EPL Talk » Celtic

Premier League Say No Again To The Old Firm

Paul Bestall — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:37:02 +0000

Like leaves fall from the trees in Autumn, it seems every year some chairman in the Premier League wants to try and get the Old Firm into it. This time Phil Gartside, the Bolton Chairman once again tried to get the League to agree to invite Rangers and Celtic in to the fold. Thankfully, the request has been voted down. It was described as “not desirable or viable”.

To say this constant speculation regarding the potential involvement of the Old Firm is becoming as tedious as the often mooted European Super League. Gartside, for all his bluster about strengthening the league and increasing the international presence of it, is simply thinking about cash. Adding the Old Firm would add nothing to the league at all and irrevocably damage the Scottish game. Coupled with a request to add a second Premier League simply smacks of self preservation on the Bolton chairman’s behalf and nothing more.

Most English Premier league fans don’t want them, but we get used to our feelings and opinions being completely over ridden when the influence of cash comes in to the equation. Coupled when you see how poorly the Old Firm cope with European football, you have to question what the point would be of adding two poor sides to the mix.

Of course, Rangers and Celtic are desperate for the cash, but Scottish football is its own worst enemy. It has always astounded me how a league with 42 clubs has 4 divisions and they play each other a minimum of 3 times a season. They then split in to play offs with the top half and bottom half playing each other. What a dull and uninteresting format.

Why they don’t have two leagues and play home and away like virtually every other league in the world astounds me. Yet, the answer is obvious when you look into it. Whilst the other Scottish Premier League sides shout down how much power Rangers and Celtic have, they enjoy the additional revenue that potentially two home games against them brings them in. So the league stays unfairly balanced, they all complain about it but continue to keep the status quo.

People like Phil Gartside are so far removed from what fans really want, that they keep bringing these daft ideas to the table. I also read that he wanted an Irish franchise adding as well, which reminded me of the time Wimbledon were thinking of moving to Dublin and ended up moving to Milton Keynes instead, a shameful decision by the authorities to this day.It took MK Dons 7 years to stop using Wimbledons history and correctly allow AFC Wimbledon to have the rights to their real history. I can’t wish anything but the worst of luck to MK Dons for as long as they exist, but that’s another story.

Whilst the idea of franchise sport is nothing new to American fans, to the British it is unthinkable. Quite how they would cope if their team moved such as the Raiders and the Rams moving cities twice would be interesting to see but unthinkable in British sport.It’s certainly not unusual for NFL teams to move, I must admit after a ten year hiatus from NFL, I was stunned to see how many new sides were in the league when I started watching it again in 2003. Unfortunately, The Redskins still can’t beat anyone, so somethings never change.

Also, the recent incidents with trouble involving Rangers fans in Manchester has certainly poisoned most English fans to the idea of welcoming the Ibrox faithful on a regular basis.It would be like a red rag to a bull for some of the more unsavory supporters of Premierships sides. The issues of sectarian chanting, and the potential for major trouble is a real concern. Of course not all the fans partake in such behavior, but it is still there and that is an additional concern.

Rangers and Celtic need to stop courting the Premier League and concentrate on fixing the problems they face in their own back yard. With no Scottish teams at any level in the English football pyramid, the last one, Gretna, showed just how strong Scottish football was, leaving the 7th tier of English football and romping all the way to Scottish Premier League in 3 seasons. Now if that doesn’t concern the Scottish Football Association, nothing will. Scrap the 4 league system, scrap the top/bottom play offs. Have two leagues, 3 up and 3 down and see how quickly the money spreads through the game more.

Arsenal Beat Celtic 2-0 at Celtic Park, All But Assure Champions League Qualification

tyduffy — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:03:21 +0000

Arsenal beat Celtic 2-0 at Celtic Park, all but assuring their qualification for the Champions League group stages, with two away goals. It was not the presiding effort of their 6-1 away win at Everton, but the two deflected goals – from Gallas and Gary Caldwell’s foot – fulfilled the requirement in what was arguably the most important match of the season.

Celtic obviously came into match with an inferior squad. The Scottish Premier League nowhere near equates the English one. Celtic’s biggest signing was £4m Scott Brown. As was mentioned in the telecast, new Celtic manager Tony Mowbray did have experience against Arsene Wenger from his time at West Brom. Unfortunately, said experience was losing to Arsenal with an inferior squad.

The tactics came as no shock. Celtic pressed early to disrupt Arsenal’s passing, with moderate success. When the club tired, they kicked Cesc Fabregas constantly, resulting in two yellow cards and accomplishing nothing but placing him at risk for injury. Fabregas is too savvy to be addled by wanton lunges. Even if the tactic had hampered his effectiveness, Arsenal have four or five players who can create adequately with the increased space from diminished attention.

Wenger again opted for the 4-3-3, using the exact lineup that played against Everton. This time, however, players shifted positions more frequently and both Gallas and Vermaelen attempted runs from the back. This suggests we may be seeing some true total football at the Emirates this year.

Arsenal’s back four, fronted by Song were solid again. Though, they benefitted from Arsenal breaking up plays high up the pitch in both matches. The trio of Alumnia, Vermaelen and Gallas appear confident now. Will this change when they face a team that can down the wings and challenge aerially with crosses?

The weak point for Arsenal was Nicklas Bendtner. He shone with the ball at times against Everton, but against Celtic he was woeful. Whether playing down the right or in the middle, his poor off the ball positioning placed him consistently two steps behind his proper place. He has the technical ability, but does he have the football intelligence?

Theo Walcott should take Bendtner’s place when he returns from injury. Though, if Bendtner remains the fall back plan for the slender shouldered one, that should influence Wenger’s to buy. Could Wenger take Rafael Van Der Vaart off their hands for £6m?

For those tracking other transfers as we approach the deadline, Emmanuel Eboue was not in Arsenal’s squad, leaving that reported £9m move to Fiorentina an option.

What Next For Michael Owen?

Michael Timbury — Fri, 22 May 2009 13:04:21 +0000

With Newcastle teetering over the relegation trap door, skipper Michael Owen will lead a mass exodus at the club, should they fall through it into the Championship on Sunday. With Owen out of contract it is likely that he will leave the club in the summer regardless. The question is where will he go? A number of clubs have reportedly shown interest and being that he is available on a free reduces the risk for anyone willing to take a punt on a striker who is injury prone, but also proven class.

Of the Premiership clubs, Owen has been linked with moves to Aston Villa, Everton, Man City, Tottenham, Arsenal and a return to Liverpool. Rumours emerged last week of a pay as you play deal from Celtic that included massive goal bonuses and then there have been a few smaller cries of offers and interest from abroad. Personally I think moving north of the border at this stage of Owen’s career would be suicide, especially on a pay as you play deal. Owen is too good for the SPL right now and can still achieve a lot at a higher level. Of course the prospect of Champions League football might appeal but it’s not like he’d ever win that particular competition with Celtic.

Aston Villa is a potential destination which may be favourable to Owen as he would have the opportunity to link up with Emile Heskey once more, something that Owen has always prospered from. John Carew is also of the Heskey mould and could provide a similar foil for Owen. Everton may not be the most popular club for Owen to align himself with given his history but could be what it needed to push the Toffees to the next level. These two seem the most likely of choices as Spurs have already got three strikers in the form of Jermain Defoe, Robbie Keane and Darren Bent that can offer what Owen does. Man City are being linked with every Tom, Dick and Jose so their name was destined to crop up on the list of suitors but the actual chances of them signing Owen are slim. Mainly because he wouldn’t cost an outrageous transfer fee and it seems that City don’t deal in the bargain bin anymore.

Arsenal and Liverpool aren’t likely to be interested either. Owen isn’t really the kind of player Arsene Wenger likes (i.e. English), and would rather blood someone like Carlos Vela who, given Arsenal’s tight budget, wouldn’t cost the club anywhere near the amount Owen’s wages would. As for Liverpool, Rafa Benitez is hardly likely to re-sign a player who was shown the door almost immediately after Rafa took over at Anfield. I would like to see Owen try again abroad, although I can understand the player’s reluctance given his stint on the Real Madrid bench in 2004/05. Perhaps Italy would be a more viable option should Owen’s prospects be limited domestically as the Italian style may just suit his game more. Newcastle still remains an option if they stay up and it wouldn’t surprise me if Alan Shearer was to remain as manager, then Owen might just be inclined to stay put.

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.

Defoe Joins The Boomerang Gang

Paul Bestall — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:04:31 +0000

When Jermain Defoe rejoined Tottenham yesterday, he became the newest member of an extremely unique club that has seen it’s membership dwindle over the last few seasons. Very few players rejoin a club they used to play for whilst at the peak of their powers but Defoe returns to Tottenham with his best years ahead of him to join up with Redknapp for the 3rd time in his career. Some players usually return to the home of former glories to wind down their careers but Defoe is not the first player to come back when he still has the skills and the abilities to continue adding to his goalscoring record. To say Spurs fans are happy to see the striker return would be an understatement and I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t start and score on his second Tottenham debut against Wigan Athletic on Sunday. As a long suffering Spurs fan, I never wanted the lad to leave and I’m delighted to have him back at White Hart Lane. It’s not something that is that common these days but as soon as the deal materialised, I began to think about other notable returns in top flight football and two names jumped out straight away.

Ian Rush was the first player that I came across as fan who made the jump back to the club that had sold him when he left Juventus after just over 12 months to rejoin Liverpool in 1988. Rush’s time at Juventus is often not given the credence it deserves, with people viewing it as some kind of failure but whilst he only notched 7 goals in 29 appearances, at the time Serie A was easily the best league in the world and the concentration on the art of defending meant that many a great striker had trouble scoring double figures. As one of the three great top goal poachers playing the First Division back in the 1980’s, Rushie’s status as one of the greats was never in jeopardy on Anfield, but to return and continue scoring goals cemented his place in Anfield folklore.

The other returning hero was Mark Hughes, who left Manchester United to join Barcelona in 1986 but his spell at the Camp Nou was a major disappointment playing alongside Gary Lineker and after Venables was sacked, Hughes was shipped out on loan to Bayern Munich the following season and regained the form that had seen Barca pay £2 million for him at the time with 6 goals in 18 games. The Summer of 1988 saw Alex Ferguson re-sign Hughes for £1.8 million and Sparky won the PFA player of the year award in the 1988-89 season. Hughes’ reputation for United was probably built on his performances after his return from the continent and his performance against Barcelona in the 1991 Cup Winners Cup Final, scoring both of United’s goals in a 2-1 win, would have laid more than just footballing ghosts to rest.

Of course another notable member of the club is David Unsworth, but more for comedy value than anything else. Unsworth had been with Everton before leaving the side to join West Ham United in 1997, but after only one season Unsworth left for Aston Villa and that’s when the problems began. His family had missed being near Merseyside during his spell with the Hammers so wanted to move further North to be closer to their nearest and dearest. Unfortunately, Unsworth declared that he thought Birmingham was 10 minutes away from Liverpool and his unhappy wife kept throwing his dinner in the bin when he got stuck in traffic jams on the drive back up the M6 to their Liverpool home. Within a month of joining Villa, Everton came to his rescue with a £3 million bid to bring him home to warm meals and a happy family. The fact that the day he joined Villa, he found out Everton wanted to re-sign him obviously had nothing to do with the scenes of domestic strife that Unsworth painted to Aston Villa.

Ironically, we’ll finish with a connection to where we started with Harry Redknapp. You may never have heard of a player called Joey Beauchamp, but Redknapp and fans of West Ham United, Swindon Town and Oxford United certainly have. Most Football League players dream of a Premiership move, with the exception of one Joey Beauchamp. Redknapp signed the tricky winger from Oxford United in 1994 for £1.2 million and great things were expected of the player but it all went a little bit surreal when Beauchamp declared he was homesick after two months in London without kicking a ball. The distance of 63 miles or a drive of 1 hour 40 minutes was far too intense for this young man, he requested a transfer to be nearer home and 58 days later the Hammers sold him for £800,000 and defender Adrian Whitbread to Swindon Town, a mere 30 miles away from his beloved Oxford. 12 months later Beauchamp finally made his return to Oxford United for a measly £75,000, a massive loss of investment for Swindon Town and face for Mr Beauchamp. Beauchamp is still playing non-league football for Abington Town who play in the Hellenic League and hopefully the travelling won’t be too much for him.

So Defoe joins an elite club, but is there anyone I’ve missed? Obviously Robbie Fowler springs to mind but he took 5 years and two clubs to return to Anfield, Steve Staunton spent 5 years at Liverpool, left to join Aston Villa for 7 seasons, went back to Anfield for 2 seasons before returning to Villa for another 3 years and goalkeeper John Lukic matched the achievement by leaving Leeds United to join Arsenal in 1983, returned 7 years later to Elland Road before finishing his career at the Gunners from 1996 to 2001. Yet none of these players can match Scottish striker and well known party animal Frank McAvennie who played for all three of St Mirren, West Ham and Celtic in two separate spells in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.