Well it’s of the opinion of Sepp Blatter and his henchmen that they can't make any money out of this fad so I’m afraid it’s going to be banned. That’s not the official reason of course, apparently it’s too dangerous to be wearing them. Expect our lads to be donning the old American football gear from next season then, as if safety is an issue perhaps they should just ban the likes of Wayne Rooney, Jamie Carragher, and Mathieu Flamini from playing football full stop.
Take Wayne Rooney, a man who can just elbow people in the back of the head and get away with it, such is his stature in English football. It’s been a theme that’s been cropping up recently, poor refereeing decisions followed by pathetic FA decisions. Rooney can’t be punished because the referee saw it and dealt with it on the field. Only he didn’t see it, as if he did Rooney would have been sent off. Clattenburg isn’t to blame here, the FA are, as usual. Even Sepp and his cronies thought action should have been taken. You know it’s bad when even the President of FIFA thinks it’s obvious.
Not that Rooney’s availability has helped United’s cause much. They’re currently reeling from a couple of losses on the bounce. Unthinkable for a side who’ve been unbeaten for the majority of the season. At Chelsea they were a little unlucky with a few refereeing decisions, but hey it’s not like they’ve not been going for them at all this season. Take the penalty won by a diving Zhirkov, there was minimal contact; it reminded me of Berbatov’s penalty against Liverpool in the FA Cup, no difference.
As for the Liverpool game, the person to blame is unfortunately Sir Alex Ferguson. Granted Vidic and Ferdinand were unavailable, but he didn’t do Wes Brown any favours by picking Scholes and Carrick from the start leaving Fletcher, usually so influential in big games such as this, to watch painfully from the bench. United will be disappointed they lost out to three poor goals, but I don’t think anyone can deny they deserved to win the match, or even draw for that matter. Of course Carragher could have been sent off, but that’s another matter entirely.
It’s the old issue of poor footballers resorting to dangerous challenges again. Nani was left with a gash in his leg and a tear in his eye after Carragher flew in recklessly during Liverpool’s annihilation of Manchester United. He received a yellow and Nani is out for a month. After the game Sir Alex refused to talk to the media, a decision made before the match due to him being reprimanded by the FA over comments made about Martin Atkinson.
“You want a fair referee, or a strong referee, anyway, and we didn't get that. When I saw who the referee was I did fear it. I feared the worst.”
Now come on Fergie, you can’t be saying that. Okay, I understand the argument, that’s his opinion he should be allowed to air it. If they can't handle the answers then why ask the questions? But this is a little too far over the line really, criticising a referee is one thing but questioning his integrity is a little out of order.
So yes, since he’s been fined, Sir Alex did his usual trick, throwing the toys out of the pram and refusing to talk to the media over the weekend. This includes his players and Mike Phelan who was unavailable to the BBC after the match. Is he right to do this? For a start he isn’t helping his players much, it would have taken some pressure off them if he’d have simply come out and taken responsibility for the loss. He didn’t even talk to MUTV which I think is even more wrong seeing that United fans actually pay money for that channel so they can hear what he has to say. They cant get it anywhere else. What are they paying for? Perhaps he will be back in time for the Marseille game.
The Champions League is serving up its second legs this week. Shakhtar are the current surprise package, beating Roma convincingly last night. Less surprising is the removal of Arsenal from this year’s competition, losing to Barcelona 3-1 at Camp Nou, they were a little unfortunate in truth. Worse English sides will probably go through. Speaking of which Spurs play Milan tonight in a match many think they’ve won. Don’t be too surprised if they’re dumped out. Milan have a lot of quality and Spurs would do well not to under-estimate them, even at White Hart Lane. Tottenham could be without Gareth Bale, he’ll take a late fitness test. Vedran Corluka will definitely be out, he’s spending time on the sideline because of yet another poor over-the-ball challenge, apparently Flamini doesn’t think he did anything wrong. Once a Gunner always a Gunner.
Which brings me perfectly to Mr. Ashley Cole who’s been in the news again for all the wrong reasons. Come to think of it when is he ever in the news for something positive? “Ashley Cole donates fortune to charity” or “Cole saves defenceless cat from tree.” Instead we get “Ashley Cole shoots child from five yards.” Brilliant.
How on earth has he gotten away with it? I really don’t understand. Apparently Surrey police say there has been no such allegation made. How do you get shot and not tell the police? How would a multi-million pound organisation such as Chelsea Football Club owned by a multi-billionaire manage to stop a child from telling the police? I’ve no idea, anyway, surely you should at least be arrested for this, but instead it’s being dealt with internally. How does that even work? If Jeremy Paxman pulled out a sawn-off shotgun on Newsnight and emptied a shell into Ed Miliband’s chest, I’m fairly sure the BBC couldn’t just deal with it internally, police would want at least a word with him. Maybe I’m wrong.
Sepp didn’t have anything to say on that issue, he was too preoccupied with scarves strangling people than players packing heat. They didn’t just band together to talk about snoods though, they also talked about goal-line technology. That old chestnut brought to attention when Frank Lampard’s goal against Germany was wrongfully disallowed in the World Cup. Blatter says more experiments will be done to see if there will be goal-line technology in Brazil 2014. The current experiments involve the two extra officials stood next to each goal frame grasping onto a Wii Remote waiting for the ball to cross the line so they can waggle it around like an over-enthusiastic teacher’s pet during a pop quiz.
My opinion on all this? Snoods are completely ridiculous; Wayne Rooney should be banned for being a thug; Refs should be given a break, Fergie should at least talk to MUTV; Jamie Carragher is an awful footballer; Arsenal were a little unlucky; goal-line technology isn’t really necessary; and will someone please shoot Ashley Cole…preferably out of a canon. Cheers.
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