Manchester City Lose, Then Win

Posted: October 19, 2015 in Football, Manchester City, Opinion
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Manchester City, thanks to international games being played during a football season, lost out considerably before they took on Bournemouth at the Etihad.

It is fair to say that Bournemouth also lost out to injuries to key players but that is a different situation. At least the Bournemouth players were injured playing for Bournemouth and, as they are unlikely to be challenging the top of the Premier League, they need to buy in January and survive until next season, when they should have a reasonable team.

City can thank Argentina, Spain, Serbia and Belgium for their absentees in this game. All City now have to do is get them fit, pay their wages and try and win games without Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Aleksandr Kolarov and Vincent Kompany. Read the rest of this entry »

Forget The Quick, Try The Cryptic

Posted: October 12, 2015 in Crosswords
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One of the most popular past times in the UK, (and very likely elsewhere), is crossword solving. Every newspaper, magazine and interminable internet publication contains them. Short clues to a one word answer just about sums up the quick crossword.

Less popular than attempting the “Quick” crosswords is taking on the “Cryptic” crossword.

Over the years I have met many people who “do not have the knack” to attempt a cryptic crossword. This has always sounded like the lazy mans cop-out to me. People will never have the “knack” if they never try to solve one. The other popular answer is “I tried it once but couldn’t get the hang of it.”

Well, trying something once rarely gives you the hang of it. Imagine if we only had to try driving a car once and were then given our licence. The roads would be slightly more chaotic than they are now as there would be a few more, probably not many, bad drivers around. Read the rest of this entry »

Capital Nonsense

Posted: October 8, 2015 in Football, Opinion
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At the risk of appearing as though this is becoming my pet project I want to write, for the last time, about the attraction, (or otherwise), of capital cities to football players.

In England, at the moment, there is a feeling that players coming into our game from abroad would rather play for a London team because they would rather live in London.

I don’t think it is the feeling of the majority, but there are certainly some who think this way. I have covered the reasons as to why this isn’t true, specifically about London, in another post, which you can access here.

What I would like to look at now is whether the capital cities in other countries hold any more attraction than the other large cities when a player is making a move. Read the rest of this entry »

One Up For Downton Abbey

Posted: October 6, 2015 in British Television, Opinion
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I have downloaded and subsequently watched 5 series of Downton Abbey, including the Christmas specials.

It was my wife who decided she wanted to watch them. Nothing unusual in that you may think, but she is Belgian and therefore not necessarily attracted to English costume soap operas.

I agreed to watch a couple, give my verdict, then leave her alone with the rest. If you read my mini bio on the “About the Author” page, you will understand my reluctance to watch more than two episodes.

In all honesty, I was pleasantly surprised. Living in Spain, as I do, meant that Downton Abbey was not a regular topic of conversation in the village, so we had no recommendations, just what we had read in our TV and film bible, IMDB. Read the rest of this entry »

Brendan Is Gone With The Wind

Posted: October 5, 2015 in Football, Liverpool, Managers, Opinion
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(Brendan at the station waving goodbye to Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling along with any chance he had of keeping his job)

Brendan has decided that tomorrow is another day. Not an original quote, but one that Margaret Mitchell would have been pleased to hear. On his sacking by Liverpool he should have said that frankly, my dear, he didn’t give a damn, but he probably didn’t so an opportunity went begging.

The only surprising factor in Rodgers’ dismissal is that it took Liverpool so long to commit the act. Many thought he might go after he sent the money received from Barcelona for Luis Suarez to Southampton and asked them to send him some players in return. The ones that chose to join have hardly pulled up any trees. In fact, Ricky Lambert has already moved on, Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovren have struggled to make an impact, although both have improved recently, and Nathaniel Clyne is the only one who can be considered a regular. Read the rest of this entry »

Jack The (English) Lad

Posted: September 29, 2015 in Football, Opinion
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Jack Grealish has decided to represent England at international level.

This assumes that, at some stage in the future, he is actually selected. He should be though, as England do not have a plethora of gifted players from which to make their selection.

He has already played for the Republic on nearly twenty occasions from under-17 to under-21 levels and qualified under the grandparent rule. Now, by choosing England, he stands to make a lot more money but little else.

Small fish, large pond or large fish small pond. Basically that was the choice facing Jack Grealish, who has always maintained that his heart is Irish, unlike his wallet which is English. Read the rest of this entry »

Manchester (United Or City), Versus London (Chelsea Or Arsenal)

Posted: September 19, 2015 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion
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Oliver Charles T Holt has a theory. It isn’t a theory I agree with, but it is a theory.

For those of you who don’t know him, Oliver Holt is a football writer for the Mail on Sunday. He is the son of Eileen Darbyshire who, for fans of Coronation Street, needs no introduction. He is also a Stockport County supporter, which is fair enough, as he is from Stockport.

Now to his theory. I have heard it a couple of times on The Sunday Supplement, Sky Sports’ programme for ageing writers to pretend they know something about football and, what is even worse, to display their lack of knowledge to two, or even three, hundred viewers.

Hosted by Neil Ashton, another writer from the Mail, the “show” is an interesting concept but, unlike it’s counterpart in cricket which is hosted by an ex-professional cricket player and attended by journalists who also played the game professionally, this one is strictly for amateurs, and it shows. Read the rest of this entry »

The Champions League Headaches Continue

Posted: September 16, 2015 in Champions League, European Football, Football, Opinion
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So Chelsea were the only English team to manage a win in the Champions League.

They currently sit 17th in the Premier League. Three of the teams above them, namely Manchester City, (1st), Manchester United, (3rd) and Arsenal, (4th) contrived to lose their opening games.

In fairness Chelsea, on paper anyway, had the easiest task. Even with their dodgy form of late it would still have been a major surprise had they not overcome Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Manchester City are always an unknown quantity in this competition. Regular losers at home, they have beaten teams like Roma away to progress in the past. Their game against Juventus, last year’s beaten finalists, was never going to be easy, but a defeat was still a disappointment even if not greatly surprising. Read the rest of this entry »

Average + Rooney = Record

Posted: September 6, 2015 in England, Football, International Football, Manchester United
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So Wayne Rooney has equalled Sir Bobby Charlton’s goalscoring record for England in, coincidentally, the same amount of games. If only he was half as good a player as Sir Bobby was.

It’s a pity that the record equalling goal was scored from the penalty spot against lowly San Marino, in a game where England’s main striker managed ONE goal in a 6-0 win.

People say that Rooney would have scored more goals for Manchester United had he not been played in midfield for a short while, firstly by Sir Alex Ferguson and then by Louis van Gaal. What they forget is that Bobby Charlton was never a striker and played all his games in midfield, for England and United. Charlton was not the main penalty taker for either Manchester United or England, so only 3 of his England goals were from penalties. Rooney has scored 18 goals for United and 5 for England from the penalty spot, although he also hasn’t always been the first choice taker. Read the rest of this entry »

Splitting Hairs

Posted: September 4, 2015 in Misuse of Words, Opinion
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Is wanting The English language to be spoken and written correctly being pedantic? Am I being over fussy by wanting to hear children pronouncing their “h’s” at the beginning of words, their “g’s” at the end of words and “th” as it is meant to be not as “ff”?

Please feel free to comment if you think I am wrong because I sometimes have my doubts. I occasionally think I take the whole thing a little too seriously and, as the majority of people don’t seem to care, I wonder whether I should or not.

I was brought up to speak correctly. Not the Queen’s English with the plum in the mouth, just to pronounce words as they were intended to be pronounced. My mother would immediately pounce if she heard any dropped “h’s” or missed “g’s”, it wasn’t right in her eyes. Read the rest of this entry »

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