18 + 18 = 36 and France also flopped

Next time I'll count them up!

What the hell is wrong with me? I pride myself on being a World Cup Nerd. On knowing things about the World Cup, about football in general (and some Cricket), that some "experts" within the media don't know or often get wrong. So where did it all go wrong? Well first of all there was my basic arithmetic. I was so concerned with the fact that I wanted to reel off a stat about the number of times each Milan club had won the league without referring to any books etc that I forgot that 18 + 18 equalled 36 (not 34 as I stated). It's probably bit late to sit here trying to promote my credentials but that poor example of basic addition came from someone with an A-Level in maths (I was going to call it "Mathematics" but I thought that would sound a bit supercilious (I suppose using the word supercilious makes me sound supercilious, well I don't care it was the first word that sprang to mind)). And believe me A-Level maths gets harder than 18 + 18, forget what you hear in the media about it getting easier every year and pass rates going up.

Then there was the France blip. Once again I was so keen to impart my knowledge with regards to a tournament that occurred 14 years prior to my birth that I missed a vital piece of information relating to a tournament that I saw with my very own eyes. To my horror, it dawned on me, around 24 hours later, that in addition to Italy and Brazil, France had also crashed out of a World Cup in the first round despite being holders. This all doesn't make for good reading when you consider what I'm about to do. This post is going to be my last which discusses anything regarding club football, this is your lot! After this my blog becomes World Cup Central and I'll be starting off with a brief history of the tournament through my eyes. So I'm thinking I really need to be "on point" (what a stupid phrase, I suppose it's better than "Chillax", god I hate "Chillax") with my World Cup nerdiness.

Before all that happens there is the small matter of rounding up the 2013/2014 football season. I'll start briefly with my team West Ham, a subject regular readers will have had to endure on countless occasions. So West Ham should be safe this season, they're not mathematically safe (neither am I if my 18 + 18 is anything to go by) but it would take a really unfortunate set of circumstances along with a Herculean effort from a group of teams that have failed to display any fight whatsoever in the last 9 months let alone a fight of Greek mythological proportions. So yes, we will probably live to fight another day in the Premiership. Am I happy with the state of affairs at the Boleyn Ground? No! Is anybody? Maybe Sam Allardyce (or "Allar-diche" as he wants to be known, dick). My issue is simple, it's not to do with aesthetics or clichés about Sam playing long ball and West Ham needing to play "The West Ham Way". It's to do with common sense and it also goes back to what I said a month or so ago about people talking bollocks about West Ham when they never actually watch us.

Big Sam is responsible for keeping us in the Premier League, and considering the performances of managers such as Gianfranco Zola and Avram Grant in the past, I for one am pretty grateful to see us as high as 13th (I think we're 13th?) with 3 or 4 games to go. I'm a realist. I'm not getting above my station. When I look at the other sides that exist in the Premier League, at their fan-bases, their resources, I think to myself that we could only realistically be 3 or 4 places better off than we are. Unless some rich Sheik wants to intervene. But it could be better, and here's why.

We could be 3 or 4 places higher if we played the right team in the right situation. Forget all the lazy talk of long ball, Sam's main tactic is to try and get down the wing (in the main, the left wing) and cross the ball for Andy Carroll. So why does he play a right footed centre midfield out on the left? Sorry if I'm losing you non-football fans here, Diame is a fine player and he can drive with the ball, but he is not a get down the left wing a whip a ball in with my left foot (as you're naturally forced to do in that situation) player. Then we play Matthew Taylor in front of the back four? Somebody please help me here. Unless I (and Konami, back in the day, he was part of my greatest ever Master League team on Pro Evo 5) got it wrong, Tayler is a left sided midfielder or even a left back. When did he become Andrea Pirlo or even Genaro Gattuso (I'll get on to Pirlo and Gattuso later)? Taylor is about as mobile as a lorry trying to do manoeuvres down a small residential road, with a queue of impatient drivers and curtain twitching nosy neighbours looking on wondering what the hell the driver thought he was doing. What the hell does Sam think he's doing? Taylor isn't a great passer of the ball, he isn't an amazing tackler, why is he playing in a position which requires one of those two aforementioned skills, if not both??

And then we come to George McCartney, poor old George McCartney, I've got a lot of time for him. He's solid (at times) and he works hard. I also appreciate that sometimes the best pass on the football field isn't a forwards one (somebody tell the rest of Upton Park). What I have a problem with is his one footedness and his complete lack of pace, which will always be exposed at full back. I also have a problem with us having other full backs (other left sided full backs), who are more comfortable on the ball, who have had to sit on the bench and watch McCartney shuffle down the left side (or sometimes even the right side, good lord!!) of the pitch nervously trying to avoid making any contact with the ball with his right foot; only to have to turn back towards goal and play the ball to Reid/Tompkins/Collins or the keeper because the winger he's up against has worked out (within his first 3 tentative touches) that he's as one footed as I am.

In short:-

Dear Sam Allardyce,

Stop playing the same team regardless of whether we're winning, losing or being annihilated by 10 man Hull. Diame is not a winger and should be playing where Taylor is. Nolan (your love child) shouldn't be allowed in the ground on a match day, unless he's bought a ticket. And if you want to quickly whip crosses into a box you have to play left footers on the left and right footers... yeah you get where I'm going with this.

Finally, do not, under any circumstances, insult my intelligence and try to suggest that players have performed badly because the crowd have got on their backs. I think you'll find the finger of blame can be squarely pointed in your direction, with your painfully slow build up play (which is never gonna catch any half decent premiership defence out).

If you address the above next season I am more than  happy for you to continue managing my team (god help us if we get another Zola).

Yours Sincerely,

Travis Nigel Newton
Alpari Stand Lower
Row R Seat 310 (the fun little corner that abuses the opposition subs)

Somebody print this and send it to West Ham for me!

Now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk other Premiership teams. Let's focus on the top end of the table for once, I rarely do. People people people! Please stop getting sucked into the Liverpool myth. As of writing this, they are probably going to win the league this year. Do they deserve it? Well if you're top after 38 games, home and away, against all of the other teams deemed to be in the same bracket of ability then probably yes. But please stop telling me that it would be good for football if they won it because they haven't spent like their rivals (they have), that they've been more entertaining (City have been just as entertaining) or that the others have been too inconsistent (Liverpool have been just as inconsistent hence it's only this latest run that has brought the back into/ahead in the title race).

If he were still alive I'm pretty sure the BBC would be lining him up as a pundit

I'm not gonna lie, my former ties with Everton mean that I will always harbour a grudge with the red side of Merseyside but at the same time come on guys, please let's stop this unnecessary Liverpool "love in"! The media in this country are so Liverpool friendly it's ridiculous. For a start half of the pundits painting them as this saintly, free flowing, low spending, pure, football team are ex-Liverpool players. Hansen, Lawrensen, Carragher, Redknapp, Owen, Macmanaman, James... they're all "Kopites" (and we all know what Kopites are, don't we Everton fans...). I mean I was watching Match of The Day last weekend for the first time in ages, probably the first time this season, you guys know I can't stand that bollocks; and who were the pundits? Robbie Fowler and Paul Ince, both former Liverpool players!! I get that Ince isn't a Liverpool legend but he'll still have ties and he'll still get nostalgic when he looks back at his Anfield playing days. Just don't get sucked into the hype. Yes Liverpool definitely deserve to be in the title race, but they've had some VERY fortunate decisions go their way (3 penalties at Old Trafford & 2 at West Ham??) and they've shown their frailties as much as Chelsea and co.

On a more serious side note. The one thing I do agree with that's being said in the media is that it would be fitting if Liverpool were to win the league on the 25 anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. Obviously it can never make up for the fact that Hillsborough even happened, the reaction from the media, the local police and the government of the day. When I think of Hillsborough, especially as a fan who actively goes to football matches and has been doing so since around the time of Hillsborough, I find the whole episode completely shocking and I'm astonished that the chain of events that caused the disaster and followed it were allowed to happen. As I've heard so many say in recent weeks, no man, woman or child should go to a football match (or any other form of public entertainment) and not return. And they most definitely should not have had their tragic deaths covered up or blamed on their own actions, especially when they had done nothing wrong. So yes, it would be fitting if Liverpool won the league this year (and they're currently 2-0 up v Norwich in next to no time) and I can guarantee you I will NEVER buy The Sun newspaper and have NEVER. Their reaction to Hillsborough was nothing short of disgusting and I have no time for their general low brow and often xenophobic stance on the news. Rant over.

He's a West Ham season ticket holder

Finally elsewhere in Europe domestic leagues are coming to a less exciting conclusion (with the exception of in Spain). In France PSG look to have wrapped up the league and would have reached the semi final of the Champions League if Maxwell was any good. The story is pretty similar in Italy where Juventus continue to march towards their 3rd Scudetto in a row, they only ever seem to drop points when I bet on them (it's happened 3 times this year, bastards!). Over in Germany Bayern Munich have outdone both PSG and Juve and wrapped up the league a few weeks ago. I'm not a massive fan of the Bundesliga anyway but this year's competition has been a ridiculous 1 hoarse race largely down to Bayern's ability to buy the best players from their rivals (I mean they didn't even need Goetze; who, may I add, looks like a dude who sits in the row in front of me at West Ham) and Dortmund's injury problems. What with Lewandowski joining Bayern from Dortmund next season I'm sure the Bundesliga will be even closer next year... (I'm hoping you can sense the sarcasm in that last sentence). In Spain the league title race looks as if it'll be even more exciting than the one in England. Atletico Madrid have had an amazing season and they currently lead both Barcelona and Real Madrid and have to play Barca, who they've yet to lose to this season and recently knocked out of the Champions League, on the last day of the season. It's set to be an amazing finish!

And has anyone seen Andrea Pirlo's autobiography? I've been a fan of Pirlo for a while (long before he became fashionable after Euro 2012) and now I've seen excerpts from his book I have to say I love the guy even more. Here's my favourite quote, regarding losing the 2005 Champions League final:

I’ll never fully shake that sense of absolute impotence when destiny is at work. The feeling will cling to my feet forever, trying to pull me down…

There are always lessons to be found in the darkest moments. It’s a moral obligation to dig deep and find that little glimmer of hope or pearl of wisdom. You might hit upon an elegant phrase that stays with you and makes the journey that little bit less bitter. I’ve tried with Istanbul and haven’t managed to get beyond these words: for fuck’s sake.

There's a load more stuff about Pirlo constantly pranking the very short fused Gennaro Gattuso. I can see myself buying the book in a month or so but for now I have a couple more to read (one of which is Zlatan Ibrahimovic's autobiography).

I reckon it's green

Right I'm done talking about club football! The real deal! The main event! The World Cup is coming! we have 52 days to go (as of me writing this sentence) and from now on all I will be talking about is the World Cup. And I'm not talking about the European World Cup, I'm talking a bona fide, once every 4 years, Marco Tardelli screaming, "People are on the pitch", "Beautifully pulled down by Bergkamp", World Cup! A World World Cup! So from now until June the 12th I'll be talking World Cup build up on here; then during the tournament it'll be all the stuff going down and I'm talking real stuff, French fall outs, minows getting spanked, African teams' celebratory dance routines (all the stuff you wont see during half time on ITV/BBC as they'll be to pre-occupied with what colour Adam Lallana's poo is). It's going to be amazing!