It’s somewhat unlikely that Sunday’s match between Liverpool at Manchester United will live long in the memory. Liverpool fans sang, “We won’t do that chant.” Luis Suarez buzzed around a lot and showed glimpses of the behaviour that has endeared him to football fans the world over. Man Utd were the beneficiaries of ludicrously weak refereeing. Just another weekend in the mighty, mighty Premier League.

I actually thought Mark Halsey started the game pretty well. It’s easy for these hotly-contested games to spiral into bitty yellow card bonanzas, but he was lenient on a couple of challenges, one from either side, that would have ordinarily brought a yellow card. Then in the 39th minute, Jonjo Shelvey went into a challenge with one foot, and Jonny Evans went into the same challenge with two feet. Shelvey, after some helpful advice from the ever considerate opposition players – no referee should ever make a big decision in a Man Utd game without first consulting Rio Ferdinand – was shown a red card.

Whichever way you look at this, it’s a poor decision. If he was in the right position to see Shelvey’s studs were raised, then he would also have been in the right position to see that Evans’s studs were also raised. If he was in the wrong position, then a) it’s poor refereeing, and b) he’s making a game-changing decision without being 100% certain that he’s correct. And given his earlier leniency (presumably) in the hope of letting the game flow better, why stymie what was, up to that point, an excellent contest?

Man Utd had been given a stern examination in the first half, conceding over 60% of possession to their North West rivals. Van Persie looked isolated, the midfield was disjointed, and young Raheem Sterling was causing no end of grief to Patrice Evra down United’s left. A side with greater conviction and cutting edge would have been 2 or 3 goals to the good before half time, before the red card, even.

So despite Gerrard’s well taken goal, it always felt like United would come back into it, and so they did a mere five minutes later, Rafael’s excellent curling finish levelling things up. And with 15 minutes to go, Antonio Valencia’s jelly legs took a tumble under the weight of expectation – I presume it was that, seeing as there was eff all other contact – and RVP shrugged off a five minute injury delay to squeeze in the spot kick past Reina. Credit Ferguson’s reverse psychology in his throwaway comment before the match – “We never get penalties there” – but a plague on Halsey’s house for facilitating such an atrocious decision and handing Man Utd a victory they did very little to deserve.

The Man Utd fans sang “You’re getting sacked in the morning” to Brendan Rogers, who must be feeling a little down on his luck. He’ll wait a long time to see his team play as well as that again and lose, and a narrow defeat to Mark Halsey will not give John W. Henry a reason to wield the axe just yet.

Over in the Fox Soccer studio, it down to Warren Barton and Eric Wynalda (who looks like a taller, less menacing version of Dennis Wise) to argue about the sending off. Barton – whose tan makes Gary Lineker look genuinely pasty – maintained it was a sending off. Wynalda disagreed, desperately trying to find a way of saying, “But it’s a derby game!” in a less colloquial manner, and giving it all the hand gesturing he could muster. Finally, he grabbed Barton’s arm and stared him the eyes before making one final impassioned plea that it wasn’t a red card. Barton didn’t respond. Pools panel result: Away win. (Barton is always away because he’s English).

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35 miles back up the M62, Financial Extravagance’s City laboured to a 1-1 draw with Financial Prudence’s Arsenal. Craig Burley may not be on Sky, but there was an altogether familiar feel to the Scotsman’s haranguing of Arsenal’s zonal marking system. “Statistically, they say that teams using Zonal Marking concede fewer goals,” he said. “But every time I’ve seen it, it never works!” I like to think a part of Andy Gray’s soul was filled with joy at that moment. Burley is the living embodiment of the phrase, “Because fact into doubt…won’t go.” Anyway, it was more to do with playing a keeper that hasn’t got a bloody clue at corners than it was about the relative merit of different marking systems.

Arsenal probably should have been ahead before that, but when put through one-one-one with Joe Hart, Gervinho’s first touch not only deserted him, but seemed to have left planet earth entirely. My nightmares are filled with alarmingly similar situations leading to alarmingly similar outcomes. That and spiders.

And I leave you with news that the UN’s race relations ambassador John Terry has retired from international football, making England a 372% more likeable team.

There are many reasons to reminisce about home when you’re a few thousand miles away from it. Often, it’s not what you might have expected before you left. A chill wind. Peering out at the pissing rain during an English summer. Less flagrant use of car horns at junctions. And of course, for those of us afflicted by an obsession with a particular game involving a spherical ball, the UK’s coverage of professional football.

Now, while the UK is somewhat of a cultural sponge in regard of the US, you’re hopeful it’s still some way away from introducing any sort of “banter zone” into it’s football programming. 606, You’re on Sky Sports, TalkSport and others may have allowed some more of the more “choice” football opinions a platform to be heard on a national basis, but you feel a certain nadir, some sort of terminal cultural Shark Jumping will have happened once any sort of “Banter Zone” washes up on Britain’s fair shores.

Fortunately, the Fox Soccer Channel compensates for its slightly over-bombastic presentation of the sport by adding a hint of Dour Scotsman to it’s football round-up program; while Bobby McMahon is erudite and highly knowledgeable about world football, the sunny Texan skies have made him a little too optimistic than can be normal for any still-native Dundonian.  And as a man who considers himself a quarter Scots, I feel I can legitimately make a sweeping generalisation about 25% of my heritage, hopefully without being more than 75% hypocritical.

One program my nostalgia wore out pretty quickly for was Match of the Day. Some aspects of the “sameyness” of home are comforting, but the droll semi-interested chat of Gary, Alan & Lawro (as the show should be called) is not one of them. FSC’s Banter Zone may be the most ridiculous title for a segment of a TV show ever, but at least you can tell it’s not taking itself as seriously as you might think. By contrast, Gary Lineker has almost reached a sneering pomposity in the way he way presents MOTD, vaguely complimentary towards the Big 2 while snarkily dismissive of most of the other 18 teams in the league. The self-importance on display has you actively searching for the last known location of Andy Townsend’s tactics truck, before you realise it belongs to Andy Townsend and report it to the police for being double parked.

The BBC’s coverage has such a high opinion of itself that it doesn’t realise how much of an irrelevance it is danger of becoming. Zero innovation in its presentation. The same old faces spouting the same old cliches year after year, while some bright spark at BBC Sport thinks that adding Mick McCarthy and Harry bloody Redknapp to the panel line up is in some way going to freshen things up. Motson-lite stats-obsessed commentators, most of whom deliver with that dash of social judgement on proceedings that is so unnecessary. It’s just not very good. Sky Sports may be the devil incarnate, but at least they don’t treat their viewership like a bunch of total dipshits.

America will never care about soccer in the same way that Britain does, but at least it doesn’t treat it with the same complacency as MOTD. So with that in mind, I’m off to get involved in the Banter Zone on twitter.

The surprising emergence of Gary Neville as an insightful and impartial football pundit has regrettably raised the bar for some of England’s rather more suspect football commentators. “Alan Shearer” has become the punchline to so many jokes about the dire standard of football punditry in this country that it almost seems unfair to pick on him for any misdemeanours.

One could argue that it’s not his fault he is so incapable of forming an independent thought about the game; after all, if someone waved a six-figure cheque in your face to offer your opinions on football, regardless of how inane, bland or simply incorrect they may be, I’m sure you’d snaffle it up like a Gosforth-born former Premier League striker scores from two yards into an empty net.

So mind-numbingly boring has his tenure as a regular Match of the day pundit become, that I can’t remember how long he has been doing the job. It must be at least over 4 years, as that was the first time I ever wrote about being dissatisfied with Shearer’s lack of insight. Though, I find it incredible that I haven’t smashed my head repeatedly into a brick wall after listening to his “thoughts”, so I’m thankful for that small mercy.

You may countenance that I’ve written over 200 words without levelling a single specific allegation of stupidity against Mr. Shearer. Ordinarily, I would argue that it was because he says absolutely nothing noteworthy during the course of a MOTD broadcast. But finally, on the evening of May 6th, 2012, he finally hammered the stupid nail into his moron coffin. He proclaimed that Alex McLeish was only booed and harangued by Aston Villa fans because he had formerly managed bitter rivals Birmingham City.

Now, to anyone that had zero knowledge of football and just a miniscule amount of knowledge about the rivalry between Aston Villa and Birmingham City, this may have seemed like a logical argument. But anyone that has seen more than 20 minutes of Aston Villa this season will tell you that Big ‘Eck’s managerial history has nothing to do with it. They are booing him because of the simple fact that Alex McLeish is a crap manager who has had Villa playing their most turgid football in almost 30 years.

For instance: Villa have won only 4 home games this season. This is their worst ever return from home games over a league season in over 100 years. They have been treated to a whopping 1.05 Villa goals per home game. Let me tell you, Villa fans would not have cared if McLeish had BCFC tattooed on his forehead if he had led Villa to the mid-table finish that their squad deserved this season. The reason that he has been getting jip from the home faithful is because HE IS RUBBISH. There is no other reason. To claim otherwise only highlights the spectacular lack of knowledge of Wor Alan.

And that was what finally sent me over the edge, as Shearer claimed McLeish’s Birmingham heritage as the sole cause of his trouble with the Villa fans. Had I been a man for whom money was no object, I would have undoubtedly smashed my television to smithereens in act of fruitless defiance.

And so high is Shearer’s level of General Ignorance that such wanton destruction could actually be considered justifiable in this case. Had he taken the time to talk to even just 3 or 4 Villa fans prior to tonight’s show, he would have found that his held opinion had absolutely zero basis in fact. Let’s do this in one sentence so The Talented Mr. Alan can understand:

VILLA FANS DISLIKE MCLEISH BECAUSE HE IS A SHIT MANAGER.

There are no ulterior motives. Get it into your thick skull and stop spreading your held opinions as fact on a national basis.

So if I may be so brazen as to say, “He should have done better with that.” Because Shearer hasn’t just missed an open goal, he has quite literally hit the crossbar from 6 yards out and the ball has rebounded into his face and knocked him out cold.

Shearer has been making money from saying nothing for well over four years now. Just because he’s been getting away with it for so long doesn’t mean we should forget he’s been getting with it at all. I’ll leave the final words to the brilliant Cameron Carter, who writes for When Saturday Comes:

“Alan Shearer. Ten years ago those two words meant a ball bursting the net. Nowadays they represent an interval between meaningful events. It’s not just that he sounds like a man sight-reading from the Bible, it’s the poverty of the content. On the same Match of the Day as Jacqui Oatley’s debut, Gary Lineker described Ben Foster’s mistake for Darius Vassell’s goal as summing-up Watford’s disappointing season. Over the replays of Foster’s miskick, Shearer indolently concluded “that goal really does sum up Watford’s season”, like a man in a circle who has been passed an idea and tried it without inhaling.”

Obviously, no-one really cares about online petitions. But over the last couple of days, I’ve found it very frustrating that Britain’s most popular national daily newspaper has been allowed to propagate its own myth regarding a supposed overwhelming national outcry that Harry Redknapp should have been appointed England manager.

Frankly, it is an abomination that a national newspaper should run a front page headline that is stupid, crass, and offensive in equal measure. Few people take note of the angry voices over in bloggers corner, of course, but that isn’t going to stop this particular one from at least attempting to start some sort of fire in protest.

So I implore you, citizens of the forgotten realm of Common Sense, to sign this petition aimed at the tabloids who claim to speak for us. Make it known that, actually, you weren’t that fussed about Harry Redknapp becoming England manager. Maybe Roy Hodgson was your preferred choice, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe you would have preferred The Greatest Manager In The World, Sam Allardyce. Or perhaps the former favourite son of the fourth estate, Terry Venables. The fact is, it doesn’t matter.

What does matter is that the newspaper with the largest readership in the country has taken upon itself to declare its voice as that of the entire footballing nation. And as someone who didn’t think Liverpool fans urinated on members of the emergency services at the Hillsborough disaster, and as someone who doesn’t care either way that the new England manager struggles a bit with his pronunciation of the letter ‘R’, I’d very much like it to be known that The Sun does not speak for me.

Nor does it speak for many, I hope, like me, who object to their immediately antagonistic stance towards the new England manager, due to the overlooking of their chum Harry Redknapp. Sign up:

Let’s try and let football journalists at The Sun know that not everybody falls into line with their assumption that everybody wanted Harry Redknapp to be England manager.

After Fabio Capello’s departure, the preliminary assessment of (apparently) everyone in the country was that the man to take charge of England at the European Championships would be Harry Redknapp. All the pieces of the puzzle fit very nicely together; Tottenham were flying, so Redknapp could leave on good terms with Spurs having qualifed for the Champions League; the rabidly jingoistic media would not only satisfy their craving for an English manager, but also have someone to get chummy with at press conferences; and your “average football fan” would be happy that Harry, Man Of the People, “I don’t know nuffink about tax, me, but I have got an offshore bank account” Redknapp was in charge of the England team.

So with the news that Roy Hodgson will be interviewed for the England job today, where has it all gone wrong for ‘Arry? While it’s laudable that he’s spent the last two and a half months avoiding all questions about his future, the looming possibility of “the job” and all the media speculation surrounding it has clearly had an effect on his team. In the 11 league games since Capello resigned, Spurs have won just 3 times. In the same period, Hodgson’s West Brom have won 6.

It has at least been noted that Spurs’ business in the January transfer window has been a factor in their recent poor form, but the blame for the movement of underused and disgruntled players lies at the feet of their manager. For team to finish in the top 4, a manager has to be capable of effective squad management. That means even when things are rosy and you’re beating everyone in sight, you need to be able to rest players, keep things a little fresh, and to try and stave off burnout in the latter stages of the season. Spurs have a fantastic first XI, but they had several worthy squad players who could have played a vital part in the last couple of months when the chips were down somewhat. Look at how Steven Pienaar has driven Everton forward since rejoining in January. Harry must be cursing himself for letting him go as Tottenham allowed a double figure points lead over Arsenal turn into a deficit.

Was Harry’s ego the problem? Was he so convinced of his impending coronation as national boss that he thought he could wait the FA out, that they would silently hold the position open for him until the end of the domestic season? The FA had given him plenty of time. His trial had finished and he was acquitted on all counts. Why, then, was he still so reluctant to throw his name into the hat?

An experienced manager like Hodgson will be under no illusions of what to expect if he is to become England manager. The more recent history of his tenure in charge of Liverpool is the perfect example of what will happen if results and performances aren’t immediately up to the level expected – i.e. he will be hounded out within months if he isn’t able to acutely overperform with a distinctly average and overrated bunch of players.

But in this case, that may just work in his favour. With the FA dragging their feet over appointing Capello’s successor, Hodgson will have little time to prepare his charges and so even the notoriously unforgiving and rabble-rousing tabloid media should cut him some slack. Hodgson has shown that, given the willingness of the players and certain amount of luck, he can create a well-drilled and efficient unit.

What England lack is the genuine world-class flair player to complement any organisation that Hodgson is able to instil into the team. Gerrard’s star is fading. Lampard is a passenger and should be considered no more than an impact sub. Wilshere won’t be there due to injury. There is little to be excited about on either flank, unless you find Ashley Young’s QWOP impression titillating. Sturridge and Welbeck are good young players, but it’s easy to look good when carried by a decent club team; it remains to be seen how they will cope when the space and service dries up as it always does when England have the ball.

That leaves Rooney, the most unreliable outfield player in an England shirt in the last 20 years, who also happens to be suspended for the opening two games due to a spectacular moment of unreliability in the qualifiers. And who will not be afforded the leeway to scream, shout, kick and elbow his way to glory as he does in the Premier League. Which doesn’t fill one with the greatest amount of confidence.

Perhaps then, with expectations at an all-time low, a new manager, and a squad in a period of generational transition, England could finally, finally, make it beyond the quarter finals of a major tournament. At least (one would assume) Shaun Wright-Phillips won’t be there playing on the left wing, causing all manner of household accoutrements to be thrown in frustration at the TV. Or perhaps Hodgson will lead England to a “golden decade of quarter-final glory” (© Robin Hearn).

As far as England managers go, Hodgson will be the most likeable one since Bobby Robson, albeit without the rent-a-quote media savvy that would have kept the media onside a la Redknapp or Venables. He is somewhat understated, but has an unerring belief in his methods, which have served him pretty well over a 30 year managerial career. My nagging suspicion is that the ego-laden England squad won’t take well to Hodgson getting them to repeat defensive drills many times over, but there’s always a chance. There’s always hope. And that’s what kills you.

Good luck, Roy.

The amount of time Messrs Hansen, Shearer et al bang on about “course and distance” in regards to this years title race, one would be inclined to believe that the participants were actually horses. But since Ruud van Nistelrooy left Old Trafford, that hasn’t been the case at all. Perhaps it’s Lord Ferg’s fondness for the sport of kings that keeps the pundits riffing on their little bon mot; Giggs and Scholes, for all their experience in title winning sides, are no longer such a central part of the team that their experience will prove vital in every game. The “course and distance” analogy simply doesn’t apply since there are too many inexperienced “horses” in the squad; in this case it only applies to the “jockey” (manager) and that means it doesn’t apply at all.

Enough labouring over an already too-laboured analogy; Man Utd really only have one more tough game to go in their run in, and with City’s poor away form costing them dearly, the meeting between the two may not prove to be such a pivotal match after all. Utd will almost certainly come looking for the draw, whilst looking to pinch a goal on the counter; barring a spectacular loss of Utd form, City will have to win to stand a chance at becoming champions. Pools panel result: No score draw (inevitably).

The wildcard in all of this is the one-man Argentinian rebel whirlwind, Carlos Tevez. With most people already bored to tears by the whole sorry shenanigans, I shan’t go into too much detail about his departure and recent return. However I’d like to find a job where I can refuse to come in for 5 months, stay at home on full pay and then return like the prodigal son when I felt a bit better – nice work if you can get it.

What Tevez does offer is the polar opposite of Madcap Mario and his nonchalant languidity. While Balotelli strolls around, missing chance after chance and taking time out to castigate unworthy team mates who have the temerity to not get everything 100% right 100% of the time, Tevez will bring a fire and a zest to proceedings that could just give City a vital lift as the season enters the final furlong. (!)

The football fates love nothing more than the old boy returning to score against his former club – without a modicum of research, I’d say it happens more often than not when player comes up against a former employer. It’s how Leo Fortune-West was able to keep such a good goalscoring record well into his 40’s; he’d already played for every club there was to play for. What odds Tevez to score the winner at Eastlands on the 30th of April? Pretty short I’d say. (Betting not yet available, sorry). The situation with Denis Law in 1973-74 was different of course, but I’d say there are enough similarities between the two to argue that something of a historical precedent is already set.

Today, City face Sunderland, against whom they have won their last 7 consecutive  home league games. Martin O’Neill’s rejuvenated Sunderland side will have to bounce back from their midweek FA cup defeat at Everton, as well as overcoming recent historical precedent. A win for City will take them top, at least until Monday night when United travel to Ewood Park. Rovers’ victory at Old Trafford on New Years eve may have just saved Steve Kean’s job, and their recent home record against United isn’t too shoddy; they last beat them at home in 2005/06, a David Bentley hat-trick ensuring they did the double over them that season. A similar result on Monday night will make things very interesting indeed.

Email: editor@30yardsniper.co.uk