Jim White
2010-08-27 14:47
Not a draw, a fix
At one point during the interminable and bombastic Champions League draw, Gary Lineker cracked a joke. The Match of the Day presenter was responsible for drawing the group numbers out of glass bowls and made chortling reference to hot balls. He was recalling the old-style method of fixing a draw, the way in which the tokens were heated up to ensure the right ones were pulled from the hat. The joke passed unnoticed by the Uefa officials on duty. ...
Jim White
2010-08-25 15:33
Is the season already over for Liverpool?
According to Tony Wilson, the late Mancunian music entrepreneur, you learn something about football as you grow older. When you are young, he said, you believe that a club's success is down to players. A bit older, you think it is due to the manager. But eventually you arrive at a position of sufficient wisdom to understand that actually, it is entirely the responsibility of the chairman.
As was his way, Wilson was being deliberately provocative with his analysis. ...
Jim White
2010-08-20 19:33
Whingeing Willy a great signing
Piers Morgan,
who believes Arsene Wenger arrived at the Emirates from atop Mount Olympus and
would generally claim anyone in possession of an Arsenal shirt was the very
epitome of unimpeachable genius, once described William Gallas as "a great big
whining French blouson." Which given that the Frenchman was, at the time,
Arsenal skipper, was tantamount to sacrilege. ...
Jim White
2010-08-18 15:33
Bellamy the bluebird
Craig Bellamy has packed his bags and gone back to Cardiff. Which means down in South Wales, even if the Ryder Cup is heading their way in about six weeks time, everyone would be advised to lock up their golf clubs. The oldest swinger (of a three iron) in town is going back to the place of his birth, taking a cut in division (if not in pay) in the hope of projecting the local team to the Premier League. And he could well make a difference to Cardiff City's prospects. ...
Jim White
2010-08-13 17:33
Another stick to beat Capello
Poor Fabio Capello. If he wanted to demonstrate his now total estrangement from English football's disgruntled opinion formers he could not have picked a better vehicle than the curt dismissal of our sentimental champion. According to the tabloids, by suggesting that David Beckham was "a little bit too old" for future international selection, the Italian has committed national outrage, slurring the country's very good name. ...
Jim White
2010-08-11 17:33
Not worth a boo
Steven Gerrard admitted this week that, were he an England fan, he would join in any booing at Wembley tonight. In truth, Gerrard will be lucky if there is anything as animated as a boo to greet he and his team's return to action. After what they did this summer, what they deserve to be met by is the crashing silence of indifference. ...
Jim White
2010-08-06 13:32
Will the real Wayne stand up?
Before the World Cup there was a widespread consensus about England's chances: without Wayne Rooney, they were minimal. Which is roughly how things transpired. Rooney wasn't absent through injury, but his mojo was. In one of the most inexplicable declines in form since the release of the woeful Godfather Part Three, Rooney, as we all know, had a dire time in South Africa. ...
Jim White
2010-08-04 15:32
Meet the new boss
Kenny Huang, Yahya Kirdi, the Rhone Group: the buyers are circling Anfield. It might seem incredible, given the horrible mess the previous owners made of their investment, that others are so anxious to take it on board. But in fact the new boss - and they could be installed by the end of the week - might well be looking at the bargain of the century.
It wasn't what Tom Hicks and George Gillett planned when they took over in February 2007. ...
Jim White
2010-07-30 12:57
Fayed gets it right. Again
It is not what you expect of the man who owned the biggest emporium of over-priced tat in the world, the man so ensnared by conspiracy theory that he routinely accuses the royal family of murder, a man pilloried by Private Eye as a swivel-eyed potty mouth. But it is hard to argue with the contention that Mohammed al Fayed - the old fugger himself - knows what he is doing when it comes to appointing managers of his football club.
Sure, the Fulham chairman hasn't always got it right. ...
Jim White
2010-07-28 14:54
Football's cruellest word
You know things are getting a touch surreal in the summer transfer market when news leaks out that Harry Redknapp has managed to sign only one player during the break and hasn't sold any. Not one.
Indeed, so thin has been the market movement so far that the lead item on Sky Sports News this morning was that West Ham had turned down a bid from Tottenham for Scott Parker. ...
Jim White
2010-07-23 13:09
Welcome to the economic madhouse, Yaya
Yaya Toure is apparently really looking forward to joining up with his new Manchester City colleagues. He regards the forthcoming season as one of great challenge and enormous potential. With the squad being assembled by Roberto Mancini, all trees in the vicinity of the City of Manchester stadium, he believes, are in danger of being uprooted. City are on the march. This is going to be massive.
All right, I paraphrase. Though only marginally. ...
Jim White
2010-07-21 15:15
Cole: Easy for Hodgson to say
£90,000-a-week for a player who, in the last five years, has featured in his club's starting line-up on average 19 times a season may not seem the bargain of the decade.
Cheaper, you would have thought to, buy out Simon Cowell's latest TV contract, better value to take a meaty bundle of used fivers and one by one shove them down the toilet, less risky to employ Harry Kewell as your medical consultant. ...
Jim White
2010-07-21 14:16
It's easy for Hodgson to say
£90,000 a week for a player who, in the last five years, has turned out for his club on average 19 times a season may not seem the bargain of the decade. Cheaper, you would have thought to, buy out Simon Cowell's latest TV contract, better value to take a meaty bundle of used fivers and one by one shove them down the toilet, less risky to employ Harry Kewell as your medical consultant. ...
Jim White
2010-07-16 12:33
Still winning nothing with kids
Eric Biel is 16, 6'2", a proper, English centre back, powerful, good in the air, ferocious in the tackle. Except he can play football too. Never once, he says, can he recall hoofing the ball out of defence. To do so, he reckons, would be to betray the whole essence of the game. Pass it: that's how he was brought up. But then Eric plays for Sporting Lisbon. And his views on the difference between the way young players are developed in Portugal and England are telling. ...
Jim White
2010-07-14 12:42
Great time, shame about the football
Well, that was a final which won't linger long in the memory. Three days on and most of us are seeking to forget what happened in Soccer City on Sunday night. Spain against Holland was a simply horrible exhibition, proof that if one team sets out to destroy, even the best find it hard to elevate proceedings. What the Dutch gave us what not so much total football as non football. ...
Jim White
2010-07-09 13:51
Only one winner
How things have changed. Spain, once
regarded as the serial chokers of world football, a side so averse to the big
time they made the Leeds team of the 1970s look like the most resolute
finishers in history, are closing in on the prize with all the lynx-eyed
resolve of real champions. ...
Jim White
2010-07-07 13:00
Time to praise non-famous men
There was always a fair chance that the
World Cup semi-final would be graced by two magnificent, stirring whacks of
long-range goals. That is what World Cup semi-finals are for: to showcase the
best talent in world football playing at its most persuasive.
Yet, before the competition started, you
could have got odds as long as Peter Crouch on the identity of those scoring
said goals. ...
Jim White
2010-07-02 14:09
The mother of dilemmas: who to support now
There are some cracking matches coming up this weekend. Now England have gone, the World Cup appears to have upped a gear.
Brazil against Holland, Argentina against Germany: either clash would have made a worthy final. And Spain, creeping up on the rails, not yet quite convincing but looking more ominous with every round.
It leaves the watching England fan with a dilemma, however. ...
Jim White
2010-06-30 16:09
Beckham can be England's Diego
Now the quarter finals have been settled, this is looking like a World Cup that could boil into something special.
Germany against Argentina, Holland against Brazil: these are the games the tournament was made for. ...
Jim White
2010-06-30 15:12
England should do it the Diego way
Now the quarter finals have been settled, this is looking like a World Cup that could boil into something special.
Germany against Argentina, Holland against Brazil: these are the games the tournament was made for. ...
