Your reading a pre 2010-11 archived article
As moments to savour go this was one of the best for years, Man u 1 v 4 Liverpool, oh joy of joys for all right thinking football fans across the country. The wailing in deepest darkest Essex and Surrey not withstanding it was a good day for football. For the first time in years the top of the Premier League was “human”, well at least for an hour or so.
Sir Alex “best side lost” Ferguson must have wished he had more practice at puerile excuses. He could have tried “not my fault the Serb was rubbish” or even “we got confused by Torres because we are not used to strikers in Liverpool shirts” or even if desperate “we spent too much time trying to justify my mental retard of a striker’s pre-match knobhead comments to bother caring how to play our opponents”. Either way non of this matters really; the score is in the record books and could be the over-riding memory of the season.
That pack of dogs that calls itself the football press weren’t sure what to do…it’s a funny way to lose the plot beating Real Madrid and Man U in a week. The real issue isn’t Benitez per say (although some of his decisions can be described as erratic), its why for the third season on the trot will ManU win the PL despite not being the best side or squad in the competition. I kind off didn’t mind as much in 2007 when it was Abramovitch’s interference that robbed Mourinho of 3 successive titles. I minded more when a scandalous tackle robbed a young Arsenal team of a date with destiny in 2008. This season it’s a mixed emotion, a feeling Liverpool could have wrapped this up with just the small addition of a decent finisher, you know a link and shoot player, someone instinctive, like Robbie Keane!
Now I know this is heresy amongst some in the football world but I’m going say it regardless, the present ManU team is the most undeserving of then all from the last 25 years. The fact it won the CL last season tells us more about that competition’s obsession with finance than it does about quality European football. I’ll go further, Ronaldo is a 3-year wonder, by 2012 he will be like his Brazilian namesake, more known for his sexual idiocies than his form. Rooney is the new Best, destined to crash on a sea of excess, Ferdinand is starting to wear thin at the edges, a Ledley King style future awaits. Factor in the passing of the Giggs/Neville/Scholas ugly years, the inability of either Tevez or Berbatov to settle down anywhere for more than 2 years at a time and the reality of managerial succession creeping closer and you start to see why the only way is down for that club, hopefully Liverpool post 90 style.
One of the great disappointments of waiting for the decline of Salford City Mercenaries is the reality that those who aspire to replace them (with one noble exception) are nearly equally as irritating. I could cope with Chelsea winning things whilst Mourinho was king-pin but if the last 3 seasons teach us anything it’s the dangers of plaything football clubs. Only at Chelsea could the owner impose Shevkenco and Ballack on a manager and make them worse. I had hoped “Big Phil” was slowly sucking the life out of the pampered squad of overpaid whingers but the Russian seems to have cottoned on to that early.
Equally I don’t have too much time for Liverpool under Benitez, £180m isn’t enough for this lad, he wants full control of the club, fees, wages, laundry (ok he might devolve that one). Remember this is a club owned by people who can’t stand to be in each others company. Now I like a good Machiavellian plot like the next man, but you need to win the PL first before you brag about your knowledge of 5th century Chinese battle tactics.
The club I like to see do well is Arsenal, no £30m players every summer for the Emirates. Good squad building, a commitment to youth, a desire to play football the right way, what more could you ask for? Well less crap directed at the manager by the press would be a start. I don’t understand it myself but its almost a national sport. Arsenal lose and its “end of an era”, a million John Hartson’s line up to demand they buy some over-paid “experienced” player. Lets ignore that this Arsenal team have lost one game in 20 (and they went through to the QF of the CL after that defeat), lets forget the legions of players under 20 years old that can still wipe the floor with most of the PL teams, blank out the injuries to players like Fabragas, Edmundo, Walcott, Rosicky, Adebayor, lets focus on what matters to some, Brian Horton’s shoes and the Gallas/Toure love in.
I can understand that fan’s want to see a new “kid on the block” in the Champions League places, and lets face this reality, their hasn’t been a proper one since Leeds in 2000, with both Newcastle and Everton deciding they didn’t really want it enough in their occasional drift into the qualifying competition. What I can’t understand is why they want it to be at the expense of Arsenal and certainly don’t know why they expect it to be Aston Villa. Maybe my footballing prejudices are showing but in my book when you buy Emile Heskey your telling the world how unimportant scoring goals is to your game. Add the really bizarre idea you treat the knock-out stages of the UEFA Cup with less respect than you treat the Birmingham Senior Cup and you start to see why O’Neil’s gameplan was always going to fall apart. They put themselves in with a chance based on away form that was unsustainable and on the back of a second season kid. Well the kid has unsurprisingly hit the buffers and the lower top half nature of the signings (Friedal, Davies, Knight, Young L, Sidwell, Milner, Heskey, Young A) is shining for all to see.
I have no intention of insulting any discussion about the top of the PL with a reference to Everton and its ground-breaking 4-6-0 formation, they ain’t relevant in the same way Villa really ain’t. That may be harsh but its true. The top 4 remain the top 4, despite the enjoyment of last Saturday, ManU will again undeservedly win the PL. That hurts, if they also win the CL, that really hurts. (Deviation alert…I don’t give a monkeys how many times someone wins the PL, the record for winning the top division in this country started in 1888 and it’s the same if its called Div 1, PL or the Rupert Murdock memorial rip-off).
I personally can never reconcile my love of the game with respecting the ManU of the last 17 years. I was never a fan of the post 58 demand they be treated as a “big club” or that post 68 they somehow changed English football. I have from a very early age disliked the mentality of the type of supporter they attract, have always found their away support anal and ugly. The way that club can turn a gentile player into a spitting vicious numpty is supreme and then there is money, £900m worth of debt! No theirs zero hope any right thinking football fan respects that. The counter –revolution needs to start somewhere, I suggest we make the government instruct all the local authorities to take into care anyone caught wearing a ManU shirt outside of Greater Manchester with compulsory mind drugs for the under 18’s caught. Drastic measures required.
We all live in hope it will all be different next season as a plucky English owned club or a competitive West Ham United (which of that is the weirder idea, a competitive WHU or an English owned football club??) fend of £200m worth of Blue Moon and a resurgent Arsenal. It might happen, it might not. If it doesn’t the cycle of distain remains. There is one truth I acknowledge immediately, if it isn’t ManU/Chelsea/Liverpool I dislike, it will be some one new with too much money, too many expensive players and too arrogant fans and for that continuity of contempt I will always be grateful.
