The End of Season Review

Everyone else has done one so why can’t I? So here we are at the tail end of another eventful season. Some would say that it was the best season in Premier League history, certainly true in the fact that West Ham have finally been relegated, how you can be £80 million pounds in debt and then drag Newham Council (The poorest council in the world…. Okay London) to hand over another £40 million pounds for a scheme devised by the new crazy gang, no not AFC Wimbledon (by the way good luck to them for restoring Wimbledon to the Football League) but Gold, Sullivan and Brady, I would call them a threesome but I think that has already been devised by Gold in one of his many pornographic collections.

They will fail… inevitably, Alan Sugar said it and now I am saying it too, it can’t fundamentally work, West Ham fans will be dejected and they will be in the Championship (or maybe League 1 but one can only hope) the season they will move in to the Olympic Stadium, it was supposed to be a sign of new times for the club, but as fans realise what the owners have done to their club, they will quickly realise that watching the club lose from 100 feet away will be even more disappointing than it was at Upton Park. Now I’ve got that little rant from my system let us continue.

In a sense that little mini explosion of my mind was aimed at someone I know and they will know it too… Dan, but I digress….

It has been a season of ups and downs but universally we will all agree that it will feel like we have lost a piece of ourselves with no Blackpool for the upcoming season, it has now become a cliché but they have been a breath of fresh air, and watching Ian Holloway’s press conferences have been such a difference from the bleak, suicide inducing drivel of Wenger and Ferguson, when your manager starts singing in the middle of his interview then you know you’ve got someone good.

In terms of “the best season ever” I would have to say yes for entertainment but no for performance, mainly because of Manchester United’s pathetic away form and Chelsea’s decision to throw away the title by sacking Ray Wilkins, to be honest I never thought the “Stay on your feet” guy would have such an impact on a team, but what do I know…

But to keep with tradition I have brought in the End of Season Awards:

Best performance of the season: Newcastle 4-4 Arsenal (4 nil down at half time, no-one saw this happening)

Team of the season: Blackpool (for the pre mentioned reasons)

Arse of the season: Roman Abramovich (Torres for £50 million and a sacked Ancelotti, as Paul Merson would say “He has had a shocker”)

Class of the season: Scott Parker (He plays for West Ham, and I like him, need I say more?)

And finally I thought I’d look back on my predictions for the season I made:

Winners: Man United (I felt like an idiot when Chelsea won their first 6 games 20-0)

Everton: 7^th (I felt like an idiot when we were second bottom for what felt like a year)

Relegated: Blackpool, West Ham and West Brom (I felt like an idiot when Blackpool were beating everyone)

FA Cup: Manchester City ( No I’m just kidding, I said Chelsea, what an idiot I am)

Beckford v Piquionne: Beckford (Just in case you were wondering what this is, I had a bet with someone over who would score more goals, of course I won, but I have yet to get my winnings….)

So it’s all over, we just have the Transfer Window and next season to look forward to, the fun begins here…

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West Ham Post - Coming Soon

I shall be slagging off everyone at Upton Park sometime soon...

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Respect, You want Respect?

If your going to preach about something, then you'd better make sure your are not a hypocrite. You can't expect someone to respect you if you show no example of leadership, It just doesn't work, its why Gordon Brown never made a good Prime Minister, no one respected him and he didn't have a good enough attitude for the job. But JFK had charisma, enthusiasm and he wasn't but ugly, so people respected and didn't write him off in an instant.

In some sort of way that links to my point, the FA and the Football League do not warrant respect with the constant courage less decisions they consistently continue to make, this whole QPR situation should have been settled long ago.

The man in question, Alejandro Faurlin didn't even sign this season, he joined the club in 2009. The Football League just have themselves to blame in this situation, they claimed the reason that they didn't give QPR a points deduction was that it was too late in the season for them to act because of the impending playoff fixtures that could not be rescheduled. Well who's fault is that.

The Football League are responsible for the age that it has taken them to deal with this, and they don't even take proper action, and £875,000 for one of the richest teams in England is pittance. There should have been a points deduction and it should have been last year, you can't have one rule for West Ham and one for QPR just because it suits you better if you just sweep it under the carpet.

No wonder that no one respects them, they don't deserve respect, they never use their powers to rescind red cards that are blatantly not even yellows and they don't hand them out when they are deserved, yet the insist on fining Ian Holloway for fielding a weakened team, even though Wenger does it in the Carling Cup and Ferguson rotates his squad every week, the FA cannot judge the quality of Holloway's team when they have said that he can have a 25 man squad and play anyone of them.

 When you ask for respect the first rule is don't contradict yourself (not that there's a rulebook), but if there was the FA obviously haven't read their it.

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Money is Priceless

Well, that's what they used to say, after Everton's 2-1 victory over Manchester City on Saturday there shone a glimmer of hope for teams that don't have a rich oil baron throwing cash at them. It showed that you don't need money to be successful (although it helps), but the right manager, tactics and attitude can have more effect than any amount of money. Even team spirit can make a difference, if you have players that know each other, play well together, you are going to perform much better than a team of  multi-millionaires who have just met, that is of course why Fernando Torres can't buy a goal at the moment.

With a combined price tag of £170 million, Man City should have walked over an Everton team who's starting XI contained 4 academy graduates and who's price accumulated to less than what Joleon Lescott cost.

Leon Osman got the winning goal, he is probably one of the most underrated players in England at the moment and he has completely run the show for Everton in the past month or two. For one of the smallest players on the pitch, his diminutive figure rose above the towering figure of the City defender and brilliantly headed past Hart. But this wasn't just luck, Everton had beaten City in the 5 games previous to this match



This result will give belief to all the teams who think they can't compete with the bigger teams, it shows that if you apply yourself and put in the effort then you can always beat the favourites.

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Why "Silent" Stan may have more to say than you think

With the recent news of Stan Kroenke's takeover at Arsenal, fans of the North London club were falling over themselves with the belief that they could finally compete on the same financial levels as Manchester City and Chelsea. But this gives Wenger no more excuses, he now must be winning trophies every season and challenging  for Europe's most prestigious prize.

This investment could well signal the end for Wenger's 14 year reign at the helm of the Gunners, Wenger has already shown us that he is a man of principles and he will not change no matter how much opposition he faces, that is good for some but now it could make Wenger appear stubborn or even deluded in his own little world of perfect football.

We know that Arsenal like to play football "the way it should be played" but of course that is subjective  and I'm sure Sam Allardyce would tell you differently. But when funded by that sort of money is invested into a football club, the pressure builds and results are expected immediately, normally followed by a "win at all costs" mentality when the manager finds out he can't buy the league.



Wenger won't do that and that might ultimately cost him his job. At the moment he has relatively small amounts of money to spend and he rarely uses that anyway, choosing to concentrate on the youth set-up at the Emirates. Now he has a choice to make, he either sells himself out and admits he was wrong by buying a keeper and a centre back, or he faces the sack by not winning the silverware the club so desperately needs. Now that the money is there, Wenger has nowhere else to turn and failure to achieve results will ultimately cost him and himself only.

For the first time, I actually feel sorry for Arsene Wenger he has tried and failed (to some degree) to dominate English football with skill and flair and it seems like the time could be up for one of the greatest tacticians in the English game.

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