Obviously I have more to say than that. I don't know what it is, but for some reason my posting always goes quiet around October. I think it's because I become so immersed in the football season and my own private life that I just feel like I have no time for blogging. I'm currently sitting in a room watching the Pakistan v Australia test match on a dodgy stream, and I thought to myself, "You know you should probably blog something! Anything!" So here it is.
I'm not sure how long or short this will be or even exactly what I'm going to write, this is just the stuff that's going through my head at this moment in time. First things first, on a non-sporting subject it's been kind of a crazy few weeks, it could probably even be argued months. On top of my sister, my 1st cousin (who I am very close to) and I all expecting babies in the next week or so, pretty exciting eh. I've, well we've, experienced a bit of a family tragedy. I'm not going to go into it but all I will say is that it's been a very emotional time which has put things such as football and cricket into perspective. Hence this first paragraph takes president over those subjects.
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| Vincent with an estate agent |
And then there's Cricket. As the song goes. I don't like Cricket! I love it! Although I don't fancy the prospect of having my jewellery taken off me by, "...a brother from the gutter." And I don't particularly like, or love, any form of Limited Overs Cricket. For those of you who don't follow, limited overs cricket is like trying to do your job but somebody saying to you that you only have an hour or so to do a days work. Then when you rush it and make mistakes, people judge you and say that some of your other colleagues, who you know categorically aren't as good at your job as you are, are on an equal standing as you. Purely because they're better and doing a half a**ed bodged job than you are. This is essentially Limited Overs Cricket i.e. T20 or One Day (50 Over) Cricket. The Cricket I do love is Test Cricket and there's been a bit of that flying about (additionally there will be a lot coming up in November and December). At the moment, as previously mentioned, I am watching Pakistan dominate Australia. The same Australia that spanked England 5-0 last winter and then beat the world's number one team South Africa soon after. Last I checked, Pakistan weren't great when it came to Test Cricket. They weren't bad but they were very inconsistent. Too inconsistent to be troubling an Australian side that seemed to be on the up. But then that's Test Cricket.
The second thing I wanted to speak about on the subject of cricket was my team, the West Indies. I support the West Indies because my dad is from there, and as a child I always remember him passionately supporting the Cricket team. Thing is, back in the 1980's, the West Indies were easy to support. They were the best by a mile, a bit like Liverpool. Whereas now, much like Liverpool, they're a bit of a shambles. And when I say this I don't just mean in terms of their performances, which often leave a lot to be desired. At the moment things are getting pretty ugly in West Indian cricket. It's suffering from almost 30 years of mismanagement and a current crop of players, representing the region, that care more about the money they earn than representing the West Indies in the sport that they supposedly love. Recently the West Indian team flew home early from their tour of India, essentially on strike, because of a pay dispute. And this isn't the first time that this has happened. Personally I'm appalled, and as a person of West Indian decent I'm embarrassed. We are officially the laughing stock of International Cricket.
I often hear non-sports (or should I say non-football) fans moan about how much footballers get paid and think to myself that they're talking bollocks. Sports like Cricket and Football are completely self funded and the every penny that the players earn comes from fans who watch the sport, in some way or another. In addition to this, the players and teams involved in these sports pay substantial amounts of tax, which goes towards public funding, and often make hefty charitable donations. I mean where were all the It's obscene how much these footballers earn, give the money to nurses when Aston Villa carried the name of a local children's charity on their shirts for a season; and rather than collect the millions that they would have earned through a sponsorship deal, made donations to said charity? Barcelona did the same with Unicef a few seasons ago.
Anyway I'm rambling now. The point I was making was that I'm not one to question the legitimate earnings of Sports Stars, even if they play a sport that I hate (if it were up to me golfers would be on the dole, what an awful sport!), but I can't help but see this whole West Indian Cricket team thing as greed. Granted they are professional athletes and they should receive a wage for their services (whatever the going rate is). But going on strike! Refusing to represent the West Indies! I'd give my right arm to have played even one Test Match for the West Indies. I probably wouldn't have been much use with one arm. I mean I played for a Saturday team for years with two arms and failed to make much of an impression. All jokes aside though, these guys will be earning obscene multiples of the average wage in their respective home countries and they're fretting about money?!? Just play Cricket (competently) and be grateful that you were blessed with a talent that set you well above everyone else where you live! It makes me so angry.
On to the business of Football. Yes I have been watching Football. There are two things that wish to quickly speak about. The first is West Ham. As it's taken me the best part of a day to write this post, I am no longer watching the Pakistan v Australia test match and have just finished watching West Ham come back from two nil down against Stoke to earn a draw. This year I can't believe how well West Ham are playing; and I feel that Sam Allardyce deserves some praise, considering the stick he got last year when things weren't going so well. That being said, to me it's pretty obvious why we're playing so well at the moment. I don't know how much credit Sam can take, I'm not sure if he's in charge of signing players. But the signings of Sakho, Valencia, Kayoute and Song have revolutionised our game.
Anyone who regularly reads this blog will know that in my opinion we didn't play as much long ball as was stereotyped last year. Our problem was that our build up play was slow and predictable, we rarely broke quickly on teams. This year it's all changed. Song & Kayoute have picked up where Diame left off (I was gutted when he went to Hull) and Valencia & Sakho have breathed so much energy into our attacking and defensive games. Now we press high up the pitch, like Barca do. Obviously we're no where near the level that Barcelona play at, but we have benefited hugely from not allowing opposing defenders time on the ball to play out from the back; and not always checking back to play aerial balls into the box regardless of whether the defence have had time to set themselves up to deal with them. Let's see how long this all continues for. We have Carroll returning and Nolan will not want to sit on the bench for the rest of the season. Those guys don't exactly scream Dynamic, Fast Paced Attack.
Lastly I want to talk about Steven Gerrard. He's come under a lot of criticism recently and has been a hot topic of discussion.The other day I was on Facebook where I stumbled across a debate on whether Raul, the great Real Madrid goalscorer, could be considered a legend. By the end of the conversation the debate had descended into whether Gerrard could be considered a legend. Here's my two cents. Steven Gerrard will probably go down as a Liverpool legend. In some circles he may even be considered a Premier League legend. In my eyes, he was just a very good player who could do all of the basics in football competently. Was he a defensive rock like Gattuso, Davids or Viera? No. Does he have the passing range and creativity of say a Nedved, Rui Costa or Pirlo? No. Gerrard, in his heyday was competent doing everything, when playing average opposition he could pass, and shoot from distance and hassle the opposition out of possession. But I can name so many midfielders who aren't as highly regarded who could all of the basics and were additionally exceptional at one of the above mentioned things. I'm not saying Gerrard wasn't a good player, he's just not a legend. Cruyff, Puskas, Di Stefano, Beckenbauer and Charlton were legends. So was Ronaldo and Pele, Maradona and Zidane. Think of it this way, Viera, Keane, Davids, Nedved and co, from Gerrard's generation, are not legends. They were very good players, is Gerrard better than any of them? Not in my opinion.
Finally Gerrard's indifferent form of late (I'm going to be kind and not refer to it as poor) just highlights the simplicity of his game. Gerrard was always about energy, long diagonal balls and 30 yard strikes. Now that his legs have gone with old age, he has been unable to show the subtlety that say Pirlo (or even Lampard for you Premier League only fans) have displayed in their later years and as a result the decline of his powers has seemed far more drastic.
That's it from me, I don't care if you don't agree with any of the above, that's how I see things. Next time I write another post, I expect to be a father!
