The Real Underachievers of 2012

I have been known to have the occasional pop at Liverpool's underachievement this season, but I have actually discovered a team that deserves my anger even more. The only difference in the underachievement is in the attitude of the fans. Liverpool supporters keep deluding themselves, they think that it is 1986 and that Liverpool automatically should be challenging at the top. That makes the failure funny to the rest of us.  This is in complete contrast to the supporters of the club I am about to talk about, supporters who seem only too willing to accept that they will be dumped on by the players and management of their own club again and again. Supporters who deserve better.

West Ham - The great underachievers of 2011/12

When Southampton get promoted in the next week (and believe me that is hard for me to write), it will make one thing crystal clear. The players and management of West Ham Utd have taken the piss out of their supporters this season. West Ham should have won the Championship at a canter. Their inability to beat a fairly poor Bristol City team last night, when their season depended on the victory, sums up what has been happening in East London. Big name players are taking home big time pay packets and putting in average performances. Why should they care anyway, they will be on the same wages next season regardless.

One thing you have to do to get out of the Championship is work hard.  From the first game of the season, when Cardiff showed the rest of the league that West Ham's players were just expecting to win games easily, they have been off the pace. When the going has got a little bit tough, the players have gone missing. 5 draws in a row against Watford, Doncaster, Leeds, Middlesborough and Burnley have killed their promotion hopes. 1 goal at home against Doncaster? To me that suggests a complete lack of hunger. Compare this to the games recently that Reading have won, against Leeds and Forest, where a complete refusal by the players and management to accept a draw has fired them on to crucial late goals.

Looking on paper at the respective squads of Reading, Southampton and West Ham you would take West Ham's all day long. Looking at effort, desire and will to win, I would prefer to have any other squad in the division.

Congratulations must go to Reading,  firstly for getting promoted back to the Premiership, but also for showing the world what the players of West Ham Utd really are. West Ham fans, you deserve better than this. You deserve Parkes, Stewart, Pike, Brooking, Devonshire and Cottee. You deserve players who will play with style, but who will put their bodies on the line for the club. What you need is players who play for the club and not their pay. What you have got is nothing short of a disgrace at the moment. I hope the play offs don't mask the truth.

Crawley Town.........An Apology

I have been away on holiday.
When I left I was under the impression that Crawley Town were managed by an overweight corrupt classless berk.
I am now happy to accept that this information is incorrect.

I would like to acknowledge that I have no problem with Crawley Town Football Club.  Good luck to you all.

Now.... Rotherham Utd.

£100 million = 1 point better?

Even Kings Should Take Criticism on board! 

Kenny Dalglish is a legend at Liverpool. I'm not disputing that fact, but if you look at why he is a legend most Liverpool fans will say because of the things he did as a player. Yes he won trophies as a manager, including the 1986 double (with Bob Paisley and Joe Fagan's team), but when he left Liverpool the downward spiral had definitely begun. I was always sure that the effects of Hillsborough had a massive influence on his decision, but this theory doesn't hold up when you consider how quickly he was accepting Uncle Jack's cash at Ewood.  Was he just astute enough to predict what Liverpool were about to go through in the 90's and jump before his reputation was tarnished. A wise move on the face of it, as  I haven't heard the Anfield faithful singing about Souness recently, despite how highly he was rated as a player!

Liverpool have got themselves in a situation now though. By appointing Kenny as manager in January 2011, the new owners immediately got the supporters onside, but they now have the ultimate unsackable manager.
On the face of it they have been repaid. Liverpool already have a trophy in the bag, but lets look into this a little deeper to see how successful the last 14 months have been:

On January 3rd 2011 Liverpool were 11 points behind the Champions League places. On March 10th 2012, having just been rolled by Sunderland, Liverpool are 10 points off the Champions League places. The cost of this one point improvement is significant. Carroll, Suarez, Downing, Adam and Henderson are all Premiership quality, but I'd argue that only Suarez was Champions League quality. Henderson may get there eventually. Carroll could be a top striker, but not at Liverpool, where the players strengths do not fit with the club. Surely this is the sort of thing that you'd expect to have been researched before parting with £30 million. Compare this with Martin Jol's tracking of Pavel Pogrebnyak, a player he had been monitoring for 5 years. Downing and Adam are mid table players at best, capable of playing well, but not with the consistency needed for the top 4. Lets look at it this way, were City, Spurs, Arsenal or Utd desperate to sign any of them?

Roy Hodgson was a failure at Liverpool, everyone knows that. Hodgson is a master of getting the best out of a smaller team, but could not cope with the expectation at Liverpool. He got ruined by the press and most notably some of the 'expert' pundits on TV. Yet these same people are not jumping on Dalglish's back even though £100million has got the club no closer to the promised land. Kenny has the media all sewn up. They seem incapable of criticising him. Of course this may be due to the fact that if Alan Hansen says anything anti Kenny then he may have to find a new golf partner. They are as far away from the Top 4 as they were when Hodgson was sacked, and £100 million has seen them scrape past Cardiff to win a trophy, thanks largely to the players brought to the club by Benitez. Their players have shown no sign of improvement, they are still incapable of consistently beating the lower ranked teams and their tactics still seem to be 'Lets hope Gerrard or Suarez can come up with something.'

I'm not calling for Kenny Dalglish to be sacked, Liverpool need to back their manager as it will take years for them to catch up. I would just like him to be held to account for the fact that Liverpool have made zero progress in 14 months. A lot of it is Kenny Dalglish's fault, will somebody please mention this fact!

Are Chelsea the new Man Utd?

Clueless Manager or Gutless Owner?

Chelsea have made a decision.
Whether it is a good one or not remains to be seen, but one thing is perfectly clear, Roman Abramovich buckles to public opinion. When the grumbles start to fly around Stamford Bridge, the P45 is usually heading towards the manager. This is him disguising the fact that Chelsea's problems are all Mr Abramovich's fault. The mess they are now in all comes down to his personal falling out with Jose Mourinho and the eventual departure of the self styled 'special one' in September 2007.

Villas Boas can only have been appointed manager at Chelsea for one reason, and that must have been to build a new, young squad of his own. There is no other reason to appoint such a young manager. The fact that Abramovich has turned his back on that after a dodgy couple of months is laughable. There is always going  to be a period of transition whilst a new team is formed. Arsenal have been in one for about 6 years now. Liverpool for approaching 25.

People may say 'What about Man Utd, they don't seem to have a period of transition?', but it is Man Utd that I most closely associate Chelsea's current situation with. Not Manchester United of now, obviously, but Manchester United 1972-1989, a team unable to cope with the pressure of emulating the great team of 1968. A team left to grow old together, instead of gradually being broken up and rebuilt without anyone really noticing. A club where the big names of the past made it almost impossible to succeed.

The problem Chelsea have is that the make up of the current squad still contains 4 senior members of the 2005 -2006 Premiership Champions squad. A team afforded legendary status by Chelsea fans brought up on Eddie Nzedwiecki, Kevin Wilson and Steve Wicks. These players are untouchable at Stamford Bridge, and have created a situation where they can't be left out without the manager immediately being under pressure. These players are growing old and their performances are not what they once were.( In fact out of the 4, Frank Lampard (the player most commonly dropped by Villas Boas) is the only one playing anywhere near his original level.) Yet, there are no suitable replacements coming through. The youth system at Chelsea creates next to nothing, and any available top player would probably see other clubs as more forward thinking. What I find most amusing is that certain players seem desperate to see Mourinho back in charge. If he was, Terry, Cech, Drogba and Lampard would be unceremoniously dropped and released. I am certain of that. They would have gone last season if Mourinho was still there.

Chelsea need change if they are to remain at the top. They can't just hope that another great team comes along because it won't. Whoever the man is who gets the job, they will need 4 things to help them succeed:

Stability - no great change can be achieved in 9 months. The new man will need at least 2 season to get anywhere.

Cash - Roman had better be prepared to open his wallet. £200 million might enable them to keep sight of the Mancunian rears before they disappear beyond the horizon.

Support - The manager must be backed to the hilt. If he wants John Terry to go he must be allowed to send him on his way. I'm sure JT could do  a job at West Ham for a year or two.

The Mark Robins moment - At some stage, some player will have to stand up and be counted in a crucial game. I wouldn't back on anyone doing that right now.


Finally, if Chelsea really aren't going to spend 25 years in the doldrums, they'd better hope they don't get Fulham at home on the last day of the season. Damian Duff backheel anyone?