Rafa talking crap as usual

‘They have quality, especially the quality on the bench… Against us they had Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Dimitar Berbatov on the bench. When they can change players of this value, these players can make the difference… So they have these kind of players, we have less of these… When you pay £20-£30million for each of these players, it is easier.’ – Rafa Benitez
Daily Mail, 18th May 2009, http://tinyurl.com/obg2ro

Uefa have branded as “ridiculous” the number of players on the payroll of the Premier League’s Big Four clubs. Liverpool, who under Rafa Benítez have stockpiled a 62-man squad, the biggest in the league and enough for more than five full teams, have come in for particular criticism.

Uefa limit clubs to 25 players each for the Champions league and their general secretary, David Taylor, speaking exclusively to Observer Sport, said: “Ridiculous. 62? You could have two full-size practice games. You can only field 11 at one time. It’s an open question as to how many you actually need. Is it 20, 25?”
Observer, 29th March 2009, http://tinyurl.com/d7epns

A dose of realism to cheer you up for the weekend

Arsenal, for all their travails – they’ve been fucked by United and Chelsea, probably the two strongest teams in the world – will still finish around ten points above us. That’s some gap to make up, and we are not going to do it unless we sign fellas who are the finished article – who walk into the first team and significantly ramp up the average level of ability there already. And those sort of chaps tend to cost proper money.

Good stuff as always from WSAG. Anyway it could be worse.

Afternoon TV

Watching Deal or No Deal at the mo. Have you got a system? Yes, I’m a big Liverpool fan Noel – so I’ll be opening the boxes in the order of the Istanbul penalty takers. First up, number 9, Djibril Cisse. £100k. Oh dear. Second number 16, Did Hamann. £50k. Ah, I didn’t know this show could be so entertaining.

Pancakes

Jen’s just phoned me to get me to pick up some milk and chocolate for pancakes on the way home. Aren’t you meant to use up food you already have before giving it up for lent? Jesus would turn in his grave – if he hadn’t resurrected himself of course.

It’s about emotion, respect, loyalty – and real love

Arsenal accounts reveal it took £10m (£5m wages, plus a private £5m one-off fee) to keep Thierry Henry for one more season. “I stayed for love,” said Thierry in 2006, before the accounts were made public. “I simply could not face leaving the fans. I’ve never played in Spain and now I never will. This is where my heart is. And my decision to stay or leave was never going to be based on economic considerations. People want to give you a label as a footballer where it’s all about money, money, money – they should stop talking about that. It’s not. It’s about emotion, respect, loyalty – and real love.”

via Football: Said and Done | Football | The Observer.

So… which details CAN I change?

Dear Glen Wells,

Your Dell Order is scheduled to arrive between 08:00 and 18:00 on the 12/01/2009. Please arrange for someone to be there
throughout this time – as we cannot be more specific about the time of delivery.

As your order is already on its way we regret it’s too late to change the following details:

1. delivery date
2. delivery address
3. order details

Sack the headline writer

The first sentence of the article: Everton’s progress to the fourth round of the FA Cup – after round-three KO’s in the past two seasons – was accomplished with relative ease. The headline: Everton squeeze past Macclesfield thanks to James Osman strike.

The man at the match says it was easy; the headline writer decides it was a squeeze. And who is James Osman?

Micro, more or less.

“Microsite” is a word that kinda bugs me. The “micro” means that its content is about a subset of the parent company’s overall product range. There’s the Ford site, with a bit of info about all the cars, and the Fiesta microsite, with stuff just about one car. The Fiesta has its own brand, image and target audience that differs from the Mondeo or the Focus, so they give it its own microsite. But it still has a homepage, content pages, and all the other stuff, and it’s much more sparkly and exciting in its own right than the boring dull old parent site. It’s “micro” in name only.

More recently, it’s become one of those must-have things for keen web-trend followers. We’re doing this event or that campaign so it needs a microsite. Unfortunately, there is a common misconception amongst some that have approached us on the subject, that because what they are going to write on the site is going to be about fewer things, we should charge fewer pounds to build the site for them. It’s a bit like saying the Racing Post should be cheaper than the Daily Mirror because it’s only about horses.

The fact is, just like printing a paper is printing a paper regardless of the words, it still needs the same effort in graphics work, CSS, flash, design and implementation. In fact, sometimes it needs more effort because it’s allowed to stray from brand guidelines or be more creative or adventurous. It may only have 10 pages on it when it goes live but with the CMS the customer adds those themselves anyway, so that makes no difference. It’s a bit of a customer-service conundrum: some marketing geezer decided to make up a word, people expect the price to be lower, and we get grumpy customers unhappy with the numbers on their quotes.

I was having a good day until…

…I read this depressing bit of news, depressing on so many levels.

For a start, the club is parading itself in front of anyone who’ll have it like a cheap tart. Worse still, the punters are having none of it. The upshot is the club can’t keep borrowing so something has to give and soon.

So is there no crumb of comfort?

Oh hang on, our lovable neighbours are in trouble too. Ah no, read on, they’ll be OK because… well because they’re Liverpool of course! “It’s a brave banker that would repossess Liverpool Football Club” says Keith Harris.

JEEEESUS Lord, have mercy.

 

Funny old game

Somebody once said “it’s a funny old game”, and that was in the days when really it wasn’t that funny at all. Last season the club I was brought up to support came fifth. In days gone by, having 20% of the league’s teams finish above you would have been seen as a failure, but when those 20% consistently earn more money per season than the rest of the clubs can dream of, then being the best of the rest is a success, appealing to that British “plucky underdog done well” mentality.

If fifth is success, then fourth is the Holy Grail. One place higher, yet a million miles away. Fourth gets you into the “Champions” League, so called because back in the funny old game days, you actually had to be champions to get in it. Now you can be outclassed by three other clubs and still get in there. As there’s no real reason to fight for third over fourth (both places go into the Champions League at the same point), Liverpool and Arsenal usually just decide amongst themselves which one of them is going to have more of a “transitional” season than the other and that’s that. As long as they beat everyone else, by having better players than everyone else paid for by Champions League money, it’s all good.

When I was growing up, second was nowhere. Now you can be fourth, and world-class players like Fernando Torres will still join you. Fifth, and you’re struggling to sign anyone.

Cue the arrival of trillionaire Arab owners at Man City, a club who only a few seasons ago were plying their trade in the third tier of English football. Now we have a club which is overnight richer than any of the top 4, and soon enough will inevitably displace one of them. While this is exciting to a point, it does mean that already what was the faintest possibility of progressing from fifth to fourth for Everton has now been wiped out, and perhaps even coming sixth will soon be virtually impossible. Three games in, two of them already lost, this sort of realisation does limit the excitement for some of us.

Understandably, City fans are thrilled to suddenly support a club with far more cash than their city rivals United. City’s fans have always been obsessed with United, although they don’t seem to have the same irrational edge to it that Evertonians have about Liverpool. Could you imagine Ian Rush managing Everton? Of course not, but there was not one complaint when Mark Hughes took over at Eastlands. We don’t care what the red side say, so the song goes, but seeing as there isn’t a song that doesn’t mention them, then it’s pretty clear we do care, and if there is any justice in the world, the only good that can come out of this is the spectacular and rapid demise of Liverpool FC.

If City are to displace one club out of four, it’s going to be either Arsenal or Liverpool. The key difference between those two clubs is stadia. I’m about to go past one of them on this train, a monster that generates 7-figure revenues with every match. The other is an artist’s impression. Liverpool, with their debt-ridden owners and grand stadium plans, simply cannot afford not to be in the Champions League, and where Standard Liege failed, Man City can succeed. Surely the first victims of City’s new wealth will be our lovable neighbours? I mean, is there a God or what?

The only fly in this ointment is DIC, the Dubai-based consortium determined to upset the majority of the city of Liverpool’s population by purchasing its least popular football club / most popular tourist attraction, and flooding it with money. These people just never give up. Not only is there a once-proud club just one mile away which is offering itself for sale like a cheap tart, but there are others, like Newcastle, who would take their money tomorrow with glee. What is it about Liverpool for heaven’s sake? Please avert your gaze.

So, we will have to see how all this pans out. The glass ceiling was reinforced when the Arabs arrived, so if we can’t crack it, then let’s at least hope to see Liverpool come crashing through from the other direction. Watch this space..!