How much more do you pay to go English?

There have been plenty articles over the last two days talking about the prospect of Manchester United buying Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha, the reports range in the value of the transfer for the 20 year old English International (a substitute appearance to watch Zlatan) but most saying somewhere between £12 million and £15 million.  Like most people I knew he was a good prospect but it was his performances in the League Cup last year which brought him to my attention, he tore Manchester United apart in Palace's shock 2-1 win.  The question for me is, will United be paying over the top for Zaha because he English?

He Doesn't Make It Easy To Like Him

I love maths almost as much as I love sport.  We are living in an age where we have access to the most information in sport ever, Sports like Baseball have embraced statistics with Sabermetrics being used by nearly every team now and it even spinning off an Hollywood film 'Moneyball'.  Other Sports have been slower to adopt stats mainly due to the ignorant miss use of stats when they haven't been put in context.

My "Favourite" Premier League Manager Rafa Benitez made a comment after Chelsea's 2-1 win against Arsenal, he said "These people who like to quote stats and stats, they don't have any clue about what is going on,".  That is like a stab in the back to me, he was saying that in regards to Fernando Torres, he followed that up with  "When you have one striker for a month and a half and cannot change, it's more difficult for the striker. When you have now two strikers, you can manage."   I am one of those people who uses statistics to analysis football because once it is put into context it can give an accurate reflection of a player's or a team's performance and now I am going to do what Rafa hates and show that Torres has been under performing by a career standards but by his Chelsea's standard's this is nothing to fret over.

Russell v Lawro - Week 2

Last week I challenged myself to see if I could compete with Mark Lawrenson in predicting the results of the weekend games of the Premiership.  After a poor performance in week one, with myself only getting 2 results right and no correct scores, getting nothing right on Saturday, compared to Lawro's 7 results right with two of them being correct scores,  I need do much better this week. Also here are the scores from last week.

The Corner Conumdrum

First of apologies for no post since last Friday, a pub orientated weekend followed by a football orientated start to the the week meant I have hardly spent any time near my laptop in the last four days.  Last night I went to The Hawthorns for the chilling excitement of an FA Cup Third Round Replay match with high flying West Bromwich Albion playing host to bottom of the table Queens Park Rangers.  I was chilled to the bone but I wasn't excited at all and like most of the fans around me I was disappointed with both teams not wanting to be there, whose poor performances were only separated by a late headed goal from a corner.

This corner and others during the match made me quite angry for two reasons, firstly when the goal was scored there was not a man on one of the posts and the header went right where he would of stood and secondly nearly half of the corners taken where short, none of which came off. These are two of my greatest peeves.

Russell V Lawro - The Return

With the return of the blog I will reincarnate my favourite part of doing the blog last time. This will be the first of many Friday afternoon posts where once again I will be going one on one against the BBC legend Mark Lawrenson. As most of you know Lawro does predictions for every Barclay's Premier League each weekend, for his thoughts click here.  So I thought why not put my ideas into the fishing pot and see if I am can best the pro.

Fact or Fiction or Opinion?

I read the websites of most the major news papers in the UK to have a read of some of the different opinion columns, to see if some of them have seen things in a different light to me.  Some are good, some are bad and some are just stupid.  The this writer about one which I will write was brought to my attention only last week but has already driven me to write about him. James Lawton is a writer at The Independent, his piece on Tuesday in which he declared Messi to be a symbol of all that is wonderful about football as opposed to Suarez, who is all that is bad because of his handball goal against Mansfield, I was reminded of this incident.

Then he notes in his artcile today that: 'When Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, who once plundered so brilliantly the best of his native France, recently signed a clutch of English-born players, including Jack Wilshere and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain...'

I will skip the obviously retard line about Jack Wilshere, who has been on the Arsenal books since he was nine and if James Lawton's definition of recently is 12 years otherwise I will spend to long on who is stupider footballers or football writers.  But I am going talk about his idea that Wenger brought French then and buys English now.

It there any point to comparisons when they're done like this?

Yesterday Barcelona and Argentina forward Lionel Messi has been awarded the Ballon d'Or for a fourth year running as well as releasing the FIFA/FIFpro World XI.  Most of you will know that for the first time since its inception all of the players in World XI were from the same league, Liga BBVA. I often read other sports blogs and a few twitter feeds but I don't think I have ever seen such consternation to something like this before, people will obvious disagree with 1 or 2 of the list but like most I don't agree with 4 or 5 of them.

The Team is;

Iker Casillas (Real Madrid)
Dani Alves (Barcelona)
Gerard Pique (Barcelona)
Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)
Marcelo (Real Madrid)
Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)
Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid)
Xavi (Barcelona)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid)
Radamel Falcao (Atletico Madrid)
Lionel Messi (Barcelona)


That is the FIFA/FIFpro World XI and I think I know the reason why it is not very good,

Controversy, Sports Unwanted Friend

Controversy and Sport have gone hand in hand ever since the the first caveman accused the other caveman of spoiling his hunt.  Today the current controversy Luis Suarez struck again, as a clear handball preceded his scoring of Liverpool's crucial second goal but this time to my eyes he didn't do it deliberately.  He hasn't anticipated the ball coming to him, it hits his hand and he puts the ball away full expecting to here the whistle but he doesn't so he goes and celebrates to his teams fans by kissing his hand.

This is where Luis shows that he takes his love of Toby young and Simon Pegg to heart and shows the world how to 'Lose Friends & Alienate People'.  It is not what he does that that sparks most of the controversy, it is the way he behaves afterwards that causes most peoples dislike of him.  Suarez still is one off the best strikers in the world and if he keeps this up he will not be remembered for his skill, but compared to some people in sport Suarez is basically a saint.

Here a my top 5 sporting scandals/controversies.

The Joys of January

The first weekend in January means a lot of different things to different people, for me it is all about the wonder that is knockout football.  This year we get the Third round of the FA Cup and the NFL's Wildcard weekend on the same weekend and I am going to be glued to both of them. Today I will be talking about the FA Cup, tomorrow I will talk about the NFL.

The Third Round is likable to many due to the chances of some David v Goliath matches as well as some genuine close matches. The habit of one or two lower division teams knocking out bigger teams will make them everyone's favourites for a while, Bradford have been riding on the success of the their league cup giant killings which have increased the attendances and spread the money to a team that need it.
Bradford are only two games against an out of form Villa away from a trip to Wembley this season and while a few may of thought they could of down well in the JPT and got a trip there, the possibility of going there twice is now more than just a flight of fancy.

The weekend also divides the viewing public with pretty much everyone cheering on the "Plucky Underdogs" against the "Football Business's" unless your team is the Football Business in question.  They will want to see an upset, so here are 5 matches to watch and 5 not to watch look for that glorious upset

"You'd have to be a real dope to mess it up"

Being a Manchester United fan it is hard to hide to write this piece with showing my contempt for Chelsea and Rafa Benitez but I will try and keep it to just facts so it doesn't come across much.

Just a few hours after Queens Park Rangers boss Harry Redknapp says only "a real dope" would fail as manager of west London rivals Chelsea, Chelsea lost at home 1-0 to QPR thanks to a Shaun Wright-Phillips goal, some backs to the wall defending by QPR and a questionable offside decision.

Chelsea dominated throughout but could not break down QPR's packed defence and looked a very different team to the side that put Villa to the sword in there last home.  that is because it was Chelsea made 5 changes from the starting XI that beat Everton at the weekend and 4 from the starting XI, albeit one enforced due to Cech's injury.

Rafa Benitez is famous for his rotation of his squads and so far has yet to name the same starting XI two games in a row and the two times they have lost is when he has made the most changes (4 - West Ham, 5 - QPR), the question is this damaging his teams chances of the title?

How to find out who is the best team?

There are many tried and tested methods of determining who is the best team overall, be it league or cup there are so many different variations that you could easily spend hours if not days comparing an contrasting between them.

My personal favourite is 'The Unofficial Football World Championships' is strips away all pretense of a fair system and stumps for the simplest system 'If you beat the current holder, you become the holder'.  For a more read then beginners guide on the UFWC site here.

Without knowing the UFWC I would be surprised, if you would be able to guess the current holder of the title and the greatest team of all time.  It is North Korea (some say DPR Korea) and Scotland respectively  they have defended the title for the whole of this year propelling themselves to 20th in the overall rankings.  For those who want to more about the UFWC, have a read of the end of year review here, it is worth a read.

After a discussion about this at work I was left with wondering if I applied the same logic to English league football, I then did some looking around on the interweb and no-one had done that yet.  So I set about trying to workout how to do this, I decided upon doing just the 20 years of Premier League first as all the match data was easily available on the internet.  I have now created the 'The Unofficial Premier League Champions' or UPLC.

It is Back

As it is a new year I though i would bring back the blog, after a bumper year of sport 2012 has left us and 2013 has begun.  We have already crowned the first 2013 world champion as Phil 'The Power' Taylor won his 16th world darts title by beating Michael van Gerwen 7-4 in an absorbing PDC World Championship final.

The main reason this is back is for me to have the ability to rant about sport again but I did this mainly to show the world what I did when i was bored over the Christmas Period, more on that in the next post.


I will try and post daily but don't hold me to that and will also get some trivia questions going as well throughout the return of the blog.

All there is left to say is I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I will get from writing it.


Trivia Question 1 (Answer will be given with the next trivia question)

Can you name the 3 football teams that have 4 separate spans in the English Premier League?

Arsenal's Injury Woes Continue

       Arsenal will be without another key first team player for a couple of weeks, right-back Bacary Sagna will be out for for at least their next two games because of a thigh injury.   Sagna, 27, picked up the niggle against Chelsea in the 2-0 defeat at Stanford Bridge and was ruled out of France's Euro 2012 qualifiers against Romania and Luxembourg.  He is now also likely to miss club games against Birmingham on Saturday and Shakhtar Donetsk on 19 October.  Arsenal are missing five players who could easily be in the first team, the others are Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Robin van Persie, Thomas Vermaelen and Nicklas Bendtner.  They are also missing a few squad players as well with defender Kieran Gibbs, midfielders Aaron Ramsey and Abou Diaby and goalkeeper Manuel Almunia all out injured.

 

The Home Nations Continue the Journey

Earlier on today, Friday, at 1600 BST the qualifying journey to Poland and Ukraine continued with Armenia hosting Slovakia, the current main opposition for the top spot in the Republic of Ireland's group.  Tonight Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have key home games against Italy and Russia respectively.  Scotland have a tough journey to Prague to face a Czech Republic side which need to bounce back from a poor home defeat to Lithuania.  England don't play during this set of games but will on Tuesday, the games from their group which are going on today are Wales v Bulgaria and Montenegro v Switzerland.  There aren't many other key games out their but Portugal desperately needing a win host Denmark and a interesting tie between Germany and Turkey which only contains one player, Nuri Sahin, in both squads that is playing for a club currently ranked in the Top 3 of the Bundesliga.

Team News and Predictions

Northern Ireland v Italy
After coming back from injury Manchester United defender Jonny Evans is likely to return to replace former United defender Craig Cathcart.  Other changes appear unlikely with Maribor goal hero Corry Evans again likely to start on the bench.  The captaincy will return to Aaron Hughes for the Windsor Park game.  Northern Ireland will be happy to get a draw front his match but I think Italy will be too much for them, 2-0 Italy.

Republic of Ireland v Russia
Richard Dunne has been passed fit and with Damien Duff ruled out by injury, manager Giovanni Trapattoni has named an unchanged team.  Aiden McGeady and Liam Lawrence stay in the wide midfield roles with Paul Green also retained in the side.  Russia are missing a few key players including Tottenham Hotspur striker Roman Pavlyuchenko.  I see Rep. of Ireland continuing their 100% record with a 2-1 win.

Czech Republic v Scotland
Scotland manager Craig Levein has already released the starting eleven for this match with him handing a debut to QPR striker Jamie Mackie. The untested 25-year-old is preferred to in-form Kenny Miller up front, while fit-again Gary Caldwell starts despite not having played for Wigan this term.  Scotland really need to pick up all three points today before they face World Cup winners Spain on Tuesday.  Czech Republic looked poorer than Scotland against but I can see this being a draw, 1-1.

Wales v Bulgaria
Ashley Williams will lead Wales in Brian Flynn's first game in temporary charge.  Strikers Rob Earnshaw and Ched Evans, along with Swansea City midfielder Joe Allen are among the other absentees.  Stoke City defender Danny Collins has been recalled after a three-year exile.  Wales need to win this or their hopes of going to Ukraine and Poland will be gone.  Bulgaria will win this 2-0.

The other key game is Montenegro v Switzerland, this will determine which one of these sides will challenge England for qualification, Montenegro will win this one 2-0.

The Return of Something Nasty

      This morning I read an article on the BBC news website that Senior police are warning over the possible emergence of a new generation of football hooligans after incidents involving young people almost trebled.  This is not a good sign English football has had is bad patched in the past and football hooliganism was one of the worst.  In May 1985 the Heysel Stadium disaster occurred and England football teams where banned from European football.  After the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, when 96 fans died, football hooliganism slowly dissipated, the firms started to disappear.  But recently a new generation of hooligans has come to the fore front but even though overall levels of hooliganism remain low but the trend has sparked concern.

Greatest Footballing Movie Star

      Last night I watched a 2006 documentary called Once in a Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the New York Cosmos.  In it Carlos Alberto Torres, whoose goal against Italy in the final of World Cup 1970 is considered one of the greatest goals ever scored in the history of the tournament, appears advocating the party lifstyle of the modern football star saying "Every Monday night, they had a party at studio 54... this was part of the development of football in the United States."  Watching this documentary mad me ask the question which footballer has had the best cameos and key permorfances in film history.  Also who are the worst offender in this category.

Two Great Reds Coming Together

       There is currently a story that is making the front and back pages of newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic.  Liverpool, who are in trouble on and off the pitch, are to be sold to the owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team.  But the takeover by the New England Sports Ventures requires resolution of a legal dispute with the Reds' American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.  The majority of the board of directors at Anfield have agreed in principle to the sale of Liverpool Football Club but the owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett are unhappy with the bid, they are adamant that they have added commercial value to the club.   In an attempt to block the bid Hicks and Gillett tried to sack managing director Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre in a last-ditch bid to keep control of the club.

Sporting Professionalism

       There have been a couple of moments recently in sport when sporting professionalism has been thrown out of the window.  On Sunday as most of you know Nigel de Jong made a tackle on Ben Afra and Ben Afra ended up with a broken tibia and fibula.  In the match the referee Martin Atkinsson saw the offence and did not punish it.  I have watched it a few times to get a good opinion on it and my opinion is that it was strong late tackle, it wasn't reckless, it was premeditated and Ben Arfa was very unlucky to get his leg caught between the legs of Nigel de Jong.  The thing that has actually annoyed me is the fact that Newcastle have wrote to the FA to ask for ". . the appropriate action to be taken against De Jong for the tackle which, in the club's, opinion was unnecessary and used excessive force."  This is a very unprofessional thing for Newcastle to do.

True Love of Sport

       Yesterday I was in the pub watching the Arsenal and Chelsea but the pub was also showing the Ryder Cup golf and the rugby union match between Saracens and Leicester.  There was three distinctive groups of people watch the three sports.  Watching the football was young adults and student, watching the rugby was the middle age men and watching the golf was the over 50's.  The final few holes of saturdays play in the golf came during the second half of the football and whenever a big put went in for Europe there was a large cheer.  What was interesting was the students infront of me looked very puzzled whenever they cheered, then one of them said 'I don't know how they can get that excited over golf.'  It made me think, can you truly love a sport if you haven't played it?

Making the Stadium of Light a Fortress

       This season Sunderland have had a brilliant start against the top sides of the Premiership.  With winning against Man City and drawing with Arsenal and Manchester, Sunderland have picked up 5 points against sides in the top 4 at the Stadium of Light this season.  Sunderland are one of the side that are stuck in the middle of the table, they are not going to get relegated and they can't compete with the top sides for money so won't get to Europe at the moment.  But despite saying all this Sunderland are a side moving in the right directions by doing what you need to do, turn you home stadium into a fortress where teams find it hard to pick up points.