England Should Stay Positive after New Zealand Draw

England can take hope for the future from their tour of New Zealand - despite the disappointing performances.

Even the New Zealanders wouldn’t have expected to get a draw in the test series against England - a team placed six places higher than them in the ICC test rankings. Even more unexpected was that they would outplay their visitors in two of the three tests, bowling out the tourists for less than 200 on two occasions, and had it not been for heroic knocks from Matt Prior and Ian Bell they would have recorded an unlikely series win. 

England went to New Zealand on the back of a test series win in India, the first time they had achieved this feat for 27 years. New Zealand had just been beaten heavily by South Africa, losing by an innings twice in a two-match series. So surely the scraped draw against the Kiwis should be a worrying result for England in the build-up to the Ashes later this year?

Perhaps not. A wake-up call or reality-check if you like, but England’s tour of India had clearly taken its toll on the player’s concentration and energy. The fast bowlers noticeably tired quickly and were unable to run in with the amount of aggression needed to put batsmen under concerted pressure. It’s of no surprise that Stuart Broad, who missed the series in India through injury, was perhaps England’s best and most consistent performer with the ball. And England were missing the ICC’s eleventh best test batsman in the world in Kevin Pieterson and the eighth best bowler in Graeme Swann. There were many times in the series when Alastair Cook must have wished he could have thrown the ball to Swann, who has that knack of getting a key wicket in his first over. In the absence of these key players, England looked to youth, and the experience gained by Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow will be of great benefit to them and their team in the long-run.  

So in many ways England can take heart from their battling draws. The spirit of the rear-guard defiance shown against Australia at Cardiff in 2009 and South Africa at Cape Town in 2010 raised its obstinate head again. Matt Prior playing a Collingwood-esc innings to cement himself in the ICC’s top 10 test batsmen. England still have a great team spirit, probably even more so since Cook’s accession to the captaincy, and that will have been strengthened by their stubbornness in the last innings of the test series with New Zealand. One thing is for sure, England will be big favourites in the upcoming Ashes series, with Australia in disarray after a thrashing at the hands of a far superior India. The dogged draws in 2009 and 2010 were key stepping stones when England trod the path to test match supremacy - maybe this gritty 0-0 could lay the foundations for another climb to the top of world cricket. 

Non-league Football’s Financial Frailties

While the likes of Manchester City can pay out £250,000 a week to a player who refuses to play, some clubs at the other end of the spectrum are facing almighty struggles just to keep their heads above water.

After months in administration, Darlington FC have moved a step closer to ceasing to exist at all after ending the contracts of their manager and all of their playing staff.

The situation at Kettering Town is very similar with caretaker boss Mark Cooper saying how the club might not last into February.

What these clubs have in common is that they are both battling relegation from the Blue Square Bet Premier, a characteristic which makes it hard to command a following big enough to fill their stadiums – and to fulfil the aspirations of their chairmen.

Imraan Ladak took over at Kettering Town in 2005 and has put a lot of money into the club since being there.

But things have taken a turn for the worse in recent times.

Under a transfer embargo since November, the club’s players haven’t been paid in full since that month and now the club faces a winding up order in February.

Kettering fans blame Ladak for their beloved team’s situation, especially as they believe he’s stalling the sale of the club.

                                          Kettering fans have lost patience in Ladak

In the case of Darlington, their problems appear to have started with the building of the Reynolds arena in 2002.

Chairman at the time George Reynolds hoped that the all seater ground that can hold 27,000 would help push the club on to the Championship and beyond.

The reality could not be any further from the truth – the club struggles to reach 4,000 fans at home games.

                                                The Reynolds Arena - a bit of a concrete Elephant

Unlike the likes of Leeds United, these clubs can’t sell off their best assets at the expense of dropping down a couple of leagues in order to rebuild.

Without some considerable investment into the clubs they could go into extinction – in Darlington’s case that investment needs to come within a matter of days.

The huge gap in wealth between the top clubs in England and those at the bottom of the pile is staggering.

One week’s worth of Carlos Tevez’s £250,000 a week wages would comfortably bide either Darlington or Kettering over until the end of the season.

Already on twitter ‘Balotelli to save Darlington’ was trending, the Quakers hoping that the volatile-yet-charitable Italian will don the Santa outfit one more time.

It one of these clubs did go under, it would not be the first time something like that happened.

Chester FC was expelled from the Nationwide Conference in 2010 as a result of their financial situation, ending up in the Northern Premier League – the seventh tier of English football.  

The same thing happened to Halifax Town FC. Buried by huge tax debts in 2008, the club returned as FC Halifax Town in the Northern Premier League Division One (English football’s eighth tier).

The passionate fans of lower league and non-league football are one of the things that make British football unique, and if this trend continues that could be in danger.

For the trend to be bucked it may need the FA to share a bit more of its wealth with the lower leagues but these clubs would be in a much better state if it was not for the hasty actions of their over-eager owners.

Marouane Chamakh: No snood – no good

It’s November 27 and Arsenal are 2-1 up in a close game away at Aston Villa. Ciaran Clarke’s 52^nd minute goal has put the Gunners under pressure. Up step Marouane Chamakh, showing his feminine side with a neck warming garment which takes its name from a woman’s hairnet. He scores with a first-time finish after being put through by Tomas Rosicky, and after Clarke has scored again to make it 2-3, he sets up Jack Wilshire to kill the game at 4-2 to the Gunners.

Skip forward a year and two months and Chamakh is about to leave for the African Cup of Nations, but not many of the Arsenal faithful are too sad to see him go.
Chamakh’s goal in the Villa game was his seventh premier league goal of the season, a good start for a new signing, sadly for him it was also his last premiership goal of the season – with less than half of the games played.

                                               Chamakh in top form - must be the snood                       

Any football expert would say that strikers lose form without any explanation – just look at Fernando Torres, but maybe there’s a less obvious answer – because he’s stopped donning the snood.

I am unaware of any research into the effects of wearing something that looks like a women’s fashion accessory upon performance, but this lack of goals can surely be no coincidence.  
Bad news for the Moroccan – snoods were banned by FIFA last year, a law coming into effect at the start of this season. Looks like he’ll need to be on the look-out for some new feminine neck-gear, maybe a new floral scarf? Don’t think they’ve been officially banned yet…  

   

Winter break? Why it might just make the Premier League more predictable.

It’s an issue that regularly comes up at this time of year. Normally brought up by a manager of one of the elite premiership clubs – this time last year it was Sir Alex Ferguson’s turn. He was supported by the manager of Sunderland at the time Steve Bruce, but it could be argued that not having the winter break is a benefit to the clubs not involved at the top of the table – in turn making for a more exciting, less predictable run of games over the Christmas and New Year period.

As a passionate Arsenal fan, I sat through the recent, 2-1 away loss to Fulham and saw how my team struggled to mount any form of consistent pressure in the second half – after doing just that in the first period. Although it might be seen as an excuse, my beloved Gunners were certainly lacking the fitness to drive on and attack in the second half, allowing Fulham to create the pressure which gave them a deserved victory.

Ji Dong-won's late winner stunned Man City

“We played 48 hours before and we went down to ten men and so there were probably some tired legs”, was the excuse from Wojciech Szczesny the next day.  
This year the dreaded winter fixture congestion has certainly taken its toll on the top clubs. Chelsea losing at home to Villa, Man Utd losing as home to Blackburn, Man City losing away at Sunderland, all unexpected results which probably would not have happened were it not for squad rotation and fatigue.
There is an obvious argument that the top clubs are better equipped to deal with a congested fixture list as they have more strength in depth than teams not as well off as them. But this hasn’t proven to be the case this year, and if these games were more spread out wouldn’t it just result in the top teams being able to put out full strength sides in almost every game, thus adding to the predictability of the league – the quality that makes it the most exciting league in the world.

What has Happened to Premier League Defences?

Watching Arsenal’s electric 5-3 victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, and witnessing Gary Neville’s near-breakdown at half-time on Sky Sports over the defending from both sides, made me wonder what has happened to the solid premier league defences that we have been used to in recent seasons.

Already this season we have seen score-lines of 8-2, 6-1, 5-1, and now 5-3 between clubs that are competing for those all-important top four spaces.

In many ways this latest goal-fest is the most surprising, not because of the way Arsenal conceded three, but that Chelsea, a team known for their ability to keep clean sheets with ruthless defending, conceded five.

What is more, it could have easily been more, for both teams. Arsenal spurned two gilt-edge chances to take the lead in the first five minutes and Chelsea were uncharacteristically wasteful at the other end.

It seemed that both teams only had to play a hopeful ball over the top and they were in behind their opponents defence with a chance of scoring.

Strangely, the personnel in defences of these teams, previously known for defensive resoluteness (excluding Arsenal from this statement), are all top class performers.

Chelsea’s back four with John Terry alongside Branislav Ivanovic looks just as strong on paper as it was last season and Manchester United’s defenders are all internationals (yes even Johnny Evans). Even with stalwarts Ferdinand and Vidic having their injury problems the likes of Chris Smalling and Phil Jones are capable of protecting David De Gea.

As for Arsenal, they have never been a team that looks solid at the back and this is still very much the case. Whilst the ever-improving Laurent Koscielny impresses, Per Mertesacker is still coming to terms with the pace and power of the premier league and Andre Santos looked all-at-sea and rather lacking in speed despite his second half goal against Chelsea.

Are these just freak results?

Have there have been drastic changes made behind the scenes to the defensive tactics/mentality at Tottenham, Manchester United, and Chelsea?

Both these explanations seem unlikely.

What is certainly true is that the attacking abilities of the premier league forwards appear to be at an all-time high, especially at Manchester City.

The young pretenders are looking more likely to leap out of the shadows of their successful neighbours in red, due to being the only team from last year’s top four with the ability to defend and shut out games, as well as taking apart teams at the other end.

Despite being a team only just assembled in the last couple of seasons, City look a whole lot more professional in their approach than the title-chase veterans Chelsea, Man United, and Arsenal, for whom attack appears to be the very only form of defence.

This gives their title chances a massive boost in credibility.

One thing is for sure - if this trend of the top teams defending badly, yet attacking well continues we can expect to enjoy some more goal-filled Match of the Day episodes.

However we might then have to put up with the faces of Alan Hansen and Gary Neville reaching new levels of redness.   

Time to Bring Back a Maximum Wage?

Is the only way for UEFA to really achieve financial fair play to bring in a maximum wage limit across European football?

We are currently in the midst of a three-year transitional period for clubs to move towards breaking even in their accounts. Michel Platini has felt strongly about this for some time, saying that “rampant commercialism” has been “assailing” the game, and the first 3 year section of a transitional period that will last until 2017 began at the start of this season.

According to UEFA, at the end of this drawn-out transitional period, clubs accounts (excluding expenditure on youth development, stadium infrastructure, community development, and depreciation on tangible fixed assets) will show they are breaking even. However, there have already been signs that some clubs might look to find a way round these rules, for example one of the clubs likely to be hardest hit by them, Manchester City.

Looking through the club’s website, it is noticeable that a large amount of the Manchester City sponsors are in fact linked to their owner s.  Etihad Airways have sponsored Manchester City £400m to change the name of the stadium to ‘The Etihad Stadium’ for the next 10 years. This is over twice the amount of the previous record, and UEFA are looking into the deal to see if it breaches their Licensing and Fair Play Regulations.

Gianni Infantino, Uefa’s general secretary claims that the FFP regulations will effectively create a soft wage cap by limiting spending, a view backed up by Andy Green, an investment analyst who writes the Anders Red football finance blog, who says that FFP will be a wage cap by stealth.

However, this view is not shared by Sam Rush, chief operating officer of Wasserman Media Group, whose clients include Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen and Football Writers’ Player of the Year Scott Parker. He does not expect the income of the elite athletes to be affected: “I don't think Champions League footballers should expect their wages to decrease at all,” said Rush. “There are plenty of revenue-generating opportunities that have not been explored in the past so I'm certainly not worried that the elite entertainers in world sport are going to suffer financially as a result.”

Therefore, a worst-case scenario, even after the regulations have been completely put in place, could see clubs still managing to spend incredibly larger amounts that others on players due to sponsorship from their owners, thus being able to offer huge wages.

In this case maybe UEFA should go the whole hog so to speak and put a cap on wages, of say £100,000 p/w. This would stop still allow the top clubs to pay their players incredible sums of money, but at the same time, create a more even playing field between the these clubs. Players would make decisions to join different teams based on footballing and social issues rather than monetary ones, as all the best teams will most likely be paying the same wages.

Due to the power of the top clubs and the players unions e.g. the PFA, the chances of UEFA being able to go through with this are obviously very small. But the same was probably said of the FFP rules that are currently being set in motion, and if all goes to plan elite football’s finances could be entirely different in 5 years’ time.