-quality football teams. We’ve decided that we want to be London’s team.”
On plans to be the biggest club in the world by 2014:
“We carry out independent research now on fanbases and relativity of Real Madrid versus Manchester United versus Milan versus Chelsea. It will be all those measures. I think it’s a very ballsy vision but it’s one that I think has captured the interest of the owner.”
Chelsea’s attendance in the Champions League last night - 24, 973. That’s 14,000+ empty seats.
Looks like he’s got his work cut out for him.
The North London derby was a cracking game for Arsenal fans and neutrals but Spurs fans won’t be happy. Profligate strikers and poor defence cost them again. Darren Bent for £16.5m? Got to be the turkey deal of the summer. Not that he won’t score but when you pay that much money for a striker you expect better than what he produced on Saturday. Can Jol turn it around or is the fact that he’s a dead man walking transmitting itself to the players?
Nemanja Vidic is the most dangerous player in the Premiership at corners and set-pieces. He’s brave and quick and that makes all the difference. That was a vital goal against Everton.
Liverpool looked flat against Portsmouth and were lucky to get away with a point. Kanu’s missed penalty and Utaka’s miss from 8 yards really left them off the hook.
West Ham beginning to look like a team now, Ashton will have been glad to get his first goal back since his injury. Villa are confusing. Beating Chelsea one minute, losing to Man City the next. Sven is doing good work there though.
How long will Bolton keep Sammy Lee? After getting slightly back on track after three defeats in a row they went down to Birmingham and the Bolton manager was unhappy with the lack of effort from his players. When you’re bemoaning that after just 5 or 6 games of the season something is seriously wrong. Plus, doesn’t his face look like it’s made from plastic or something? It’s weird.
Three vital points for Sunderland and Reading look like they’re going to be one of the sides that are scrapping all season to stay out of the relegation zone. I think they miss Sidwell and haven’t really done as well in the transfer market as they might have during the summer.
Derby play tonight against Newcastle. If they don’t get soundly beaten I’ll be very surprised.
I still can’t believe it. France 0, Scotland 1.
Arsene Wenger once said:
The act of playing for a team makes each individual stronger.
Here we see that in practice; France, with their multi-talented squad, World Cup winners, European Champions, Champions League Winners up against the relative minnows of Scotland, who weather a VERY heavy storm and beat them - again. Brilliant, just brilliant.
There’s still a lot to do, Italy, Georgia and the Ukraine to play again but… you really never know in footy. All we need is an Archie Gemmell moment or two and qualification is in OUR hands, not someone else’s for a change. Obviously, we won’t qualify for the Second Round if we do qualify, we never do. Scottish scientists could genetically manufacture a goalkeeper that entirely filled the goals (they tried it in 1978 with Alan Rough’s perm) and it still wouldn’t happen.
I couldn’t give a monkey’s if no-one else agrees with me on this, I’m chuffed to bits and we don’t need the likes of Frank Lumpard either.