Football News And Views

For the president of UEFA Michael Platini really does talk a lot of bollocks. A lot of it is aimed at Arsene Wenger for some reason and today is no exception. Platini is now criticising Wenger for buying young players. The gob had this to say on the matter:

“I do not like the system of Arsene Wenger. In France, Italy and Spain it is easy to buy with money the best players at 14, 15 or 16. I don’t like that.”

“If the best clubs buy the best 15 or 16 players that is finished for all the clubs in Europe.

“If my son is playing at Millwall and at 16 Manchester come in for this player then when will Millwall have a good team?”

The answer to your question is yes. If Millwall got £2m for this youngster they will be able to buy half a good team with the money they make. Small clubs may not like losing their star players but they sell them because of the financial reward they gain from doing so and if a player is only 16 then why not let them develop into a world class star at the likes of Arsenal or Manchester United. It could be the difference between them being a Wayne Rooney or a Francis Jeffers.

Wenger is a man who builds for the future and the future is certainly bright at Arsenal because of this. Loads of Premiership Clubs have followed suit and the likes of Southampton who made millions from Bale and Walcott alone find themselves in a great financial situation and their team has not got any worse.

Another fantastic night in the Champions League for the British clubs saw Arsenal and Manchester United run rampant and Rangers keep a strong Barcelona side quiet. Arsenal equaled the highest champions league win by beating Slavia Prague 7-0. It took the Gunners just 5 minutes to open the scoring with some great work from Hleb on the left, who picked otu Cesc Fabregas on the edge of the box who then fired home. The second goal came midway through the first half when the ball bounced around the box after an Arsenal corner and Hleb picked up the loose ball and thumped it in off the Slavia defender, Hubacek. Theo Walcott who got his first start for Arsenal in the champions league when he picked up the ball from a miscontrol by the Slavia goal keeper, Vaniak and kept his cool to make it 3-0 at half time. Arsenal got 4 more in the second half with Hleb getting a deserved goal after turning his man in the box and slotting the ball in at the near post. Walcott then got his second when he was set up by Hleb who played a blinder. Walcott then finished at the highest level to make it 5-0. It was a finish that reminded many of Thierry Henry. Fabregas also got his second of the night just moments later. Arsenal were defending a corner and within moments the ball was in Slavia’s net. This goal really was a typical Arsenal move and was pure brilliance and just typical quick one touch football from Arsenal. The move was capped off with a nice pass by Walcott straight to Cesc who finished well. Slavia had a couple of good shots well saved by Almunia but in the last minute Bendtner who had earlier came on as a sub alongside Gilberto and Rosicky made it 7 when he squeezed the ball past the Slavia keeper and tapped in from a yard.

Manchester United put 4 past Dynamo Kiev away from home. Rio Ferdinand made it two in two when he headed the ball in after 10 minutes. Wayne Rooney scored easily from a few yards to make it 2-0 but Kiev hit back when Rincon headed in from Correa’s corner kick. Manchester United did not sit back though and Giggs delivered a perfect cross to Ronaldo who scored a rare header. Ronaldo got his second of the night when Gavrancic handled in the area. Ronaldo stepped up coolly to slot the spot kick away to make it 4-1. Man Utd will be disappointed to have conceded again but they couldn’t do anything about Bangoura’s sweetly struck strike which made it 4-2.

Rangers faced their toughest test yet when they hosted Barcelona at Ibrox. In a game with few clear cut chances Ronaldinho came the closest to scoring for Barcelona when his long ranged effort was tipped onto the crossbar and Lionel Messi also came close when his shot was cleared off the line. Daniel Cousin and Barry Ferguson both also came close for Rangers but they wont be too disappointed with a point from this one. They are in a good position after 3 games and will be hoping to qualify from this group.

Norwich City 1 - 3 Bristol City

There has certainly been mixed fortunes for Norwich City and Bristol City this season. Norwich City had struggled under Peter Grant who has now left the club and this was the first game for caretaker manager Jim Duffy and new loan signing John Hartson. Bristol City on the other hand were expected to go straight back down by most people but have found themselves amongst the big boys in the top of the table. Norwich City had hoped that their league places count for nothing before the game and Norwich City were by far the better team in the first half and created many chances in the first ten minutes alone. Norwich came close after just 3 minutes when some nice play between Otsemobor and Huckerby on the right saw the ball played into the feet of Russell on the edge of the area, his clever back-heel found Strihavka, whose touch fell into the path of Hartson 15 yards out. The 32-year-old’s first touch got the ball out of his feet, and he sent in a low right foot shot which ‘keeper Adriano Basso got down well to push away for a corner. Two minutes later Hartson had a shot from 25 yards that Basso saved well. And from the resulting corner the striker made it a hat-trick of near-misses, powering a header from Lappin’s kick just inches wide. The Canaries were piling on the pressure inside the Bristol box, and on eight minutes another chance went begging. Again Hartson was at the centre of things, chesting a cross from Lappin down into the stride of Drury who had stayed up from a previous attack but he blasted over from 8 yards. Bristol City only came close once in the first half when a shot from McAllister looked to be creeping in but Marshall saved well.

The Canaries tested Basso again on 19 minutes, Russell unleashing a left-foot shot from the edge of the box which the ‘keeper again looked less than comfortable with as he palmed it down in front of him. Fortunately for him, his defence were alert to the danger before Hartson could reach the rebound. There was a moment of concern for City fans on 24 minutes when Drury hit the deck clutching his right knee in pain after coming off worse in a 50-50 challenge on the halfway line. Drury couldn’t continue and had to be replaced by Michael Spillane with Murray going to left back. In the 35th minute Marshall comfortably collected a deep cross from the right before throwing the ball to Huckerby in space on the right. There were many occasions when Huckerby has plenty of space on the right but this one of the few occasions he was picked up and it almost paid off when he darted over the halfway line and found Otsemobor on the overlap. He pinged in a first time cross to the near post where Strihavka was sliding in. But visiting captain Louis Carey had read the danger, jumping in to block on the right corner of the six-yard box. Norwich later won a free kick about 45 yards out and Simon Lappin produced a trademark dipping free kick to the far post, but Hartson could not make a strong enough connection, with the ball finishing behind for a goal kick and the striker dropping to his knees in disappointment.

Norwich were forced to pay for not taking their chances in the second half when within minutes Bristol City took the lead. Ivan Sproule took on Murray and sent in a good ball from the left which McIndoe headed passed Marshall who looked to have got fingers too it. Bristol City almost made it 2-0 when David Noble pulled a chance horribly wide of the far post when unmarked less than 10 yards out. Duffy changed things around after 68 minutes with Croft replacing Murray. This saw Lappin move to left-back, with Huckerby going wide left and Croft taking up his usual position on the right flank. On 70 minutes the change almost led to the equaliser. Croft picked up the ball wide right before playing a ball into Otsemobor’s path who was overlapping. He got to the by-line and fizzed a cross across the six-yard box. Strihavka came diving in, but Carey read the danger, just managing to flick the ball away from the Czech forward. Three minutes later and Hartson produced a smart turn from Otsemobor’s cross, but his low shot was straight at Basso from 10 yards out. He did well to create the chance for himself but he really should have done better with the finish. Hartson again had a chance when he headed wide from a Lappin corner but that was to be the end of his chances as he was taken off and replaced for Chris Martin.

A goal finally came for Norwich City when Darren Huckery made a great run from the left and into the box to blast the ball past Basso to make it 1-1. But it was only 5 minutes until Bristol City were back in the lead. Murray took a pot shot from about 30 yards which Marshall didn’t expect. It hit his left hand post before trickling across and finally over the line. It was a soft goal and very harsh on Norwich who had tried so hard to get the match back level. Bristol City were not finished though. In the final minute Lee Trundle found himself through on the right and smartly finished to make it 3-1.

So Bristol City are now second and Norwich are second from bottom. A new manager is needed fast for Norwich who need to take positives from the game. Overall they were the better team but they need to take their chances. If they had done it might have been a different story altogether.

I was quite surprised to read about Paul Ince commenting about his teams lack of killer instinct after they beat Lincoln 4-0 to go 3 points clear at the top of Two. Paul Ince had this to say:

“The first half was fantastic and we created enough chances to win two games but we had too many headers where we didn’t make the keeper work,” he said.

“Second half I didn’t think we were as good but once we got the second goal there was only going to be one winner.

“You need to kill games off. We did it the hard way this time because we did not put them to bed in the first half.”

It is nice to kill of teams in the first half and have an easy second half like England did against Estonia but when the final score is 4-0 you shouldn’t really have any complaints whether you score all 4 in the first 45 minutes or the last. The fact of the matter is that you walked out 4-0 winners and are top of the league. Still it’s better to pick faults at a team that is doing well than to praise a team who are poor. Just ask Nigel Worthington.

England 3 - 0 Estonia

The winning streak continues for England in their European qualifying group ahead of the big game away to Russia on Wednesday. It was important that England keep the pace by beating the Estonians and they did just that. It only took 11 minutes for England to take the lead when great play down the right between Shaun Wright-Phillips and Micah Richards saw Richards release Wright-Phillips into space in the box which he ran into and fired a shot between Mart Pooms legs.  Michael Owen later found himself one on one with Poom only for the flag to go up wrongfully but Poom saved well anyway.

The scoreline was doubled when Joe Cole found Rooney from the left and Rooney made a yard for himself just outside the box to fire a shot and hard past Poom and replays show that the shot took the tiniest of deflections on the way in. The score was 3-0 moments later from a bizarre own goal by Rahm. Ashley Cole whipped in the ball from the left and Rahm powered a header off his own post and in from about 18 yards. There were very few other chances in the first half. The only close one was a lob from Rooney that was just over the bar.

At half time Jolean Lescott made his England debut when he came on for Rio Ferdinand who was saved for Wednesday match as he was only one yellow away from a suspension. Ashley Cole who was in the same situation also came off but that was because of an ankle injury which hopefully won’t see him miss Wednesdays match with Russia. Lescott was moved to the left hand side of defence which is where he may find himself playing against Russia if Ashley Cole isn’t fit.

Michael Owen again had another close offside call which Poom also managed to save well from. Frank Lampard found himself back in the England frame when he came on as a sub for Michael Owen. The last 20 minutes of the game didn’t see much in terms of chances. England were happy to just keep the ball while Estonia had a couple of half chances but really didn’t do much at all. England could have made it four in the last minute when Gerrard and Joe Cole found themselves breaking away against the last defender but Gerrard unselfishly passed to Cole when he should have took the shot on himself and nothing came of the move. Joe Cole also had a chance himself but his shot went across the goal and wide.

So the 5^th 3-0 win a row for England sees them in a great position to qualify for Euro 2008.

Norwich City are having a terrible run at the moment. Defeats to then bottom team Sheffield Wednesday and now to current bottom team QPR were pretty much the icing on the cake for manager Peter Grant who has now quit the club which has really only left him a tiny bit of dignity because sooner or later he would have got sacked anyway. Norwich find themselves in the relegation zone with only 8 points from 10 games. Financially they are also in a bad way after their profits fell from £2.4m to just £100,000. To add even more bad news to Norwich City fans there were some reports today that Delia Smith is quit as main director of the club and sell all her shares. I wouldn’t blame her at this moment in time. The future really does look bleak for the club at the moment. The only way to pick themselves up is to get in a higher profile manager to give the fans and players a lift. Just look at what Roy Keane did last year at Sunderland, and although Norwich don’t have the funds that he had he still got the club back to winning ways before he chance to spend much. Let’s hope someone such as Warnock is up to the challenge as he could be just the guy to give the Canaries a boost but I can’t him wanting the job to be honest.

The group stages have been drawn and Bolton find themselves meeting Bayern Munich in their group. Bolton, who have been struggling under Sammy Lee face their biggest test yet when the two clubs meet. It will certainly be a tasty tie and there are a few more in the group draw. Everton face tough games against Zenit St Petersburg and AZ Alkmaar while Fiorentina have been drawn in the same group as Villarreal. Tottenham will be happy with their group with Anderlecht their main threat. When Scotland got drawn in their Euro Qualifying group and Rangers got drawn in their Champions League group I described them both as the group of death and both have been in fine form recently in their groups so I will tempt fate again as say that Aberdeen are also in the group of death which includes Panathinaikos, Lokomotiv Moscow and Atletico Madrid.

Here is the full draw.

Group A
AZ Alkmaar
Zenit St Petersburg
EVERTON
Nuremburg
Larissa

Group B
Panathinaikos
Lokomotiv Moscow
Atletico Madrid
Copenhagen
ABERDEEN

Group C
Villarreal
AEK Athens
Fiorentina
Mlada Boleslav
Elfsborg

Group D
Basle
Hamburg
Stade Rennais
Dinamo Zagreb
Brann

Group E
Bayer Leverkusen
Sparta Prague
Spartak Moscow
Toulouse
FC Zurich

Group F
Bayern Munich
BOLTON
Braga
Red Star Belgrade
Aris Thessaloniki

Group G
Anderlecht
TOTTENHAM
Getafe
Hapoel Tel-Aviv
Aalborg

Group H
Bordeaux
Austria Vienna
Galatasaray
Panionios
Helsingsborgs

So the president of Fifa, Sepp Blatter wants there to be a limit of the amount of foreign players in every teams starting XI. Personally I think this is a joke. Does he honestly think this is the answer to the problem that national teams like England are shit? Just because teams like Arsenal and Man City etc have loads of foreigners in their starting XI doesn’t mean that they are stopping English players from getting their chance. Ashley Cole was a fantastic left back for Arsenal and he got into a team of foreigners because he was good enough. Simple as that. Justin Hoyte who is also English is not good enough to break into the team at the moment and enforcing this restriction and making players like him play in Arsenals first XI is almost like forcing Real Madrid to buy Hoyte and play him even though he is not good enough.

Arsenal will suffer like a lot of clubs if this rule was to be enforced. Arsenal only have a lot of foreigners because they are cheap to purchase and are dedicated and not money hungry like Ashley Cole was. They are willing to work hard and learn and some of them become superstars such as Fabregas who was a free purchase for Arsene Wenger and he is already a league above the likes of Carrick who cost a cool £20m. No wonder Arsenal are the richest club in the country. If Arsenal were forced to play the likes of Hoyte, Walcott, Randall and co on a weekly basis then they will find it harder. They might have to spend £10m+ per player to bring in more flops like Jeffers who can embarrass the team and never get in the England squad which results in nothing actually changing for the national team.

So if plenty of foreign players are willing to come over here and make an honest career and some of them are successes then why can’t young English players play abroad and make a name for themselves there instead like hargreaves did? Apart from Beckham we boast a whole Squad of players who play in England. How many of the top countries can boast that?

Brazil are a great team yet they have a handful of players at Barca or Madrid yet there are now no Englishmen at those top clubs simply because they are not good enough. This has nothing to do with the amount of foreigners in the Premiership and if you think the amount of Englishmen playing at our top clubs is the reason why England are poor at times then you are short sighted. We basically have 4 top clubs to choose our top players from whereas Brazil can choose players from our top 4, Spain’s top clubs, Italy’s top clubs etc. The answer may be getting more Englishmen playing in top leagues and for top clubs if they cannot make it over here. Hargreaves is a prime example that if an Englishman is good enough he will make it at whatever club he plays for and in whatever country. If they are good enough to succeed then they will and if they are not then they wont, regardless of the amount of foreigner players around them.

Is there some kind of super pill that all Scots are taking at the moment? First their national team beat France home and away in their European qualifying group and are currently sitting at the top of it, despite World champions Italy also being in that group, then Rangers beat German champions Stuttgart and French champions Lyon and now Celtic have joined in by beating European champions AC Milan 2-1 in a game that will mainly be remembered for Dida’s slapstick antics in the dying moments (or maybe his dying moments) after a fan ran on the pitch and… well watch the highlights and enjoy.

Lyon 0 - 3 Rangers

Well I have said a few times that Rangers are in the group of death yet here we are after 2 of the 6 games and Rangers are joint top after winning them both and if I had put a few quid on them beating Lyon 3-0 away from home I would have got a very good return indeed. I am still not 100% convinced that they will get out of this group but 3rd place and a Uefa Cup spot seems almost certain already. Rangers went in at half time 1-0 when Lee McCulloch thundered in a header from DaMarcus Beasley’s corner after 23 minutes. Just before the break Lyon won a free kick which Juninho smashed against the crossbar.

Juninho nearly scored again just after the break but his shot was just wide of the mark. Rangers then doubled their advantage with a breakaway with Hutton who picked out Cousin after a great run. Cousin then turned his marker and fired his shot past the Lyon goalkeeper, Remy Vercoutre. Moments later it was 3-0 when DaMarcus Beasley ran onto a long ball from Cousin and then calmly slotted in his shot.

Lyon kept on pressing but couldn’t find a breakthrough and in the last 20 minutes they hit the woodword twice when Juninho hit the post from his long range effort and Beraldo had a header hit the crossbar. This win leaves Rangers in a good position to qualify and they ideally need about 4 more points from 4 games which I think they can get but half of them games are against Barcelona and even on this form rangers will find them very hard to match.