Football Chat Archive - April 2007

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Percy - Tuesday, April 3
Truly Bizarre

Firstly I hope this will be the last word on Steve McClaren for a while but I have to mention the strange opinion offered by Alex Ferguson on the stick the England boss has been getting recently.

He said it was the fault of the glut of reality tv programmes we are exposed to these days in which panels of experts slag off the competitors for their efforts.

Fergie obviously reckons people do just copy everything they see on tv, then.

The point to make here is that although these judging panels do give out a lot of criticism to people who are crap, when someone does something good in front of them they do also shower them with unadulterated praise.

Generally when they really dish out the stick it is to some time wasting no hopers who just want to be on the tele.

Unfortunately that is what the England team is coming across as at the moment, hence the reaction of the fans, and McClaren looks to be the most out of his depth of anyone.

Percy - Monday, April 9
David James

I mentioned David James and his werewolf style beard in my last post and I'm informed that he has gone all Steve Foster on it as he approaches the Premier League clean sheet record.

Apparently he's not going to shave until he breaks old Spunky Seaman's record with another clean sheet.

We're getting pretty close to the end of the season now, though, so I hope everyone playing Portsmouth do manage to at least score. Then he'll have to go all summer without having a shave and come August his beard will be about 25 feet long.

He might even have a full face of hair. How scary will that be?

He will look like Harry off Harry and the Henderson's. I think that is right. Strange programme about an American family who lived with a giant hairy beast.

They weren't even worried about what it might get up to with their nubile daughter.

Irresponsible parenting in my book.

Football fans aren't that stupid. If England had played well in their recent games the crowd wouldn't be on their backs just because they've seen Simon Cowell abuse some retards who can't sing.

Nobody wants to call the England side, they want to see it play and do well. They want to cheer and applaud.

What possible reason was there for cheering and applauding against Israel or in the first half against Andorra?

David James has grown a beard.

Now we've always known that Calamity was a bit strange but he still seems intent on proving the point.

Strangely enough he's having a fine season for Portsmouth despite the beard and his earlier Norman Wisdom hair cut.

Perhaps he thinks it takes more than good performances to attract the attention of Steve McClaren.

He's probably right come to think of it. Does Stewart Downing have a beard?

Lastly, Norbert left the country at the end of last week for a spell in Prague. Not sure how long he's gone for but the combination of ultra cheap, ultra strong lager and reasonably priced lap dancing bars will probably keep him from our pages for a little while.

The strangest thing about it is that he goes off on these trips every so often and Peter Crouch always starts scoring for fun as soon as he's out of the country.

I don't know if Norbert has some sort of voodoo control over the lanky one which only allows him to perform when his tormentor is away.

I wouldn't put it past old Norbert. It could just be coincidence though.

Percy - Thursday, April 12
Steve McClaren In State Of Confusion

I think Steve McClaren would have been better staying away from Old Trafford on Tuesday night. He shouldn't even have watched it on the tele.

He should have just waited at home in a dark room, preferably the cellar, until the company that compile his statistics for him delivered him the relevent documents then he could have turned the light on, studied them and decided that United had been crap.

Or he could have hid under the bedsheets until the "friend" who had watched all the Euro qualifiers the other week and told him that England had given the best performance away from home had come round to tell him that United had embarrassed themselves.

No doubt Michael Carrick was running into areas of the pitch that he shouldn't have and leaving all kinds of disturbing holes behind him.

Rooney must have been having a nightmare because he was doing things he never does when he plays for McClaren and as for Cristiano Ronaldo.

McClaren must be over the moon that he isn't English because he'd have to pick him even though he does dribble with it all the time and keeps switching positions and all that sort of inefficient nonsense.

McClaren's smile as United swept majestically forward did look unusually nervous, as though even our bone headed manager realised that this was exactly the kind of football he is expected to produce.

He never will.

You can point at Ronaldo and it is true that England don't have a player who can do the things he does and you have to still shake your head and sigh when you consider the former England Schoolboy captain Ryan Giggs but England should still be able to produce something in a similar vein to the performance United gave the other night.

The biggest difference between that football and the football McClaren's side play is the movement.

Whenever a United player gets it people are moving. This gives them options and also creates space for the man on the ball.

This makes their job a whole lot easier and also means it is possible for the team to move forward.

Players for England are put into little boxes and expected to stay there. They operate in restricted areas and therefore operate in a restricted manner. They don't have options, they don't have freedom and, therefore, they don't have a chance.

Steve McClaren won't allow these boxes to be opened because, like most coaches, he is scared stiff of anything that isn't controlled or ordered. Or, in other words, boring.

Quick, incisive, skillful, free flowing, exciting, entertaining and, of course, devastatingly effective.

And also totally enjoyable for the players and supporters alike.

That's United.

Dour, boring, predictable, ineffective and dreadful to watch.

That's England.

And a message to Sir Alex Ferguson.

You reckon McClaren was getting stick after the recent England games because of the effect of Pop Idol?

Nobody was giving you stick after this game, were they?

McClaren was getting stick because his teams' produce garbage. It's as simple as that.

Percy - Tuesday, April 17
USA; This Time They Mean Business

I was originally sceptical about America looking to make soccer big again. I mean they've taken Beckham and they are trying to lure Zidane across the pond (and Juan Pablo Angel) but so what, I thought?

Pele, George Best and Dennis Tueart couldn't convert the Yanks so what chance have you lot got?

But now it's getting serious. They do obviously mean business this time. Toronto FC have just signed Daniele Dichio.

Big Danny. Deeech. Or should that just be Dick?

Danny Dichio plying his trade in the States. What a mouth watering prospect.

At least if there are a load of centre halves out there just making some easy money at the end of their careers they'll now have to cop a few elbows in doing so.

Go Danny! Go Danny!

I still think the biggest capture made by the Americans this year is FC Indiana's signing of Katie Anderton from Blackburn Ladies, someone in the prime of their career and banging goals in for fun.

Something that can't really be said about Big Danny.

Percy - Wednesday, April 25
To Book Or Not To Book; That Is The Question

The outspoken remarks of Jose Mourinho possibly divide the football world more than any other single thing.

Many think they are refreshing, challanging and humourous. Others think they are outrageous, annoying and basically bollocks.

Others find them to be a combination of the two. I am one of them.

Not being a Chelsea fan it would be easy to just dismiss Mourinho as an egocentric who sees the world through glasses of a completely blue shade.

It is often tempting, but would be unfair overall. After all, most people loved Brian Clough in his prime, myself included, and Mourinho is probably the nearest thing we have had to Cloughie since.

Of course the "special one" had to go stirring things up again ahead of his teams' meeting with Liverpool in tonights' Champions League semi final.

In response to his comments I have one big issue to take, however.

I wish he would stop bleating on about the goal that settled the tie between the two teams when they met at the same stage a couple of years ago.

He keeps going on about the ball not crossing the line, which nobody knows for sure did not happen anyway, but the point is that if the goal had not been given then Liverpool would have have been awarded the worlds' most obvious penalty ever and Petr Cech would have been sent off.

Chelsea would have been left, in all probability, a goal down and having to play 86 minutes a man short. On top of that Cech would have been banned for two or three games from the following years' competition and who knows, that might have meant an early exit for them then?

All in all Mourinho should stop going on about that incident and realise it was the best possible scenario for his team at the time.

After all, if Eidur Gudjohnsen had not put a last minute sitter wide of the post his side would have gone through and Liverpool would have only won it four times.

As for his other rants ahead of this game it strikes me more of a man lacking a bit of confidence rather than one feeling true security.

It is interesting to hear what he has been saying about Liverpool going out to try and get Drogba booked. Surely this is just an attempt to buy his top striker a bit of rope when the challenges start flying in.

If Jamie Carragher ends up flat out on the floor with blood spurting from every facial orifice the referee will already know this is just Liverpool gamesmanship and nothing to do with Drogba's elbow.

Personally I wouldn't have thought it necessary to hold too much of an inquest if Carragher was to end up in that position in any case. Just log it in the "natural causes" file and have done with it.

Talking of bookings, what are the odds on Paul Scholes making it to the final if Manchester United can hold on against AC Milan?

The Ginger Ninja missed out in 1999 through totting up too many yellows and he is sitting uncomfortably one booking away from a suspension again.

With a tight, fraught game to be expected in Italy to come and Scholes still unable to tackle properly, and more incapable than ever of resisting launching his ludicrous challenges, he will do well to get through the second leg without picking up a caution.

Here's hoping, however. It would be harsh indeed on little Scholesy to miss out twice.

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