I know it's been a while since I last posted here, I know that in the past I've promised to post more frequently. I'm sorry, I intend to change. Honest! Please take me back, you and me are good together! And so on and so forth. In all seriousness I'm back, I know, you're probably thinking to yourselves, "he's had more comebacks than one of those mediocre pop bands that you see on The Big Reunion" (for the record, I have never watched The Big Reunion; nor do I endorse the watching of such tripe). In all seriousness I am back and the intention is to post more frequently.The intention is to step it up in the run up to the greatest show on earth, the World Cup happening this summer, and then to provide regular posts throughout the tournament, giving both statistical (probably not that statistical) and satirical (probably not that satirical either) analysis. That's the plan anyway, so keep your eyes peeled in the summer months. Even when "England aren't even playing" (see what I did there).
Now that we've got the re-introductions out of the way, let's get down to business. In this case business being footballing current affairs. The first thing I want to talk about is my beloved West Ham united and their current season, this is where the "19th Century" reference comes from in the title; but you guys know that don't you, how dare I insult your footballing intelligence. For anybody who is here for the humour rather than the football, and I like to imagine there's a few of you (you'll like the bits in the beginning and towards the end but probably not the middle), West Ham were recently accused of playing "19th Century Football" by a bitter, and thwarted may I add, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho. But we'll come back to that, I've got your number Mourinho! "No way Jose!"
First things first though, West Ham have been awful for large part of this season, stay with me here non football fans, it's going to get "footbally" for a few paragraphs. As I was saying we've been bad for parts of the season and that is reflected in the relegation battle that we find ourselves embroiled in. In short we started the season with some OK results then slipped into a run where we picked up barely any points off of teams that we should pick up points from then had a totally morale sapping month where we played Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal and obviously picked up no points, which was concerning considering the ability of EVERYBODY else and his dog to go to Manchester United and get something. Then with our morale at rock bottom players started picking up injuries, we panicked and signed Roger Johnson (THE WORST professional footballer I've ever seen play for West Ham United, it astonishes me that we transfer money into his bank account at the end of the month in exchange for his "services", but that's not his fault), then we started losing to teams we should probably pick up points from e.g. Fulham; no disrespect Fulham fans, one of my best mate's is a Fulham fan, and I don't mean that in a, "I've been racist so now I'm going to say I've got mates of the same racial background as the one of I've just insulted" way. I mean you no disrespect! Back to what I was saying, we then picked up and beat Cardiff, lost to Newcastle, got a very un-19th Century 0-0 draw at Chelsea (I mean has he ever seen scores from the 19th Century? 0-0 draws were invented at some point in the 1960's (probably by Italians! That's a joke my Italian readers (yeah, like Italians care about my blog)))* and then got three 2-0 victories against Swansea, Aston Villa & Norwich.
Now for me it's been a bad season, I don't want West Ham to go down, I don't want to go back to playing on every Tuesday night with that sh*t Mitre ball (once you've tasted the sweet Nike balls of the Premier League you can never go back) but you know what I hate the most about this season, in fact I hate it the most about every season when West Ham struggle (contrary to popular, misguided, opinion that's not as regular as you'd think), it's that everyone I know that isn't a West Ham fan, becomes a West Ham expert. They know from the 10 minutes worth of cleverly edited footage on Match of The Day that they watch once a week, that Nolan is our best player, Jaaskelainen is a decent keeper, all we ever do is knock long balls and Big Sam needs to go.These are some examples of the rubbish I hear.
Let me set the record straight right now, Match of The Day is pure propaganda in the true sense of the word, exaggeration of the facts. At the end of every game they go to Alan Hansen or whoever is the "Analyst" on for the night and say, "What angle do you want to analyse this game from?" Normally they go for the, "The team that won, was the best side on the day", unless they can't find unequivocal evidence in the footage they have to support this theory. Unless you go and watch a football match you'll probably never know this, but it's the truth. I've seen games where West Ham have been awful and won yet we've been singled out for praise by a MOTD "Analyst", or conversely games where we've played really well but just been unlucky and the guys on MOTD have turned round and dissected all of our "flaws" as support for the result. MOTD is the ultimate lazy man's (or woman's) guide to the Premier League, I refuse to watch it.
So here's the truth, with regards to the points I made above and West Ham's current plight. Firstly Kevin Nolan is useless. I've probably said it on here before, he scores a lot of goals for us but they tend to be tap ins or volleys from close range and when he's not scoring, he'll only score around 10 times a season (unless you're in the Championship), he spends his time walking around arguing with anyone who makes eye contact with him, struggling to keep up with the midfield play and not putting enough effort in to support the striker.
As for Jusi Jaaskelainen he's a shot stopping goalkeeper. As a goalkeeper I hate "Shot Stoppers", they look great (especially on MOTD highlights) but the don't do the fundamentals of goalkeeping so well. When I was a kid, I started off as a "Shot Stopper", yeah it's great, you fling yourself about continually tipping the ball over the bar and round the post. Then as you get older, better and understand the game more you then focus more on your positioning, cross catching and kicking. "Shot Stoppers" are the guys on your Sunday Team that tell you that playing in goal is easy and always want to throw themselves around, with your gloves on, in training! Pfffft! Bloody "Shot Stoppers"! Now I am not saying that I'm better than Jaaskelainen when it comes to positioning, cross catching and kicking (god, my dead ball kicking is woeful, my ex-Sunday teams will testify), I'm not paid to play in goal for anyone, and I'm not saying that Jaaskelainen doesn't hold positioning, cross catching and kicking as key aspects of the game that he needs to master, he's not stupid and he's played in the Premier League for over 10 years. What I am saying is that those areas of his game are weak and can lead to defensive instability or even pivotal mistakes that cost the team games e.g. the dropped cross away at Norwich that led to them winning a penalty and coming back from 1-0 down to beat us 3-1. Our recent run of good form has coincided with the introduction of Adrian (pronounced "Ad-re-an" not "Aid-re-an" by the way) who arrived in the summer on a Free Transfer from Real Betis who is good at... you've guessed it! Positioning, cross catching and kicking. PS I love Adrian! Actually love him!
Finally Big Sam and long ball. Yes when we panic or run out of ideas we bang the ball long. And not many West Ham fans are happy with this. It's a similar tactic that England adopt during major international tournaments against any half decent side. You chase the ball down (minus Nolan) for a few minutes until the opposition make a mistake and give it back to you, then you whack it as far forward as possible to the one player you have anywhere near their box who, if he's lucky enough to get a touch on it, he faces the prospect of trying to negotiate 4 or 5 defenders on his own. There is only one player in the Premier League that offers you any hope with this tactic, his name... Andy Carroll. If only he played for West Ham eh... When we're not panicking and knocking the ball long, what we actually do is start play ON THE FLOOR with one of our full backs who then plays the ball to either to a winger, or to a central midfielder who then plays it on to a winger who tries to cross the ball in to the box, unfortunately this is normally on their weak foot because we play our wingers on their wrong sides and we normally have one man in the box who is not Andy Carroll so the cross ends up being cleared easily by the opposition. As for Big Sam. Yes, he has instilled the futile tactic of banging the ball forwards to one man, that I mentioned above. Yes, he spent all of our money on Andy Carroll based on the fact that he wanted to adopt this tactic in times of desperation, meaning that we had no cover when Carroll and other players were injured and had to desperately re-sign a player we released in the summer (Carlton Cole) as well as a defender who was on the books of a team two divisions below us (Roger Johnson). Yes he has persisted with Nolan at times when Nolan has put in very little effort and we've essentially played with 10 men. But we're very very solid under Big Sam, it's no coincidence that we have had the most clean sheets this season. I've been watching West Ham for years and I can't remember a time when we've had a more solid looking defence. Big Sam is not pretty but he's they type of manager you need when you're battling to stay up, just Like Tony Pulis at Crystal Palace. I've heard many stories of how detailed and meticulous he is when it comes to studying other teams and their tactics and how to shut them down. I'm not saying that Sam is the best manager ever, but who can a side battling to stay up with comparatively limited resources attract? Who's available? Who is a proven survivor? Stop watching Match of The Day and leave the West Ham analysis to those that watch West Ham!!
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| There's a clear distinction between the 19th Century team and the 21st Century one here! |
Right, that rant is out of the way, I hope any non- football fans are still with me here because it's about to get very tongue in cheek. Let's talk about this 19th Century bull that Jose's been spouting. Has Mourinho ever read up on 19th Century football? Because I have. Regular readers will know that on top of my razor sharp whit I have a bit of an encyclopaedic knowledge of football history. I've read quite a bit on 19th Century football and what I saw at Stamford Bridge on the night of the 29th of January 2014 was not 19th Century. If anything it was 21st Century. Firstly Where were the long trousers? Everybody knows 19th Century footballers wore long trousers, some accounts even talk of matching coloured caps. Last I checked we went for the conventional shirt, shorts and long socks that night at Stamford Bridge, some players where even wearing that very 21st Century under armour that has become fashionable for footballers to wear (does under armour really make you a bionic defence breaking machine?). And what happened to caps? Why do players not wear them any more? Were they banned like the snood? Bloody foreign types coming over from Scotland playing their passing game and wearing caps, grrrr! Secondly all of our players were full time professionals. If we were playing 19th Century football they wouldn't have even been sanctioned to play a game on a Tuesday evening (don't even start me of the fact we wouldn't have had floodlights), they'd have had to have been up early the next day to go down a coal mine, or in West Ham's case to be at the Ironworks down on the docks of the Thames first thing in the morning.
And if Jose wants to talk tactics I'll go there too. Back in the 19th Century the rules were very different which meant playing styles were totally different. For a start some teams played a game where points could be scored by kicking Rouges. Kicking a Rouge was a bit like kicking the ball out for a goal kick or corner. There were plenty of corners and goal kicks that night, Chelsea had 13 corners to West Ham's 3. Had we been playing 19th Century football we'd have made more of an effort to stop Chelsea's 13+ Rouges. Additionally, last time I checked we played a 4-5-1 formation that night. Back in the 19th Century anything more that 2 at the back would have been considered Parking the horse and carriage so not many teams went for as many as 4 defenders. So Jose might want to get his interpretation of football in the 1800's straight before he starts branding people "19th Century"! We wouldn't even have played Chelsea back then because they weren't formed until about 1905 I believe! **sticks tongue out**
Now to move away from the West Ham talk. On Monday afternoon a friend sent me a screen grab from Twitter, via WhatsApp, of a man (and man is the key word here) in a Lazio shirt. The caption accompanying the image, "Lazio's new 17 year old signing". My first thoughts were, "This is going straight into a blog post. I'll do some digging around, grab some photos of this dude and the rest will write itself." Now this is exactly what is going to happen, but unfortunately, such is the power of social media, the story is old news now. And apparently Lazio are threatening to sue anyone who suggests that the player in question is anything but 17. I don't care though, I'm running with this and I'm going to assume that you've somehow not seen the detail behind this story. And Lazio, I'm not saying that he's not 17, you can't sue me! I'm just asking readers of this blog to take a look at some photos. So Ladies and Gentlemen, here is Joseph Minala the SEVENTEEN year old that signed for Lazio's youth team in the summer...
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| Joseph aged 17 on the day he signed for Lazio (ah they grow up so fast)! |
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| Joseph in a youth team game against Inter |
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| Chilling with his fellow teenage team-mates |
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| Joseph meets one of his heroes, Antonio Di Natale (Di Natale is 36, more than double his age) |
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| Girls are always a temptation for teenage football stars, somebody needs to make sure Joseph doesn't get distracted and keeps his feet on the ground... |
*That, my friends, I what is commonly referred to as brackets, within brackets, within brackets. You won't find that in any English syllabus!! Ha!
