EPL Talk » Manchester City

Benitez Cannot Buckle Under Pressure

Paul Bestall — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:05:21 +0000

“It is difficult for us to qualify, but not impossible,We have to win our game and see what happens with Fiorentina and Lyon. Then we will approach the last game.” Benitez has certainly fought his corner today after the galling last minute equaliser Liverpool conceded in the Stade Gerland last night. Of course, the nay sayers and doom merchants are already drafting Rafa’s last rites as the promise of last season seems already consigned to the dustbin by mid November.

Even Liverpool’s most feverish critics must be surprised how quickly the wheels have fallen off this season. 5 league defeats, knocked out of the League Cup and facing demotion to the Europa League have seen Benitez under the most pressure he’s ever faced during his tenure at Anfield. With the financial situation at Liverpool as tight as it can be, the key achievement for Liverpool to aim for this season is to finish in the top 4 in the Premier League.

Of course, Lyon may win in Florence in 3 weeks time and Liverpool could win the last two games, making sure they beat Fiorentina by 3 clear goals to finish second, but it’s a straw that is swaying away from Benitez. With Torres still carrying a groin injury, Gerrard injured for who knows how long and Carragher having his ropiest period in a Liverpool shirt, the Reds 3 key players are all suffering in one form or another.

During the summer, all the predictions pointed to that it would be Arsenal who would be the one side in the big four that would be the most nervous about retaining their place at the Premiership’s top table. With Manchester City, Tottenham, Aston Villa and Everton all waiting to pounce, no-one considered that Liverpool would be the one with the most to lose.

Without the stadium revenue that Manchester United and Arsenal can pull and without the billionaire sugar daddies that Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham can call on, the financial rewards that the Champions League has to offer is crucial to Liverpool’s continued success. They NEED to be in Champions League to continue progressing, regardless of reputation, Manchester City have already shown money can attract players above their current station.

Yet Liverpool will not find it any easier and by December 13th they could be staring up at the top four and hoping that they can find a vein of form that has so far eluded them this season. They’ve failed to beat every decent side they’ve played this season, with the exception of Manchester United two weeks ago and that in itself is a worrying trend. With massive matches against Manchester City, Everton, Fiorentina and Arsenal in the next five weeks, something needs to sorted and quickly.

Of course, Benitez has a position of strength in the fact that he signed a 5 year contract in March this year and Liverpool’s finances would tend to support the argument that the club can’t afford to sack him. Liverpool fans tend to support their manager through thick or thin, only Graeme Souness lost the fans in the last 30 years and at the moment the attention for the fans frustration is the owners.

Chelsea sacked Scolari when the club were fourth, 7 points behind Manchester United. Liverpool are currently 6th, 9 points behind and whilst we may assume what Hicks and Gillett do, would it surprised anyone if they pressed the panic button? Unfortunately not. Trouble is, they may call on Jurgen Klinsmann, which shows just how little about club football they actually know.

British Journalists Have a Lousy Deal, and the Fans Suffer for It

Eric Altshule — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:03:28 +0000

I once read about a British sports journalist’s amazement at the access that American sportswriters had. The British writer was visiting Chicago and asked to tag along with the Sun Times reporter who covered the Bulls. First, he went to a Bulls practice, and after the practice was over, the Chicago reporter ambled up to Scottie Pipen and Phil Jackson and asked a few questions. Then they went to the game, and afterward walked straight into the Bulls’ locker room. There, the Sun Times scribe spent five minutes with Michael Jordan getting his thoughts on the game while Jordan dressed. He asked Jackson a few more questions, and then went upstairs to the office that the Bulls provide to reporters so he could finish writing his story.

Does that sound amazing to you? To Americans used to reading their daily sports section, it sounds as remarkable as finding popcorn in a movie theater. To the Brit, it was flabbergasting. The writer explained that he could go an entire season without once being able to ask a major soccer star a question. Outside of a manager’s weekly news conference and the quotes that are broadcast in the banal two-minute interview that happens after a game, he rarely has the opportunity to talk directly to the star players he covers, let alone the ability to get their insights after each game.

American sports journalists have a simple arrangement with the teams they cover. Journalists are allowed in the locker room after the games and can ask as many questions as they want. If a baseball relief pitcher blows an important game and is in no mood to talk, they are still obligated to answer questions until the reporters have the quotes and insights they need. In exchange, sports reports have to report the news. Like any other journalist, they have to source their stories, provide context to their reporting, and cannot make up falsehoods just to increase their readership.

As a consequence, American sports consumers have access to an amazing amount of behind the scenes information and insights. An American sports fan can read stories about far more than what happens on the field – stories about how the personalities interact, how the team prepares, and how the organization may be planning for the future.

British sports fans are comparatively left out in the cold. Teams control strict access to the players, who in turn will sell the rights to a few interviews a year to one of the major papers in England. Daily sports journalists are left in the stands, watching the same game as the rest of us, and forced to write up an article with no more information than what the rest of us have already seen with our own eyes.

Before last week’s North London Derby, Tottenham’s Robbie Keane was one of the few personalities from either Spurs or Arsenal to answer a question about the game to a reporter. His trite comments about how Spurs may have the deeper team were regurgitated by every major London paper for several days. Compare that to a rather ordinary article on the LA Galaxy – Chivas game that appeared in the New York Times. The article quoted four different players along with Galaxy coach Bruce Arena, and gave the reader a detailed sense of the level of admiration and conflict between the two teams.

Because the British reporters have so little access, they end up writing a lot of stories that have little relationship with the truth. This is especially true when the transfer window is open, and articles pop up full of tripe detailing how every star player is headed out the door and around the bend. Without access, sources or official quotes, journalists have no choice but to report rumors as fact in order to fill their copy space. From the reader’s perspective, they can either read these fictions or chuck the whole sports section in the trash.

This has created a vicious cycle between the British press and the teams. In the absence of access to their subject matter, the journalists write all manners of compost, so the teams do not take the press seriously. They see no reason to work with the writers to give them access, so the writers are forced to fill their fishwrapper with even more guano.

I personally experienced this last week while I was researching my article on how Arsenal scouts for future players. I came across the story of Danny Karbassiyoon, the only American who has ever scored for the Arsenal senior team (see him receive the pass from Fabregas and slot it home against Man City in this clip). After a knee injury destroyed his career, Karbassiyoon became Arsenal’s full-time scout in North America. Sounds like an interesting guy with a lot to say to American fans of the EPL! When I e-mailed the Arsenal press office asking for an interview for a podcast, despite Arsenal’s desire to reach out to American audiences, I was summarily turned down. They simply could not be bothered.

The mystery of all of this is that, with a ravenous press population eager to promote their product and a worldwide audience ready to consume every nuance and tidbit, why do teams deny access with such militancy? As Americans learn more about how wonderful a game soccer is, perhaps the Brits can learn something from Americans about how to better market their product.

Hughes, We Have A Problem (Birmingham v Man City)

Phil McThomas — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:20:47 +0000

Is anyone else starting to get a little nervous for the Man City “project”?

I was thrilled by the way the team were playing for the first two months of the season. They were incisive, dashing, and had a swagger about them that said “we can do this”. As sure as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, a handful of early victories doesn’t define a season.

Managers get a lot of stick for events that are far beyond their control, but in this situation, I’m going to point the finger at Mark Hughes – and here’s why:

To me, the manager’s job is to prepare their team to give them the best possible chance to win. He can’t be held responsible for missed penalties, idiotic red cards, or heroics from the opponent’s goalie. But when I see a team that doesn’t seem motivated and that doesn’t seem to have a plan of attack, I’m holding the manager responsible.

The four consecutive winnable games that Man City have let pass them by goes beyond bad luck or coincidence. They’re in a rut, and it’s up to Sparky to break them out of it. He needs to figure out who is going to drive their team to victory, and how to go about doing it.

The league table pays a false compliment to City at the moment. I’m happy that they’re in the top-four, but they’ve lost all momentum and they won’t by worrying the likes of Man Utd or Chelsea. Hopefully they can regain their mojo and give the old guard a serious run for their money.

Sort it out, Hughesy!

–

Phil McThomas runs the one-of-a-kind football news site over at CleverFootball.com – a bit like NewsNow, but with a giant computer brain that figures out what the hot stories of the day are. Check out the dedicated team pages – for example, all the Man City news is here. Phil also does Twitter as @soccershout – give him a follow!

Could Liverpool Miss Out On A Top 4 Finish?

footballnewsblog — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:26:06 +0000

A lot has been made of Liverpool’s recent dip in form with the team looking a shadow of the side that we saw last year. Liverpool lost key personnel most notably in the form of Alonso with his replacement Aquilani yet to take the field in a Liverpool shirt.

Key players Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard have both missed games this season and the lack of suitable back up players for Liverpool seems to be evident at the moment. It is obviously not going to be easy to replace players of this quality like for like because the reality is that players of that quality are not that easy to find, not very cheap and wouldn’t sit on the sidelines as a back up. However the lack of depth in the squad does appear to be hurting them at the moment.

We are only in October and Liverpool have already lost more games that they did last season but the reality is that all of the top teams look like dropping points this season which will open the league up a bit more and means that the early defeats suffered by Liverpool may in fact not prove to be fatal.

This though obviously assumes that Liverpool can stop the slide, with a match against Manchester United not exactly being the game you would have wished for when your top players are potentially missing and the side is lacking confidence.

At the moment Liverpool are not completely out of the title race although it will certainly be an uphill struggle for them but with the rise of Spurs and Manchester City is it possible that Liverpool could miss out on finishing in the top 4?

Looking at the form of Liverpool last year it would have been unthinkable that this could be a consideration but at the moment they look vulnerable and if Man City and Spurs can maintain their momentum, which is must be said has not been proved yet, Liverpool could be fighting for a Europa league spot instead of a Champions League spot.

Personally I think that Liverpool will get their act together and will most likely get the 4^th spot as I don’t see Spurs having the staying power and if Man City lose any key players to injury they too could be short but what do you guys think?

Written by Danny Watson a Sports writer who also blogs about football kits.

Are The European Playoff Seeds Fair?

Jesse Chula — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:23:13 +0000

Supporters of various national teams across the globe are already packing their bags, updating their passports & booking flights to South Africa for next Summer’s World Cup Finals. With their beloved nation’s automatic qualification secure, they’ve only the stress-free decision of which player’s replica kit their going to wear during their teams opening match left to decide. Ahh’ the bliss of yet another major tournament qualification under your belt & the return of club football (thank God), what could be better?

But not every supporter of International football will share the same feelings as those of the supporters of England, U.S.A., Brazil, Italy, Germany & hey, even Argentina (to name a few). What becomes of the frowning countries set to compete in Europe’s 2nd place playoffs? – more specifically, FIFA’s recent controversial decision to seed all 8 of the remaining countries. Of course what this means for “smaller” nations is the likeliness they’ll face a historically “bigger” nation in their quest for glory in South Africa.

Recently, Ireland International & Manchester City shot-stopper-extraordinaire Shay Given lambasted FIFA for their convenient, late decision to” nudge” some of the struggling giants into the Finals.

“I think it’s pretty disgusting to be honest. Before a ball is kicked, these things should be made clear”.

“The smaller nations should maybe put up more of a fight because it is not fair”.

Does Given have a point?

As it stands, the remaining 8 countries are as follows:

Portugal, Greece, Slovenia, Russia, Bosnia, Ukraine, France & Ireland.

In my estimation, the top seeds will probably be awarded to France, Portugal, Russia & Greece (Greece could get a seed in my opinion due to their success in Euro 2004), with maybe Ukraine sneaking in at the behest of either Russia or Greece.

Now that we know who’s involved, is this process remotely fair? Does Given have a point in his remarks? As an England supporter, I had to endure their abysmal failure during Euro 2008 qualification & the subsequent tournament without my beloved 3 Lions. Why? Because they weren’t good enough. All teams involved have the same amount of opportunities to gain points throughout the qualification process without favoritism coming into play. Euro 2008 ended up being an incredible display of attacking football & each match I watched was a footballing joy. England are now a better team for all their past failures. The point in this is that if you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough. Plain & simple.

Now I realize what you’re thinking, & yes you’re right. These teams were good enough (for 2nd place) & deserve their shot. I agree, but why not let all 2nd place teams be equal? Why separate them & show favor to bigger footballing nations? Given is right in my opinion. A World Cup without Cristiano Ronaldo is a travesty, I get that. But a World Cup without an Ireland or Bosnia because other teams were shown favoritism is equally wrong. How epic would a 2-leg playoff affair between France & Portugal be for neutral football fans? Imagine that! All the marbles are on the line with 2 very successful footballing nations giving everything they’ve got to reach the Finals. It’s unfortunate, but we’ll probably never get to experience it.

What are your thoughts? Take a second to leave an answer below & we’ll see what the brilliant readers of EPL Talk think about it. Enjoy your football.