March 2009 Archives

Let's be Frank! Lampard's views on pampered young footballers are spot on.
Scrubbing a senior pro's boots clean did him, John Terry and a long line of great footballers no harm.
The current generation of budding footballers are fast-becoming over-paid playing machines with no real personality away from the field.
At the end of the day footballers are just real people and like everyone else they need to learn the values of hard work.

Well it has taken a while but as promised I've finally managed to get Franck Queudrue's views on this classic own goal.
Grab a copy of this weekend's Sunday Mercury to discover the reason behind the popular Frenchman's moment of madness.

Martin O'Neill loves a good yarn. So there's no doubt he's fond of the famous story about George Best's playboy lifestyle.

The former Manchester United legend is on his hotel bed with a wad of banknotes won in the casino and the current Miss World, when a room service porter knocks on the door, sees the scene, and asks: "Mr Best, where did it all go wrong?"

O'Neill might not be Best, and as we're all finding out now, his Aston Villa team are not yet the best.

But the Villa boss can surely empathise with his former Norther Ireland international team-mate.

A team which is currently 11 Premier League places better off than the one he inherited less than three years ago.

With the strong prospect of automatic qualification for European competiton for the first time in over a decade.

And a collection of talented young British players who have been a breath air for most of the season by challenging the established elite.

So, in this knee-jerk era where impatient fans are clamouring to knock O'Neill, it's worth remembering the Best anecdote and realising that, even after a month of misery, Villa haven't got it too bad.

"Mr O'Neill, where did it all go wrong?"

The final word on Blues 1-1 draw at home to Norwich City on Saturday...

I've decided to ignore the Tevez shambles, the allegation that Cesc Fabregas spat at leather-faced Phil Brown's (did anyone else notice the ghastly white-speckled number he was wearing on Saturday) pal Brian Horton and the changes to Formula One to instead focus on another sporting issue of the week - the potential hosts for World Cup 2018.

The bidding has opened and it's time for crackpot Sepp Blatter and his Fifa committee to examine the cases that have been put forward.

So I've taken it upon myself to examine the claims of the nine countries in the hat and give my biased view (well I am a proud Englishman after all):

RECITING the names of heroes in a half-shell Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo and Raphael is the closest I can get to total recall. Whoops, that's turtle recall isn't it, sorry!

But a kid from Walsall, I forget his name, has scooped a prestigious title by remembering a remarkable range of facts and figures.

The young schoolboy - his age has slipped my mind - was able to memorise and recall a long list of trivia about London Zoo, a selection of 27 unrelated objects, 40 unknown faces and a sequence of 38 random numbers.

And to think some Villa fans can't even cast their minds back to when Gabby Agbonlahor was a Holte End hero, all of four short weeks ago.

Short memories indeed.

Ironic cheers and boos as the claret and blues lose. Here's our video reaction to another Villa Park let-down

The feel-good factor is back in the Blues camp, hear all the reaction:

The idea has been mooted! Andy Full and Mat Empty could be set for a sensational return to your computer screens.

Here's what you've been missing...

Watch this space for further developments.

Now is the time for UEFA's fist to come crashing down on Italian football and its underbelly of hooliganism.
Once again Italian thugs have struck on the European football stage (this time prior to Arsenal's Champions League trip to Roma) and enough is enough.
Time and time again, just as racist supporters have avoided a worthy punishment, hooligans on the continent have failed to have been hit by the hierarchy of European football.
Now is the time for UEFA to show that it has serious credibility by stripping Rome of the Champions League final and dishing out a ban to ALL Italian teams.