You have to admire Rafa Benitez. Peter Crouch hardly gets a look in all season, the manager preferring to play the hard working but goal shy Kuyt ahead of him and deciding he’ll keep the frankly rubbish Voronin over him, yet there’s a £15m price tag slapped on his head.
Amazing. Crouch is a decent Premier League player but how can he justify asking for that kind of money when, if he really was a £15m player, he’d surely have played more games this season?
Sorry for the lack of action around here. We’re having end of season, not in any trophies ennui.
Sparked back into life by this quote from Rafa Benitez though. After last night’s 1-1 draw with Chelsea in the Champions League he said:
Of course I am disappointed with the officials’ performance. It is not the first time this has happened to us and we are really disappointed.
Pardon me? Is he actually for real? I mean, like, seriously!!
Two generous sendings off against Inter Milan, two very favourable penalty decisions about Arsenal, and he’s complaining about a ref who appeared decent enough to me last night (one Cole foul on Kuyt in the second half aside)??
Madness, I tell you. The man is obviously deranged. Liverpool have had great chunks of good luck and generous refereeing decisions in the CL this season. The good luck ran out in the last minute of injury time though.
What in the name of all that is holy was Riise thinking? He has feet, doesn’t he? It’s not like he’s a Vietnam vet with no lower legs and only one of those skateboard things to push himself around on. Why didn’t he kick it? And that’s not the first time he’s done that this season - didn’t he score almost the same own goal against Luton in the FA Cup?
You’ve got to question the keeper a bit there as well. He should have come for that ball. Anyway, it’s nicely poised for the 2nd leg - I still hope Liverpool do it. A United v Chelsea final would be sickening.
My order of preference for CL glory:
Barcelona - Liverpool - United or Chelsea (if either of them wins it I’m going to make a football out of my own poo and throw it up for Ronaldo or John Terry to head back to me).
Isn’t Premier League football the best? Two Chelsea games in three days (the horror!), three goals, little in the way of excitement and all we have to really show for it is Avram Grant’s incredible post-match interview after the game against Everton. The Israeli is clearly going bonkers under the increasing pressure and criticism which is being heaped upon his broad shoulders, but there was no need to act like a petulant child in front of a baying media pack.
Credit must go to the Blues as the only side who are pushing Manchester United as the finishing post looms, but it is a season that has come at a cost. An increasing number of disillusioned “untouchables”, a stop-gap manager who clearly wont be there come August and a set of fans who are less than happy with the way the club is run. Chelsea’s slim dream of Premier League glory in 2008 may still be alive, but there hopes of doing it with dignity and style banished long ago.
One 4-0 can be put down to having a bad. A second 4-0 defeat inside a week is perhaps a sign of some problems at a club. But three 4-0 defeats in a row is as clear a sign as you’ll ever get that a manager has lost the dressing room.
Sure, the opposition was decent but after two 4-0 defeats and the next match against one of your fiercest rivals you’d think the manager would be able to get some sort of reaction from his players. He didn’t and Hammers fans must be absolutely miserable tonight.
Would be very interested in the thoughts of West Ham fans. Is Curbishley still the man for job? If, as it appears, he isn’t, who do you want to see come in?
Update: Just to confirm I’m not interested in the thoughts of idiot Spurs fans who are on a wind-up and think they’re the world’s greatest team since winning the Carling Cup. Yes, the Carling Cup.
The Manager of the Month awards for February are in, so avoid backing the following teams as the dreaded curse descends on…
Stoke City! Tony Pulis was the victor in the Championship after guiding Stoke to five wins in six but, somewhat predictably, once the Potters reached the poisoned chalice of first place, they contrived to lose against Preston to give the sides directly beneath them a lifeline. Next up for City are the trio of QPR, Burnley and Norwich - all tricky, but all ultimately winnable. Expect to see them languishing in 4th by the beginning of April then.
Carlisle manager John Ward is the deserved winner in League One after wins over fellow promotion hopefuls Walsall, Doncaster and Huddersfield saw the Cumbrians end the month in 2nd, only the 12 points behind Swansea, while in League Two Peter Jackson gained the plaudits after Lincoln City won five of their six February games - all while battling cancer.
With the season beginning to hit its business end in terms of promotion and relegation, can the above continue their good form into the pivotal month of March?
The story that is coming out of Stamford Bridge that a package containing white powder was sent to Avram Grant is a cause for concern.
Frank Lampard is particularly concerned, as he though it was icing sugar.
(n.b. No, I don’t think anti-Semitism is funny, btw)
I’m a Liverpool fan and I’ve suffered this season. So many poor results along with having to endure some terrible football too. It has been hard going I have to say. What’s been worse is the dawning realisation that we’ll never win the Premier League with Rafa as manager. He’s a good cup boss (FA Cup excluded obviously!). Someone who can pick a team to negate the opposition and he seems to be able to motivate players for European games.
In the league he just doesn’t seem to be able to produce a team that can play consistently well. Perhaps it’s his rotation policy, perhaps it’s that he doesn’t have the players but then he’s the one that bought them so he has to look at himself there. Look how far ahead of us United, Chelsea and Arsenal are. And I don’t just mean points. United and Arsenal play nice attacking football, the kind of football we used to get at Liverpool. The kind of football that won us lots of trophies.
If there was constant improvement I’d be willing to give Benitez more time but we’ve gone backwards this season. No time has a divine right to win trophies but Liverpool shouldn’t be battling to try and scrape into 4th place.
If Benitez manages to pull off another European miracle then I’m afraid it might give him a stay of execution. We want the league title, we need the league title. And we won’t get it with Benitez as manager. If he does pull of the miracle I think it would be a fitting end to his Anfield career. Thanks for the two European Cups Rafa but it’s time to go now. It’s not without precedent. Real Madrid fired Vincente del Bosque when he won the trophy and got rid of Fabio Capello when he guided them to the league title.
I hope the Anfield board, whoever they might be, are as brave.
The bottom half of the Championship table is not a pretty site if you are a fan of mid-nineties Premiership football as a litter of clubs battle relegation in the vain hope of preserving safety and dignity. Southampton are one of those who have endured a torturous few years and, with their latest managerial appointment famed for being Sam Allardyce’s puppet on the BBC, is Nigel Pearson the right man to lead the Saints away from the perils of League One?
The 44-year-old comes in on the back of a pitiful FA Cup exit to Bristol Rovers at the weekend and the former Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesbrough and Shrewsbury defender has plenty of work to do on a team who looked painfully out of shape. The club is crying out for investment with the side lacking in any great quality and, while Pearson’s coaching credentials may fit the bill, this does appear to be another cut price venture by club chairman Leon Crouch. QPR are one of the teams around Southampton who have shown what a few extra quid can do, but while the club continue to count the pennies to make the pounds, the Saints have an arduous few months, if not years, ahead.
It is sad to report that Lincoln City manager Peter Jackson has been diagnosed with cancer of the throat. The former Huddersfield boss joined the Imps in October and has elevated the League Two strugglers clear of the relegation zone since the departure of John Schofield. Iffy Onuora, who only joined the club in midweek as assistant manager, will take over first team affairs from the 46-year-old when he begins his treatment in March. Our thoughts are with Peter and his family.
Have a listen to the first 5 or 6 seconds of this. The word, Don, is ‘interest’.