English PM Backs Fans On Global Proposal

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called on the Premier League to listen to the views of the fans before moving ahead with plans to introduce overseas games.
Mr Brown also believes that the money earned from the foreign matches should be used to keep ticket prices down.

"Fans have to come first and you have to listen to their views on this," he told Radio 5 Live's Eamonn Holmes in an interview broadcast on Saturday.

"It's important to recognise that the money has to go back into the game."

All 20 Premier League clubs have agreed to explore a proposal to extend the season to 39 games from 2011, with the extra round of fixtures being played in five host cities.

The proposal has created a heated reaction, with many supporters unhappy with the plans, although Sunderland boss Roy Keane and Newcastle counterpart Kevin Keegan are among those to have given their support.

And Brown believes that a commitment to plough the extra money back into the English game would be one way of winning over the fans.

"I have just come back from China and India and the support for the Premier League and people watching matches there is just incredible," he added.

"Now if that is money that is going back into football, and if that is helping keep the price of tickets down in England, and if that means that more fans get more opportunities of going to matches as a result, then that would be something that I think people would want to take into account.

"There is no doubt about the worldwide interest in the Premier League. There is no doubt that that's good for football because it gets more money into the game in England.

"There is no doubt that the English Premier League has taken over from the Spanish and Italian as being probably the one that people would want to watch the most and therefore you have to get the best players into the league.

"So let's hear what the fans say on this."

Premiership Between Top Three According To Wenger

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger believes that the Premiership title will be decided by the head-to-head played between the current top-three.

Arsenal earned themselves a narrow gap at the top of the table on the strength of last weekend's resilts, and now find themselves two points above Manchester United and six points ahead of Chelsea. Considering that the nearest challengers after that are a full 16 points back, it is no controversy that Wenger effectively ruled out the Liverpool sides by way of his analysis.

"The mental aspect of the game will be important but so will the direct confrontations," said Wenger through the club's official website. "They have a major part to play.

"I don't rule out Chelsea because they have to play at home against Man United and Arsenal.

"They have already put wins together when they have had players out. I don't think we can rule them out, it will be amongst these three."

All three teams still have to play each other again before the end of the season, with he next potential title-decider will take place on March 23, when Wenger's Arsenal travel to take on London rivals Chelsea

The Munich Disaster: A Personal Recollection

Review by Mark Hinton, Goal.com

The 50th anniversary of the Munich disaster on February 6th brings back some vivid childhood memories and is a poignant reminder that life is an impermanent lottery and none of us ever know what lies around the next corner.

I am a lifelong Arsenal supporter, from a family of Gunners' fans, and on February 1st 1958 my father took my brother and me to Highbury to see Arsenal play Manchester United, the famous, pioneering Busby Babes. I was six-and-a-half at the time, but besotted with football and passionate about Arsenal.

My Dad had imbued me with a sense of wonder for the Gunners with tales of the legendary Chapman era in which he’d grown up, and of the post-war years under Tom Whittaker when the Arsenal were still a force to be reckoned with.

But the 1957-58 team were no great shakes, and a month earlier had been dumped out of the FA Cup at the third round stage by Northampton Town of the old Third Division South. Still, I'd been taken to three games at Highbury already, two of them involving the first-team, and had not yet seen them lose by the time of United's visit.

However, on February 1st we travelled more in hope than expectation because Matt Busby had built a remarkable young team. They were defending League champions, having won the title in 1955-56 and retained it in 1956-57, when they just missed out on the (then) elusive double of League and FA Cup, losing 1-2 to Aston Villa in the Wembley Cup final after being effectively reduced to 10 men early on when their goalkeeper Ray Wood broke his cheekbone in a sickening collision with Villa winger Peter McParland. The Ulsterman went on to score both Villa goals, but today would have been red-carded without hesitation for his challenge.

That Christmas (1957), my prized present was "The Big Book Of Football Champions", a popular annual in the 1950s, and while there was little in that particular edition to stir the emotions of an Arsenal fan, United featured prominently, with full-page colour pictures of the likes of Duncan Edwards, Roger Byrne and Jackie Blanchflower. Believe it or not, I still have that book.

United's two consecutive League championships had earned them entry into the embryonic European Cup, and Busby had the vision and the guts to defy the archaic English football authorities who were opposed to an English club participating in the competition for reasons of short-sighted self-interest and xenophobia.

United's pioneering exploits in Europe, followed by most people vicariously through the black-and-white footage of newsreels shown each week in local cinemas, had added to the aura of the Babes.

But the basic appeal of that team, even among fans of other clubs, was that they were extending the boundaries, breaking the mould. Busby had proclaimed in the mid-fifties that his emphasis was firmly on youth, and at that time that philosophy was heresy, the stuff of revolution.

But he had made it work. United were playing the game with youthful exuberance and an attacking swagger that was captivating, and what was more, they were making a big impression on the continent with their particular brand of football.

So when they came down to Highbury, ahead of a midweek trip to Belgrade to take on Red Star in the second-leg of a European Cup tie, we were both expectant and apprehensive. It would be something to see them in the flesh; but they were likely to give my team a battering.

The playing surface was as much rolled mud as threadbare grass: par for the course at the time. And, in a way unimaginable today, when the players came out for the pre-match warm-up or "kick-in" (no elaborate, co-ordinated stretching and jogging routines back then), youngsters could take their chances by running onto the pitch with their autograph books and trying to collar their heroes.

I looked on enviously from the front of a packed terrace, too young and small, and probably too timid, to scamper over to the god-like Jack Kelsey or David Herd with pen in hand.

But there is a memorable and poignant photograph from that match (which Arsenal reproduced in their next club handbook), of the great Duncan Edwards happily signing for an awestruck lad with Brylcreemed hair and a duffle-coat. I have sometimes wondered since what emotions that lad experienced over the next few weeks, or indeed years.

The game itself turned out to be a classic, United confirming all their advance publicity by racing into a three-goal lead through Edwards, Bobby Charlton and Tommy Taylor. It was a chastening experience for a young Arsenal fan, but you had to admire United's football.

However, in an amazing three-minute spell after the break, Arsenal drew level with goals from Herd and Jimmy Bloomfield, who scored twice.

But as an unlikely victory suddenly seemed possible, United showed their class with two more goals, Dennis Viollet and Taylor making it 5-3. Then Derek Tapscott pulled one back and for the remaining 13 minutes United were on the back-foot, defending stoically to win 5-4.

It was an awesome football match - one which, had it been televised then as now, would be regularly re-run like that famous Liverpool-Newcastle game of the mid-1990s. Indeed, had the match been captured on film, it would be a priceless artefact now, given what was about to befall. But I had the match programme, now one of the most valuable in my collection because events invested it with unique significance.

We went home disappointed to have lost but knowing we'd been privileged to see such a game, to see our players nearly hold such a team; and we were full of admiration for Duncan Edwards in particular.

In the middle of the following week we heard that United had drawn with Red Star in Belgrade and were through to the European Cup semi-final.

But what I remember most vividly was coming down to breakfast on the morning of Friday, February 7th and finding my Dad in tears in the kitchen with the newspaper in front of him. It proclaimed that the plane carrying the United party back from Yugoslavia had crashed on its third attempt to take off from Munich airport after a refuelling stop. Twenty-one people were already dead, including seven United players. Duncan Edwards was still alive, but in a critical condition, as was Matt Busby. It was all too much to take in, especially for a six-year-old. But the photographs on the front page of the paper were graphic and removed any doubt that something devastating had happened. So did the sight of my Dad crying. I was soon a weeping mess myself.

The next two weeks were surreal. The age of instant and mass communications was still some way off. News dribbled through and my Dad kept me updated. It seemed that Edwards, fighting bravely for his life, would survive. Busby, though, was twice given the last rites, so poor was his condition.

In the event, Busby survived. But 15 days after the crash, Edwards died. It was in some ways the biggest blow of all.

At school on the outskirts of London, people were becoming Manchester United fans overnight. There was never any danger I would waver from Arsenal, but I felt great sympathy for United and willed them to succeed, along, I know, with most of the country.

Their immediate problem was to find eleven players to fulfill their next fixture, an FA Cup fifth round tie at home to Sheffield Wednesday. With a team composed of a couple of Munich survivors, a couple of emergency buys and a string of second and third team players, United beat the Owls 3-0 in what was surely the most emotional football match ever played at Old Trafford, and quite possibly at any ground anywhere.

A few years later we moved to Surrey, and I found that my next-door neighbour, a good six years older than me, was a huge Manchester United fan. He'd supported them since Busby had first started assembling his team, and he had an impressive collection of programmes and memorabilia that inspired me to take up collecting seriously myself.

He showed me the match programme for that Sheffield Wednesday cup tie, with eleven hauntingly eloquent blank spaces where the names of the United team should have been. The club, being managed by Jimmy Murphy in Busby's absence, simply didn't know who might be available at the time the publication went to press. That too has become a valuable collectors' item, for obvious reasons.


* * *


Things change. My own feelings of empathy towards the United of 1958 gradually faded as the club rebuilt, though as a sixth-form teenager ten years later I enjoyed their eventual triumph in the European Cup final - Busby's fitting tribute to the team that had died.

Over the last three decades the likes of Louis and Martin Edwards, Peter Kenyon, Ron Atkinson, Alex Ferguson and sundry United players, not to mention their great rivalry with Arsenal, have removed the positive feelings I once harboured towards the Red Devils.

But I still have great respect and affection for the original Busby Babes, and I desperately hope their memory is respectfully observed in a dignified way this week, particularly before the Manchester derby at Old Trafford. For me personally, and I suspect others of my generation, it will be a deeply evocative and moving minute of silent reflection.

They were a truly great team whose football, as much as their tragedy, deserves its place in any hall of English football fame.

Collina: Two Refs On The Pitch A Good Idea

Referee designator Pierluigi Collina has supported UEFA President Michel Platini’s proposal of using more than one referee on the pitch.

Italian football is currently engulfed in a new controversy with officials being found to have made a worrying number of mistakes this season.

Many of the current crop of referees were brought in to replace the old guard who were removed following the Calciopoli crisis in 2006.

With poor refereeing a problem all around Europe, UEFA President Michel Platini has proposed that more than one referee be placed on the pitch to help minimise mistakes.

“I like Platini’s idea of two referees,” Collina stated.

“With two refs we can get a clearer idea of what’s going on, especially with the debatable episodes that happen around the box.”

One person who is certainly not in favour of implementing these changes is Cagliari President Massimo Cellino.

“We can’t put two, three or 10 referees out there – it’s as if we were sending out two goalkeepers,” he blasted.

“But I don’t think that six months is long enough to assess the work of our referee designator.

“Collina inherited a disastrous situation – there are still good refs and lots of new men, but many of the good old officials have quit.

“In my opinion the generation switch hasn’t happened yet and it can’t happen in six months, but it’ll get there.”

Who Is Better - Kaka or Ronaldo?

Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro and Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite are named, respectively, after actor-turned-President Ronald Reagan, and the baby babble of a younger brother who couldn't pronounce the word 'Ricardo'. From these beginnings come the two most famous names in world football: Ronaldo and Kaka.

The pair are also the subject of one of the most polemical arguments currently being debated in pubs and bars around the planet. One of the two gets the vote of FIFA, UEFA, Pele, and the majority of Europe’s army of football journalists. The other can count on the support of Sir Alex Ferguson, the late George Best, and his mum. So, who is the better player, Kaka or Ronaldo?

Based on this season’s form, it is difficult to argue against Ronaldo.

In Serie A Kaka has been stumbling a little, looking slightly jaded, not quite managing to pick up the rhythm that has previously marked him out as the most outstanding attacking talent of his generation. By his standards, it’s been a "nearly, but not quite" kind of season so far.

Ronaldo, on the other hand, has been almost supersonic in the Premier League. Swapping his annoying diving antics and some of his unnecessary trickery for a more straight-running, direct approach, the Portuguese midfielder has frightened the living daylights out of just about every defender and goalkeeper in the league.

His blistering pace, remarkable athleticism, unstoppable free-kicks and clinical eye for goal have seen him overtake his goalscoring tally of last season already and taken him to the top of the netting charts. He has hit 27 goals in as many games for Man United - not bad for a player who’s supposed to play in midfield. His willingness to attack is relentless.

But when comparing these two stellar talents, it is important to remember the old adage: ’form is temporary and class is permanent.’

Michel Platini, who spoke about Ronaldo this week, is correct in saying that the Portuguese has yet to prove himself on the biggest of stages.

"It's difficult to compare players in competitions and teams. Is it more difficult to play right wing in Manchester than it is in Italy, where it doesn't exist?” Platini argued this week.

What the UEFA president is saying is that, for all it’s thrills and spills, the Premier League is not as defensively sophisticated as the equivalent competitions in Spain and Italy.

"If Ronaldo is the best player in the world or Europe he will have to prove it in the Euros, because that will be the only way we can judge him, when all the best players will have had the chance to be recognised," declared Platini.

In the Champions League last season, when it mattered most, Ronaldo went missing. While Kaka was busy winning the competition and becoming its top scorer, Ronaldo turned in a few cameo performances and scored a couple of goals. In his side’s vital away leg against Milan in the San Siro, he first made a fool of himself, then appeared to have gone home for the rest of the evening.

But lets not dwell too long on Ronaldo’s flaws. He is, after all, still only 22. No-one is suggesting that he won't go on to become a great player.

This, in turn, should not distract from the fact that Kaka is, quite simply, a more complete footballer than Ronaldo.

His balance is better, his technique is easier, he is much more elegant in possession, a far better team player, a more incisive passer and a more intelligent reader of the game. The Brazilian has never attempted a step-over in his life because he doesn’t have to. Such circus trickery is beneath him.

Kaka glides past players as if they aren‘t there; he's as subtle as he is lighting quick. And when Kaka sings, Ronaldo often stutters. The latter's jittery, jinking, dribbling is easier to deal with as a defender. Not easy, by any means, but easier.

To put it another way, marking Ronaldo is about as difficult as dodging bullets. Marking Kaka is like marking the breeze.

The Portuguese, however, is better in the air and probably a better free-kick taker. Probably? We haven't really had an opportunity to see how good Kaka is at set pieces because Pirlo, the best in the world, takes them for Milan and Ronaldinho usually takes them for Brazil. As for Ronaldo's higher ratio of goals per game, as Platini intimated, he is doing it in a league where it is easier to score goals. As for his 20 strikes in 53 games at international level, almost all of them have come against teams such as Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Estonia.

Pele, who is usually a terrible judge of talent, to be quite honest, has actually got it right this time.

“Kaka is the best player in the world, without a doubt,” the Brazilian legend told Gazzetta Dello Sport recently.

Most of the talk of Ronaldo being the best player in the world has come from England, where there is a tendency to claim global supremacy too easily and too quickly.

Take Ronaldo’s stunning free-kick against Portsmouth. As soon as his strike hit the top right hand corner of the net, pundits and fans were proclaiming it as the greatest free-kick of all time. It wasn’t. Its not even the best free-kick of the season. Andrea Pirlo’s pearler in the Milan derby was much closer to the edge of the box and more difficult to lift up over the wall and down again into the top corner.

Okay, all these claims about one player being better than another are probably unproductive, anyway. Football is, lest we forget, a team game. Are Kaka and Ronaldo really better players than the likes of Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Buffon, Francesco Totti, Esteban Cambiasso, Andrea Pirlo, Fernando Torres, Cesc Fabregas or Zlatan Ibrahimovic? It is, of course, virtually impossible to compare players who perform completely different roles and functions on the pitch.

The best we can conclude in the debate about Kaka and Ronaldo is that Kaka is the finished article and Ronaldo still has a little way to go. But then again, if he is a finished praduct, should he not be producing the results in Serie A? And the debate goes on...

One thing is certain: it is a privilege to watch both of them play.

Premier League Replay: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Premier League Replay: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Andrew Discenza spotlights what was best and worst about the weekend's action in the English Premier League…

The Arsenal striker was in top form on Saturday, scoring two goals and leading his side to a 3-1 win over Manchester City. The big Togolese was a powerful physical presence all game long, especially as an aerial threat. Not only was he clinical in front of goal, but contributed by holding up play and linking well with the midfielders.

Adebayor made his first impression after only nine minutes. Alexander Hleb played in Bacary Sagna, whose cross found Adebayor waiting to pounce on the edge of the six-yard box. Micah Richards got a block on Adebayor’s first-time effort, but the ball looped over goalkeeper Joe Hart and into the net.

Adebayor had a hand in Arsenal’s second goal as well, on 26 minutes. He rose well to meet a Gael Clichy cross, and knocked the ball down for Eduardo, who pivoted splendidly to rifle in his twelfth of the season in all competitions.

In the second half Adebayor terrorized the home side’s defence, and came close on multiple occasions, including when he seemed to have earned a penalty after falling victim to a Richard Dunne and Richards sandwich. The Arsenal leading scorer capped off his performance wonderfully in the 88th minute by scoring his 18th League goal of the season (21st overall). Adebayor started a breakaway but went down while the referee said play on. Hleb and Cesc Fabregas combined well on the run, and Adebayor, following up, was in an excellent position to capitalize on a shaky clearance. He thumped the ball home, scoring yet another poacher’s goal.

This sort of dominant performance is critical for Arsenal, who by winning return to the top of the table. It may very well be Adebayor’s goals that Arsenal rely on to win the title.

The Bad – Alan Wiley

The referee for Saturday’s Blackburn vs Everton goalless draw made incorrect decisions on key plays that could have supplied the goal that the game so desperately needed. He refused to call a penalty when Zurab Khizanishvili put out a leg to bring down Everton striker Andrew Johnson, who was airborne at the time. Later, David Dunn, already on a yellow card, appeared to playfully bat the ball away from the Everton player with his fist, in what would have been a bookable intentional handball. But Mr. Wiley kept his red card in his pocket, and it would prove vital for Blackburn as Dunn would clear the ball off the line from a corner minutes later.

A poor refereeing decision disallowed Everton a deserved winner at the death. James Vaughan burst through the Blackburn defence, while Johnson was in an offside position, but moving away from the play. Goalkeeper Brad Friedel came out to challenge Vaughan and Vaughan went to ground but kept the ball and then played across to Johnson, who had come in behind at least three Blackburn defenders and was clearly onside.

Johnson then went on to take a touch and pass the ball into the empty net. But the linesman flagged for offside. Wiley should have seen this to be a clear error on the part of his assistant, and allowed the goal. But instead the goal didn’t stand and the referee’s negative impact on the hard-fought encounter forced a result that is hardly justified.


The Ugly – Wayne Rooney

The Manchester United striker’s dive in his side’s 1-1 draw on Saturday against Tottenham summed up his attitude throughout the match, as well as United’s below-par performance. The visitors were getting desperate, having trailed since the 21st minute. And Rooney, running into the penalty area, chose to go to ground when the defender came across instead of playing the ball, and he was punished with a booking for simulation.

The defender didn’t get a touch, and the theatricality of Rooney’s attempt shows that the assumption that foreign players dive more than domestic ones is incorrect.

Rooney’s performance was largely positive, playing with energy and desire but was very unproductive while attacking. Manchester United certainly were not at their breathtaking best, having gone behind early they had been on the back foot for much of the game. But the champions were resilient, and forced in a goal just as the allotted three minutes of stoppage time were running out. Carlos Tevez claimed it but it seemed to have been an own goal off Michael Dawson. Manchester United drop two points, but they showed, along with Rooney’s poor attitude, that they will fight to the very end.