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alanborky

Listed below are comments made by alanborky between Thursday, 27th November 2008 and Thursday, 17th September 2009.

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Liverpool hope for power surge 4:55pm on 17 Sep 2009 Actually, I loved last night's performance precisely because we seemed to be operating on autopilot in first gear.

Normally, this early on in Europe, we seem to puff and wheeze and just generally struggle not to be overwhelmed by a fiesty bunch of tyros punching above their weight.

Last night's was our most promising starting performance for years - god help the rest of y'us once we actually get going!
Tevez a sound deal for Man City 4:48pm on 14 Jul 2009 Phil, I don't know why you can't take Tevez at his word.

He's said all along he was insulted by United's willingness to instantly shell out for Berbatov but distinct unwillingness to fulfill their agreement to buy his contract once the loan terms ran out.

Even now, whilst praising Ronaldo down to the ground, Alex Ferguson's going on about Tevez's failure to answer his texts from January onwards, suggesting this meant he'd already done a deal with City. Yet Tevez'd already publicly stated he intended to do this precisely because he viewed this approach as typical of Ferguson's standard operation procedures when it comes to manipulating players.

For that matter, what was to stop Ferguson simply strolling across the training pitch and taking Tevez to one side?

There does seem to be a disrespectful attitude in Britain to South American players in general, and Argentinians in particular, who haven't previously played in Europe. I'm an LFC fan but I think Rafa Benitez is being disrespectful to Mascherano if it's true he's only paying him £30,000 a week compared to the wages of other key LFC players.
Do hunter-gatherers have it right? 7:02pm on 20 May 2009 This piece ignores - or is unaware of - the great mystery that lies behind the whole switch from hunter-gathering to agriculture, i.e., how did such crops as wheat, (barley, corn, rice, maize, etc.), arise in the first place?

Wheat, for instance, arose from a type of grass barely fit as a source of human nutrition, (especially compared to the other options - look at the anatomical features dairy cows had to develop to handle grass), yet someone, somewhere, not only had the profound insight that grasses could be evolved, but that they could be evolved into something fit for human consumption.

Yet they also must've spent an enormous amount of time, (literally hundreds of human generations), selectively breeding and rebreeding descendants of this grass until they hit the right combination of characteristics to produce something that could pass for wheat.

So, far from being obvious, whoever proposed the breeding programs that led to domestic crops, cattle, poultry, etc, must've been not only scientific geniuses, but so charismatically influential as to be considered gods, g.g. the culture bringing cereal benefactor Demeter.
Capello's balancing act 7:49pm on 27 Mar 2009 So, Phil, you reckon Rooney's Fulham red card was harsh because he didn't throw the ball at the ref?

Well, Sir Alex no doubt didn't intend the boot to whack Beckham in the head - but it did!

And that's the trouble with Rooney - because he's so talented he thinks this gives him a divine right to risk getting sent off pointlessly in the last minute of a game they can't possibly draw, never mind win, in spite of the fact this'd mean him missing the next highly crucial game!

And remember, the only reason Ronaldo, (as a Portuguese player), was able to 'get' Rooney (on England duty) sent off was Rooney's own antics! So it's not like this is an occasional thing with him - it's written all through his career, like Blackpool through rock.

But what's worse is the fact that the likes of David Beckham also insist that since he's so talented he should be 'excused', totally disregarding the fact that most refs've been turning a blind eye to his pointless explosions of thuggery all through his career.

But okay, then, Becks - yes, let's excuse Rooney, let's indulge him, but let's hear you special plead for Joey Barton and every other player who's capable of such mindless thuggery, (or, for that matter, every other high street thug who claims he only lashes out because Life keeps frustrating his desire to be a winner)!

And the next time England've got to go up against a small nation team of eleven players who feel their "passion", their "desire to win" justifies substituting physical brutality for any attempt to actually play the game, I want to hear you defending their corner too.
United we stand, United we stumble 4:45pm on 23 Mar 2009 torontored: "I am so desperate to win the prem, I would sell my mother, and chop of my right hand.."

I'M so desperate to win the Premiership I'D sell your mother and chop off your right hand!
The Title Race Is Back On? Nahhhh! 4:37pm on 17 Mar 2009 Robbo, your ironic reference to Morten Gamst Pedersen being "a noble fella", reminded me of something I've noticed going on much more commonly, (if not openly), this season, compared to any previous ones.

It's the willingness of certain players (whether consciously or unconsciously I'm uncertain), to 'betray', Trojan Horse-like, their own team whenever they've been playing against whichever one of the 'big four' teams they happen to be fans or admirers of.

I have no evidence for this suggestion, other than that of my own eyes, but Pedersen's performance against Man United is a perfect example of the sort of thing I'm referring to.

The lad's normally a pretty fair player for Blackburn, but against United each and every time he got the ball, (and he seemed to want it an awful lot), he not only immediately broke up each and every one of Blackburn's advances on United's goal, but proceeded to unhesitatingly pass the ball to one of United's players.

I pointed out what I thought I was seeing to my brother and observed that it'd be interesting to see how he'd behave if he ever found himself with a shot on an open goal, suggesting, if I was right, something along the lines of him performing an impossible skew'd happen, or he'd take such a long and elaborate time in attempting his shot a United player'd have sufficient time to take the ball off his foot before he could do so.

And, lo and behold, when he finally does get just such a clear shot on goal, (almost against his will, I'd suggest), instead of taking it, he suddenly mysteriously goes down.

If anyone who can be bothered to read this gets a chance, especially if they're Blackburn fans, take a look at that dive, and ask yourself was he really diving for a penalty or was he actually diving to avoid scoring?
Liverpool make Ferguson suffer 12:03pm on 15 Mar 2009 There're some United fans on here and elsewhere who keep going on about how retaining the ball and passing it about for long periods of time is some sort of sign of superior football, but the truth is by that definition every one of the Italian and Spanish leagues, not to mention the various leagues of the rest of Europe, leave the Premiership dead in the water.

All the bugg*rs do is pass the ball, perform fancy shuffles, dazzle and weave - the Champions League is ripped to the t*ts with sides that know how to retain the ball for hours on end!

What makes a team superior is, first, that they score goals, (which is why so many of those fancy dan sides go out in the earlier stages), and, secondly, and more importantly, that they WIN!

United, by their own reputed standards, have been cr*p all season, (and the fact they needed John Terry to bail them out in the CL final is confirmation they weren't as good as they were supposed to've been last season!), but it wasn't all the fluent passing that made them champions, it was they knew how to do just enough to win, especially during those games when they were otherwise actually hammered, (viz the Inter game).

Knowing how to win, not fancy foot shuffles, is the definitive standard of greatness. Ronaldo is a great player IN SPITE of his fancy feints, not BECAUSE of them!

What'll make United outstanding is not if they now play a load of fancy fluent games, but if they win in spite of clearly being dead on their legs!
Button it Benitez! 9:30pm on 13 Jan 2009 "you get more interest from your average savings account than you do from Drogba these days".

- except when Rafa reads out a charge sheet listing Drogba's infinite series of interminable ignomies, (i.e., his endless diving and roughing up of opposition players, etc.), whereupon Drogba immediately plays his best game for years, puts one past Reina, then performs a spectacularly triumphalist victory slide on his knees right past Rafa, (I bet Scholari wishes Rafa'd start dissing his whole squad in the same way, right this moment!).

It's taken Rafa five years to get the hang of the Premiership, (if they give Scholari sufficent time he'll achieve this within another eighteen months), so maybe it'll take him another five years to learn when and when not to open his gob to achieve the effect he actually wants - and I'm a Liverpool fan!

Also, I don't think Sir Alex was really having a go at Rafa - I honestly think, in his own way, he was being sympathetic for what he perceived as a howl of pain from Rafa due to his gallstone condition - as he put it himself, there was so much "venom" in what Rafa said.

I hate it when Sir Alex has to go in for all that roughhousing business, but I hate it even more when people like Arsene and Rafa start trying all that rolling about in the gutter stuff, too - at least Sir Alex looks in his element, Rafa and particularly Arsene, (who's otherwise so classy), just end up looking silly.
Medical science needs your brain 10:53pm on 07 Jan 2009 This blog's subject conjures up the image of neuroscientists and their students becoming so deranged from a lack of materials to study they end up taking to the street, pestering every passerby for "Brains...brains...brains..."
Platini dismisses conspiracy theory 5:20pm on 27 Nov 2008 Is Platini REALLY batting for England, or is he just worried such EU involvement'll result in his own position being effectively superannuated?

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