Sport and whatever else...sporadically
Some selections inspired by the Racing Post’s Pricewise, but unlike him am going for the each-way route today. After a couple of placed horses, maybe this is the route to success…or at least slowing the inevitable decline.
Follow these at your peril, all Newmarket, all 0.5pt each-way.
1.30 Spinner’s End (26.00)
2.35 Mutheeb (8.50)
2.35 Plum Pudding (15.00)
3.10 King’s Apostle (21.00)
3.10 Ancien Regime (41.00)
4.55 Manyriverstocross (13.00)
Today’s losers…
Newmarket
3.10 Duncan (3.25)
4.55 The Jobber (11.00)
1pt on each.
A new feature here…I thought I’d track my betting. I really wouldn’t recommend following these, unless you are in some Brewster’s Millions-type scenario where you need to lose money fast…
All Newmarket (odds in brackets):
2.00 Run For The Hills (8.50)
3.45 Poets Voice (5.50)
4.20 Charger (4.33)
1 point on each (starting with 100 points)
So, Gerrard and Lampard are out of the England squad and Capello is down to four of his likely first-choice eleven for Wednesday’s friendly against Germany. There is the usual controversy and debate over having friendlies mid-season, particularly with the England camp seeming to doubt Liverpool’s diagnosis of Gerrard’s injury and insisting they have a peek themselves. With so much money at stake it really isn’t any wonder that clubs are reluctant to risk their star players/investments. No matter what they say, the majority of players are going to go along with their paymaster rather than En-ger-land.
But is this the end of the world? A match of this nature seems the perfect opportunity to blood new players and give those on the fringes of the England set-up a taste of a pressured game (what with it being Germany at the Olympic Stadium) without the pressure of a competitive fixture. Young players can get a feel of being in an England squad, while those who would usually keep the bench warm get a run-out and get used to playing with one another, and those “first teamers” left. Chances are, in future competitive games these fringe players will end up playing a part due to injuries or suspensions, so the experience they gain on Wednesday can only help.
The injuries of key players (real or not, it doesn’t matter) could really be a blessing in disguise for Capello, and just might throw up a few nice surprises and difficult future selection choices for him.
Lunchtime game today – Liverpool at Bolton, and what really should have been a walk in the park for Liverpool.
Real domination in the first half, and great to watch. Possession is so important in the modern game, but I think Premiership teams often suffer from the collective English impatience when it comes to football; “Get it up there!” is far more likely to be exclaimed from the stands (touchline?) than “Keep hold of it!”. But Liverpool resisted this, as they so often do, and their first goal, Kuyt’s exquisite header, came after a good twenty passes. Bolton were outplayed and stood off – Liverpool were free to do as they pleased with the ball.
The second half saw two rather than one up front for Bolton, and they were back in the game, pushing Liverpool further back and pushing the game into a more physical realm. But as Bolton pushed, Liverpool counter-attacked, with Torres setting up Gerrard for the game-killing second.
However, this is not the whole story. Yet again Liverpool missed a host of chances. Keane, still looking for a rich vein of form, missed from a few yards. Gerrard slid in from a similar distance to miss, Torres struck the post, Lucas’ header at the death went wide. No matter how well you play you are still vulnerable at 1-0, and Bolton could well have taken advantage if Cahill’s header on the stroke of half-time had been given, or if Ricardo Gardner had shown more composure in front of goal.
Earlier this season Liverpool played badly and won, and some suggested this was a sign of a good side. I beg to differ. Such teams will eventually come unstuck. As trite as it is to say, good teams win well. Liverpool (Wednesday aside) are now looking much stronger, and the scalps of Manchester United and Chelsea are significant. But now they need to not only play well, but convert more chances. Otherwise in a tighter game, or against better opposition they may not prevail as easily as they did today.
A brief hiatus for this blog, unfortunate considering it is so young. But rest assured it is not another blog disgarded after only a couple of weeks. Moving house has left me short of time and internet access, but I am determined to carry on sooner rather than later. I have a few things in mind, such as pieces on the various experiences of sport, be it participating, catching it live in “real life”, watching it on TV, listening to the radio etc. I also plan to respond to current sporting affairs/news/nonsense. That may all change, or at least evolve, but please watch this space, and apologies for a lack of new content.
The Guardian sportsblog talks today about the creeping redefinition of what it means to be a Premier League manager. As I touched on yesterday re: Keegan’s departure (or not) managers are increasingly being superceded/undermined/assisted (delete as appropriate) by directors of football and the like as more owners move away from the traditional model of appointing a manager to manage the whole operation. Curbishley was not happy with his lack of control of transfers, as Keegan had been the day before. And fair enough. Surely in any industry a manager should have significant input in employing (or sacking) his staff. Also, there is little evidence that this works in English football, it generally ends in tears. It is no coincidence that two of the most established and successful managers, Wenger and Ferguson, have so much say over the direction of their clubs. Are owners following this new model because of continental influence, or because they’ve bought a club as a plaything, a real-life Championship Manager?
Silly season is apparently in full swing in the Premier League following the passing of the transfer deadline.
After buying Robinho for a cool £32.5 million from under the noses of Chelsea, Manchester City’s new owners, the Abu Dhabi group, plan to buy up several more big names – including making a £135 million bid for Cristiano Ronaldo in the January transfer window. After the events of yesterday, anything could happen, but the chances of Ronaldo, Torres, Fábregas, Henry and Villa all heading to Eastlands seem a little unlikely. My worry is that clubs (such as Leeds) have come unstuck from big spending, and City already appear to have been caught out once with Thaksin’s shenanigans. Too many clubs fall foul of following an impossible dream. Considering the healthy attendances City have, and with a talented manager in place, it is a shame they are heading down such a risky route when they could have built up steadily over time. But perhaps Thaksin’s departure left them with no choice but to be the Abu Dhabi group’s plaything?
Meanwhile, Kevin Keegan may have left Newcastle, or at least that’s what reports (and Keegan’s no-showing training) suggested. But then Newcastle released a statement saying he had not been dismissed and they hoped stayed with the club. You’d think, however, that he was on his way. The conflict may have, at least in part, come from Keegan having to work with a director of football, Dennis Wise, who is in charge of all transfers. This was never going to be a satisfactory working arrangement for any manager, particularly one as passionate as Keegan. Without control over players coming in or out a football manager is impotent. I’m struggling to think of such an arrangement that has worked – director of football seems such a wooly term, and conspiracy theorists would state they are only brought in to get a the current manager out.
So, a strange day in football, and more developments to follow by the looks of things.
I’ve been F5-ing my day away on The Guardian minute-by-minute report of the Premier League football transfer deadline day. There may be some exciting stories to emerge by the end of the evening, which isn’t often the case with these last-day shenanigans as managers and journalists alike scramble around trying to make something of the day, as the hours evaporate, generally with little success. But today Manchester City have been in the thick of some potentially huge stories, looking to gazump Chelsea to Robinho and steal Dimitar Berbatov from under neighbours Manchester United’s noses. The sheer audacity of it, plus the huge fees that are likely to be involved makes this a newsworthy deadline day amid the panic buying and other underwhelming transfer news.
I am not a big fan of the transfer deadline/windows in their current form. They seem to encourage these bursts of transfer activity that are often all hype and little action and seem to create a false market where clubs desperately throw money around on deals that may not be that wonderful. And the inflationary aspect of the window clearly benefits the bigger clubs, widening the gap there already is between rich and poor clubs.
While in the modern media age I’m pleased we don’t have the dull Gareth Barry and Cristiano Ronaldo sagas we had to endure this Summer all year long, I could live without the false parameters for sealing transfers. But, if we are to have transfer windows I wish they didn’t infringe on the season itself. This season so far already feels like a “phoney war”, yet to fully ignite. Transfers still going on, only to be cut off a few weeks into the season, just makes this worse. We should at least see the squads settled before the season starts if there is a time-limit on when transfers can take place.
Still, at least this window might not be an absolute dissapointment in the end, and at least the endless speculation will be over too, and we can get on with the important stuff. And for all my complaining, I’m still F5-ing…
Everybody loves a loser. As the Roger Kahn quote above states, “You may glory in a team triumphant…but you fall in love with a team in defeat”. Here are three teams I’ve fallen for over the years, each because of how they lost, rather than how they won.
Liverpool
Perhaps a strange choice, you might think, considering how successful Liverpool have been. But, while I can just remember their double-winning season of 1985-86, my first year of truly following football was 1987, when they didn’t win a thing. I remember well Liverpool losing the League Cup Final to Arsenal, despite taking an early lead from Ian Rush – it was the first time the Reds had lost when Rush scored, a record that had lasted seven years. Rush would then join Juventus. By 1988 Liverpool had won the league and could repeat their double success by beating lowly Wimbledon in the FA Cup Final. Of course, they lost in one of the most famous finals of the last 25 years. In 1989 Liverpool would lose the League Championship to Arsenal in the final minute of the final game of the season. Liverpool are by no means “losers” in the strictest sense, but these formative experiences certainly shaped my outlook on sport and made me a Liverpool supporter for life.
Dundee United
The Arabs, supposedly named after a harsh winter lead to sand being poured on the pitch to make it playable, are another love of mine. And it all falls down to one month, May 1987. In that month they lost the UEFA Cup Final 2-1 on aggregate over two legs, losing the Scottish Cup Final inbetween. To have got so far and to come away with nothing was heartbreaking, but their incredible season, including beating Barcelona home and away, led to a lifeline fascination.
Brooklyn Dodgers
From football to baseball, and a team that no longer exists. Last year on a trip to the States I caught an HBO documentary, Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush, about the Brooklyn Dodgers and was hooked. The fact their name came from “Trolley dodgers” when most teams had dynamic, heroic names, was wonderful, as was them being referred to as “Dem Bums”. This team knew how to lose, and I’m sure this was the root of the devotion their fans held, and continue to hold to this day. Between 1941 and 1953 they lost five World Series, all to their arch-rivals the Yankees, the ultimate hurt. In 1951 they collapsed completely from a 13 ½ lead to lose the National League to the New York Giants in a three-game play-off. No wonder they kept proclaiming “Wait ’til next year!”. In 1955 they finally won the World Series, but by 1957 the team was moved to Los Angeles, the greatest defeat.
I would love to hear of more classic losing teams you know, or indeed why you fell in love with your favourite teams. Thanks for reading.
PS I’m entering this in the Pro Blogger Killer Titles competition. Let’s see how I get on…
