February 2008 Archives

It was interesting to hear Liam Miller's excuses for being late to training this week, shoddy time keeping which led to him being transfer listed by manager Roy Keane on Wednesday.

Actually, the excuses came via his agent, but they brought back memories of my childhood when all sorts of strange and downright ridiculous excuses were given for a variety of misdemeanours. Freak gusts of wind tearing homework into tiny pieces, puddles leaping up to swallow sick notes, a brazen band of stray alley cats ripping your tie off....

By his own admission, Miller had been late for training three times in the space of week, and, last season, he'd even managed to miss an entire training session because he got the start time wrong. Dur!

Talking about Newcastle United as a club which can once again challenge the Big Four is starting to look about as sensible as suggesting Trinidad and Tobago’s armed forces could give the Americans a run for their money.

Newcastle were so comprehensively outclassed by Manchester United last weekend I actually began to feel sorry for some of their players. Compassion isn’t normally an emotion associated with journalists is it? But it was hard not to. There was utter dejection on every single face as they trudged down the tunnel, despite Kevin Keegan’s best attempts to lift their spirits.

Maybe I’m going soft, but it was like a blood sport. Manchester United toyed with their prey and then tore them to shreds, leaving just a bloodied and battered carcass behind them as they went in search of their next kill.

While the news that Paul Gascoigne has been detained under the Mental Health Act this week is undoubtedly very sad, am I the only one who feels it was also all too predictable?

Like every football fan - apart from those from Scotland who are probably still upset by the goal he scored against them at Euro 96 - I have some magical memories of Gazza the footballer, but Paul Gascoigne the person always seemed a rather tragic figure to me.

Sunderland have collected unwanted records in the Premier League almost as often as the government loses the confidential records of its citizens so they could do without another one against Portsmouth this weekend.

Twice the Black Cats have broken the record for the lowest number of points in a Premier League season as they were twice sent crashing back down to the Premier League in humiliating fashion.

No team has won less games at home than the Wearsiders (one in the 2005/6 season) in a season and no fans have had less to cheer about in the top flight in recent years than Sunderland’s.

And just when you thought football had become dull and boring, too obsessed with the pursuit of a new global market to still be the national game of the people.... and then Barnsley knock Liverpool out of the FA Cup!

So while the Big Four swagger around crowing about their monopoly of domestic honours and the riches of the Champions League, while the Premier League fumbles around looking for ways to play domestic matches in Singapore or Miami, little old Barnsley have proven there is still some magic left in the FA Cup and some romanticism left in football.

Kevin Keegan should probably hang up a large Do Not Disturb sign outside the club’s training ground, draw the curtains and lock all the doors with the players holed up inside after what happened at Aston Villa.

Either that, or he could do the above after throwing Joey Barton, Alan Smith and most of the team’s defenders out in the cold like a cat that has just relieved itself on the carpet in the living room.

When disciplining a cat for crapping on the carpet it is normally necessary to rub their noses in the offending brown stain as well to remind them not to do it again - I’m not sure how this would work with professional footballers but I’m sure we can improvise!

So hands up if you think the Premier League is a greedy, money grabbing organisation merely concerned with making as much cash as possible for its clubs with little or no regard for the vitality of the national sport and, in particular, its national team.

I have absolutely no idea how many of you raised your hand, simply nodded in agreement or completely ignored my opening statement, but I bet the majority of you share my belief that the Premier League is motivated by money and, well, that’s about it.

Why on earth else would the 20 top flight clubs have agreed this week to the ridiculous idea of playing one game a season abroad to widen the appeal of the Premier League?�

Veteran football reporters used to say to me they struggled to believe a word that came out of the mouths of the modern footballer because they were so well media trained they merely said the right thing at the right time.

It isn’t opinion, it just what they believe they have to say in the given situation and with this in mind, I have to highlight some recent comments made by David Rozehnal following his departure from Newcastle United.

So Jonny Wilkinson has one bad half for England against Wales and suddenly people are calling for him to be dropped from the team which heads off to play Italy in Rome next weekend. It isn’t so much a case of short memories as complete amnesia.

I had to switch my television off 10 minutes before the end of England’s shock defeat to Wales in the Six Nations on Saturday evening, partly because I was off to see the Kite Runner at the cinema, but mainly because I was getting so annoyed with what was happening.

Yes, I cursed Jonny for losing the plot in the face of a Welsh onslaught, but I cursed everyone in a white shirt because, to be blunt, it was disgraceful how they capitulated under pressure.