Champions League Headed by English Teams not Players
March 23, 2009, 2:48 pm
Filed under:
European Football,
FIFA World Cup | Tags:
Arsenal,
Capello,
Champions league,
Chelsea,
Everton,
Gerrard,
Lampard,
Liverpool,
Manchester United,
Portsmouth,
Rooney,
West Ham,
World CupYou may be forgiven for thinking that English football is going through a boom period with teams like Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal all featuring in the Quarter Finals of the UEFA competition. But look over those rose-tented spectacles and you will see a group of top English teams almost bereft of English players. Of course there are a few English players in those squads and some very good ones in fact. BUt look beyond players like Ferdinand, Terry, Lampard, Rooney, Gerrard and Carrick and the remainder is a who’s who of foreign talent.
Fabio Capello has just announced his squad for the forthcoming friendly game against Slovakia and the 2010 World Cup Qualifier against Ukraine and of the 24 players only 8 come from those top 4 teams. Manchester United are the exception, providing four players, but teams like West Ham, Everton and Portsmouth all provide as many or more players to the squad than Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. In fact there are no players in the Enland squad from Liverpool, the top team in the English league of the moment.
Referees Need Technical Help
It now seems long overdue that serious consideration is given to providing technical assistance to referees.
This weekend saw several refereeing decisions fundamentally affect the outcome of big games, so should the abilities of one man, and whether he gets a clear view of any incident, swing the outcome of a Premiership game in such a significant way?
Football now stands almost alone in professional sport in forsaking the help of available technology to ensure a fair result is achieved. Tennis for example now has the help of Hawkeye technology to judge the correctness of every line call. Rugby Union uses a fourth official and video replays to ensure decisions on try scores are correct. Formula One, a sport that has technology at its very heart, has track-side referees who can use video replays to assess fair or foul maneuvers and impose drive-through or retrospective penalties even after a race is over.
Match changing refereeing decisions were once again under examination this weekend after incidents at the Spurs vs Arsenal game and and at the Sunderland vs Stoke game where referee Rob Styles made what must have been the biggest mistake of the day when he failed to spot Stoke player Pugh using his hands to stop the ball crossing the goal line. Sunderland players and fans alike could not believe that the action of Pugh went unpunished. On TV Pugh certainly had a guilty look on his face but unlike some other sports where honesty and honour are upheld, no professional footballer is encouraged to own up to a foul when the stakes are so high. Another thing that should change perhaps.
So with such high stakes and so much money now involved in the game it must be time to reconsider the use of assistance technology to make sure important refereeing decisions are made correctly. It would certainly reduce pressure on referees and remove the weekly complaints from managers that now seem par for the course.
Super Strikers to leave
January 21, 2009, 7:50 pm
Filed under:
Barclays Premiership | Tags:
AC Milan,
Arsenal,
Barcelona,
Drogba,
Henry,
Kaka,
Manchester City,
Manchester United,
Robinho,
RonaldoThe breakdown of Manchester City’s negotiations to sign Kaka from AC Milan, followed by the unexplained departure of Brazilian striker Robinho from City’s training camp in Tenerife could be indications of signs of unrest amongst the top foreign strikers in the English game.
The failure to sign Kaka was not unexpected, after all he has been linked with unsuccessful transfer negotiations in the past, most notably the £50m attempt by Real Madrid to lure him away from AC Milan in 2006, but the hold the Premier League has on the world’s top players seems to be waning.
Arsenal lost Thierry Henry to Barcelona in the summer of 2007 and there have been numerous rumours about Christiano Ronaldo leaving Manchester United, including last summer to Real Madrid. Even as recently as yesterday Ronaldo was required to restate his allegiance to Manchester United, but we all know that saying you are happy at a club can mean nothing when an attractive offer, both financially and in football status comes along. I’m expecting one or two big name foreign strikers to succumb to the lure of the Spanish or Italian game before the season is over and Drogba may be first to go.
