A bit of four-sight for the end

At the time of writing, I am watching Arsenal held by Man United after seeing Spurs held and Chelsea win in the battle for Champions League qualification.
 
This weekend's draw with Wigan has put Spurs in a dilemma; we didn't necessarily expect Spurs to turn them over the way we did Man City, as Wigan generally hit form at this point in the season and Spurs are generally hit and miss.
 
The postponed game against Chelsea is proving to be a play-off for the final Champions League place, with Arsenal looking to take another place with a less challenging run-in. We never expected this season to be easy - the loss of Modric and Van Der Vaart, and the failure to sign another striker and loss of Adebayor's form overall has combined to leave Spurs looking at the end of the season with anticipation.
 
Of course Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea (and their fans) would all love a crystal ball to know what will happen in mid May, as this is classic squeaky bum time.
 
For fans of those three teams, life will not be easy and with champions and 2 relegations sorted in the Premier League, not to mention the fate of other 'second' teams (bad luck Barnet), there remains little in the way of 'nothing games' where every kick counts.

Worst Liverpool XI

Goal Keeper ­– Charles Itandje

 Absolutely rubbish and was caught laughing during a Hillsborough Memorial                           

Right Back -  Jan Kromkamp

Im not sure why we signed him, he was meant to be good, but this was questionable.

Centre Back – Julian Dicks

Signed by Graeme Souness. We David Burrows and Mike Marsh for him…..He didn’t last too long a season in fact.

                               

Centre Back –  Torben Piechnik

A defender again signed by Souness equally as bad as Mr Kozma but somehow managed to win a medal playing for Denmark’s Euro 92 Championship winning squad. Not one of our best Danish signings

Left Back – Paul Konchesky

This was Roy Hodgson's transfer, yes an awful player who is not a Souness signing. Most useless of useless. Only Roy Hodgson can tell you why he signed him.

Midfield – Istvan Kozma

A Hungarian international so bad he only made 6 appearances….Signed by Graeme Souness

Midfield – Paul Stewart

Allegedly a striker signed from Spurs, made 32 appearances and scored 1….no it’s not a typo, he scored one. No need to work out who signed this idiot.

Midfield – Igor Biscan

Sounded like some dodgy Bond Villain, played like a dodgy Bond villain...if they ever took up football

Midfield –  Antonio Nunez

We swapped him in part for Michael Owen going to Real. How the Spanish club must have been laughing.

Striker –  Sean Dundee

A waste of money and just croc, nothing more to say.

Striker –  Fernando Morientes          

I assume he had an aversion to the colour red. Twelve goals in sixty one games, although still better than Sean Dundee which isnt hard.

Subs

Mike Hooper 

Back up to Grobelaar, easy work for a rubbish goalkeeper

Rigobert Song 

Another rubbish defender. A case of why?

Sebastian Leto

Im not really sure about the point, he was very much out of depth. 

Frode Kipp

Not one of Norway's finest exports, made a sub appearance, but did get loaned to Stoke twice before being shipped back to Norway.

El Hadji Diouf

Arrogant, annoying, offensive and he was a waste of money. Not a sociable team player either

An English couple attending the Roma v Lazio derby

 Disclaimer - I wrote this on the plane on the way back from Rome, and only found out about the violence before the game when I landed back in the UK.

Following our footballing trip to Hamburg at the beginning of February, the second holiday-football trip combo saw my wife Victoria and I attend the recent Rome derby.

Although on an 'escape the British cold weather' visit, we spent nine fantastic days in Italy which culminated in four nights in the eternal city. Tourist tales and verbal slides aside, we managed to score tickets for the 'neutral' zone (more on that later) at the Olympic Stadium and despite the Gazza connection between Spurs and Lazio which have probably been erased after the troubles which marred our Europa league game, we decided to back Roma.

As I said, we were in the neutral zone which contained some Lazio fans, but was mainly filled with cursing Roma fans. Also it is a little safer to back the home team in such a game, and I recall laughing at the double-entendre of Totti, probably while Loaded magazine (which I read at the time) did the same in the mid-1990s.

The match day experience is everything you expect from one of the world's most bitter and controversial cross-city derbies: flares; giant banners; passionate fans; and a blatant disregard for no standing or smoking inside the ground.

Encountering one of Rome's many obelisks, the one in front of Stadio Olimpico bore the name of Il Duce Mussolini, which was so surprising that it was not torn down after his disposal and public flogging in death, or removed for the 1990 World Cup or recent Champions League final.

The stadium itself is a marvel, two 'curva' ends, with the rival fans in either, although a shortage of toilet facilities is a problem. A major consideration for the fans is the quality of the finishing and passing, although Lazio had the better play in the first half and Roma in the second.

The game itself was not without incident either - a penalty for both sides; Totti scored Roma's while Hernanes missed just after half time for Lazio. There was a whistle-happy referee, a red card for Biava and it finished 1-1.

Delightfully I can report that I saw no trouble either inside or outside the game, although this may be down to to the vast numbers of police in riot gear that we saw throughout Rome and on the approach to the stadium. Inside there was flare-lighting and throwing on to the section between the curva and goal (which is adequately protected by firefighters) but despite the predictable banter, the mood was not nasty but remained loud.

The whole event was slightly tainted by the challenge of getting home when the trams had mysteriously stopped running and no buses ran to the city centre's main points, meaning we were among the other fans stranded in a distant corner of Rome. However the discovery of a bus ahead of the rain and a can ride meant our memories were generally very positive.

Overall, as someone who saw Serie A as the place of the superstars and was generally disappointed by the standard and quality of the games when they were broadcast by channel 4 and presented by the excellent James Richardson (I once fell asleep during an AC Milan v Juventus league game), not much has improved. This was my and our first Serie A game, and atmosphere and some individual performances aside, the game was not a great spectacle.

Despite the drama, the referee blew for what seemed to be every infringement, the pace was medium and passing pretty woeful. Italy has a great reputation for football and while the World Cup win in 2006 boosted its coverage and confidence, it seems that it is struggling to match its history and competitors in England and Spain for quality.

I realise it is sweeping to criticise an entire league on the basis of one game, but where former Portsmouth players and Manchester City rebels are seen as stars, you do wonder what the arrival of Neymar would do for Serie A.

World Cup Qualifiers - Time for Change in Europe?

So another round of World Cup qualifiers took place over the last week and the same subject airs once again. Yes the question of the lower rank teams and their place in the World Cup Qualifier. San Marino, Liechtenstein, Faroe Isles, Malta, Luxembourg, Andorra all find themselves finishing bottom of their respective qualifying groups.

What does a nation gain from playing against Malta apart from improving the goal difference and guaranteeing themselves 3 points from the home and away ties to add needless injury possibilities? The answer is nothing. The bigger nations aren’t tested and therefore apart from the minnows getting a bit of extra cash and tv coverage they wouldn’t get, the only thing they really see is a severely negative goal difference.

There is no real reason for the smaller sides in the European qualification zone not to have to go through qualifiers to take their place. Fifa place other smaller nations in prelim qualifiers around the world, so why should low rating European minnows be exempt. I’m sure Club managers would be rather happier knowing that their players would be playing two less meaningless international games during the season. There are 53 member nations that take place in the draw and in reality that should be down to 45 who take part in the qualifiers for the World Cup. This could see the lowest 10 nations in UEFA playing to qualify for two places in the qualifiers.

If this were to happen,  come the next UEFA qualifying draw we would see the following nations taking part in a qualifying round.

Azerbaijan

Moldova

Cyprus

Kazakhstan

Malta

Luxembourg

Faroe Isle

Liechtenstein

Andorra

Monaco.

Some people may say that this would penalize the part time nations as we know they would not be good enough, but at the end of the day we want matches and tests, we don’t want walkovers and three guaranteed points. It may also change the face of qualifying and make things a little more interesting without the teams who supply nothing but goal difference bonuses. Admittedly this is something that I cant see happen, but we can always hope.

Time for the final egg-citement!

Bad punny headlines aside, the arrival of the recent England World Cup qualifiers proved to be a major distraction from the weekly race for Premier League achievement.

Of course the issue now is one of a race to the finish, and FA Cup semi finals an European competition (for Spurs, Newcastle and Chelsea fans alone) the only distraction, this weekend could prove to be a vital one in the last leg of the 2012/2013 season.

For Spurs, the challenge is on to bounce back from three straight defeats and capture Jermaine Defoe's goal scoring form for club. Admittedly Swansea are rather better than San Marino, but the way I see it - a goal is a goal, and if confidence is the problem for our misfiring marksman, then this may be the spark that he needed.

I don't like to predict (mainly because I predicted we would beat both Liverpool and Fulham) but with only the unpredictable trio of Manchester City, Everton and Chelsea to come among some 'winnable' games, the run in SHOULD be not too challenging for Spurs.

However having watched Spurs for more than 25 years and with memories still fresh from last season's end, something had better go right this time.

Ok so we don't have a manager whose head is being turned by a possible international job, but we also don't have the talismanic midfielders in the shape of Modric and Van Der Vaart, and the likes of Dempsey, Sigurdsson and Parker really do have step up and drag is through the next eight games. Because we cannot end up reliant on other results like last year.

A fond ‘farewell’, to the ground where it’s always downhill second half

An Easter treat from the wonderful Victoria Sharkey, Arsenal season ticket holder and Barnet Bees fan. Victoria is a great friend and the wife of our Spurs correspondent Mr Dan Raywood. I hope you enjoy and I hope there is more to come

Barnet Football Club, currently in another battle against the drop at the bottom of League 2, move from Underhill at the end of the season.  Their home since 1907, the club must move due to primarily to the local council refusing permission to develop to the standards now required of a league club.  The Bees will be moving to The Hive, currently their training ground, situated in Edgware… controversially not within the borough of Barnet.  Many hope that one day the situation will change and that we will at least be able to move back to the Borough at some point in the future, perhaps even to Underhill.  It would really only need a more progressive and supportive council, and a small injection of cash; at the moment, the former looks unlikely to happen.  But the latter is a real possibility.

Barnet have featured in both the sporting and the mainstream press this season mainly due to the shock signing of former Dutch international Edgar Davids.  (And yes, the idea of Davids at Barnet still makes me think I am in some strange parallel universe!)  Davids, whose previous clubs include Spurs, Juventus and Ajax, joined the Bees in October in a move which most of us thought strange to say the least.  He was also appointed joint coach alongside Mark Robson, although Robson left the club in December.

As time went on, a few rumours were heard as to why Davids had made this bold move.  He and his family had remained living in North London after he left Spurs, so whatever he did next was likely to involve staying in the area.  When spotted shopping in Cockfosters, most thought that this would mean a return to Spurs in a coaching capacity, but we then heard that he wanted to get into club ownership, rather than simply management or coaching.  We heard that he had spoken to Barnet chairman Tony Kleanthos about taking over the Bees, and this was acknowledged by Kleanthos in the press.  So it suddenly made sense; Davids wants to own a football club, but he wants to own a league club rather than a conference club, and so he is playing and coaching at Barnet without receiving a salary in order to keep us in the league…after which, he will buy the club from Kleanthos.

The future is bright for Barnet, as long as we survive this current relegation battle.  Looking at the clubs in the fight with us, I’d say we are a good bet for staying up.   Davids can then take the club into a new era, with a new ground, new ownership, and can perhaps work some of his Ajax magic into a side who have suffered over the years from poor attendances and an inability to keep hold of our best players (Puncheon, Sinclair, Bailey, I’m looking at you!).

But, what of Underhill?  What of our past?

As a result of my required attendance at a Hen weekend on April 20^th, I won’t be able to attend the last home game, so this Friday in the game against Dagenham & Redbridge will be my last match on the glorious East Terrace.

I first went to Underhill in 1993.  Having just changed schools, I was dragged along by one of my new friends.  I can’t recall the fixture, but I remember standing on the covered South terrace, swapping ends at half time, and as a Gooner who had just seen her beloved North Bank knocked down to make way for seating, I loved the madness of the terrace.  I’ve loved the Bees, and our poxy little ground, ever since.

I made life changing friendships there, went on dates there, had the worst corporate hospitality imaginable, took non-footballing friends there, and of course met star striker (and scourge of Newcastle United fans) Guiliano Grazioli there (and them named my cat after him).  I sang ‘Twist and Shout’, ‘Do you take it up the arse, Martin Allen’, and my all-time favourite football song ‘Hit ‘im on the head with the Barnet Press’.  Most importantly, Underhill is where I met and fell in love with Dan, my now husband (2-1 v Notts County, Ian Hendon with two from the spot, in case you were wondering). 

There has been highs and lows, but winning promotion to the football league (with a 3-1 victory against Halifax that gave us the title) and beating Swindon on penalties in the FA Cup rate amongst the footballing highlights of my life.  I will love the Bees until the day I die…and that is about as long as I will continue to hate Brian Coleman.

Underhill.  I will miss your beautiful slopes.  Thanks for all the memories.

Perhaps, one day, the Black and Amber will play on your hallowed turf once more...?

The Worst XI - Chelsea

Well we all know that it's easy to pick our all time best XI line ups, but some of us footy fans like to go that step further and look at the more difficult challenges called the Worst XI. So last week, fellow football fan and not amused Chelsea fan James Page came up with his Worst Chelsea XI. It's quite an interesting one featuring Chelsea players past and present. Some you'll remember and some you would have rather have forgotten.

Worst Chelsea XI

Goalkeeper: Frode Grodas

Had a name like a hobbit and played like one. Even struggled to make the Spurs team when we sold him.

Right Back: Gareth Hall

Truly useless. Went to Sunderland and a Sunderland supporting work colleague always held me personally responsible for every mistake he made there.

Left Back: Scott Minto

I think he has already made the worst West Ham XI and I guess any Benfica fan would put him in their worst XI too.

Centre-Back: Winston Bogarde

One minute our players were told to attack him as Barcelona's weakest link - the next we signed him and stuck him in the reserves on 40 grand a week.

Centre-Back: Frank Sinclair

A bit harsh as Frank always gave his all but his eye for an own goal and knack for giving away crucial penalties gets him in.

Midfield: David Hopkin

Couldn't pass, shoot or stand up. Seemed to improve a bit after we sold him which happened with alarming regularity in those days.

Midfield: Sasa Jokanovic

Came on as sub and got booked a lot for nothing. It was the only way you could tell the Joke was on the pitch.

Right Midfield: Mark Nicholls

A token failed 'Hot Prospect' from the days of Paul Hughes, Andy Myers etc.

Left Wing: Gabriele Ambrosetti

Labelled as the Italian Ryan Giggs. Turned out to be the Italian Lee Sharpe.

Forward: Robert Fleck

Great at Norwich but terrible at Chelsea, his awful (non) goalscoring record just edges out Paul Furlong, who was crap but at least managed the occasional goal.

Forward: Tony Cascarino

Another awful signing who couldn't even score in Scotland for Celtic.

Subs:

Graham Wilkins 

Looked a bit like Ray, possessed precisely none of his footballing ability but still played nearly 150 games for Chelsea.

Gary Locke

Wholehearted in the style of Frank Sinclair but with less of Frank’s composure. I once saw him stop a free kick with his unguarded testicles followed by being walked round the old running track at half time in an attempt to revive him for the second half. Probably would’ve been better with 10.

Fernando Torres - 

??????

Chris Sutton

Big fee, small goals return. What is it about expensive centre forwards at Chelsea? Quite good as a centre back though.

Mario Stanic

Came with a big reputation but seemed to have an aversion to making sure any of his passes got to a player in blue. Scored a 35 yarder on his debut, it was all downhill from there.

Notably there's some names that I remember and some that I dont or some that I would rather not.  If you think you can come with an even more abysmal one feel free to contribute.

If you would like to contribute with your worst XI email me at Strictly442@hotmail.com