Hey, here's an idea... Goal line technology

After seeing Hilarious Gomes flap at another shot, this time it didn't cross the line, although that wasn't the opinion of the linesman who was on the 18 yard line when the shot was struck and the 6 yard line when Gomes clawed the ball back into his arms, there is no way from that angle that he could have seen whether the ball was fully over the line, and the whole of the ball has to cross the line.

There is a misconception over how a goal is scored, some people think that only more than half the ball needs to cross the line, but the FIFA rules state, and I looked them up... From law 10: A goal is scored when the whole of the ball passes over the goal line, between the goalposts and under the crossbar. and for those of you who learn from pictures:

You don't even have to get all technical with lasers in the posts or chips in the ball, you can set up 3 cameras, two in either post and one in the crossbar looking down on the line, give the fourth official a TV screen and he can tell you in seconds whether or not it is goal, it's not like the fourth official does anything else during the match anyway.

It has happened too often for FIFA to say it will be a waste of money, maybe, just maybe England wouldn't have had such a crushing defeat against Germany because I am sure that goal would have given them the momentum to go on and take control of the game.

Football is too much of a money run franchise to be leaving these decisions to the referee and his assistants, they have too much to deal with already, and these poxy "assistants" they have introduced in the Champions League, they don't do anything and can't make the decision because the post is in the way.

FIFA's only real argument against this technology is that it would slow the game down, now with the camera way I suggested, it would take a matter of seconds for the fourth official to see where the ball is and radio the ref. Millions of people do it in their living rooms while watching Sky, within seconds the whole audience could see that Gomes had pulled the ball back to safety.

I don't know what FIFA do in their little world, but it seems like they don't want football to progress and I can't quite understand that. We need a governing body that listens to the people, not one that tells the people what to hear.

And when we get that, goals like this won't be debated, they will be done justice.

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Arsenal v Man United: Title Crunch Match ... oh wait.

Well here we are again at the tail end of the season and it seems that once again only one contender remains with a legitimate title challenge, of course Arsenal still mathematically can win it and Chelsea are in with a shout but it has all come too late for anyone to knock United of their perch. You would think that if Chelsea had managed to pull themselves out of their run of such poor form sooner than they did, it would be a much different story. But then again you could say that about any team.

Many people are expecting Arsene Wenger to give up coming in to this match, especially after his recent press conference where after years of denial even he seemed to be dejected. You never know, with calls for him to resign from his fans, it may just have become to much for Wenger to handle and this may be his last season at the Emirates.

But that isn't Wenger's style and it certainly isn't Arsenal's. As we have seen on countless occasions, Arsenal's "never say die" attitude has seen them score several goals after the 85th minute to take all 3 points. Unfortunately for them their weakness at the back has seen those extra points thrown away and that could have been the difference of winning and losing the title this season.

Arsenal's major dropped points this season

Newcastle 4-4 Arsenal (2 points) Arsenal 4-0 up at half time
Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool (2 points) Arsenal 1-0 up in the 98th minute
Spurs 3-2 Arsenal (3 points) Arsenal 2-0 up at half time
Arsenal 2-3 West Brom (3 Points) Arsenal 3-0 down at half time
West Brom 2-2 Arsenal (2 Points) Arsenal 2-0 for 70 minutes

Add those points together and Arsenal have 12 more points, that puts them 3 points clear at the top with 76 points, and this is why Wenger can no longer rely on excuses, he has seen first hand his side throw away the title and they will do well to finish 2nd.

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Messi v Ronaldo: The Battle of the Spanish Giants.

It was long debated even before Cristiano Ronaldo made the move from Manchester to Madrid, and there was never a real chance for a comparison, because of the huge bridge in quality of the Spanish and English league defenders, but since he made the choice to go to Spain we have had a equal look at what each of the player's can do. They both have a fantastic scoring record in La Liga and have set the competition alight with skillful moves and wonderful passing, but there has been little between them.

The defining moment for these two players will come tonight at the Bernabau in front of 80,000 fans, the atmosphere will be electric and it will be interesting to see if they can both handle the pressure in what comes as a season defining moment for the two teams. It will be here that the best player is revealed, one will triumph and the other will have to bow and accept defeat.

Messi Comes Out on Top - Not for the First Time

As I said, one player would shine in the Bernabau this evening and that player was Lionel Messi, it seemed for a while that neither Ronaldo nor Messi were on top of their game but in the 76th minute Messi lost Alonso in the box and slotted home through Cassilas' legs.

If you thought that was good then it got a lot better from their on, with his renewed confidence from the goal, Messi looked threatening and Madrid were dejected and in the 87th minute he picked up the ball midway in the Madrid half, surrounded by 5 white shirts he slipped past them all and cooly slotted past the keeper.

In a match that was destined to be remembered for diving and theatrics not seen outside of broadway, one man stepped up to the challenge and showed why he is renowned as the best player in the world.

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The Budget Cap?

£80 million for Ronaldo, £56 million for Kaka and Torres for £50 million. Not bad if you have the money but as we have seen not many clubs do. It is no longer the team with the best manager, the best tactics or organisation. It is the team that simply has the most money.

Chelsea have done it, Man City are doing it, it is no longer about football anymore, if some rich oil baron throws his endless pile of gold at a club then it isn't long before the footballers' "greed senses" pick up and they switch clubs and triple their wages for no apparent reason. You surely can't have that kind of cash dominance controlling a sport, it's as soon as you let that happen that it no longer is a sport and it becomes more of a franchise.

The solution? well I know that some of you will think that this won't work and I'm sure that you will find loopholes in this idea. But I digress, if there was to be some from of transfer fee cap then the richer clubs couldn't have the dominance over poorer teams because of their finances alone. Lets go for a starting figure of £35 million, this would give enough money for the market to remain competitive and it wouldn't take all of the power away from rich clubs, that's not what I'm trying to do here, what I am trying to do is make the sport more viable.

This restriction will give the managers with the large kitty a choice, they either spend their whole budget on one superstar, or play the game conservatively and buy 2 or 3 good players, it adds another aspect to the transfer market and gives the rich clubs a dilemma rather than them spending widely at every chance.

Or even the unspeakable might happen, these clubs may spend their riches investing in the youth of the game, which is something that has come under scrutiny recently. With the remainder of their riches they can improve facilities for young players, they can help grassroots football progress because to be honest the quality of our pitches in England is appalling compared to somewhere like Holland.

So this cap could benefit England in two ways, our Division wouldn't become so money run and the youth would be brought forward with much better quality facilities on their side, and hopefully go someway to producing an England team that could end the 46 years of hurt.

Any thoughts? please leave a comment at the bottom of the article.

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Scott Parker: Player of the Year by far

You can't have a Player of the Year who is relegated that same season. That is the opinion of several people, who are frankly wrong. It is about time that these awards were actually given to the players that deserve them and not the player who's respective team is highest in the league.

There were calls for the gong to go be given to Nani. Here's why they're wrong, The award is for the Player of the year NOT the Team of the year, it is supposed to be recognition for the single player that has made the most difference to their team's performances. There can't be any argument that Parker hasn't done that for West Ham this year. You may say "well he hasn't made that much difference, they are still bottom of the League". 

That is where you're wrong again, the 12th February at the Hawthorns, the Hammers trail 3-0 at the break, Avram Grant is helpless, the players are dejected, step forward Scott Parker, It is not clear what exactly was said, but sources said that Parker's half time speech reduced some of the players to tears. Sure enough, West Ham come out in the second half, guns blazing and they salvage a 3-3 draw, a result which could be vital in the Hammer's survival hopes this season.


And that is something that Nani or any of the other nominees don't posses, the ability without even touching the ball to affect their teams performance's. But take nothing away from Parker's ability on the ball, he has a kind of aurora about him, something that gives him so much more time on the ball than other players, but that's just the start, he can tackle, he can dribble and he's got a decent shot on him aswell.


Parker has been the only consistent player nominated this season, the others have either been out injured or have hit low form during the campaign, of course these players have their high-profile moments, Berbatov's over-head kick against Liverpool and Bale's stunning performance at the San Siro to name a few. But what about the tackles, the defensive displays that have kept teams in games, there is no recognition for them, mainly because people don't want to see that, they want the exciting and the skillful side of football.


The only reason Gareth Bale won the PFA player of the year award was because of his hat-trick against Inter, fair enough it was a great effort by Bale, but he has been injured for half of the season and has been ineffective after that night in Milan anyway. A player who is kept out of a game by Phil Neville needs to take a  long, hard look at themselves. 


The nominations for the FWA Player of the Year are as listed:


Carlos Tevez
Nemanja Vidic
Samir Nasri 
Gareth Bale
Dimitar Berbatov
Jack Wilshere
Florent Malouda
Scott Parker
Robin van Persie
John Terry


The 3 players that lead their players by example are Terry, Tevez and Parker. The problem I have with who these awards are given to is that it is often not taken into account the 'What If' factor, what if Arsenal didn't have Wilshire, what if Chelsea hadn't had Malouda for the season, it probably wouldn't have made much difference. But if West Ham didn't have Parker, I think they would have been consigned to relegation already.


The difference that these players can make is vital and I think that they need to be based on their value to their team aswell as their individual performances, after all it is a team game.

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Torres: The Result of a Club Managed By Money

As featured on the Football Pubcast website
http://footballpubcast.clubfans.co.uk/2011/04/24/torres-and-the-substitute-effect/

Ok, so Fernando Torres has scored his first goal, big deal, it was against the Premier League's bottom team who are ultimately going to get relegated soon, it wasn't the winning goal, that was scored in the 44th minute by Lampard, and he was only on the pitch for 14 minutes, by then West Ham had been run down, they were tired, they had put all their effort in to trying to get back into the game and Torres just backs up what I like to call the 'substitute effect'.

To investigate the so called 'substitute effect', I take you back to a cold February's evening in Leyton, the mighty Arsenal had put out a 'weakened team', which still contained Sagna, Rosicky, Denilson and Arshavin. That should have been more than enough to deal with team lingering mid-table in League 1. You may be wondering why I am telling you this, well bare with me and it will all make sense. The match was all Arsenal's they had gone 1 up via Rosicky's placed effort. Enter an unknown Frenchman: Jonathan Tehoue, most of you won't know what Tehoue looks like, so this picture will sum up what I'm saying.

You can see for yourselves that the boy has some strength, and he has been used mainly as a substitute this season, just because he has the ability to take on tired defenders and beat them with not to much effort, he is pretty ineffective as a starter and there are just some players who are just made to be substitutes.

So after that long winded explanation we return to subject A: Fernando Torres, I urge Chelsea fans not to get over excited because of this goal, because you could not find a more stonewall example of the 'substitute effect'. The Hammer's players were ground down by the Chelsea groundsmen more than anyone else, for the hottest day in April since the 1930's, the pitch was an absolute state, it was because of this that Torres was able to turn past the West Ham defence like they weren't even there (that has been the case a lot this season anyway). You can see where Torres was trying to kick the ball, it was away from the goal and he would have been ushered into the corner by the West Ham centre back.

The only reason Torres is even at Chelsea, is because money manages the club, Carlo Ancellotti is at Chelsea is because Abramovich needs a figurehead to do the the jobs that he doesn't want to do, i.e the press conferences, the training. He is treating the club like a fantasy football team, Ancellotti is Roman's press puppet, he is the figurehead but Abramovich makes all the decisions, that's why Mouriniho left, because he had no control, he didn't feel as if he was managing the club. Abramovich can do what he likes at Chelsea because, well he owns the club, and it's owners like these that make managers obsolete in the modern game.

Think of it in terms of KFC just because Colonel Sanders is on the bucket, doesn't mean he is making the chicken.

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Arsene's Arsenal are complete Arses

When is Arsene Wenger actually going to stop living in denial? It seems that every time something goes against Arsenal it is someone else's fault. I am of course referring to Mr. Wenger's latest "outburst" involving the Liverpool game at the Emirates.

The referee was spot on with the timing of the game and Wenger can have no complaints about Eboue's rash decision to bundle Lucas over in the box after what seemed like Liverpool's final chance had come to nothing. As Eboue "fell in" to Lucas (as he claimed) I heard Ray Wilkins' voice, like when Obi Wan comes back at the end of Star Wars. The words "Stay on your feet" whistled around the stadium as the ironic cheers for the failure of the freekick turned into groans of misery as the failure of another season came into fruition.

Now don't even get me started on the triangle of doom that is Almunia, Koscielny and Squillaci. But I will anyway, there was a reason that Almunia was always in the shadow of 'Mad Jens' not many goalkeepers could be perceived worse than both Lehmann and Seaman, but Manuel Almunia has definitely tried his best to achieve that. Both centre backs haven't got a clue really, there is no communication between them and they just aren't good enough for the Premier League. To be fair to Arsenal they have missed Thomas Vermaelen all season and that was a big blow for them, he was one of their best players last season and could have prevented some of the costly mistakes for Arsenal.

It seems while Wenger keeps his philosophy of "we must pass the ball into the goal" Arsenal will never win anything of importance, it's the ability of grinding out those scrappy wins that makes you a champion and it is those scrappy wins that Arsenal can't seem to do, or even want to do. It is what we've seen from Man United on timeless occasions this season, probably too much from their perspective. But it's those extra scraped points that have given them their lead at the top.

Although I believe that United will win the league, it will be closer than people think, not forgetting that United still have to play Arsenal and Chelsea. If only 1 point is taken from those two games then either of those two teams could be right on United's back.

So it seems like another trophyless season is on the cards for The Gunners (but who knows I might be wrong), but it isn't all doom and gloom, the football style is there, the stadium, the players, it is all set up for Arsenal to win a trophy. They just need a different manager.

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