Reuters Soccer Blog

Soccer Break Friday – Time to say goodbye

Blackburn Rovers. Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wigan Athletic. Blackpool. Birmingham City. Five teams, two must go. Who will it be?

Nervy times ahead then for these five Premier League strugglers. Sunday will be traumatic and full of twists.

Blackpool striker DJ Campbell has been relegated before, and is apparently scaring the living daylights out of his teammates with his tales of the dreaded drop.

More Blackpool now, and manager Ian Holloway’s take on things. They are a colourful bunch the Tangerines, and they’ve given all the top teams a run for their money this season. Do you want to see them relegated?

Over to the FIFA scandal latest, and do you agree with this blog? Are you in favour of the FA’s abstaining from the voting on the FIFA presidency?

Sensationally, read on for news that Qatar could be stripped of the right to host the 2022 World Cup. Now that would shake the game up.

Finally, remember Paolo Di Canio, he of the ultimate bit of sportsmanship but who also pushed a referee? Well, he could be back in the English game.

Soccer Break Wednesday

A fine Wednesday to you all, and a few statistics to begin with. Attendance at the Nou Camp: 95,486. Estimated crowd noise (in decibels): 121.8. Estimated noise of a referee’s whistle (in decibels): 121.8.

The operative word above is estimated, because of course we have no idea, but a quick dig around on the internet shows some debate about whether Robin van Persie could have heard Massimo Busacca’s whistle despite the defeaning noise at the Nou Camp.

Sending-off or no sending-off, here’s another statistic for you from the Champions League thriller. Completed passes: Barcelona – 738 ; Arsenal – 199. The Londoners did mighty well to hang in there and can be proud of their efforts, but the Catalan team’s superiority told in the end. Few teams could touch them in that mood.

Do you think 11 against 11 would have seen Arsenal through? Or was the red card just a mere sideshow?

In Tuesday’s other action, Shakhtar Donetsk eased past AS Roma 3-0 to book their quarter-final place to become the first Ukrainian side to reach the last eight since Dynamo Kiev in 1999.

So now all eyes will be on another north London team hoping to reach the quarters. Tottenham Hotspur take a one-goal advantage into their clash with AC Milan at White Hart Lane.

Schalke 04, whose manager Felix Magath could leave at the end of the season according to German media, host La Liga side Valencia after former Real Madrid striker Raul salvaged a 1-1 draw for the Bundesliga club in the first leg in Spain.

“Big Ziggy” primed to keep Birmingham up

With Europe beckoning and their first trophy since 1963, Birmingham City fans have a lot to get excited about.

However they also face a nervy rest of the Premier League season with relegation looming. Cue towering striker Nikola Zigic to the rescue.

My arm still hurts after holding aloft a recording device to his mouth for a mere four minutes at Wembley following the Serbian international’s role in helping his side to a 2-1 League Cup final over Arsenal, and as a tallish goalkeeper I departed the stadium only to have nightmares about what it would be like if he approached me at a corner.

Spare a thought for the Premier League defenders who will be doing their utmost to stop the 2.03 metre attacker as he attempts to keep Birmingham in the top flight.

Read more here about a player coming into form at just the right time for the blue half of Birmingham.

Discuss this and other stories in world soccer on the Reuters Soccer Facebook page.

Arsenal fans must keep their faith in Wenger

Mike Collett in London on why Arsenal fans should back their manager

Arsene Wenger is the most successful manager Arsenal have ever had, but unhappy fans have very short memories and incredible as it may seem, some Arsenal supporters were calling for his head on Monday.

Irate listeners to radio phone-ins and message boards posters vented their frustrations at Arsenal’s failure to end their six-year trophy drought after they lost 2-1 to underdogs Birmingham City in the League Cup final at Wembley on Sunday.

The messages said largely the same thing. Why hasn’t Wenger spent money on buying a top class goalkeeper and two reliable centre-backs to provide a stronger foundation for a team brimming with class, talent and invention in midfield and attack?

And, more surprisingly, some said it was time the 61-year-old Frenchman moved on.

That though, would be even more calamitous for Arsenal than the mistake that cost them the final on Sunday. Arsenal still have the chance to win three honours this season — the Champions League, the Premier League and the FA Cup.

A victory in any one of those would more than make up for this setback, devastating as it clearly was to Arsenal’s prone players at the end, although Sunday’s loss does highlight again well publicised weaknesses in the current squad.

Liverpool’s midfield not as much to shout about

In the heady days of Istanbul and Athens when Liverpool fans considered anything less than a trip to the Champions League final a disappointing campaign, the Kop would regularly belt out: “We have the best midfield in the world.”

It was the formidable midfield combination of Xabi Alonso, Steven Gerrard and later Javier Mascherano that spurred the Anfield faithful into song.

The ditty, sung to the tune of “The Entertainer” for those who were wondering, was unsurprisingly absent at St Andrew’s on Sunday when Liverpool clung on for a goalless draw against Birmingham.

The midfield quartet of Lucas Leiva, Christian Poulsen, Milan Jovanovic and Maxi Rodriguez could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as the best in the world and as the Reds toiled in the Midlands sunshine it soon became clear it wasn’t even the best one on the pitch.

Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard both cut frustrated figures as Lucas and Poulsen struggled to provide them with the ammunition required to pierce the Birmingham backline.

Former manager Rafael Benitez endured sustained criticism from a press-pack seemingly determined to undermine his achievements for playing two defensive midfielders last season following Xabi Alonso’s departure to Real Madrid.

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?

West Ham shock as Englishmen buy Premier League club!

Londoners David Sullivan and David Gold have bucked a growing trend in England’s Premier League by taking control of 50 percent of West Ham United.

It returned a club steeped in the tradition of the English game to home ownership after an ill-fated three years of foreign control that has left the club deep in debt.

While West Ham are still half-owned by Icelandic bank Straumur, Sullivan and Gold are confident they can attract local investors to help the club back on its feet and in the words of Sullivan “return it to the fans”.

It will be music to the ears of detractors, who have watched half of the Premier League’s clubs sold to overseas owners — a state of affairs that has been criticised by UEFA President Michel Platini.

One only has to look at the mess at Portsmouth and the debts carried by American-owned Manchester United and Liverpool to see that Platini has a point.

Sullivan and Gold, who ran a reasonably tight ship at Birmingham City for 16 years, re-building the club before selling to Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung last year, face a huge challenge at West Ham.

But far from promising instant miracles and fancy signings, they are determined to stabilise the club on and off the field and then eventually move to London’s 2012 Olympic Stadium which they believe would allow them to offer tickets that local fans can actually afford.

Could Birmingham’s Hart be Capello’s England number one?

England manager Fabio Capello might well have found himself an unexpected Christmas present this year in Birmingham City goalkeeper Joe Hart.

Filling the gap between the sticks at next June’s World Cup finals in South Africa is perhaps the biggest conundrum Capello will face in the run up to soccer’s most glittering event, but Hart may just have made it a little easier.

The energetic England Under-21 international, on a season-long loan at the Midlands club from Manchester City, has been in inspired form this season — highlighted by two superb performances in recent games against Chelsea and Stoke City in the Premier League.

He is also currently the only in-form English keeper in international contention.

Current number one David James is 39-years-old and has not played in Portsmouth’s last eight matches due to injury, while West Ham’s Rob Green has never impressed in an England shirt and continues to be sporadic at club level.

Other contenders include Ben Foster, still residing third in Manchester United’s pecking order, and Paul Robinson, who has shown only slow signs of improvement at Blackburn Rovers.

A proposal from Germany could help cut out diving

Referee Peter Walton could face a suspension from the Premier League list if it is decided he made a mistake in Monday’s 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Birmingham.

Walton reckoned Liverpool striker David Ngog had been fouled by Lee Carsley and ignored the protests of his Birmingham team mates before Steven Gerrard converted the spotkick. Even Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez said afterwards he did not think it was a penalty.

Former Premier League and FIFA referee Graham Poll is among those saying the FA must change the rules, arguing that if the referee can be banned for a mistake, players should be punished too. Under current FA rules, players who dive cannot face retrospective action if they were not booked for “simulation” during the game.

Maybe the FA could follow a recent German experiment. If a player was thought to have dived, the referee was instructed to ask him: “Did you dive?”

If he said he did, he was not punished, but neither did he gain any advantage and the match went on.

If he said he didn’t dive and DVD evidence later proved he did, he was handed a severe ban.

Is Eduardo’s two-match ban too harsh?

UEFA’s decision to hand Arsenal striker Eduardo da Silva a two-match ban for diving has infuriated the Croatian media, many fans and national team coach Slaven Bilic.

“It is a shameful decision, especially in view of the fact that Eduardo personifies everything that’s decent in professional sport,” Bilic told Zagreb daily Vecernji List after learning the verdict.

Fans and media have gone to even greater length in defending the Brazilian-born Croatia striker, who has won the hearts and sympathy of his adopted country after recovering from a horrific leg break he suffered in Arsenal’s Premier League match at Birmingham in February 2008.

The sense of injustice in Croatia wasn’t helped by last weekend’s injury suffered by Tottenham playmaker Luka Modric, who faces up to six weeks on the sidelines after breaking his leg in a league match with Birmingham (again).

Croatia’s leading sports website, www.sportnet.hr, had harsh words.

“Eduardo has been punished in a most detestable manner, supposedly so that justice is done, while justice was deaf, dumb and blind only 18 months earlier when he was in bed with his ankle shattered and his career hanging by a thread,” the website said.

Is Eduardo a victim of double standards, or simply his own ill-judged decision to go down rather easily after minimum or no contact with the goalkeeper?