EPL Talk » Steve Bruce

Darren Bent’s Rant Goes A-Twitter

Ethan Armstrong — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:57:00 +0000

When I first heard of Twitter, I thought it was a dirty verb, like: “Get Twittered!” or “Go Twitter yourself!” (And maybe there’s still potential for that.) Turns out it’s a social networking website. And it has undeniably become the Next Big Net Thing.

In addition to allowing friends to keep up with each other’s day-to-day goings-on, all kinds of organizations from restaurants to sporting clubs to Ashton Kutcher are learning to use its free marketing potential to promote themselves. EPL Talk’s own The Gaffer uses it to keep folks current with our site’s updates.

But alongside the benefits, there’s plenty of room for error as well. Controversy arose this week when Tottenham Hotspur’s Darren Bent used Twitter to vent his frustration over stalled transfer talks. He reportedly posted the following items on his Twitter account:

“Why can’t anything be simple? It’s so frustrating hanging around doing jack s**t. Seriously getting p***ed off now.”

“Do I want to go to Hull City, no. Do I want to go to Stoke, no.”

“Do I want to go to Sunderland, yes. So stop f*****g around, Levy.”

There was speculation it wasn’t really Bent’s account (I was hoping it would prove to be Steve Bruce’s), but today Bent owned up to his posts when he apologized on Tottenham’s official site:

“I appreciate that transfers are seldom straightforward and are often complex. However, after a long period of waiting following my withdrawal from the plane to China, I had become incredibly frustrated by the time these things take and I posted inappropriate comments on my Twitter site.

“I allowed my emotions to get in the way of my better judgement. I regret my actions and did not intend to offend Daniel Levy or anyone with the nature or the content of my posting.”

Bent’s retraction aside, does this mean Twitter will play a bigger role in our football media terrain? Will we see players and managers using Twitter to wind each other up? Complain about refereeing decisions? Flush out transfer speculation? Will we be reading articles every week about professional football Tweets?

The possibilities are endless…

A_Zaki: I was completely onside. Linesman was drunk. Time to sulk.

RafaBeni: Getting nervous. Bought Xabi case of Rioja in case he’s on fence.

Fergie99: TiVo’ed Rafa’s latest press conference. Hoping for rant pt 2.

BexInLA: Took Landon bowling to ease tension. Kicked his arse. Oops.

City_Hughes: Players in place. Time to shop for chemistry.

J_Barton: Anybody know a good lawyer?

In 1998, when I started going to the University of New Hampshire, AOL Instant Messenger was the big rage. We were bent over our computers all hours of the day, keeping up with old friends from home and getting to know new ones at school. I remember many the awkward moments and endless misunderstandings that come too easily with such brief, faceless, voiceless interaction. We learned some big lessons. Like: sarcasm is hard to convey over the internet. And: always talk about the big issues in person. Eventually, we succumbed to communicating using the away message function (the message one left when away from Instant Messanger: at the library… at the dining hall… surfing for porn…) in an attempt to avoid the real-time electronic faux pas. These “status updates” became the template for today’s Tweets.

Later, this desire for online social networking gave birth to sites like Friendster, MySpace and Facebook. Each one seemed to catch on for a while before getting knocked off the perch by the next. But Twitter seems to reach all the way back to Instant Messenger and amplify that concept to a mass scale.

Bent’s comments might have once been some quiet griping to personal friends. No story there. But today it gets broadcast the world over. Anyone who’s paying attention gets wind of his complaints. And it ends up on all the media sites as the controversy du jour.

As we demand more and more information in shorter and shorter bursts, it’s easy to get caught in the stream. The lesson those in the public arena need to learn—similar to what we students learned at University long ago—is despite the ease of transmission, you need to watch your words. Now more than ever. The world is potentially listening.

Oh, by the way… keep an eye my upcoming can’t-live-without-it social networking site: TweetMySpaceBookster.com™. It’s going to be huge. Coming soon to a laptop near you.

Can Wigan Afford To Lose Steve Bruce?

Paul Bestall — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:35:32 +0000

When I heard that Steve Bruce was being lined up as the replacement for Ricky Sbragia, a few alarm bells rang in my head. Bruce, being a Newcastle United fan surely couldn’t be Ellis Short and Niall Quinn’s choice as the new Sunderland manager could he? Would Bruce seriously consider near enough ruling himself out of becoming Newcastle manager in the near future by taking the job? How much would Wigan want for a man they paid £3 million for?

Yet, amazingly, it seems as if Bruce has said yes to becoming the new manager at the Stadium of Light after an all day meeting in the Algarve. Short has made no secret of his plans to pump money into Sunderland and Bruce has seemed frustrated in the last few weeks with his sides perceived lack of effort once they’d passed the magic 40 point mark in the Premiership. After the defeat to Stoke City on May 18th, Bruce let go with his frustrations about his players lack of effort and the fact that what could have been.

Losing 3 top players in the last transfer window didn’t help and with rumours flying around about the future of Antonio Valencia, Bruce may have thought he’d had enough of life in Wigan in his second spell with the Latics. There’s no doubt that Bruce is keen to push himself with the challenge of a bigger club, and looking at his career, Sunderland will be the biggest position he’s held since being the manager of Sheffield United. He’s got an ambitious chairman, a squad of underperforming players but the additional carrot of plenty of money to spend in the summer.

Bruce is attempting to follow in the footsteps of a Sunderland legend with his affection towards Newcastle United. Bob Stokoe, the Black Cats manager between 1972 and 1976, is feted by the Mackems for the 1973 FA Cup win and winning promotion to the old First Division in 1976. If he can impose himself early on at Sunderland, it may end up being the most successful spell that Sunderland fans have had in a long time, Peter Reid’s reign excepted.

For the Wigan Athletic Chairman, Dave Whelan, now it looks as if Bruce on the way to Sunderland, needs to avoid the mistake he made once Paul Jewell resigned. By allowing Chris Hutchings to take over as manager, it almost cost the Latics their Premiership status, until Bruce rode to the rescue. Ordinarily, you’d say the obvious choice would be Roberto Martinez, currently winning plaudits with Swansea City and the expansive way they play football.

As the club that fetched Martinez to England originally as one of the “Three Amigos” in 1995, Wigan obviously are close to his heart. The news that Celtic have made an approach for Martinez will have depressed the usually irrepressible Dave Whelan who would have had the Spaniard at the top of his wish list. Martinez may yet turn the opportunity down, but Celtic is a massive job, with European football every season added to the continual battle with Rangers to win trophies. Is it too big a job to turn down, regardless of his emotional attachment to Wigan Athletic?

Whelan needs to make sure the mistakes of 2007 are not repeated but to lose such an excellent manager and potentially his readymade replacement is dreadful luck. His next managerial appointment will be the most important decision that Whelan will make this year. He has to get it right, but he needs a proven Premiership manager or the rising star of the Championship. Candidates like that aren’t exactly are growing on trees and Whelan needs to give the Latics fans reasons for optimism this summer.

Wigan Pass On Amr Zaki

Ethan Armstrong — Mon, 18 May 2009 19:16:05 +0000

I admit it. I was fully dazzled by Amr Zaki when he first came to play in England. The stunning goals came so quickly. And they were gorgeous. Wigan Athletic’s unknown striker just needed half a second on the ball to make miracles happen and it seemed like the goals were going to stream from his thirsty feet all season.

In late September Wigan manager Steve Bruce couldn’t bubble forth enough shining praise of Amr Zaki. Awesome. Fantastic. A real future. Fan favourite. Power. Pace. Gives everything he’s got. At the time Zaki was top scorer in the Premier League and there was no sign of the unprofessionalism that would vex Bruce and Wigan later in the season. “I can’t question his attitude,” said Bruce in admiration.

Zaki was one of the most exciting players to come out of last summer’s transfer window. Loaned from Egypt’s El Zamalek for the season, Zaki’s influence was immediate and exceptional. By the end of September, Zaki had scored six goals in eight appearances, helping the Lactics secure three league wins, two draws and a cup win against Notts County. Wigan’s quick eight points put them 10th in the table. A great start for a club that sat just four points from safety at the end of last season.

The inevitable question arose: Could Zaki continue this amazing form throughout the long season? But no one thought to ask: Would Zaki continue showing up to practice throughout the long season?

In April, reports surfaced that Bruce fined Zaki for failing to return on time after international duty. This was the fourth incident of Zaki absenteeism. Bruce said Zaki had already been fined “considerably more than the average person in Britain earns in a year.”

His unprofessionalism has seen him fail to meet anything close to the potential he showed early on. He’s been a player with a foot out the door since midyear, and while Steve Bruce may have been cursing himself in the early winter for not buying Zaki outright, he is now ready to help the 26-year-old pack his bags.

Bruce complained Zaki has been distracted by supposed interest from other clubs like Real Madrid. This was the cause in the change in the player. Wigan was just to small for him. He was ready to move on.

But shouldn’t this interest have sparked Zaki’s form rather than cause him to switch it off? Shouldn’t the prospect of playing for a larger club have been a call for Zaki to step up the professionalism rather than abandon it?

His agent claims that Zaki has offers from four other Premier League clubs, so maybe the mid-season sulking hasn’t jeapordized his ambitions. But the sad display should be a warning to prospective clubs.

Any club that goes for him risks all the primadonna baggage that he can bring. If he goes to a bigger club, what happens when he’s benched for the star strikers already there? He’s not going to start over proven talents like Torres, Anelka, or Rooney. If he goes to a top four club, he’ll have to compete for spots with established strikers who have been plying their trade successfully for the best teams in England. If Zaki’s late season antics are an indicator, I can see him reacting childishly to any significant amount of time spent on the bench. Remember Craig Bellamy at Liverpool? The pouting. The dirty looks when subbed off. I don’t see Zaki breaking out the golf clubs, but the point is professionalism. It’s one thing to be a proven goalscorer. It’s another thing to be a part of a team. Zaki doesn’t seem to have that second, all-important part down.

If he doesn’t grow up, he’s not going to make it at a bigger club. There’s no room for such childishness at the top.

Steve Bruce Is Right To Come Clean Over Zaki

Paul Bestall — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:32:56 +0000

Why don’t more managers come clean in the press about disruptive or unprofessional players? It seems that more and more in these sanitised and sponsorship heavy times that too many people keep quiet about the players who are taking the Michael. At least Steve Bruce has bucked the trend and come out in public with his frustration over Amr Zaki and his time keeping.

To most football fans, it’s been obvious that Zaki has been wanting to leave Wigan since mid November, such has been the fall off in his performances and attitude. Here’s a striker that scored 9 times in his first 13 Premiership matches but his last goal for Wigan was a penalty in a 1-0 win at Bolton on December 28th and you’ve actually got to go back to October 18th for his last goal in open play in the 3-2 defeat to Liverpool.

A classic case of someone who has decided he’s too big for the club that’s given him the chance to make a name for himself in 6 months and feels that he’s better off without them. Yet it comes to something when your behaviour makes Mido look like a model professional and Zaki is a long way short of that level of commitment to Wigan Athletic and their fans.

I can only assume that Wigan can’t terminate the loan deal they have with Zaki’s Egyptian side Zamalek, otherwise I think Bruce would have kicked him all the way to Manchester Airport and threw him on the next flight back to Cairo. It’s an absolute disgrace that this player feels he can muck Wigan Athletic, their management and the fans about as much as this. In fact it’s pathetic. No-one had heard of Zaki outside of Africa before he joined Wigan Athletic, they took a punt on a striker who was ranked as the worlds best in the FIFA rankings last summer and gave him an opportunity to shine in the Premiership.

As soon as rumours began to circulate that bigger clubs were after him, he just packed it in and put his feet up. Bruce’s comments on Wigan’s website are heartfelt and the frustration and anger drip from every word. This is apparently the 4th time this season he’s done a bunk after International duty which is why I mentioned earlier that I don’t think Wigan can cancel the deal without some kind of financial penalty clause kicking in to touch.

Too many times modern footballers get wrapped in cotton wool and protected from the real world that the fans need to see and hear about. They get paid fortunes in the Premier League and they treat their fans like this, on this form he’s in danger of knocking Ashley Cole off the perch of most idiotic footballer in Britain, which is some going on Cole’s form.

You have to question the reasons behind Zaki’s thinking that if any big clubs are interested, who in their right mind is going to take a chance on someone who quite clearly doesn’t give a damn about anyone else but himself. Good on Steve Bruce for coming clean about Zaki and I feel sorry for any manager that takes the plunge to give him another chance in the Summer. You can bet on one thing, he sure as hell won’t be at Wigan Athletic next season.

Ronaldo v Taylor and the LMA Makes Recommendations About Refs

Johnathan Starling — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:02:05 +0000

So the big story that will be blown out of proportion from United’s 2-1 victory over Newcastle is the war of words at halftime between Cristiano Ronaldo and Stephen Taylor. Nothing too serious, Ronaldo calling Taylor a rubbish footballer and Taylor in grand reply going ‘well you are ugly’ like some high school girl would say to another in the middle of a junior high spat. Why this is a story I’ll never know.

So the League Managers’ Association and the Professional Footballers’ Association have got together to come up with some recommendations about referees. I have to say some of the recommendations aren’t all bad. The main ones include setting up a way of formalizing complaints and feedback between club and ref, and having the top two divisions use licensed referees with video analysis after every game. You can read the rest of the things recommended here.

Harry Redknapp is telling his Spurs players to lay off the booze, even if they stay in the top flight. I wonder if that comes with random BAC checks?

Who would have thought it would be James Beattie heading Stoke City’s fight for survival?

Fulham are opening up contract talks with Brede Hangleand to make sure he stays a Cottager. Good idea.

Here’s the latest red top Manchester City fodder. Spending 100 million quid to sign Messi in the summer. Remember the source on this one folks.

Thank you Jose Mourinho for stating the bloody obvious when you say Manchester United will win the title.

West Ham will be without the services of Valon Behrami for the rest of the season.

And finally, Gianfranco Zola and Steve Bruce have two totally different observations about the refereeing of Stuart Attwell. One backs him, the other says he’s not ready. I’ll let you figure out which one said what.