Monthly Archives: July 2011
Top 5 Criminal Footballers – Putting the Laughter in Manslaughter
Adams. Possibly Drunk
By Aaron Evans
With some frequency many professional football players have been accused of thinking they are above the law. However this group of rapscallions have had to face up to their misbehavior with a stint in chokey. At some point or another most footballers creep on to the front pages of the daily tabs for some misdemeanor or another, be it sleazing up some tart from Grimsby or clouting a fan in a regional branch of Yates’s. But this lot take the biscuit and then punch the very same biscuit in the face! Read the rest of this entry
Who Needs Tevez? – Why Manchester City Can Win the League
The first of many for Roberto Mancini?
By Tom Gaunt
Manchester City will shortly be parting company with arguably their star player – Carlos Tevez. In normal circumstances this would be greeted with outrage from fans – even if he was unhappy and potentially disruptive – and new concerns about whether the team can reach the heights of last season. However at City there is an air of calm. Most fans, whilst appreciating his contribution, are excited about the prospect of finding a replacement. The smart money is on Sergio Aguero who, if the rumor mill is to be trusted, sees Eastlands as his preferred destination. For Manchester City these are exciting times.
City may not have maximized their expenditure thus far, but qualifying for the Champions League is a huge step forward. There are obvious parallels between City and the Chelsea team of 2003/4, when Roman Abramovich first came into power. Chelsea steamrolled the league that year, and the following year too. I think City can potentially do the same. Read the rest of this entry
The Upside to Stewart Downing
Downing has played as an inverted winger for England
As a passionate Liverpool supporter who spends an increasing amount of time trolling around the internet for any shred of LFC-related gossip (in between eating, sleeping, shitting and doing sweet FA at work) I’m more aware than most how much Stewart Downing’s footballing ability has divided opinion amongst football fans in recent weeks.
Judging him purely on playing ability and without taking transfer prices into account, I think most fans would agree he is “decent”. Others may say “average”, “middle of the road” and “unspectacular” – and to be fair to those people, it’s quite hard to argue with that perception. Read the rest of this entry
TOP 10: Overrated Players in the Premiership:
By Tom Gaunt
This article looks at the 10 most overrated players currently playing in the premiership. I am sure I have missed a few so please let me know and I will add to the honorable mention section at the end.
Huddlestone: Out of breath
10. Tom Huddlestone
It is by virtue of Tom Huddlestone’s nominal transfer fee which prevents him being higher up the list. Though Spurs fans will tell you what a class act Tom Huddlestone is, I am not so sure what the fuss is about. He strokes the ball beautifully around the pitch and on occasion strikes the ball as sweet as anyone. However he doesn’t really do anything. He does not score many goals, so those sweet strikes obviously don’t find the net too often. As for his passing, the ability to switch the ball 40 yards from one side of the pitch to the other is very nice and pretty but does not always achieve a lot. I have seen very few occasions where he has created goal scoring opportunities and his assists record would back this up. He is not an attacking midfielder, nor a defensive midfielder and he certainly does not make up ground all over the pitch like Ramires or Park Ji-Sung – so what does he do to earn all this praise? Answers on a postcard please.
Milner: Looking as majestic as ever
9. James Milner
Now, many of you will disagree with this selection. I will clarify that I am not saying Milner is not a good player, he is. He puts a shift in, has a great engine and loves a tackle, and at Villa scored a number of goals. However the fee of £26 million would suggest you get a little bit more than a good journeyman, but in my opinion this is all he is. He is a winger yet he cannot beat a man, he has no real pace, his crossing is OK but due to the former point he is never in a position to deliver dangerous balls. He has somehow become an England regular, in part due to the lack of competition which benefits the whole of our, frankly average squad, and also he is the safe option for a cautious manager scared to play expansive football. He has thrived on the notion that you get a solid performance from him. This is true but in a creative position you need creativity and he has none.
Tevez – Blue Moon on a Stick
Carlos Tevez points the way home
By Aaron Evans
I often lay awake at night wondering if Carlos Tevez is in fact an 8 year old girl. He appears to be the most sensitive man in the world. I would love to see the look on my manager’s face if I approached him with the possibility of me moving to our Torquay branch, because I want to be closer to my dear old uncle Simon. He would probably burst a blood vessel with uncontrollable laughter.
Have footballers become so molly coddled that they are actually regressing into childhood? Whatever next? Will we be seeing Drogba reading a Beano or Jose Mourinho breast-feeding Christiano Ronaldo? This would not surprise me in the slightest.
There is no doubt in my mind that Tevez is an exceptional talent, as an Arsenal fan I would welcome him in to our front line, however every two years or so he seems to want to play the victim. His contract is so big that he could buy a bedroom for each member of his family per week – why doesn’t he move his whole fucking village over to sunny Manchester? Are footballers so arrogant now-a-days that they expect their club to disrupt the earth’s tectonic plates and shift the continents, allowing their Daughter to see them kick a ball?
I hate to see myself sympathising with Man City but in this case I really do. They have done everything they can to make the Argentinean feel welcome, but little did they know that they were required to rock him to sleep at night and clean up his piss stained sheets when he wets the bed.
I made my first cup of tea when I was five years old – my mother knew that by training me young she had a child slave for the majority of my formative years. By the age of seven I could mow the lawn and hand wash her delicate silk dresses, if I moaned I was taken in to a private room and beaten with 19 centimetres of industrial piping.
Footballers need to take a big step back and realise what a privileged position they are in.
