This is Clarkeonenil’s regular comment column, cutting through the various passing issues of football and getting to the core principle in the shortest time.
Brave or foolish?
If I was to list the 11 footballers (in a 4-4-2 ish formation) presently plying their trade who I would not want anywhere near Leeds United because of their attitude and personality you can be sure as eggs is eggs Paul Dickov would be in the team early just after Robbie Savage! Now both of those players are occasionally praised by some for their “doggedness” which as we know is code for thuggery. The news that Mr Dickov is training with the Leeds United squad this week, with we assume a view to a contract, is a bit disconcerting to say the least. After Mr D Wise we need another few years yet before we should allow another golfing term (nasty little five footer) anywhere near our dressing room.
So what is Grayson playing at, well he had 37 year old Dickov at Blackpool on loan once, where the so called striker scored 6 of the 10 league goals he has got in the last 4 years, so it’s a kind of “devil you know” situation. Maybe I’m missing something but our recent issues away from home stem not from an inability to score but from an inability to defend, how Dickov helps that I’m not sure. Equally as far as I can see, Becchio, Grella, Somma, Kandol, Elliot, Snodgrass, Robinson, McSheffrey, Naylor (who played up front a bit for Ipswich Town) and that lad that’s leaving season end are adequate provision in the striker department. At this moment in time it makes no football or team spirit sense to bring Dickov in.
No doubt some of our support are dreaming of a Beckford-Dickov front line, which if nothing else will be entertaining when they exchange pleasantries after a misplaced pass.
Raising the bar.
Yesterday a new record for news reports of professional sportsmen being arrested was set as footballer or Rugby League player tried to model their career on John “incident a season” Terry. However also hidden in this wave of news was an item coming out of Blackpool that beggers belief. Basically 3 footballers decide to have a night out, a fan sees them and reports it, the manager takes umbrage at this and tells the press he is not happy, the footballers concerned are told they are dropped from the first team squad and a new moral panic hits the North West Coast, what a bleeding performance.
The facts put a different light of this however; the night out was on Saturday (if you can’t do out on a Saturday night when can you?), no incidents other than fun being had was reported, no reports of drunkenness, just “dancing”. Barry Bannan, Ishmel Demontagnac and Neil Eardley are not in breach of any part of their contract or were under kerfew, Brannan and Eardley are not in the first team squad anyway because they are injured and the best Ian Holloway, the Blackpool manager, can come up with is “if I’m not happy they shouldn’t be out”. Now we have a long tradition of hypocrisy in football but really has hit new heights when managers react like that. What is this idea that footballers can’t do legally what every other person in this country can do? Quite frankly Holloway has made himself look like a joke.
To be fair to Holloway it’s not him who should feel the most ashamed, it’s the dickhead who thinks reporting this non-incident in the first place is reasonable who should feel hang his head.
Six and two threes.
This blog has been rightly critical of Peterborough United this season, the sacking of Darren Ferguson and some over the top ranting from the Chairman, supported by the clown Fry, have suggested a club not really coping with the rarefied atmosphere of the CCC. Darragh MacAnthony then compounds the error of removing Ferguson by humiliating Mark Cooper, forcing him out and installing manager no3 of the season. Now Jim Gannon could be the right man for the job when they are back in L1 but its expected far too much to save the Posh from returning to its natural lower division home.
However, it might be, trigger happy sackings notwithstanding, that we are all being harsh on MacAnthony. A series of articles are suggesting that the club is actually living within its means (unheard of in the CCC these days), that unlike Sheffield United, who apparently despite the Tevez money have £50m worth of debt to worry about, the wage structure at London Road wouldn’t look out of place in the lower half of L1. Now if it wasn’t for the fact that the club recently sold its ground to the council (a move that hardly reeks of financial excellence) I could buy this line of argument and start to praise a principled stance that refuses to bankrupt a club to appease greedy, ungrateful players. Other clubs perhaps might learn from them.
One thing’s for sure, if the money situation is as described it might be Peterborough United will bounce back from this season’s inevitable relegation, but it still won’t hide the fact that sacking Ferguson was a stupid move.
