Come on feel the Moyes

Bramall Lane, Sunday Jan 24 2024, and West Ham boss David Moyes isn’t someone who wants to pin two late dropped points on referee Michael Salisbury.

“I’m certainly not going to talk about refereees, that’s for sure, I don’t want to get myself in trouble.”

Righto, Dave, let’s see how you get on.

“You should ask the referee and see what they think.”

Well done for sticking it out, Dave.

“We have got to a stage where we are settling for a level of officiating where we are all shrugging our shoulders and saying OK.”

Shrugging our shoulders, yep.

“We are shrugging our shoulders and seeing what they are going to do. We don’t know what they are going to do.”

Still shrugging our shoulders, okey dokey. Not even the Glenn Hoddle “scratching our heads”, but just a teenage type of apathy greeting every questionable decision against the ‘Happy Hammers’. Wonder who “they” are?

“We’re disappointed, we feel as if things have gone against us.” 

Misfortune?

“We’ll only blame ourselves.”

Very noble, Dave, fair play to you. 

“But ultimately we could look at other people as well.”

Ok. 

When it wasn’t put to Moyes by reporters that Vladimir Coufal’s red card might have been a few weeks in the making seeing as, you know, the right back went unpunished for an assault and battery on Wolves defender, Jeanricner Bellagarde at the London Stadium last month (a case of on-pitch and video negligence that former Ham striker, now pundit, Ian Wright, called “pathetic”) he also opted not to talk about referees. 

Mourinho:Flames and fire(d)

 Jose Mourinho may be the one I hated the most. He’s just been sacked by Roma, which is news I greeted without glee, but such misfortune befalling him would once have been craved.

The tribal nature of the football fan ensures that grievances and injustices (certainly in the eye of the beholder) are held passionately close to the chest, and for me the swaggering yet snarling manager of the billionaire oligarch team as they indulged in their first rush of riches with the right sociopath for the job was the antidote to lovely Arsene and his comparatively moderate purchases that were the ‘invincibles’ just past. 

Mourinho’s post Carling Cup Final interview of 2007 stands out as the time that my already boiling disgust of him had its lid blown off. In the space where most managers happily reflect on their team having just won a trophy, Mourinho mocked Wenger, whose Arsenal team Chelsea had just beaten 2-1, for never winning any trophies. The interviewer (Gabriel Clarke, I’m guessing) argued “he’s won a few”, to which an affronted Mourinho spat back “Not since I arrive.”

This seemed to be the first case of a manager mocking another manager’s performance. Mourinho’s manner tempted comparisons with Brian Clough, who also criticised his fellow bosses but only ever for the perceived brutality of their teams’ conduct, while Alex Ferguson’s own tirade on Wenger (also after Arsenal had lost 2-1) in March 96-97 centred on the Frenchman’s rejection of Manchester United’s wish to extend the season due to apparent fixture congestion. Ferguson also believed that Wenger should have been focussing more on Ian Wright’s behaviour, this being the game where Wright committed to a two-footed lunge on Peter Schmeichel (this very much an on-pitch feud.)

Mourinho didn’t like it that Wenger kept bringing into question the ‘financial doping’ in evidence at Stamford Bridge. Mourinho said “He [Wenger] loves Chelsea…he’s a voyeur”. Shortly after, Mourinho mentioned that he’d sent an apology to Wenger, who said it must have been sent by horse as he’d never received it. In the next Arsenal-Chelsea match at Highbury, a 2-0 win for the away side, Mourinho strode down the tunnel at full-time without stopping to shake Wenger’s hand. Wenger followed, putting a hand through his hair. 

Wenger had a degree in Economics, Mourinho in psychology. Wenger applied the historic principles of a conservative Arsenal board, while Mourinho embraced the open chequebook of Roman Abramovic, even moaning about having to potentially play 16 year olds if he wanted another marquee signing. In the end he paid the price when Abramovic started buying the players himself, and a parting of the ways came early - and for me, mercifully (good for my blood pressure, good to see a 5-trophy in 3 seasons era come to a close) - in 2007-08. 

Arsenal finished four points off the title winners (United) that same season, but that economical prudence Wenger had been tasked with to see them through the millstone transition from Highbury to The Emirates meant that trophies had still eluded them by the time Mourinho returned to Chelsea in 2014-15. Relations had healed between the now rival managers again, and just before their first meeting back, Mourinho made comments about a manager doing something more important for a club than short-term success. He, Mourinho, said he couldn’t sacrifice himself in such a way because of “my mentality”. 

I was much cheered, but the accord wouldn’t last the season. 

Commentator subbed to restrict the pain to eyes only

In the halcyon days before VAR, revered evil genius Pep Guardiola bemoaned that absence of a fellow dictator to a post-match reporter, insisting “we have to have it.”  Yet in the Premier League tonight (27/12/23) when his Manchester City defender John Stones goes down injured at Everton during one of those dead-play moments before offside is confirmed, he moans at the officials about the flag not going up sooner. For a man who now has the World Club title to go with the Super Cup, it is probably easy to believe he can have everything, but to push for video technology and then rail against a directive that has come about only because of video technology is a bit like a Brexit voter complaining about NHS waiting lists. 

Guardiola’s hypocrisy is all the more evident given it was he who drove a bus around the country in 2019 claiming that 350,000,000 goals a season were wrongly awarded or denied, but in the end at Goodison it didn’t matter, at least in terms of the scoreline: City were one down at the time of Stones’ injury (he was subsequently replaced to applause from his former home crowd, a reception hardly comparable to which Wayne Rooney found whenever he returned there with City’s local rivals United; was that sense of betrayal more acute because Rooney was raised in Croxteth and not Barnsley?) but the winners of Treble apathy scored three without reply in the second half, which was annoying to watch but at least I didn’t have to listen to Clive Tyldesley while it was going on. After 15 minutes it may have seemed that the likeliest candidate to be removed from the play was the hapless Mathieu Nunes, but Amazon Prime has a no-commentary, stadium noise-only feature and I exercised this feature gladly. Some people can contribute too much to a game. 

Talking of playing to the crowd, there was distinctly less satisfaction in watching Guardiola and his players at the end exhibiting their joy in front of fans boasting about being ‘Champions of the World’ (as Chelsea once were.) Even if you forgive young footballers cocooned in a dedicated professional bubble, this is still a pro-oppressive regime club that has just returned from securing world domination in Saudi Arabia. At this point, I activated the telly completely off function.

Tomorrow it will be same time but different place for Arsenal-West Ham, now a traditional festive season fixture, which is a piece of information essential to distract you from working out that the venue in question will be The Emirates. I have to confess that it will be very convenient for my moral credibility if that sponsorship deal were to end. Yes, the stadium itself wasn’t responsible for any casualties when it was being built unlike the death (Star) traps constructed in Qatar for that event last year that shall never be named, and yes, people are free to express their identity in it, but I myself am open to accusations of double-standards while those letters continue to stain the building and those pretend air stewardesses remain beside the tunnel. I could try to justify this by saying that at least this group of women (and they are always women) are allowed out in public but sadly there are just some internal noises you can’t simply turn off. 

A VAR is Born

 Arsenal’s triple-check VAR defeat at Newcastle United last Saturday (4/11/23) and manager Mikel Arteta’s “disgrace”, “embarrassing” feedback was merely the belated next act of a footballing tradition. 

Winning goalscorer Anthony Gordon played the role of Jack Allen, who in 1932 equalised for Newcastle in the FA Cup Final against the Gunners when benefitting from a cross that had come in after it had gone out of play. Joe Willock was cast in the supporting role at St James’ Park, 91 years after Jimmy Richardson had first performed it, satisfying fans who were keen that the remake stay loyal to the original, though at the same time triggered a few eye-rollers mumbling on about the “PC brigade”. 

Despite the critics, there is a growing belief that attitudes should move on, and in 2023's version there was an experimentation with comedy, the officials’ decision not to even caution United's Bruno Guimares for his elbow to the head of Jorginho bringing the house down, as well as the Italian victim.   

Not so lucky had been Arsenal’s cheeky chappie figure Ray Parlour in 2001’s December fixture at Highbury as both Arsenal and United looked to go top of the league - the home side with any kind of win and United if they won by two goals - though the Geordies hadn’t won anywhere in London for four years. Having already been booked for clipping the ear of centre half Nikos Dabizas with his forearm, Parlour was sent from the field by Graham Poll for tackling Alan Shearer, which back then was a court marshall offence. Newcastle equalised in the second half and then, late on as Arsenal looked to take a point from a game they’d utterly dominated at 1-0, centre half Sol Campbell naively committed the same playing the ball crime as Parlour but in the penalty area, Poll awarding the spot kick while the ball was still speeding along the turf. Laurent Roberts’s identity as player dispossessed meant that Campbell could at least stay on the field, conSoling himself that any emergence of the ball in Newcastle’s opponents 18 yard box automatically activated a penalty for Shearer anyway. Shearer scored, of course, Robert then added a breakaway third and Henry burst into an after-match tirade at Poll. 

Being a reasonably-minded showman, Poll did later confess to fearing he’d got the Campbell decision wrong, such was the ferocity of Arsenal’s protests, and therefore it follows too, that he must have had doubts about the Parlour red, seeing as even Shearer tried to reason with him about it. Of course, back then, the written law was that The Referee’s Decision is Final. Not so now of course, although the panel reviewing the triple VAR game expanded on the comic element by declaring their approval of the goal and the leniency of the Guimares assault. The suggestion is that having enabled the Saudi Arabian PIF headhunter Mohammed Bin Salman to pass the Fit and Proper Persons test as new owner of Newcastle United, the clarity over right and wrong is no longer black and white.

United’s Highbury win in 2001 was, manager Bobby Robson said, “the best early Christmas present I’ve had for a long, long time”. When questioned about the home side’s treatment of Santa Poll, Robson was unwilling to let Arsenal’s outrage overshadow their table-topping treat. 

“They have to learn to lose around here”, he told ITV live on air. Dignity in defeat he asked for, as he himself had shown in the Azteca Stadium press room shortly after his England team had been knocked out of the 1986 World Cup by Argentina. 

“Maradona handled the ball into the goal, didn’t he…didn’t he?!”

Handball goals, red cards, penalties for kicking the ball, elbows to the head going unpunished…football will endlessly cause pain and resentment, finding new variations of old gripes even while people judge the action behind the big screen.

Passing the test of time

“What’s he doing there, just get rid of it!”

Alan Shearer’s paid dismay at Chelsea goalkeeper Roberto Sanchez kicking the ball straight to Declan Rice at Stamford Bridge (Saturday 21st October) that culminated in a goal back for Arsenal who’d go on to preserve their unbeaten league run with a draw, could have come from any MOTD era, but was perhaps least expected in this one. 

These days it’s all about pressing and playing out from the back and trusting the process, bumps in the road accepted (except for VAR, which will rightfully never earn empathy), and yet, Shearer aped Alan Hansen in 2010-11, the not-much missed Scot critical of new Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers for asking skinhead centre half Skirtel to try playing the ball out at West Brom, when all it did was lead to a goal being conceded. Time and a place etc…

People generally don’t like change, unless it’s to do with ‘taking back control’, and maybe that’s why someone I know who voted Remain is dead against this quirk, believing that only Manchester City have the tools to find same-shirted players in areas once considered perilous. But while simply hoofing the ball aimlessly upfield, to “get rid of it” may seem very Brexit-voting in character (clearing the lines/sending back the boats), the “taking back control” element of mastering possession as a means of stemming the flow of constant pressure is without doubt progressive and forward thinking and is backed by a plan. 

Pep Guardiola is generally lauded for influencing the British game with this mature philosophy, which has derived from the back-pass rule being outlawed in 1992; yet, even before then, Ian St John, during Italia 90, I believe, highlighted the adept passing into his own box by Roberto Donadoni. 

I speak of course as someone who has never doubted an approach that Sunday league managers pretty much made illegal in decades gone by, “overplaying” they called it. Never pass the ball across your own goal, never turn your back on a shot. Essential rules of the game. When Granit Xhaka knocked the ball across his own box at Burnley a couple of seasons ago and right onto the shin of Chris Wood, who just had to exist to equalise, I joined in with the chorus of the furious demanding the head of the Swiss (See, hypocrite! Say the Newcastle fans), or at least a humiliating dressing down from Mikel Arteta. Yet the manager was infuriatingly philosophical, even saying that those players who didn’t take such risks in following the process were more under threat from the axe (not literally, Geordies). 

The problem may be that when it goes wrong, it looks so bad, like something from an Under 9’s match. But to keep giving the ball away without thought, crumbling under duress, will likely lead to a goal eventually. Bumps in the road, wrong personnel, are part of the journey, but it seems important to remain with it. 

I apply it now to school refusal issues that are proving stressful for my missus and I, knowing each day the battle to get not just one but two of our kids into their places of education - and feeling safe - could both drain and overcome us. Before we knew what we were doing, we’d drag the child to school, sometimes even in their pyjamas, with uniform in a bag to change into later. They were in and that’s all that mattered. They couldn’t cause us that stress anymore. Now we know that is only a temporary win, a rash clearance. Neuro-divergent training has taught us to learn compassion, to support, empathise; to ignore knee-jerk solutions. It’s hard, so very hard, but you keep going, always learning, often getting it wrong within the right, but trusting the process, perhaps the kids learning too, passing it on to the future, even if it sometimes goes to Declan Rice because Conor Gallagher was napping. 

The World Cup is Not Enough (But it's such a good place to start)

When Lucy Bronze drove with the ball into the centre of Spain’s midfield (Women’s World Cup Final, Sunday 20th August), the repercussions, once she’d been hounded out of possession, might have seemed limited. For all Spain’s technical excellence, a good goal scoring opportunity had already been spurned by Salina Parraleullo and the all-knowing heads would have expected such profligacy to continue until the ice-cold veins of Hemp and Russo at the other end would make them pay.

The brilliant Aitana Bonmarti may have seen a bigger picture. May have seen it all, even beyond her wonderful pass into the Bronze-vacated area, where Mariona Caldentay took receipt of her crossfield pass and played it outside her to the onrushing captain Olga Carmona, who checked her stride and blazed her shot across Mary Earps into the bottom right corner. Bonmarti, who would be crowned Golden Ball winner for Player of the Tournament, would not have wished to cause her team mate Jenni Hermoso the experience she has had to suffer in the wake of victory thanks to this goal, but hers is a pass that has started a revolution. If we thought Chloe Kelly’s penalty shoot-out strike to knock out Nigeria, faster than any Premier League goal in 2022-23, had caused a mini shockwave, we couldn’t have expected this. 

My animated reaction to Carmona’s shot resting in the net unseated me from my own all-knowing constituency. The on-pitch skipper and left back had just scored her second goal for the country, the first having been in the previous match, the late winner against Sweden in the semi-final. Notwithstanding Bronze’s concession, here was another example of the full backs' growing influence as an attacking threat. As goalkeepers become crucial to the passing process, full backs are finishing the moves.

But while the game evolves quickly, people within it remain unmoved. All Luis Rubalies had to do, in his role as president of the Spanish Football Federation, was understand his mistake, own up to it and offer his resignation for kissing the No.11, Jennifer Hermoso on the lips after greeting her on the ceremonial podium. Ron Atkinson apologised and resigned from his co-commentary job in 2005 for the unforgiveable content of his tirade at Marcel Desailly that he believed was off-air on the night of a Champions League semi final between Monaco and Chelsea. Maybe he was advised to resign, but regardless that's what he did. He didn't, as Rubiales has done, accuse the victim of lying and threaten a law-suit. Not all of us heard Big Ron, but we all saw Rubiales clutch Hermoso's head two-handed and plant his mouth on hers. He did say sorry for grabbing his crotch (within yards of the Queen of Spain and her daughter) when the full-time whistle blew, but with the "if anyone was offended" caveat, immediately downgrading the apology to words of self-protection.  

The machismo of a crotch-grab is enough to show that the person executing it shouldn't be in a position of authority, that he is a Trump disciple. Trump's penchant for grabbing is well-known, and not necessarily his own genitalia. The theatre of Rubiales' defiance at the general assembly of the Spanish Federation the following Thursday was pure Trumpball; more manipulated women at the front, male allies applauding everywhere else. Rubiales referenced his three daughters (like Gianni Infantino had referenced his four while addressing the potential of the women's game and telling the women that FIFA's "doors are open" to knock down, if only they'd persuade him of their worth. Andy Gray had talked about his daughter too while Sky investigated his own 'off-air' indiscretions). Hermoso had already extracted her pressured statement to support Rubiales when she'd been leapt on like her team mates had on Bronze, initially heard saying "I didn't like it" moments after the ceremony. For a while, this looked dark, as if the Spanish Federation were going to go all in on Hermoso while standing by their man, who was waiting to become the actual victim in this. It wouldn't have been surprising; in the last 10 years, Spanish crowds have booed visiting black and mixed-race England players, and abused Lewis Hamilton for the same reason. The mindset of this country has sometimes been characterised by former men's manager, the late Luis Aragones, who'd infamously encouraged the also late Jose Antonio Reyes to shrug off the spectre of his then club teammate Thierry Henry with a word similar to that which saw Big Ron leave ITV for good. 

Thankfully, mercifully, the reaction on the Spanish streets and in the their stadiums is akin to an uprising. #Se Acabo~. 81 women and men players are refusing to play for their country until Rubiales, now suspended by FIFA while the investigation continues, has gone. Hermoso received a standing ovation on the opening day of the men's season, and men's players wore t shirts honouring her. Strong allies in Jorge Vilda, women's football team manager and the men's team manager turned on Rubiales too - even if this was only when they had ben made aware of the prevailing wind. It may be too late for Vilda, who had already orchestrated his own revolt, 13 players making themselves unavailable for the World Cup citing their mental well-being and below-par preparation. Eight years in the job with this fine squad, featuring Barcelona's Champions league winners of last season, yet for the first time this summer his team went beyond a quarter final. The Spanish FA are reportedly exploring ways to sack him. During the puffed-up protest at the general assembly, Rubiales had shown his intention to extend Vilda's contract, offering 500,000 euros a year to the son of Angel Vilda, a prominent figure in Spanish football circles. Perhaps, in his now impotent position, Rubiales is rallying his remaining loyalists to storm the senate, or perhaps in his terms, run the bulls.

Vilda embraced Infantino on the podium, the Head of FIFA gracing everyone with his presence. Infantino probably hadn't noticed that the last England player to greet him, Bronze, didn't put herself in a position to shake his hand and, instead, hands on hips, ducked into the medal he put round her neck. If only more people did that. Her misguided run into the pack of Spaniards is a trifling matter compared to the snubbing of Infantino. She deserves, well, a medal for it. She also, without knowing it at the time, played a part in the downfall of a narcissist at the heart of women's football, the scalp of Rubiales. Lucy, no doubt, would not have given the ball away if given the chance again, and hope instead that Rubiales would be brought down in a different way somewhere along the line. But if she is looking to forgive herself, then the hastening of Rubiales' exposure must contain some kind of medicinal properties.          

Human beings make mistakes; it's what makes us interesting. Gianluca Vialli said "you never lose, you either win or you learn". I wouldn't have wanted to hear that just after, say, the 2001 FA Cup Final, but looking at the following season, you see his point. It's how we respond to our mistakes, or even how we feel about them after a period of sometimes painful reflection that means something. Arsenal were without doubt hard done by in that Final, let down by insufficient officialdom but still good enough to have won the game with the chances they gave themselves. Oh well, you just have to suck up the glory-boy baiting in the pub and the one-eyed analysis of Alan Hansen. Your time will come, just a bit later. Though not for everyone. Even if Rubiales had conducted himself with dignity after the indignity, there should have been no Double to win for him, rather the kind of anonymity to look forward to that Big Ron has faced, but sometimes you have to put the world first.    

  

Seeing the future. Women’s World Cup semi finals

 I’d gone ashamedly Rio Ferdinand watching Australia-France’s quarter final. Don’t worry, no one got merked in the process, I just heard myself saying that “England beat both these teams” just as he had when watching the Italy-Spain Euro 20/21 semi-final. 

Although England pounced on a couple of defensive lapses to come back and beat Colombia, you could also spin it to say that they had the clinical quality to take their chances when they were presented. There seems to be no one better at that fundamental aspect of the game, and this ability to put the ball in the back of the net cuts through all the kind of chaos and endeavour that was evident in the 0-0 - 7-6 win on pens for the host nation. Maybe a fully fit Sam Kerr will make the difference tomorrow, but it’s tempting to feel that with a composed and concentrated defensive organisation, England will get through to another final, regardless of the home support. 

Italy’s men’s team in 2006 (semi final) and 2020/21 (Final) kept their cool to rise above the threat imposed by location and a partisan crowd surely isn’t enough to get the Aussies over the line. Even if England were beaten, only a Spanish surrender seems the likely route to a host nation triumph. *

Watching the Spanish against the endearing Swedes in the first semi this morning, I didn’t get the Rio observation travails to the same extent, seeing Spain move themselves and the ball around with such belief, although for a long time in the game it seemed that the same goalscoring problems besetting everyone but England would again haunt them. In France during the 2017 Euros, the cultural make-up was just the same as in the men’s game: Spain were technically superior to England but they didn’t have anyone like Jodie Taylor. 

The Swedes themselves missed a great chance through Stina  Blackstenius in the quarter final against Japan, who they imposed themselves on powerfully and offensively, unlike against USA, but an opportunistic flick home by Blackstenius’s new Arsenal team mate Amanda Ilistedt, and a penalty after customary Japanese bedlam from a corner put Sweden into the driving seat, seeing out a late scare to face Spain, who in turn pegged Sweden back for large spells in Auckland.

All three of commentator, Jonathan Pearce, co-commentator Sue Smith and Gabby Logan in the Sydney studio used “cagey” to describe the first half, which i disagreed with. It certainly wasn’t chess, which might have suited the Swedes (hey, I’m allowed to use cultural stereotypes; ABBA boomed out of the public address as soon as the final whistle went against Japan). At half-time in the studio, Fara Williams thought Sweden would make Spain pay for their possession- without-goals system. 

A substitute made the difference: 19 year old Salma Paralleulo was a menace to the Swedish defence, and after a couple of glorious opportunities wasted by team mates kept me chuntering away, she turned in a loose ball with a first time shot past Musovic, played by Peep Show’s Big Suze in the Swedish goal. Ten minutes of regulation time remained, although such things are beginning to lose their place in the world. 

Two substitutes saved Sweden, a smart header across goal by Lustig was turned expertly in by Rebecka Blomqvist, whose delight was a joy. Two goals within a few minutes to shame my assumptions regarding goalscoring prowess. Within a minute, though, Spain were back in front, the full back Olga Carmono, who reminded me of Hector Bellerin, was left alone to receive a short corner and blast past Suze, who was blamed by Pearce and Smith, which was a shame considering her recent performances. If she should have kept out the shot as they said, it wasn’t as glaring an error as say, France’s Joel Bats in Mexico 86 or anything, letting an Andreas Brehme free kick squirm under him in another semi final following his heralded thwarting of Brazil in the previous round. 

Pearce remarked that Carmona’s two previous long range efforts had been “dreadful”, when in fact the first one had skimmed just past the post, collecting a deflection off a Swedish defender’s boot along the way. A goal kick was given, despite the player’s protest - VAR, or at least the decision/policy not to use it - shown up again as the deeply flawed keeper of justice, or at least should have been if people were watching. Pearce didn’t mention the error, probably too busy thinking up another piss-take to hit Smith with. Carmona’s second effort was admittedly wildly off-target, Pearce suggesting that Big Suze’s form in the tournament meant the goalkeeper wouldn’t be beaten from distance anyway, which Smith agreed with. Both would later reveal to have been merked. 

It was the keeper at the other end, Cata ‘The Cat’ Coll Lluch, and indeed Carmona who produced my first conscious viewing of play-acting in the Women’s World Cup. Maybe Coll Lluch did genuinely need to keep needing treatment, but Carmona so obviously bought a foul off Lustig by the corner flag in the final few seconds. The Swedes were rattled about it and rightly so, and though the nationality of the deception isn’t a surprise given that’s where Rodri learned it, I hope this isn’t the start of a widespread philosophy shift in the women’s game. Like Carmona’s deflected shot in the first half, VAR was neither called upon or bothered. Perhaps you could argue she was just even-ing it up. 

*Italy’s men’s team were also unable to get past a semi-final in a World Cup they hosted (1990)*