Premiership Predictions

Happy All Hallows Eve to you all as we prepare for another weekend of Premier League action and, in an increasingly rare phenomenon in these modern times, we have nine of the ten matches being played on Saturday this weekend as well as no less than seven traditional Saturday 3pm kick-offs – it makes a nice change I have to say. Arguably the clash of the weekend is the North London Derby between high-flying Arsenal and Spurs first up, but there should be plenty of action before the ghouls come out tonight…

Saturday Fixtures; all kick-offs 3pm unless stated.
Arsenal vs. Tottenham Hotspur (12.45pm)
Arsenal are in imperious form at present, especially at the Emirates Stadium and with the kids beating Arsenal in midweek the senior players will certainly not want to be shown up. Spurs were surprisingly humbled by Stoke last weekend and will still be missing Jermaine Defoe (suspended) and probably Aaron Lennon (injured) which denies them them their two best players so far. A win against an injury-hit Everton in the Carling Cup will have boosted morale, but I think Arsenal will be too strong for them today.
Prediction: 2-1.

One Shot For Profit

There is little more discouraging than those terrible, awful people who seek to make money from football. There are many examples of these villains in the modern game; not least those foreign investors who buy clubs and run them into the ground for personal profit, or the agents who act as malicious middle men providing minimal service at maximal profit, or even those who run the game these days, treating it less as a sport and more as a business, sacrificing the games’ integrity to further fill their pockets.

Of course such acts of greed are commonplace in today’s materialistic society. But these footballing crimes are worst because they take advantage of the sheer obsession of football fans. We are the life and blood of the game, and without us it could not function, nevermind make them money. And they rely on that, safe in the knowledge that we cannot pull away, that we are an easy source of income, that they can rip us off again and again and we cannot, no matter how hard we try, sever our ties with out club, our game.

Below even these executive types of modern football though, are the touts. The ticket scalpers. They buy up tickets for the big games and flog them at an enormous profit, depriving real fans the chance of seeing the game that means so much to them, or at least making them pay far over the odds to do so. It sickens me because these are people like us, fellow fans who are content to take advantage of their peers for their own personal profit. And at present, there are hundreds of them in New Zealand, denying me the chance to see New Zealand’s World Cup Qualifier against Bahrain.

WDKF Wednesday: Playing Away – A FIFA Conspiracy?

I woke up early this morning to attempt to buy a couple of tickets for the All White’s playoff match against Bahrain in November, but the 500 temporary seating tickets that went on sale today somehow disappeared in the 3 seconds after clicking “Buy Now” at precisely 9am that it took the next page to load. That seems implausible to me, but I know next to nothing about the workings of Ticketek, and so I move on.

The distinctive smell of conspiracy and controversy is far more pungent around FIFA’s strange decision to alter the usual enforcement of the away goals rule for the same fixture, which means that away goals will continue to decide the tie after extra time – giving the away side Bahrain an extra 30 minutes to score a crucial away goal. What could have driven such a strange and apparently obviously unfair rule change? Why, FIFA’s never-ending greed of course!

Click through for the full conspiracy theory at WDKF.co.uk…

Beckham’s on his way to Milan… and the World Cup.

Beckham flourished during his last stint in Milan, will he do so again?

So AC Milan chief executive Adriano Galliani has assured the world that the loan deal to take David Beckham back to the red half of the San Siro in January is “100% done” and “The only thing missing is the signatures” which simultaneously confirms that he’s lying (let’s face it, unless it’s signed and sealed, it isn’t 100% done) and that David Beckham will almost certainly be part of England’s World Cup squad in South Africa next year.

He’s proven popular as a squad member during Fabio Capello’s time in charge of the three lions but because of the Italian’s reluctance to take a player plying his trade in the sub-European standard MLS to a World Cup there was still a chance that Beckham could miss out. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that a move to Milan was the only way that Beckham could give himself a really good chance of being included – a much talked about Premier League return could actually have harmed his chances.

You know what? Fuck the Carling Cup.

Gosling & Fellaini looked worse for wear, even after equalising.

Author’s note: consider this a follow up to my earlier post, ‘Who wants to win the Carling Cup?‘

I was lucky enough to be inside the Westpac Stadium in Wellington to witness Wellington Phoenix’s 6-0 demolition of previous A-League pace-setters Gold Coast United yesterday evening, but unfortunately that only served as a brief – albeit very welcome – relief from a fairly desperate couple of days for me in terms of football as Everton’s unbeaten run was brought to an abrupt end as a severely depleted squad was hammered in Benfica before losing out to Bolton last yesterday.

In fact, it’s after a few days such as this that Everton, with an already small squad stretched seemingly beyond breaking point by a huge injury list and the stresses of European competition, need a good week’s rest to regroup, nurse some players back to fitness and bounce back for the test against Villa next weekend. Unfortunately though, before the players can put their feet up they must play their third match in six days when they face Tottenham in the Carling Cup on Tuesday. You have to ask then, who let that happen?

Premiership Predictions

The big clash of this weekend sees Manchester United travel to Anfield to attempt to compound what has already been a simply awful week for Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool side. Much of the pre-match speculation centres around whether or not Rooney, Gerrard and Torres will be making an appearance for their respective sides but one prediction I’m positive about is that at least one beach ball will make it onto the field of play at some point. For the rest of the weekend’s predictions, read on…

Saturday Fixtures; all kick-offs 3pm unless stated.
Wolverhampton Wanderers vs. Aston Villa (12.45pm)
Villa stunned Chelsea last week after putting in an excellent battling performance, they had their backs to the wall for long spells but their new defensive lineup is really shining and there’s a great spirit amongst the squad. That spirit will be important for this Midlands derby with Wolves bound to be up for the game and with the return of Michael Kightly and Slyvain Ebanks-Blake they’ll certainly be boosted in terms of squad morale and confidence. I think this’ll be a typically frantic derby that Villa may just shade.
Prediction: 1-2.

Cheer Up Davey: It’s not quite the end of the world.

Cheer up Davey, it's not the end of the world.

Firstly, apologies for my slightly slack posting recently – I’ve been compiling an application to a postgrad journalism course and it’s been a lot of work. Gone are the days of just filling in a form you know, but I’m nearly there with it now so will be returning to regular posts ASAP (don’t mention exams though, yeah?).

Secondly, today’s post is as much for my own benefit as for yours. There are few things that can make me thoroughly enjoy the prospect of getting out of bed before six o’clock on a Friday morning, but one of them is the prospect of watching Everton playing in Europe. As those of you who’ve seen the score (which, for reasons of self-preservation I won’t repeat) will know, it wasn’t really worth it. Such a defeat is always demoralising and makes you feel like the world has just ended.

WDKF Wednesday: Who’s on your proverbial plane?

Today we briefly divulge ourselves of the dramas of domestic and European club football and return to the international arena as I complete selections as to who I would be taking to South Africa if I were in Fabio Capello’s shoes at this point in time. Last week I selected the goalkeepers and defenders who I think would best serve England come next summer, and today I complete the squad.

Major questions that plague Capello with the selection of his midfielders and forwards are who to deploy on the right wing, whether or not old heads like David Beckham and Michael Owen should be included in the squad and how best to partner Wayne Rooney, especially with his favoured option spending plenty of time warming the bench. I’ve picked a squad of thirty-two that I think can win the World Cup for England so to find out whether or not you agree with me…

…click through and have a read of my WDKF Wednesday article!

Stubborn Stalemates: Wellington Phoenix must unleash Greenacre

Greenacre has been somewhat strangled by A-League defences thus far.

When Robbie Fowler headed home a late equaliser for North Queensland Fury against Wellington Phoenix on Saturday night, he condemned the Phoenix to become the new holders of one of the A-League’s more dubious records; their six consecutive draws is now the longest stretch of stalemates that one club has embarked upon in the competition’s five year history.

The most confusing thing though, is that Wellington have actually been playing quite an attacking brand of football for much of this season, have had more shots on goal than any other side in the league and have been creating lots of chances. If they are to break this frustrating sequence though, they need to find out how to get the most from Chris Greenacre, their English striker who was a prolific poacher for Tranmere Rovers in the English Championship. So how can it be done?

Tipped for the Top: Whatever has happened to Liverpool?

There's a certain irony in the fact that it was a Liverpool beach ball...

Reading the pre-season forecasts from many of football’s most well-known pundits before the Premier League season kicked off, it would have been easy to get the impression that Liverpool were shoo-ins to finally lift the Premier League trophy. Every man and his dog (well, except me) seemed to think that this was going to be Liverpool’s season and yet here we are nine games in and they’ve already lost four matches and are looking a little bit all over the show.

While many a Red Liverpudlian will point accusingly at a red beach ball after today’s defeat to Sunderland, the truth is that the Black Cats thoroughly deserved the win and for much of this season, Liverpool simply haven’t looked like a top four side, never mind a team that could realistically challenge for the title. So the question is, after all the pre-season optimism, what on earth has happened to see them slump to such a poor start?