EPL Talk » Blackburn Rovers

Newcastle United Begin To Make Excuses Already

Paul Bestall — Mon, 18 May 2009 18:48:20 +0000

Why do managers always complain about opponents resting players on the last game of the season? Alan Shearer became the latest to ignore 37 games in a season when he admitted he was worried that Manchester United and Chelsea will rest players for the last round of Premiership matches. Yes they’re playing Hull City and Sunderland, Newcastle’s relegation rivals, but the Geordies aren’t 3rd bottom out of bad luck.

They’ve been dreadful all season, in fact it’s a miracle they’ve managed to take it to the final game. Forget Middlesbrough and Southgate’s insipid “it’s not impossible” comments over the weekend. Boro are down and Southgate has to hold his hands up and take the blame, completely out of his depth, Saturday’s crowd of 27,621 said it all about how the Boro fans felt towards him. There is one place left in the relegation battle and it’s going to come down to one of 3 teams, Hull City, Newcastle United and Sunderland.

Surely Shearer must realise how foolish he sounds, clutching at straws after Newcastle’s worst season since 1988-1989, which also saw them relegated out of the top flight. Manchester United could play 11 clowns against Hull City and lose, but it won’t cover up the fact that Newcastle have been dreadful all season. By saying he’s worried about who United pick on Sunday, it just sounds a little bit silly. They’ve a Champions League final 3 days later, they’ve won the Premiership again, so why not let a few squad players have a run out. It’s not like they’re going to play 11 players who will be making their debuts in the Premiership is it.

The conspiracy theorists are already unpicking the relationship between Sir Alex Ferguson and Phil Brown, looking at the fact they actually are good friends and Ferguson helped Brown get the managers job at Derby County. That Shearer turned Ferguson down twice as a player, that another of Fergie’s mates, Sam Allardyce, also Phil Browns mentor, was crudely booted out by Newcastle United. Add in to that the derision that Manchester United fans have towards Newcastle and Shearer’s media friends are having a field day.

All this seems to miss out the fact that Newcastle will still have to get something out of Sunday’s game, have won 2 games in 19 and only taken 12 points this year. After beating Middlesbrough last week, they returned to form by losing to Fulham, who are 7th. Some fans were disgusted they could have lost to Fulham, but I suggest they look at the league table.You’ve won two home games in 6 months Newcastle, so how they thought they’ve beat high flying Fulham is beyond me. Yet they travel to Aston Villa, a side managed by one of Alan’s buddies, who are dreadful form themselves. Will Shearer be complaining if Villa field a weakened side? Of course he won’t but his supporters in the media will overlook that fact.

By beginning to make excuses already, Shearer is perhaps readying the fans for Sunday and the underlying fact that relegation is 90 minutes away. A win on the road is something Newcastle can just about remember, but they’ve only done it twice this season, at Portsmouth and at West Bromwich. Forget the conspiracy theories, this is a side who have only beaten the two teams below them this year.

A side that goes into Sunday’s game with 3 defenders, a club with only one left back who’s injured, with no players who’s contracts includes terms for wage reductions if they’re relegated, a side with a midfielder so dislikable even his reflection looks away.With no real sell-able playing assets, no bright youth system and the transfer kitty looking empty already, relegation could destroy Newcastle United.

The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter who plays in the last game of the season, it’s how you’ve done over 38 games, not the last one. Newcastle may yet stay up, but if they don’t, it’s because they’ve not been good enough over the whole season and not Sundays final 90 minutes.

Bolton Wanderers Push For Two Tier Premiership

Paul Bestall — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 10:20:38 +0000

Well interesting news has appeared this morning as Bolton chairman, Phil Gartside’s has put forward a proposal to increase the Premiership to two leagues of 18 teams with 14 clubs from the Championship and Rangers and Celtic. The proposal is to be put before the Premier League at their meeting this Thursday and it raises some interesting points. Gartside cites a wider audience with the addition of Scottish clubs, fresher players as 4 games a season would be cut from the league campaign and the old chestnut of benefiting the England national side. You know, the reason that the Premiership was set up for in the first place. The amount of International trophies that England have won since 1992 is simply staggering isn’t it?

Firstly, the addition of Rangers and Celtic to the Premier League has long been mooted as a situation of when rather than how but to get there they need the permission of the Scottish FA, The Football League, The Premier League and the biggest obstacle, UEFA. Now UEFA, when they’re not attacking the Premier League in thinly veiled xenophobic attacks, claim that no club should be able to play in a league outside their own country. That would be fine if the precedent wasn’t already in place.

With Platini being a Frenchmen, you’d think he’d know that his arguement is flawed, or can he not remember where Monaco is? What about Cardiff City, Swansea City, Wrexham, Colwyn Bay, Newport County and Methyr Tydfil, all members of the English pyramid system but all Welsh clubs. Technically, Barcelona, Espanyol and Valencia play in the Spanish League but are based in Catalonia and Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao represent the Basque region. UEFA may push the point but they’re argument is already flawed by the teams mentioned above.

To get the motion passed, 14 clubs need to vote in agreement on the proposal, which is where I think the issue may fall down. Can we honestly see The Premierships big four, plus Aston Villa, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City voting for less money? Whilst the games would reduce, so would the money, but then again, for teams that drop out of the Premiership or face the real possibility of relegation, would you rather get £30 million a year than the current two year parachute payments of £11.5 million that clubs currently get.

The other worrying issue is how would the remaining 14 places be decided? Would it be a straight situation of the top 14 sides out of the Championship? What if some of the larger sides miss out due to league position when the cut off is made. If it happened tomorrow there would be some famous names missing out again, but then again what about Leicester City and Leeds United?

When the Premier League began, way back in the 1992-1993 season, Notts County and Luton Town, both missed out due to relegation but had resigned their memberships from the Football League in 1991 when the plan was concluded. Ironically, neither has ever returned to the top tier since, Luton Town in fact have just been relegated out of the Football League, due to a draconian points deduction that didn’t penalise the perpetrators, just the club.

What would happen if clubs resigned their membership from the Football League, only to finish outside the 14 team cut off. Or worryingly, would the Premier League court the 14 biggest clubs not in the Premiership to make up the new league? What would happen to the Football League and the Football Conference? Why only have Rangers and Celtic, when you could argue Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen could therotically add more to the mix than Burnley?

That would be a worrying event, which could lead to a dangerous precedent. Why not simply block clubs from promotion if they weren’t “big” enough? If they didn’t sell enough merchandise or their viewing figures deemed not large enough. Would the Premier League finally become the monster that some people always feared it would and simply banish relegation from it and have caveats for promotion. When I first read about the proposal this morning, I was sure it would fail. Now, I’m not so sure, in football, nothing surprises me when money is involved.

Samba Saves Blackburn Blushes

Johnathan Starling — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 05:17:48 +0000

Blackburn Rovers have to consider themselves fortunate they are looking at a Ricoh Arena replay instead of losing in front of the most faithful of the faithful at Ewood Park.

After Roque Santa Cruz put Blackburn ahead inside of ninety seconds, two second half goals from the Sky Blues should have been enough. But the man who deflected Michael Doyle’s shot to give Coventry the lead saved Blackburn the embarrassment of losing to the mid-table Championship outfit.

Let’s be honest, the football on offer wasn’t all that great. Coventry made this a scrappy affair after going down a goal and the results were well deserved. About the only decent things on offer at Ewood park were the goals of Roque Santa Cruz and Aron Gunnarsson, Gunnarsson’s a thing of beauty. But let’s get down to the defining moments of this match.

1) Blackburn’s two disallowed goals. The first one is hard to decipher, but Steve Tanner was in the right position at the right time to see Gael Givet’s shirt tug on Scott Dann. While Allardyce can complain about the legleslation used in giving the foul, Tanner was well within the laws of the game to call it. McCarthy’s disallowed goal for offsides was off by a mile.

2) Christopher Samba’s equalizer. You hate to blame a keeper who was called into action just minutes before kickoff, but this one is all on Andy Marshall. He should have fielded that ball safely but instead of catching it, saw it bounce off the chest. He catches the ball, Coventry are in the quarter finals. Coventry’s back four who had defended so well in the initial ninety minutes were left out on an island in injury time as they simply lost all their shape. Nice make up after helping concede Coventry’s second goal.

3) The refereeing of Steve Tanner. People say we don’t praise referees when they have a good day. Steve Tanner had a great day at the office. He and his officials got all the big calls right and while Allardyce maybe complaining, he should be doing more complaining with regards to Blackburn’s second half performance than about one call that Tanner got right.

The five thousand Coventry City fans made the faithful Blackburn few sound mute. It makes you realize what is more important to those fans. Chris Coleman should fancy his side’s chances at home of a quarterfinal draw, but they will lamenting the one moment of glory that should have been. Blackburn got too big for their britches in the second half, and should have paid the price.

Other Thoughts From Saturday’s FA Cup Action
1) Roberto Martinez needs better forward play. For all the beautiful cutting passes they had against Fulham, there was zero cutting edge in front of goal. Now that could have been because of the brilliant defending Fulham did at marking him out of the game, but if you didn’t know who was playing, could you have known who were the Championship or Premier League side?

2) West Ham United are lucky to have escaped with a 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough.

3) Chelsea are the same old story. Their slogan should be changed to ‘we only play once we go a goal down’. Roman’s fake smile wore extra thin on me and it was nice to see grumpy Guus looking about as somber as Chelsea’s performance truly was.

4) Hull City complaining about Sheffield United’s opener was downright comical. Well taken equalizer though.

5) Five matches, four draws. Could we see a weekend where in seven matches, we have five replays?

Man City Finish Transfer Window Back Where They Started

Matthew Semisch — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:41:25 +0000

When the financial and managerial reins to Manchester City Football Club changed hands early on this season for the second time in fairly quick succession on both fronts, this time with the Blues having instantly catapulted to the top of the world football rich list, everyone’s attention immediately turned to the January transfer window. What already looked a fairly competent side on paper, it was thought, was mere months away from becoming a sure-fire threat to retain its UEFA Cup spot – and not via the Fair Play rule this time.

Fast-forward to the past 30-odd days, and the verdict? Yeah, not so much.

While City did make a handful of sensible moves – Nigel de Jong in from Hamburg and only putting Jo out on loan to Everton being probably the best among them – it appeared at times that the Blues, a club with suddenly more money than they’d know what do with…well, didn’t.

Several bids for Blackburn striker Roque Santa Cruz, one of first-year City manager Mark Hughes’ former charges, were turned down by the Ewood Park club, and who could forget the audacious (and ultimately fruitless) bid in excess of £100 million for AC Milan midfielder Kaká, which Hughes seemed particularly gung-ho about until the very end and which club executive chairman Garry Cook had the gall to accuse the Italian giants of “bottling it” on a deal that would have paid Kaká the obscene sum of £500,000 a week at Eastlands and in turn set a potentially dangerous precedence where footballers’ pay, especially in a global recession, is concerned.

The Kaká narrative is what the January window should (and will) be most remembered by in the blue half of Manchester, especially as, much like with City’s successful bid for Newcastle and Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given, it was one that would have sent the wrong message to those players in the Blues’ current lineup. Throwing the two transfer targets together for the sake of argument, bringing in both Kaká and Given would have been seen as replacements for Stephen Ireland and Joe Hart, arguably City’s two best players so far this season.

The transfer window has left Hart especially unlucky. The 21-year-old keeper has been a rock for City since coming back from loan spells in 2007 at Tranmere Rovers and Blackpool, rarely if ever putting a foot wrong since taking over the starting job at Eastlands. What’s more, Hart is arguably the reason City are still alive in Europe, having made two saves in a penalty shoot-out at the end of the club’s UEFA Cup qualifier at FC Midtjylland back in August, a shoot-out that City really only made it into by accident after a late own-goal from the Danish side gifted City what at the time was a largely undeserved shot at reaching the competition’s first round proper.

Bearing that in mind, while City are bringing in another reliable goalkeeper for what is believed to be in the vicinity of £8 million, something will invariably have to give there. Hart will likely not remain a candidate for a regular spot in the full England squad any time soon if he’s playing the understudy at his club team, and it therefore seems inevitable that either he or third-stringer Kasper Schmeichel – who at one stage looked a solid prospect for an international call-up for Denmark or possibly even England as the Danes haven’t yet capped him – will be on their way out in the summer.

With what we know about what has transpired over the last month and change, then, it’s hard to look at City’s dealings in the transfer window as anything much better than one step forward and one step back. The Blues did manage to shore up a couple of their shortcomings so far this season, but at what cost? City stand to lose one if not two solid goalkeepers come the end of the season on account of lack of first-team playing time, and they’ve loaned out for more or less the same reason a player they had spent a reportedly estimated £19 million on to another Premiership side that’s still in with a shout to be back in the fold for European football again next season.

Then again, if the new signings fail to help steady the ship, how other clubs in the Premier League’s top half are getting on will be the least of City’s worries.

In This Year’s Relegation Battle, No One Is Safe

Dave Warner — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:30:50 +0000

The beauty of the Premier League is that there are always three distinct races within the table, and after 23 rounds of this Premier League season, none of those races are decided.

In the race for first place, only two points separate top-of-the-table Manchester United from Liverpool and Chelsea, while Aston Villa is only three points off the lead. Villa, however, is five points ahead of a struggling Arsenal side in the battle for the fourth place and the final Champions League bid. Only a late goal by Robin Van Persie at Goodison park kept Arsenal five points ahead of Everton for the UEFA Cu… *ahem* Europa League bid.

The real story, however, is the relegation battle, and it would appear this battle is currently being fought by everyone else in the league.

Only five points separates 11th place from 18th place, and the bottom eight clubs are within three points of each other. One win could lift any of the current cellar dwellers three places out of the drop zone, and a couple of losses could put anyone in bottom half of the table in jeopardy.

Even 1oth-place Hull City, the early season Cinderellas, are only 6 points clear and not out of the woods yet. Perhaps this is why Phil Brown made his team sit outside during halftime at Manchester City. He knows as well as anyone that a few more 4-0 halves could put his club right next to West Brom and Stoke City, Hull’s promotion partners, in the drop zone.

Manchester City, meanwhile, is only a point ahead of Hull, and it only took them three wins out of four to get there from 17th place. Plus, if West Ham is unable to find a buyer and goes into administration, 10 points will be deducted from their total, putting them only one point clear of the drop. So that’s as many as 13 clubs out of 2o in danger of being relegated this year.

The end result is that half this weekend’s matches are relegation six-pointers:

Middlesbrough v. Blackburn
Bolton v. Tottenham Hotspur
Fulham v. Portsmouth
Hull v. West Brom
Newcastle v. Sunderland

This probably won’t be the last time this season that we see five relegation six-pointers in one weekend. If Man City slips or if West Ham goes into administration, we could easily see six relegation six-pointers in one weekend.

So if you think you can pick which three clubs will fall back into the fizzy drink mixer at season’s end, chances are you’ll be wrong. This battle is as wide open as it’s ever been, and every goal and every victory will matter that much more. It does beg the question, though — would the Premier League still be as exciting if 13 clubs had a shot at the Champions League right now?