Reuters Soccer Blog
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Soccer Break – Thursday edition
Good day to you all wherever you may be, and let’s start with some advice from Barcelona defender Dani Alves about his teammate and arguably the best footballer in the world, Lionel Messi.
The fast-passing Catalans snuck past Valencia last night, while over in Germany Raul was making the headlines for scoring the goal that sent Bayern Munich crashing out of the German Cup in the semi-finals.
Could the end be approaching for coach Louis van Gaal?
In other European action, Ligue 1 leaders Lille progressed to the semi-finals of the French Cup, and are being tipped for a domestic double.
News on the owl-kicking footballer is that he is being banned and fined.
And to finish, both sides of the story following Aston Villa’s 3-0 FA Cup defeat to Manchester City.
On the one hand, manager Gerard Houllier was criticised for fielding a weakened side, while the Aston Villa blog says avoiding relegation is their primary concern.
Sunderland’s Bruce can’t lecture Bent about loyalty
Much-travelled Sunderland manager Steve Bruce either has a very short memory or the biggest brass neck in football but either way his claim that his club had been let down by Darren Bent’s disloyal move to Aston Villa takes some swallowing.
“It’s hugely disappointing and the players, our supporters and the club as a whole have every right to feel massively let down,” he complained after Bent’s transfer.
Moving from a club in sixth place to one above the drop zone only on goal difference might look odd at first glance, certainly if Bent’s justification for the move about joining a “big club” is to believed, but Bruce is surely the last man to start bleating about loyalty.
As a centre half winning rave reviews with Norwich City back in the 1980s, Bruce told anyone who would listen that he wanted to go to Manchester United.
When he became a manager of Wigan Athletic, he was so loyal that he walked out after two months to go to Crystal Palace. It was Steve Bruce who left Palace four months into his first season to take over Birmingham City.
And surely that was…Steve Bruce who then left Birmingham in acrimonious circumstances to return to Wigan, who he then left to join Sunderland.
Should Alex Ferguson decide to finally retire anytime soon and Manchester United were to enquire about Bruce’s availability to succeed him, how would his loyalty to Sunderland’s “players, supporters and club as a whole” fare then?
Aston Villa’s Bent buy will flummox O’Neill
If eyebrows were raised when Aston Villa decided to spend up to 24 million pounds on striker Darren Bent then former manager Martin O’Neill’s forehead must have been pinned to his living room ceiling when the news broke on Tuesday.
The absurdity of the switch lies not in the inflated figure or Bent’s abilities on the pitch and in front of goal, but in the timing of Villa chairman Randy Lerner choosing to dig deep into his pockets.
O’Neill walked out of the Midlands club just days before the start of the season after being told transfer funds were scarce and the £18 million to be raised from the sale of James Milner to Manchester City would not be reinvested in the squad.
Just six months later, however, Villa have splashed a mammoth fee on a player who has been permanently on the fringes of the England squad while a further six million was spent last week in French midfielder Jean Makoun.
Lerner, who was not shy in ploughing in the pounds prior to putting the brakes on in 2009, issued a statement two days after O’Neill left saying he “no longer shared a common view as to how to move forward”.
O’Neill, he bemoaned, did not appreciate the need to bring wages in line with revenue.
Why are journalists so blind to Martin O’Neill’s limitations. Randy Lerner, who was paying for the Irishmans mistakes, rumbled him and that is why he left. Lerner has given the money to Houllier because the Frenchman moved players on and cut the wage bill. O’Neill, wouldn’t or couldn’t do this. Had O’Neill been able to do so he would have been allowed to spend. Thankfully he wasn’t, or he would have bought another three average Joes and then left two of them warming the bench.
Sure when he was in charge we finished sixth every year but he had a salary bill much higher than Spurs and he needed 30M pounds a year in the transfer market to do it, playing the most awful football among any of the top teams. Villa will finish in the top half this year and next season we’ll be fine.
Houllier should be perfect match for Villa
A tricky start to the season in which manager Martin O’Neill left before a ball was kicked, midfielder James Milner joined Manchester City and the club limped out of the Europa League, Aston Villa were in need of steady hands. Gerard Houllier should be just the man.
The 63-year-old Frenchman, who won five trophies with Liverpool and three French league titles, has swapped his job as technical director of the French Football Federation (FFF) for the Villa hot seat and brings a wealth of experience with him.
Many ardent Liverpool fans will point to Houllier’s Anfield arrival in 1998 as the dawn of an important era at the club whereby a new attitude was installed and success was soon to follow.
A five-year plan included the exit of big names such as Paul Ince, David James and Steve McManaman and the arrival of modest signings like Sami Hyypia, Dietmar Hamann and Stephane Henchoz, who were to leave a big impression on the club.
Then came a League Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup treble in 2001, followed by a Community Shield and UEFA Super Cup. He has also won a Ligue 1 title with Paris St Germain in 1986 and two more with Olympique Lyon in 2006 and 2007.
Aston Villa are probably not in need of such an overhaul, having enjoyed a relatively successful season last time around courtesy of some exciting football from English youngsters like Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Milner, but they must continue to progress.
An erratic start to the new season, in which Villa have won two Premier League matches and lost the other 6-0 to Newcastle United, while also making that early Europa League exit, will mean Houllier must get to grips quickly despite a six-year absence from English soccer.
I think he has been out of English football for too long and at 63 is not a spring chicken. But with good youngsters there who knows?
Referees wrestling with a problem they can’t solve
How many teams will leave the World Cup happy with the refereeing? If it’s more than one I’ll be surprised as those “crucial” decisions seem to attract criticism only when teams lose.
The dissection of officials’ performances has become the staple of post-match interviews in recent years as, with one or two honourable exceptions, managers let rip (having had the benefit of replays from half-a-dozen angles of course).
I’m struggling to remember a manager complaining that a referee failed to penalise one of his players for holding an opponent while defending a corner or free kick yet every club is guilty of the offence to a greater or lesser extent at just about every set piece.
Last weekend’s highlighted “blunder” was referee Martin Atkinson’s decision to award Aston Villa a late, and as it turned out, decisive penalty after ruling that Birmingham City’s Roger Johnson had fouled Gabriel Agbonlahor.
TV replays showed that Johnson had, in fact, produced an excellent tackle but it was his bad luck that the ball continued in the same general direction it had already been travelling in and when his contact subsequently brought Agbonlahor down, producing uproar from the Villa fans, Atkinson mistakenly pointed to the spot.
It was a bad decision but an understandable one from an official standing 25 metres away with a poor view of the incident. Birmingham were right to be annoyed and frustrated but the same players complaining bitterly about the decision will have got away with worse, if not in that match, then in others.
Johnson let rip after the game, citing the vogue complaint that the referee “should be 100 percent sure” before giving a penalty. Does that imply that 75 percent is acceptable for corners or fouls elsewhere on the pitch?
I would like to voice a view for the way players argue with the refs. Watching game after game and playing games, arguing with the ref does absolutely no good. I was taught from years back that when a call is made you get up and focus on the game not the call. It’s becoming embarrasing watching grown men constantly compaining about every other call. I would love to see a 5 minute sideline timeout from players complaining. I had a coach that atomatically did that to us when we were kids. Our team became so strong and so focused because we we learned to deal with a call (Bad or Good) as a call. Our focus of the game increased. I know there are bad calls and bad refs, but yelling like a bunch of red necks without a brain is senseless and degrading to the game.
Best. Premier League. Ever… ?
The Ballon d’Or shortlist was announced on Sunday, but what about the Ballon de Plage? Liverpool’s inflatable nemesis must surely get a category of its own in the end-of-season awards.
Sunderland’s absurd winning goal at the Stadium of Light was symbolic not just of Liverpool’s woes but of a season that just keeps rattling along in ever more gloriously unpredictable style.
Here are a few reasons why this might just be the best Premier League season ever, or at least for quite a while.
1. Big Four? What Big Four? The worst thing about the Premier League, everyone said before the start of the season, was that you could always predict the top four. I wouldn’t put much money on it being the same old same old this time. Liverpool look especially vulnerable after losing four games already this season but the others have had their unconvincing moments as well.
2. Vaulting ambitions. Manchester City have serious aspirations to make the Champions League and there are a few others hoping to join them. Tottenham look to have a new confidence about them after spending a lot of money, and most of it wisely, and Aston Villa have beaten Liverpool and Chelsea.
I still could not believe that the sheiks are coming and spoiling everything. Buying players left and right. Take the case of Man City, they have a lot of players bought but still could not get over the hump and defeat Man United. I hope that there would be a cap on the spending to ensure player loyalty. I predict that Liverpool will be dislodged from big 4 status this season and replaced by Tottenham. It would still be Man united, Arsenal, Chelsea on top.
Johnson can provide home comfort Liverpool need
Last season, Liverpool dropped too many points against teams from the bottom half of the table and finally it cost them that long awaited title.
It may well be, then, that the signing of the impressive, energetic Glen Johnson at full-back turns out to be a more significant bit of transfer business than the much criticised decision to sell Xabi Alonso to Real Madrid.
With the arrival of Johnson, Liverpool have found an extra man who can torment well-packed defences and the evidence was there in the 4-0 win over Stoke City last week.
What a difference from the two goalless draws Liverpool had against The Potters last season, as Johnson scored one and provided another.
The England man needed no time to establish a good working partnership with the tireless Dirk Kuyt and make the fans see just why Benitez spent so much money to buy a right-back.
It might sound strange to say you can replace a midfield maestro with a defender but that is what Liverpool have done.
As they showed last season, getting the better of your direct rivals is not good enough to win the league — you have to beat just about every other team as well, and a player with Johnson’s aggression and ability to make things happen is going to make a big difference, I expect.
City’s spending spree makes sense in battle for fourth place
There’s been a fair bit of speculation, here and elsewhere, about whether Manchester City could actually win the Premier League title but a more realistic goal is a top four finish. That being the case, the summer spending spree seen by some as being brash and uncoordinated is actually very shrewd.
Look carefully, and what City have managed to do, with the recruitment of Gareth Barry from Aston Villa and Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure from Arsenal, is to weaken two of their rivals for fourth place.
Last season Villa and Arsenal fought tooth and nail for that position and with his transfer policy Mark Hughes has struck an early couple of blows in this season’s fight.
Note that City also have their sights on defender Joleon Lescott from Everton, another team with Champions League aspirations.
Add to that the hugely satisfying signing of former Manchester United forward Carlos Tevez and there would seem to be a pattern to their spending spree — even if results are not yet going their way.
haha thats the point these players obviously dont have as much ambition to succeed as they do to make loads of money! look at gareth barry for example saying he would only leave for a champs league team last season and rafa benitez said he even bid for him this transfer window, and you didnt even get in the europa cup which to me speaks volumes, yeah u wanna get in the top 4 but buyin most of the bad apples from the teams above you and mashing them together is hardly going to garauntee that is it
Liverpool display authority of old to reopen title race
Liverpool reopened the Premier League title race with a 5-0 win over Aston Villa that must have thrilled Anfield, while leaving fans wondering why they haven’t seen similar displays all season.
This was exactly the sort of performance the occasion cried out for. Manchester United’s 2-0 defeat at Fulham, following on from the Old Trafford debacle, had left the door ajar, and Liverpool duly barged it open with another display of absolute self-belief.
For the first time in years, Liverpool look like a team who think they’re in the business of winning titles, not just challenging for Champions League places.
They’re a point behind Alex Ferguson’s side now, albeit having played a game more, and the 13 goals racked up against Real Madrid, United and now Villa are a powerful argument that the title race is not over.
But it might have been so much better for Reds fans.
Where was this level of conviction in the New Year games, when Stoke, Everton and Wigan Athletic all claimed draws? How could they beat Chelsea, and snatch a win at Portsmouth only then to draw with Manchester City? How did they contrive to lose 2-0 at Middlesbrough?
Liverpool’s form has been up and down this season, and that is the only reason why the team hasn’t been able to wrap up the season at this point. And this has been the case in the past few seasons.
Also another reason is that Gerrard missed a few games due to injury. So did Torres. And although the entire team may have performed exceptionally well against Chelsea, Man United and Aston Villa, the fact remains that Gerrard and Torres remain their main pillars of strength.
Benitez has signed a new contract and that has surely brought stability to the club. Now the main task before him is to make sure that the team doesn’t continue with its up and down form in the future.
Galaxy rewarded by playing hard ball over Beckham
So often in the past we have seen transfer deals go through simply because the player asks to leave. Clubs fear the players won’t play to their full potential if their wish is denied so they cave in and take the transfer fee.
But recently, some clubs have started fighting back against player power and have been rewarded.
David Beckham asked to stay at AC Milan permanently but Los Angeles Galaxy were having none of it, especially when the Italians first offered a low sum the Americans said was “ridiculous”.
Galaxy stuck to their guns and have managed to get Beckham back for at least July until November.
A similar story happened last year when fellow England midfielder Gareth Barry wanted to go to Liverpool but Aston Villa would not budge on their asking price. He is still at Villa and could stay for good if they make the Champions League this season.
Are we seeing a new hard ball approach from selling clubs?
Good players should play for good clubs,american clubs are French 2nd ligue clubs,keeping this player is going to damage his career! Just because this US (soccer!!!!!)club wants to make a statement for fame!!!!! This is not fair for the player or FOOTBALL!
