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arcticandy

Listed below are comments made by arcticandy between Tuesday, 9th June 2009 and Monday, 12th October 2009.

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Ferdinand must sharpen up 8:19pm on 12 Oct 2009 Ferdinand thinks he's Alan Hansen or David O'Leary at times, but that probably isn't his fault. The media have long compared him to the significantly superior duo, hoping that England finally had a defender with the composure to pass the ball out of defense and build an attack.

Truth is he's not the player he was at Leeds and his early Man Utd years and there are far better defenders in the Premier League. I fail to see what Upson is the only competitor, surely Turner and David Dunne are both far superior, as are Woodgate and Ledley King. I even saw a very decent young player from Aston Villa, but I think O'Neal let him go in a moment of madness over the summer.

I find it curious how both Carragher and Rio Ferdinand have had extremely poor starts to the season, perhaps they didn't get the rest they needed during the summer. At least Ferdinand has his injury as an excuse.
Stuttering start for Benitez 7:03pm on 18 Aug 2009 Liverpool may have been poor, but then if we're going to base an entire season on a single, pre-season blues infected day, then there isn't much threat to their hopes from any of the usual top 4.

Arsenal may be the real deal, but they'll need to face some Premiership opposition before I give them that. Everton put out a pub side and got what they deserved. Rather than being hopeful of winning the title, if I was an Arsenal fan I'd be more worried about how a team as bad as that managed to open them up with opportunities on two or three occasions and eventually score.

Chelsea and Man Utd looked like mid table teams, barely scraping past Hull and Birmingham at home. They both looked like they'll be lucky to be in the top 6 if that's indicative of their season.

I'd rather lose away from home to a team that looks likely to make the top 6 than struggle to beat bottom 6 opposition at Anfield. The real test for Liverpool will come in those same lower-league opposition home games, if they do as badly as last year then that will be the tell tale sign of another year of failure, not a single away loss to a team as good as Tottenham.

But the reality is all of the top four will improve as the season progresses. First week games and poor starts are common from title winners, just ask Man Utd supporters. They were considered outsiders at best by November last year, despite a huge number of games in hand, and yet came good in the end.
Robbo's Premier League predictions 11:39pm on 13 Aug 2009 Flak from the Scousers and Old Trafford eh? Yeah probably but not from this one. I'm a firm Liverpool supporter, have been for over 30 years, and this season will see them win.

Definitely lost a good player, no doubt about that and an injured ponce isn't going to make up for it. But United have lost more and Chelsea have bought no one of consequence - so they won't do any better.

Quality blog though, I'm swapping Arsenal for Utd, who will drop out of the CL places. I think Wenger's team will surprise everyone and come 2nd if they get their act together quickly. Van Persie and Ashvarin with Wiltshire and Walcott in support will be an interesting forward line for them and good enough to do better than last year. Eduardo is a quality backup for either forward and they'll keep Fabregas for at least one more year.

Chelsea 3rd and Tottenham 4th. Or Villa or Everton or Burnley.
Mutu's misery is football's folly 8:15pm on 10 Aug 2009 Don't understand why Chelsea get a penny. They decided to sack him, they weren't forced to. I also don't understand why he didn't say he would have honoured his contract, it was Chelsea's decision to rip it up.

Unless there was a clause in the contract that stipulated full reimbursement from the player for the transfer fee if he commits gross misconduct, then they shouldn't have had a leg to stand on.

I also don't see how this doesn't equate to slavery and therefore illegal under European and British law. They've basically said they bought a person, fired him and now want their money back because he was naughty.

Things like this should prove the unraveling of all football transfers and player contracts, because things like this legal case make football players, and therefore human beings, property.

The European Union has already come close to saying contracts are illegal under European Law, where everyone has the right to freedom of employment and therefore can quit one job to move to another. Employers are not allowed to own people and force them to work for them, end of story.

Because The FA, UEFA and FIFA have dealt with this case so disgracefully, if I was him I'd go straight to the European Courts of Human Rights and take down the entire transfer/player contract system.
Students force home rule issue 5:05pm on 08 Jul 2009 "The argument may be made that this is just an amateur level competition"

So are the Olympics. Oh right, I forgot, because athletes from certain countries wouldn't turn up unless they got paid, it's now professional.

If people really understood who our athletes were facing from more "competitive" nations, they would understand how amazing it is that we end up with gold medals at any Olympic or World Championship games. To take away one of our better chances at getting a gold medal over such a irrelevant issue is mean spirited. Spoiled children threatening to take their ball home if we don't do as they demand springs to mind.

As we move towards a federal Europe with common laws and a single currency, how backward must it appear to everyone hoping and waiting to join the EU that we are still squabbling over whether this is one country or four. You know, fighting over issues we demand those future joinees sort out in their own nations before they are allowed to join the EU.
2010's dress rehearsal 6:07pm on 29 Jun 2009 The fact that South Africa is in the southern hemisphere will be a great advantage to teams like England and Holland next year. Most people are still geographically ignorant and don't understand that it will be winter in the southern hemisphere during the next World Cup, so they assume that as the games will be played in Africa the heat will be unbearable.

That doesn't mean it'll be freezing by our standards, far from it. But it does mean it won't be in the 90s or 100s. The worst possibility is torrential downpours in the tropical regions, which the northern nations should shrug off quite comfortably. Warm rain? Lovely.
The fallout from Setanta's collapse 11:04pm on 24 Jun 2009 In the US it made more sense to buy a cable sports package at $9.95 a month and watch the same games Sky Sports shows, including Sky Sports News, rather than pay $25 a game on PPV. A few of the better games were only shown on PPV, but most of them were on the Fox Soccer Network, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. On FSN we see the exact same games you do in England, as they take their feeds directly from the Sky Sports channels.

The real money for Sentanta in the US came from the Euro finals and World Cup qualifiers. Those of us who have moved to the US have got used to paying to watch England play, but we very rarely do so. Not many people are willing to pay $25 to watch an England World Cup qualifier on TV.

The World Cup finals are different, as ESPN always picks up those games, just as it does with the Champion's League.

So really there isn't much of a market here for PPV football, especially when the cable channels already included in our subscriptions air the better games a few days later. Gambling $25 to watch England live isn't much of temptation unless they actually make it to a semi final.

I do feel sorry for Scottish football, but not the Football League. They should have learned their lesson from the way ITV managed to obfuscate their way out of paying them.

PS A hint for the BBC. BBC America needs Match of the Day - even if the show was delayed a few weeks to avoid friction with other rights holders. Repeats from the previous season would be equally appreciated if the current season's games are not allowed and lots of ex-pat and US subscribers would be made extremely happy!
Fixture and frettings 01:31am on 19 Jun 2009 There are certain teams that you know will always stand a good chance at re-appearing in the Premiership. This is because they handle their money well and don't implode like Leeds or Southampton.

Boro are one of them. They've been here before and with a lot less money in parachute payments, a significantly less talented manager and with more useful players disappearing on them (what did happen to Juninho after he left?).

Boro will actually be fortunate if they do lose most of the ones that want to leave, because if they weren't willing to put the effort in at Premiership grounds, the likelihood they'll be willing to scrap at a League ground seems somewhat improbable.

I predict a maximum of two seasons in the Championship, and a wave goodbye to Newcastle too.

Funny I used to really like Newcastle and become overcome with boredom watching Boro.

Now everyone dislikes not only their management, but their team too. I can't see anything less than 5 years in the Championship for them as they rebuild the entire club, or worse, doing a Leeds and disappearing to Leagues 1 or 2.
Is Owen still worth a gamble? 5:44pm on 15 Jun 2009 People who think he's past it are fools. He has had horrendous luck at Newcastle, and who says he would ask for wages of 50K or more? Maybe he is asking, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't accept less.

When he was at Real people considered him a failure despite the fact he had a better goals per game ratio than Raul or Ronaldo. He just wasn't getting the games he should have, but he was one of the fan's favourites because when he did play he scored.

At Liverpool he was often injured too. He had problems with his hamstrings because of the way he played, relying on his speed. Despite this he still scored 20 or more goals every season.

There's also this incredibly foolish attitude that he's a one dimensional player. I would take any striker that one dimensionally scores 20 plus goals a season. He's a different player now, and relies on decent service in the box. But once he starts scoring he won't stop.

He still has good pace, just not the kind of pace that would win 100m against 19 yr olds. But he's easily fast enough to go past many of Europe's defenders.

For 0 pounds and 0 pence, a forward that has the capability of scoring double digits every season is not to be sniffed at, even if he does command a fairly high wage. My guess though is he would take a lot less than people are talking about if an offer to return to the premier league came along.

And as a Liverpool supporter I'd love to see him return. I definitely take Owen over the unknowns that are being talked about and we do need a backup for Torres.
The dread of pre-season training looms large 7:00pm on 09 Jun 2009 When Harry Redknapp was in charge of Bournemouth, he had a pretty good relationship with Alan Ball at Portsmouth as well as the guys that ran my local football team.

So we would get some of the more.. err.. experienced Bournemouth and Portsmouth players and coaches take charge of our training sessions so we could learn how to do the kind of pre-season the old 2nd Division (now Championship) clubs used.

Both these clubs were implementing the kind of pre-season you talk about, and it did us the world of good. We were fitter and more successful that year and the leaders in our two teams took those training routines to heart. We reproduced them (although a bit scaled down from full pre-season training) after the season started and in following years when those players and coaches weren't available we knew the routines by heart.

So I reckon the idea of creating a personal fitness routine based on football's pre-season is an excellent one (comment #3). Certainly the people I play part time football with now that I live in the US would probably like an upgrade over what I can remember from all those years ago. Just one warning though, as we get older shedding the pounds becomes more difficult, especially if you don't want to cause yourself an injury - so never skip the stretching warmups.

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