Super League Surprise

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I don’t believe anyone complaining about the European Super League is naïve enough not to believe that football’s all about the money. For as long as there has been chairmen to extract profits from clubs, football has been about the money. The Premier League emerged from the era that housed Ken Bates’s electric fences, Thatcher’s persecution of the poor, and Alan Sugar’s desire to sell more Amstrad Satellite dishes. Treating the fans like dirt whilst happily accepting their coin has been the Modus Operandi for the people at the top of the game since time immemorial. The idea that the Premier League was simply a “rebranding” because of football’s bad 80’s vibe is laughable.

So what’s different this time? The transformation of the top flight from “glitzy repackaged Division 1 games featuring Ronny Rosenthal” to “money-making powerhouse featuring all your favourite stars and Nicolas Pepe” was not instantaneous. It was a gradual gentrification, a country and a culture so intrinsically mistrustful of foreigners, slow to change its inward-looking ways. It wasn’t until the ’94-’95 season that we saw more than one foreign import in the top 20 most expensive transfers[1], according to data from transfermarkt.co.uk. Whilst there were many dissenting voices about the formation of the Premier League at the time – perhaps most notably Alex Ferguson, which has been mentioned elsewhere today – it was not a root and branch destruction of the very core of its being. All about the money, yes, a repackaging, yes, but it’s essence was the same.

What the gradual change has allowed to happen is a strange communal cognitive dissonance, in that because things didn’t change an awful lot when we went from point A to point B in 1992, and then things didn’t change that much when we went from point B to point C, and so on ad infinitum, we’ve been able to convince ourselves that relentless extraction of money that football became wasn’t that bad, because the change from what it originally was so slow. And now, worrying that they won’t have access to neighbouring wells to run dry at some point in the near future, the breakaway clubs have decided that they can create a new, safe, endless well of money that will secure the wallets of their owners for all time.

It was inevitable from the day Alan Sugar informed BSkyB of the value of ITV’s bid for the inaugural Premier League TV rights, and told them to “blow [ITV] out of the water.” It’s all about the money. It always has been, and it always will be, and the fans can go whistle. It’s the natural culmination of a sport that’s become obsessed with money above all else, and the most surprising thing is how surprised people seem to by this absolute “revelation”, which was really something everybody knew all along.

[1] Cantona from Leeds to Man Utd isn’t counted as an import

Football goes missing again

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The FA are hoping to speak to Jon Stead (pictured) regarding Football’s disappearance (Photo from Wikipedia: By en:user:TuborgLight – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1503797)

In what has already proven to be the most tumultuous of seasons, the game of Football has once again disappeared from view in the middle of a set of fixtures.

Having last been seen in London on Sunday evening during Man Utd’s 3-1 win over Tottenham, Robbie Savage and Chris Sutton noted on BBC Radio 5 live that “the game’s gone” after yet another contentious VAR decision. It’s not yet known if this will affect the results following this game, however Sheffield Utd’s caretaker boss Paul Heckingbottom is thought to be considering his options following his side’s 3-0 defeat to Arsenal, where the game was still yet to return.

“I don’t think it’s fair to continue playing the game after the game’s gone,” he told reporters. “It’s affected our players, the game being gone like that. Oli McBurnie got distracted thinking about what crisps were on offer in Tesco. It’s not right.”

Southampton, Everton and Brighton were all unable to locate the game in time for Monday night’s fixtures. It’s not yet known if West Brom scoring three goals in a match against someone other than Chelsea is a sign that the game might come back, or a potential warning that it might not return before the end of the season.

The game has gone missing multiple times this season, after several increasingly ludicrous VAR decisions caused uproar amongst fans and the punditocracy. It quietly returned in time for football to carry on as normal the following weekend, but it’s feared this most recent incident may cause a longer disappearance.

If you have any information regarding the game being gone, please dial 0 and ask for the FA.

A forensic analysis of the wank-tastic opening promo from MOTD2’s coverage of the NLD

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Despite my hot-headed reactionary approach to everything that ever happens, I’m actually a big fan of dispassionate, reasonable analysis of football matches. As such, I don’t believe the two pundits selected for Sunday night’s NLD coverage on MOTD2 were the best choice. In opting for one lifer from each side, personal feelings were inevitably going to colour any opinion they had on the action. Jenas took the awarding of Arsenal’s penalty far too personally, and hugely overreacted to Keown’s suggestion that Lamela might want to learn from his red card. Similarly, I don’t think Keown would have been so quick to condemn an Arsenal player as “definitely knowing what he’s doing” in the tackle for Lamela’s first yellow.

Enough punditry analysis for now, let’s delve into the murky world of the opening promo. Gone are the days of a 15-20 second montage of the classic goals, the memorable incidents. It’s not enough for something to be a local rivalry anymore, it needs to have context, it needs to have fast cuts, it needs to have meaningless subliminal messaging.

We start off with 6 cuts in 4 seconds, incorporating the logos of each side, consecutive shots of Harry Kane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang puffing their cheeks prior to taking a set piece, and then black and white footage of Highbury and the old Spurs crest. We then at least get the obligatory “classic goal” bit, with Gazza’s thunderbastard in the ’91 cup semi-final at Wembley, followed by Brady’s cracker at the Lane in ’78.

“A battle for supremacy between two of football’s heavyweights,” narrates Mark Chapman over all this, taking us a whole 7 seconds into the spot, at which point we see a triptych of the famous image of Mohammed Ali standing over Sonny Liston in their 1965 rematch, followed by a zoomed shot of Ali’s shorts and left glove on the same picture, followed by the same image in full frame, all in less than 2/3 of a second. BECAUSE HEAVYWEIGHTS, SEE? GEDDIT?

“Until recently, Arsenal ruled the roost,” continues Chappers, as we see shots of Thierry Henry putting his finger to his lips with a “shush” gesture, a bespectacled Arsene Wenger from the very early days, a Dennis Bergkamp knee-slide, Robin van Persie celebrating with his arms open, before another sub-second triple cut with weird zoom and stretching of French strongman Charles Rigoulot. BECAUSE WENGER WAS FRENCH AND ARSENAL WERE “STRONGER” THEN, SEE?

“…but as the Invincibles became the Vulnerables,” says Chappers, as Pires finishes with his left foot and Tony Adams lifts the Premier League trophy in ’98, before switching gears to a morose and aged looking late-era Wenger, Alexis Sanchez moping around looking sad, and another sub-second triple cut of a big green sign for “Vunerability just ahead”. BECAUSE ARSENAL HAVE BEEN VULNERABLE IN RECENT YEARS, SEE?

“…it was Tottenham who took the ascendancy,” with Bale slotting past Fabianski, Harry Redknapp arms aloft in joy, Aaron Lennon diving full length after making it 4-4 in 2008, Eric Dier looking pumped, Dele Alli looking happy, Danny Rose’s thunderbastard sequel, Gareth Bale’s heart celebration close up to pitch-side camera, Spurs fans celebrating wildly next to some glum looking gooners. 10 cuts in 6.5 seconds.

“They’ve finished above their neighbours in the league for the last four seasons.” Slow-mo shot of Pochettino standing on the touchline near Wenger. As Chappers says the word “neighbours”, we get a sub-second triple cut of perm/mullet era Kylie & Jason, FROM NEIGHBOURS. BECAUSE THEY WERE IN NEIGHBOURS AND ARSENAL AND SPURS ARE NEIGHBOURS, SEE? Kane scores a penalty. Kane celebrates scoring a penalty. A Spurs fan holds up an A3 piece of paper saying “MIND THE GAP” (#bantz~!) Sub-second triple cut of a sign for the “Four seasons hotel”. BECAUSE oh my God. Oh my GOD. Kane scores from a tight angle and Guy Mowbray shouts “TOTAL TOTTENHAM TURNAROUND!” Kane slides on his bum in celebration.

LOL!

“A recent slump has seen Arteta’s men fall behind Mourinho and co. again,” as Xhaka punts it into Chris Wood’s hip for the Burnley qualiser the other day, Arteta claps furiously, Xhaka wipes his nose on his sleeve in slow motion, Kane smashes one in off the underside of the bar, Mourinho hugs Joao Sacramento, Spurs fans celebrate wildly (again).

“But there’s nothing like derby day to inject some life into a faltering season.” Spurs players have a group hug. As Chappers says “inject”, we see a post-animated black and white image of someone pumping up an old leather football. INJECT, SEE? Touchline fracas. Mourinho concentrating. Arteta looking stoic. Sub-second triple cut of an Arsenal banner that reads “KEEP THE FAITH”. Saka does a knee slide, Kane, Bale and Moura hug. Aerial shot of the Emirates as chappers says “Your commentator is Steve Wilson.”

So there you have it. 67 cuts in 40 seconds, an intro to the NLD that’s essentially an attack on your senses. It finishes leaving you disoriented, disconnected and nauseas, like after a Jose Mourinho post-match interview when Tottenham lose. A piece with all the subtelty and nuance of someone smashing you over the head with a cello.  

Anyway, here it is, in all its vomit-inducing glory: (CAUTION: may cause sickness)

Predictions 12-15 March 2021

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Two of the in-form teams kick us off on Friday night, unfortunately the form they’re in is quite poor. I could see Villa nicking it due to Newcastle’s overall terribleness, but I’m declaring for a goal-free non-classic.

Elsewhere, I’m personally looking forward to a rousing defeat at home to Spurs on Sunday afternoon.

The day we caught the train (to De Kuip on CM97/98)

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Started a game of CM97/98 with Sportclub Excelsior in Toto Divisie. It’s hard playing with lower ranked Dutch teams in this game – no money, no fans, nobody wants to play for you, all the half decent youngsters either go somewhere else or get pinched after about 2 games because of the dreaded big-club release clause.

Anyway, through a combination of graft, luck, an exhaustively put together band of miscreants, and tweaking the tactics of @9798Nikolai, things have started to come together in season #5. We’ve found a bit of solidity with Jan Suchoparek at the back and possibly regen Neville Southall in goal. Regen George Weah, appearing as Joe Latoundji, has been prolific and equally instrumental in attack, alongside mainstay cheapo investment Bruno Gimenez.

We weren’t consistent enough to break the Ajax/PSV hegemony in the league, however we did finish a club record high 4th, and found our feet in the Amstel Cup. Feyenoord were dispatched in round 2, despite us going down to 9 men.

A kind draw gave us D2 Zwolle in round 3, who we saw off 2-1 fairly easily. The quarter final saw us host the reigning European and World club champions, Ajax. We came from behind twice to take the match to extra time at 2-2. Gimenez struck early doors in the first period to send us through with a historic victory.

The semi final saw us face fellow high flyers NAC, who I was expecting a stiff test against after a heavy 4-1 defeat in the league just 2 months earlier. However 2 goals in the first 6 minutes eased all the nerves and we coasted through, with midfield maestro Diniev adding a 3rd early in the 2nd half.

The other semi final saw lowly Telstar succumb to the might of PSV. They had wrapped up the league title a few weeks beforehand and were now preparing to face Man Utd in the Champions League final after they played us in the domestic cup final.

I felt cautiously optimistic going into it. We’d lost both league games to them – a 6-4 ding-dong that we actually had more shots on target in, but young Nev was still settling in, and a 1-0 where we matched them but their keeper, Luca Bucci, was MOM – but the overall improvement had been excellent since we started switching between the narrow 2-3-1-2-2 and a modified version that moves one of the AMCs to CB, depending on the quality of opponent and/or formation used.

Without wanting to blow my own alpenhoorn too much, this 3-3-1-1-2 had been pretty effective at stifling the attacking threat of the big boys and their Ajax/3-1-3-3. We essentially match the numbers at the back and try and focus our attacking in the space left by their only having 1 CB and 1 DM.

We’d only lost once in 15 games going into the final, an absolute mugging at home to Willem II where they went down to 10 men and scored with their only 2 shots on target (dammit Nev!) and we lost 2-1. Our overall record since the 1-0 loss to PSV was P15 W11 D3 L1. We lost our captain, Lyndon B Johnson, to a torn groin a few weeks back:

But other than that, there were no major injury concerns or suspensions heading into the final. My biggest concern was a potential penalty shootout. My personal record in CM9798 finals is reasonable if I get the job done in 90 minutes, but if it’s all square AET, all bets are off. Me and the penalties just don’t get along.

Right then, so the line up and formation shown above were what we went into the final with. Of the others as yet unmentioned in the first XI, Alexander Vergueitchik is regen Sergei Gerasimets, who famously scored the winner for Belarus against Holland in a Euro 96 qualifier (and had a rather splendid curly mullet to boot). The others, well they’re an honest bunch of lads. Here it is, PSV vs Excelsior, David vs Goliath, Branko vs Strupar:

All Change

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Benjamin Franklin didn’t have any concept of off-shore holdings, hedge funds or corporate tax evasion. His certainty about death and taxes is less of a lock these days, mainly due to the aforementioned financial fugivity, although it’s probably just a matter of time until we sync our souls into iConsciousness and live forever in a borg-esque electronic collective. On iCloud.

A one-off certainty was that the man taking up the reins at Manchester United after Sir Alex Ferguson was going to have a difficult time of things. Also certain is that David Moyes will not be afforded the same amount of time that Alex Ferguson had starting out in 1986. Whether or not he’s the right man for the job, there is major reconstruction ahead, and his predecessor must take some of the blame.

Man Utd’s transition from title winners to early season mediocrity can’t be seen as too much of a surprise. The cracks in the United side had been there for a while, gradually deepening, but constantly and cleverly papered over by Ferguson, who became something of the master plasterer in that regard towards the end of his reign. The groomed successors to the once great centre back pairing of Vidic and Ferdinand: Smalling, Evans, Jones, none of them have shown consistent quality needed to become a fixture in a top side. Last season’s finale, a 5-5 draw with West Brom where Jones and Evans started at centre back, was, in the words of the great Kent Brockman, a chilling vision of things to come for Man Utd fans.

For so long reliant on Scholes and Giggs to fill in in central midfield, now only new signing Fellaini brings any real impetus amongst a sea of drifters: Carrick, Anderson, Cleverley, an ailing Fletcher – there’s no real backbone, there. Not for a side with title winning aspirations. Elsewhere, Ashley Young continues to offer very little, Nani flatters to deceive while the hungry and hugely talented Wilfried Zaha gets no look in. No long term successor to Patrice Evra has been locked in, though that may change with a silly money move for Leighton Baines in January.

Keeping Wayne Rooney and keeping him motivated becomes an increasingly difficult task as each year passes. Van Persie has only 2 or 3 more years before his powers will start to wane. Hernandez is a good poacher, but doesn’t have the all round game that would make him a starter on a regular basis. Welbeck is by no means a proven striker.

None of this is really new. There is a distinct lack of quality in the United squad, and it has been that way for a while. Ferguson was able to hide the problems for so long because he was a great motivator and a great tactician. He made a fairly good side into title winners. But now with a more limited manager in charge, these problems have come to the fore. Today’s defeat to West Brom was no smash and grab fluke. The baggies were able to expose United’s weaknesses and fully deserved their win. The fluid movement and slick passing that led to the winning goal was a move of greater quality that anything the home side produced over the 90 minutes. There was no inevitability during injury time that Man Utd would equalise – not like in times past – West Brom stood firm all too easily.

Ferguson had to have been aware of the lack of true quality in his squad – why else would he have chosen Moyes to replace him, a man whose trademark has been getting the best out of less than stellar quality players? There isn’t much else on his CV that can have got him the job.

Man Utd have the financial clout to bring in better players, and there will surely be 2 or 3 fairly expensive signings in January. But whether the board of this multinational corporation will have the patience to stick with Moyes remains in some doubt. But the architect of all his problems was the man who chose him for the job. It will be of little consolation when he’s out the door.