Ferguson - I am god.

[redlancer]

Premier League E20 Rule:

"In every league match each participating club should field a full-strength team."

And if they dont?

mmm didn't boro get a 3 point penalty for not fielding a squad as they didn't have a full strength team against Blackburn.

If I owned a paper I recon just for a laff come monday - front page headlines - FA to drop united 6 points for not fielding a full strength team.

As for weakened sides - nothing wrong with it IMO

[Craig_H]

If Sam Wallace has already got on the wrong side of Ferguson, someone should write to him outlining all these little things, and get him to launch another attack

Whether or not his bosses at the Independent would allow it to be published though, is another story.

For the record, this is Mr Wallace:

http://img.skysports.com/07/11/218x298/SamWallace_597704.jpg

Seems like a nice enough chap

One recent offering:

Sam Wallace: You can't keep a good manager down – unless he happens to get relegated

Talking Football: English football does not benefit from English managers being tossed away

Monday, 11 May 2009

Gareth Southgate is fighting for survival with Middlesbrough

When you examine Rafael Benitez's early managerial career it is a wonder he ever made it. But after every bad season and relegation he endured there was someone prepared to give this raw, talented young manager a chance.Real Valladolid? Benitez didn't last the season. Osasuna? Sacked after seven games. At Extremadura, where he banned the players from chewing gum and ordered them to wear matching training kit, he was promoted, relegated and sacked. He went to Tenerife and won promotion, Valencia offered him a job and the rest is history, as immortalised on scores of banners in the Kop.

The moral of the story is not that sacking a young manager is helpful – although it did not deter Benitez – rather that one relegation, or one bad season, does not a bad manager make. English football's problem is the stigma that we attach to managers whose teams have been relegated, or managers who have been sacked. It is regarded as a form of professional bankruptcy rather than part of the learning process.

Which brings us to Gareth Southgate who, barring a rather unlikely turnaround in Middlesbrough's fortunes tonight, will find himself in the Championship in August. Southgate will be English football's litmus test for a new attitude towards our young managers. Can we forgive him? Will we, as Spanish football did for Benitez 15 years ago, invite him to get back on the horse and try again?

We should. Middlesbrough's chairman, Steve Gibson, has already promised to back him, English football needs to do the same. Too many young managers find themselves out of fashion, or bad jokes, just a few years into their careers. Walking out the Anfield reception around midnight after that momentous victory over Real Madrid in March, I passed the Benitez entourage strolling to their cars. At the back was Aidy Boothroyd, a man whose name still adorns the League Managers' Association's available list six months after his sacking by Watford.

You would wager that Boothroyd perhaps regrets some of the more David Brent-ian middle-management monologues during his one Premier League season, and has probably considered how he would do it differently next time. Unquestionably, he will be a better manager for it. There is no reason to suspect that Boothroyd is the same manager he was that season, any more than Benitez is the same man who found himself out of his depth at Real Valladolid.

Southgate's case is curious because, for many of his managerial peers, he invites resentment for landing his first job in the Premier League. His £12.7m, club record signing Afonso Alves could not be described as a success. He did not have the required Uefa Pro licence. He has benefited from the patience of who most people believe is the league's most sensible chairman.

Yet from the Middlesbrough team that contested the Uefa Cup final three years ago yesterday, Southgate has presided over a downsizing of the finances of the club. Ten of the first XI from that evening in Eindhoven, including Southgate himself, no longer play for Middlesbrough. Alves' expensive failings will always be hung around the neck of his young manager but in the Uefa Cup final, Middlesbrough had three £7m to £8m-plus players – Yakubu, Ugo Ehiogu and Massimo Maccarone – on the bench.

It would be wrong to say that Southgate has not had money at his disposal, he has just not had as much as his predecessors. His wage bill has gone from mid-table Premier League levels to one of the lowest five in the division. He has tried to follow a relatively sound principle of – where he can – buying young players cheap, such as Marvin Emnes and Didier Digard. He has encouraged academy players such as Adam Johnson, an impressive performer for the England Under-21s. It just has not worked out.

His principles have been sound, his results rather less so. This being Boro, there is only derision or worse, indifference, from the rest of English football. But what they have done with Southgate, given him the platform and time to learn the business, is a service to the game. English football does not benefit from English managers being tossed away like the cellophane on a cigarette packet, be they Alan Shearer or Southgate.

All Middlesbrough and Gibson have not been able to furnish Southgate with is the relative anonymity that benefited Benitez in his formative years. Arguably, the worst thing that happened to Benitez in those early days was that Real Valladolid, who had been relegated from Spain's top flight the season before he took over, were reinstated because of a legal dispute between the league and two of its clubs. Suddenly Benitez found himself in Spain's top league with a team he had built for the division below and, unsurprisingly, he struggled.

At times this season it has felt as if Southgate's young team have been similarly out of their depth. It would be wrong if all Southgate's experience were to be wasted because he found himself stigmatised as a failure. Gibson at least seems to be minded to stick with him whatever happens. But then the prospect of Gibson's former manager Steve McClaren getting the Ajax job this summer demonstrates that it is not just men of Benitez's calibre who are capable of bouncing back. As long as they are given the chance.

King and Bendtner club together to bring more ridicule on players

Fine work from two representatives of Arsenal and Tottenham this week in competing for the title of "most embarrassing way to leave a nightclub".

Nicklas Bendtner must have thought he had the prize in the bag when he emerged from Boujis nightclub in the early hours of Wednesday morning with his trousers around his knees.

But like all good captains, Ledley King refused to take that one lying down and by yesterday morning he had got himself arrested on suspicion of assault for an incident in Soho. It is a difficult one to call. Bendtner gets marks for sheer originality; but the testament from a nightclub bouncer on Five Live yesterday that King boasted about his wealth shows the Spurs captain relied on a classic, tried-and-tested approach.

For those of us who refuse to accept the consensus that all footballers are overpaid wasters, Bendtner and King are not helping the cause.

Barça's back-room boys prove just as bad

Popular consensus says they are everyone's second club and we're supposed to genuflect in front of Barcelona's wonderful attacking football. But sadly Wednesday night demonstrated that they have just as many irritating back-room staff – ready to brandish imaginary cards at the referee and eager to thrust themselves into the limelight from the back of the dugout – as the worst offenders.

Is Almunia English? Depends what day of the week it is

Just remind me, where are we today on Manuel Almunia? When he took his eye off Cristiano Ronaldo's free-kick on Tuesday night, Arsenal's goalkeeper was very much a Spanish goalkeeper. But by Saturday afternoon when David James was all over the place at Ewood Park, old Manuel was feeling just a bit more Yorkshire pud and roast beef again.

Surely the point is that neither of these two are quite up to it, but James has one undeniable advantage over Almunia in terms of playing international football for England: he's English. But please no lectures from north of the border. Scotland have just got clearance to pick the Peterborough winger George Boyd on the basis that his grandfather was born in Motherwell. Wouldn't it just have been fairer to pick Boyd's grandfather instead?

[Reece]

I like his Cardigans

[Craig_H]

Here you go reece:

No email address known for Sam Wallace.
You could try contacting The Independent (Telephone: 0207 005 2000).
Based on the standard email format for The Independent, the email address might be [email protected] or [email protected]

Email him and tell him you like his cardigans

[Reece]

Well If I start off with that compliment then he may be more inclined to play ball

Erm but nah, I've got better things to do.

Okay well I haven't but I can't be arsed.

[dww]

Whether or not his bosses at the Independent would allow it to be published though, is another story.

For the record, this is Mr Wallace:

http://img.skysports.com/07/11/218x298/SamWallace_597704.jpg

Seems like a nice enough chap

One recent offering:

It is an interesting article that. I'll definitely look out for his work in future.

[Kev_81]

I like his Cardigans

And his hair.

[red g]

And his hair.

i am particularly fond of his buck teeth

[Meols Kopite]

Another good one from Sam Wallace:

As a student of American politics, and an interviewee of David Frost, Sir Alex Ferguson will be aware of the killer line in the recent Frost/Nixon movie. Pressed on his role in Watergate, Richard Nixon utters his self-serving justification that reveals his megalomania: "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal."

Let's take that theory and apply it to modern English football. How do we know when a Premier League manager is acting with arrogance and contempt? When Ferguson says he is, of course. Or, when Ferguson spots an innocuous gesture from Rafael Benitez, whom he happens to despise, towards Sam Allardyce, who has proved his unwavering acolyte. That is Ferguson's Nixon principle: it is because I say it is. And how could we be so stupid as to argue with him?

In applying the Ferguson/Nixon principle on arrogant behaviour between managers, suddenly things become a lot clearer. For instance, there was no arrogance involved when Ferguson picked Paul Scholes for a Premier League game against Middlesbrough in September 2002, having first withdrawn him from Sven Goran Eriksson's England squad. It was by no means humiliating for Eriksson to be sat in the Old Trafford stand when this took place.
Related articles

Anyway, Ferguson was never contemptuous of Eriksson, especially not when he mimicked his Swedish accent and stock answers in a magazine interview in 2003. "He sails along, nobody falls out with him," Ferguson said of Eriksson at the time. "He comes out and he says: 'The first half we were good, second half we were not so good. I am very pleased with the result.'"

Arrogant and contemptuous attitudes were right off the menu when Ferguson's players and staff were aggressive, hostile, abusive and provocative in a confrontation with Chelsea's groundsmen last April. That was not my description but that of the Football Association independent commission that found overwhelmingly in Chelsea's favour in December over that incident. Presumably the QC in question, Nicholas Stewart, had not applied the Ferguson/Nixon principle. What the hell was he thinking?

It is a talent peculiar to men like Ferguson, to see things exclusively their own way. When Ferguson described Benitez's "game over" gesture against Blackburn Rovers on Friday, he said it was "beyond the pale", as if the Liverpool manager had sneakily executed a Nazi salute in Sam Allardyce's direction. At most, Benitez just looked like a harassed supply teacher trying to restore order.

Remarkably, Ferguson claims that he spotted Benitez's gesture towards Allardyce himself, which must have taken a lot of rewinding and pausing of his Sky+ as he scrutinised Benitez's conduct for something that could be considered controversial. Not since Mary Whitehouse has the television age known someone so easily offended.

The more obvious explanation is that Allardyce told Ferguson about it, largely because Allardyce is a very enthusiastic disciple. Other managers such as Mark Hughes, Steve Bruce, Roy Keane – even yesterday's opponent, David Moyes – have sought to put some distance between themselves and Ferguson. They are well aware that however chummy, if Ferguson wants something – your best player for instance – then it will be business as usual.

Perhaps the most laughable aspect of Ferguson's justification for his attack on Benitez: that Allardyce was undeserving of it because of his sound work for the League Managers' Association, as if that organisation was – at that very moment – endeavouring to solve Africa's poverty and bring peace to the Middle East. Perhaps with Big Sam in the vanguard, uniting warring factions through lectures on ProZone stats and the necessity of having a club nutritionist.

The LMA doubtless does much good work, but membership of it does not alone necessarily confer righteousness. It has, like any professional organisation, its own self-interest. The great irony is that the serving England manager is given the honorary title of LMA president and when all the backslapping is done, that same LMA president has to fight against the LMA's leading members withdrawing their players for international friendlies.

It is not impossible to discern why a foreign manager such as Benitez feels an element of distrust towards the LMA, especially when it is used against him by Ferguson in arguments such as the one the United manager ignited on Friday. Ferguson may have a polite tradition of writing to every new young manager who joins the profession, but that avuncular style is not exclusive to him. In the only interview he has given since leaving Sunderland, Keane singled out Benitez as a manager who had been generous with his time.

Contempt, arrogance – these are every manager's stock in trade when the moment requires it. When Ferguson refused to shake the hand of Claude Puel after United's defeat to Lille in the Champions League in 2005, the French manager might well have regarded that as arrogant. Ferguson's dismissal of Manchester City this season – "still lingering in mid-table" – was not dissimilar to Benitez's "small club" jibe at Everton.

What Ferguson is attempting to do is to isolate Benitez because he clearly senses a hardening of feeling towards the Spaniard among his managerial cronies. It also suits him to do so as the season reaches its conclusion with Liverpool still very much in the running.

It is all the familiar mind games, the usual nonsense. But let's be clear about one thing: giving Big Sam a bit of stick does not make Benitez arrogant. Even if Ferguson proclaims it so.

[Craig_H]

I'm not 100% sure, but i think that's the article that pissed ginsoak off

[Pedenj]

Neil Warnock Has A Short Memory

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article6327169.ece

Warnock saying that he doesn't think it is a problem that United will field a weak team against Hull, and that the rest should just focus on their job and get on with it.

The same Warnock that said “I’m still very bitter about it and personally I hope Liverpool never win another trophy under Benitez. I like them as a club but I would be very pleased to see them win nothing" after we lost to Fulham.

Double Standards for the Scum once again.

[Meols Kopite]

Should have included the date, it was Monday, 20 April 2009

[meffin]

What an absolute Fergie bumming tosser

[Exiled_red]

mmm didn't boro get a 3 point penalty for not fielding a squad as they didn't have a full strength team against Blackburn.

If I owned a paper I recon just for a laff come monday - front page headlines - FA to drop united 6 points for not fielding a full strength team.

As for weakened sides - nothing wrong with it IMO

I thought they got the penalty for failing to fulfil the fixture. Because they didn't have enough fully fit first team players.

[Exiled_red]

There's a thread on this in the General football section