I hate off seasons, i really do, they go for far to long! The big advantage of the past 2 off seasons though has been the World Cup of 2006 and the Asian Cup this year, they do help make the time go faster. With Euro 2008 next year it does help soften the blow of having no quality football on our screens, but ultimately there is nothing like club football. I really can not wait till August and the start of both the Premier League and the A-League.
Over the next couple of weeks Henry Bergkamp and i will put together our predictions for the upcoming seasons of both competitions, who we think will finish where and who we think will be the stars and flops. Feel free to use my predictions in your fantasy teams as im sure they will be spot on! ;)
Normally the Premier League is my biggest priority in terms of anticipation, but i have to admit that Version 3 of the A-League is getting me going! My Sydney FC membership is ready to go and i cant wait for the opportunity to see quality football every other week. Being a Newcastle Jets fan it may seem strange that i have a Sydney season ticket, but with me living in Sydney and Bergkamp being a Sydney fan its the logical thing to do.
I must admit i am a little worried that after the succesful first 2 seasons that the Jets had, i could be in for a long season. Losing Carle and Okon is going to hurt and while i watch every other team make good signings i watch and wait in hope, much the way i watch and wait for Arsenal to magically sign a whole team of superstars, even if they dont need them. Its like being the poor kid with his packed lunch from home watching all the rich kids buying their lunch from the canteen, you just want some of what they are having.
In the end it just comes down to trust. You just have to trust your manager knows what he is doing, you just have to trust that the players already at the club will do the job.
And trust i shall, i just cant wait! Bring on August!
Its just my opinion
Sir Boom
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Where to now?
Morning all,
As the dust begins to settle on what Mr Bergkamp rightly described as a nightmare display by Australia, the question remains, "Where to now?". I have to admit I am only now getting over the shock of Friday nights performance, but im sure im not the only one. What makes matters worse, if thats possible at the moment, is the aftermarth, its disgraceful and exactly the opposite of what was needed. Right when you wanted to hear all the players come out and apologise for thier performances and promise that they will be doing everything they can to make it right on Monday night, we get news that there is a split within the camp and everyone is blaming everyone else.
Here is some news for you guys, "stand up and be men, admit your failings, and play football". I read this morning that until very recently negotiations about player payments were still going on. Is this for real? In the middle of the Asian Cup our players are worried about home much money they are getting? Something is seriously wrong here, I mean im sure I would be able to round up around 3 million Australians who would gladly play for this great country for nothing, id also bet that we could have even got a result against Iraq!
For me, FIFA should bring in a rule that all international games be unpaid, only at the end of a tournament should players be paid bonuses depending on how they perform. This goes for the World Cup as well. It should be a honor to play for your country, not a right, the same goes for the Coach! Thats right Arnold im looking at you. Im sure you felt let down by the players Friday night, as you expressed in your comical interview after the game, but as the saying goes "those in galss houses........".
Its hard for me to say but the time for ranting is not now, its later, when we have won this stupid cup. The time for infighting is NEVER, the players need to step up and win this thing because they are in a situation where alot of public faith in them has been lost. They were on a high post World Cup, the entire Australian public loved them, all the other "football" codes were very afraid of US. Now i feel they are breathing a sigh of releif as they watch our bubble burst.
Just go out and play good football, the wins will come.
Oh and by the way, Bobbie Slater is a wanker!
Its just my opinion
Sir Boom
As the dust begins to settle on what Mr Bergkamp rightly described as a nightmare display by Australia, the question remains, "Where to now?". I have to admit I am only now getting over the shock of Friday nights performance, but im sure im not the only one. What makes matters worse, if thats possible at the moment, is the aftermarth, its disgraceful and exactly the opposite of what was needed. Right when you wanted to hear all the players come out and apologise for thier performances and promise that they will be doing everything they can to make it right on Monday night, we get news that there is a split within the camp and everyone is blaming everyone else.
Here is some news for you guys, "stand up and be men, admit your failings, and play football". I read this morning that until very recently negotiations about player payments were still going on. Is this for real? In the middle of the Asian Cup our players are worried about home much money they are getting? Something is seriously wrong here, I mean im sure I would be able to round up around 3 million Australians who would gladly play for this great country for nothing, id also bet that we could have even got a result against Iraq!
For me, FIFA should bring in a rule that all international games be unpaid, only at the end of a tournament should players be paid bonuses depending on how they perform. This goes for the World Cup as well. It should be a honor to play for your country, not a right, the same goes for the Coach! Thats right Arnold im looking at you. Im sure you felt let down by the players Friday night, as you expressed in your comical interview after the game, but as the saying goes "those in galss houses........".
Its hard for me to say but the time for ranting is not now, its later, when we have won this stupid cup. The time for infighting is NEVER, the players need to step up and win this thing because they are in a situation where alot of public faith in them has been lost. They were on a high post World Cup, the entire Australian public loved them, all the other "football" codes were very afraid of US. Now i feel they are breathing a sigh of releif as they watch our bubble burst.
Just go out and play good football, the wins will come.
Oh and by the way, Bobbie Slater is a wanker!
Its just my opinion
Sir Boom
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Friday 13th – Nightmare on Bangkok St.
Where does one begin the analysis of last nights game. Given that I'm in shock over the inept display by the majority of the Olyroos Socceroos and if I let my emotions take over then this would be one long rant and rave and that's not my style, I'll leave that to Sir Boom, but that was “farkin” terrible.
It was definitely a nightmare worthy of a Hollywood fright flick, scary to say the least, right from the kick off through to Lucas Neill getting his second yellow for complimenting the referee on his hair style, the Australian teams style of play was pedestrian at best. Why do we insist on playing Mark Viduka up front only to leave two of the best “goal thief's” in Tim Cahill and John Aloisi on the bench instead of capitalizing on butterballs V Bomber's ability to hold and distribute the ball.
"It was very disappointing," Arnold said.
"Three individual mistakes cost us the game. We worked hard to get back to 1-1 and then two individual mistakes killed us.
Bullshit that like me saying Robbie “I've got a winners medal” Slatter cost us the game from the commentary box, that's it we'll blame Robbie because he bored us to death.
But I digress, while I agree some players individual performances were poor, to say three individual mistakes cost us the game says it all for me. Be man enough to say we didn't attack enough, didn't score more goals than them, weren't prepared well enough, but please don't blame individual errors on the “teams” inability to win last nights game.
As a “team” Australia's performance was “farkin” shite.
So the sooner we stop basking in the glorious deeds of Germany 2006 the better, new coach, new attitude, new style of play, over to you Football Federation Australia.....................
Henry Bergkamp
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Madrid can go and get stuffed!!!!!
Where do these guys get off? New Real Madrid coach Bernd Schuster has not been in the job more than 5 minutes and he has already pissed me off! He wants to sign Cese Fabregas and believes just because he is the manager of Real Madrid he can have him tomorrow! Just some friendly advice for you "Bernd", FUCK OFF!
Where do these Spanish teams get off? Every off season it seems their best used tactic to sign a player that they want is to unsettle them in everyway possible. I'm sure its not just because im an Arsenal fan and ive had to put up with it every year, there are other teams out there putting up with this shit as well. This kind of tactic has to be in some way illeagal.
The sensational stories that are run in the Spanish press have a massive bearing on how the sagas unfold. You cant tell me that these papers are not fed little stories from Real and Barca on purpose to heap more and more pressure on the clubs and players involved. If you are hearing your name in the papers every day being linked with these "superpowers" its going to play on your mind and of course you are going to start to believe your own hype!
Whats worse than the papers and managers, if thats possible, are these wankers called "Club Presidents". During the recent Real president elections, Ramon Calderon (who won) claimed that if he was elected he would sign Kaka, Robben and Fabregas. Excuse me for a minute, but who the fuck are you to make such a claim? There is no possible way you can make that claim! Unless you already have a signed contract from the players themselves, which would be illegal. Milan have basically told Real to go and shove a very sharp object up their arse, there is no way they are getting Kaka, its is my hope that Arsenal do the same.....at the very least.
It is my belief that the reason Real have been so crap lately is due in large to 2 factors, 1 - they keep sacking their manager, never allowing any kind of structure, the players are changing systems all to often. 2 - most of the signings they have made over the years have been for the sake of signing the "best" players, regardless of how they will fit into the team, these signings are mostly made because its who the presidents wants, not who the manager wants. It happened at Chelski with Shevchenko and looked how that turned out!
It just shits me thats all, I know that day will come when Cese wants to move back to Spain, i just dont want it to be for at least 10 years!
Its just my opinion
Sir Boom
Where do these Spanish teams get off? Every off season it seems their best used tactic to sign a player that they want is to unsettle them in everyway possible. I'm sure its not just because im an Arsenal fan and ive had to put up with it every year, there are other teams out there putting up with this shit as well. This kind of tactic has to be in some way illeagal.
The sensational stories that are run in the Spanish press have a massive bearing on how the sagas unfold. You cant tell me that these papers are not fed little stories from Real and Barca on purpose to heap more and more pressure on the clubs and players involved. If you are hearing your name in the papers every day being linked with these "superpowers" its going to play on your mind and of course you are going to start to believe your own hype!
Whats worse than the papers and managers, if thats possible, are these wankers called "Club Presidents". During the recent Real president elections, Ramon Calderon (who won) claimed that if he was elected he would sign Kaka, Robben and Fabregas. Excuse me for a minute, but who the fuck are you to make such a claim? There is no possible way you can make that claim! Unless you already have a signed contract from the players themselves, which would be illegal. Milan have basically told Real to go and shove a very sharp object up their arse, there is no way they are getting Kaka, its is my hope that Arsenal do the same.....at the very least.
It is my belief that the reason Real have been so crap lately is due in large to 2 factors, 1 - they keep sacking their manager, never allowing any kind of structure, the players are changing systems all to often. 2 - most of the signings they have made over the years have been for the sake of signing the "best" players, regardless of how they will fit into the team, these signings are mostly made because its who the presidents wants, not who the manager wants. It happened at Chelski with Shevchenko and looked how that turned out!
It just shits me thats all, I know that day will come when Cese wants to move back to Spain, i just dont want it to be for at least 10 years!
Its just my opinion
Sir Boom
Monday, July 9, 2007
O'MAN THAT WAS CLOSE
You just knew that if Australia was going to pull itself out of a lackluster performance and grab a share of the points it was going to be one Tim Cahill who would pop up and score. As he did only 12 months ago Cahill proved Australia's saviour in our time of need, and wernt we in need! Truth be told if it wasnt for the heroics of Mark Schwarzer, Cahills goal may have only made the score line a respectable 4-1, as the Omanies (for lack of a better nickname) really should have won the game. Schwarzer showed yet again why he is one of the best shot stoppers in the game, and i really do wish for his sake he leaves Boro because he deserves better.
I must admit, as the 90th minute ticked over i was kicking myself for not having some money on Oman to win, as Centrebet was offering a massive $11. Why people think we a walk up starter in the final is beyond me for 2 reasons, 1-we rnt as good as people think and 2-alot of these asian teams are alot better than people think. The Omanies proved last night that if you can steal a goal and defend like your life depends on it, you can match it with a supposed "quality" opposition. Add to that their ability to time waste and you have a good combo, but ill get to that latter, because it shits me to tears!
Attacking wise last night, that was about as ineffective as I have seen us in quite some time, due in some respect to the Oman defence, that fella marking Fat Viduka was outstanding. He took Mark right out of the game, and by the 2nd half i thought he should have been replaced because he seem to loose all interest and was never going to score. Our distribution from central midfield was the worst ive seen it, I cant recall Grella and Culina making more than a handful of succesful passes.
Ive said it before and ill say it again, Luke Wilkshire should not even be in the squad, let alone taking every set piece!!!!!!! Here is a question for you, is Brett Emerton the dumbest footballer on the planet? Their goal came as a direct result of him not doing the most basic thing as following his players run!
In the end we were lucky to get the draw, the funny thing is though it is the Omanies own fault we even had the chance. A massive 4 minutes of added time came as a direct result of their pathetic play acting! Every single time they went down the ref stopped his watch, in the end giving us time to score, so was it justice in the end? No way! Why? Because it should never have happened in the 1st place!
Its cheating, plain and simple! I had to retrain myself from putting my fist through the tv screen in anger at the horrible display of acting that even Madonna would have been ashamed of. It is a blight on the game and 1 than needs to be stamped out. The difference between the 2 teams can been shown by the fact that Kewell was hammered twice early and all he did was sit up, pull his socks up and hurl abuse at that guy would looked a bit like a woman (or was that just me?), you compare this to the fact that everytime as aussie breathed heavily near 1 of them he went down like he had been hit by an elephant!
My answer, everytime a player needs treatment and is taken to the sidlines, they have 2 spend a min 3 minutes on the sideline before they can return. Can you imagine the amount of crap and abuse a player would recieve from his own team and supporters if he faked an injury at an important stage of the game and left his side a man down for an extended amount of time and he wasnt really hurt?
Just my opinion!
Sir Boom
I must admit, as the 90th minute ticked over i was kicking myself for not having some money on Oman to win, as Centrebet was offering a massive $11. Why people think we a walk up starter in the final is beyond me for 2 reasons, 1-we rnt as good as people think and 2-alot of these asian teams are alot better than people think. The Omanies proved last night that if you can steal a goal and defend like your life depends on it, you can match it with a supposed "quality" opposition. Add to that their ability to time waste and you have a good combo, but ill get to that latter, because it shits me to tears!
Attacking wise last night, that was about as ineffective as I have seen us in quite some time, due in some respect to the Oman defence, that fella marking Fat Viduka was outstanding. He took Mark right out of the game, and by the 2nd half i thought he should have been replaced because he seem to loose all interest and was never going to score. Our distribution from central midfield was the worst ive seen it, I cant recall Grella and Culina making more than a handful of succesful passes.
Ive said it before and ill say it again, Luke Wilkshire should not even be in the squad, let alone taking every set piece!!!!!!! Here is a question for you, is Brett Emerton the dumbest footballer on the planet? Their goal came as a direct result of him not doing the most basic thing as following his players run!
In the end we were lucky to get the draw, the funny thing is though it is the Omanies own fault we even had the chance. A massive 4 minutes of added time came as a direct result of their pathetic play acting! Every single time they went down the ref stopped his watch, in the end giving us time to score, so was it justice in the end? No way! Why? Because it should never have happened in the 1st place!
Its cheating, plain and simple! I had to retrain myself from putting my fist through the tv screen in anger at the horrible display of acting that even Madonna would have been ashamed of. It is a blight on the game and 1 than needs to be stamped out. The difference between the 2 teams can been shown by the fact that Kewell was hammered twice early and all he did was sit up, pull his socks up and hurl abuse at that guy would looked a bit like a woman (or was that just me?), you compare this to the fact that everytime as aussie breathed heavily near 1 of them he went down like he had been hit by an elephant!
My answer, everytime a player needs treatment and is taken to the sidlines, they have 2 spend a min 3 minutes on the sideline before they can return. Can you imagine the amount of crap and abuse a player would recieve from his own team and supporters if he faked an injury at an important stage of the game and left his side a man down for an extended amount of time and he wasnt really hurt?
Just my opinion!
Sir Boom
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Arsenal Quiet, Australia Shows Some Bad Signs
Goodmorning and welcome,
With Arsenal news thin on the ground of late i thought instead of wasting my time trying to predict who we should and shouldnt bring in to replace the unreplacable, i would take the opportunity to take a look at the blockbuster international that was Australia v Singapore.
To be honest i was actually really looking forward to this game, not because it was a meeting of 2 world powerhouses, hahaha, but more to see how the inept Graham Arnold was going to hamper the progress of Australian football. I have to say straight out, i am not Arnold's biggest fan, and i think the sooner we get rid of him and move onto a manager who knows the basics, the better off we will be.
Sure, we won the game 3-0 and ultimately as far as the record books are concerned a win is a win, however this is a case of the result having no reflection on the game as a whole. In truth, if it wasnt for a couple of decent saves from Schwarzer and a lot of help from the woodwork Singapore would be celebrating a deserved victory. Indeed in wasnt until the introduction of Kewell early in the 2nd half did things start to click.
Now my fears dont lie within the attacking half of the pitch, i believe there we are more than capable. It is in the area of the park where a defensive line should be placed that i have great doubts. In Lucas Neill we have a worldclass centreback and in Schwarzer we have a worldclass keeper, sadly thats where it finishes. For some unknown reason Arnold continues to chop and change the backline looking for some magical solution that isnt there, and with the Asian Cup getting closer and closer it is obvious he still has no idea what his best XI is!
Luke Wilkshire should not even be in the squad, let alone playing at left back, the man is a gimp. Brett Emerton is getting better playing in the wing back role, but his defensive capabilities are still of concern, and as for Michael Beauchamp, are you kidding me? I cringe everytime i see this man warming up on the sidelines, how this man is getting selected is beyond me. He has the ability of a dead camel and thats being a bit harsh to dead camels everywhere. Also whats up with that haircut? He left the A-League to go overseas and earn the big bucks and he looks like he is getting his haircut at the local butcher, please someone take the boy aside and point out that he looks like a dick!
After the match Arnold had this to say -
"We've been working very hard during the week so it was the performance I expected on the fatigue side of it,"
"Singapore tested us and were very unlucky. We have a lot of work to do. Our attacking play was fantastic ... but we've got some work to do in defence."
"Some" work? what drug are you on Arnold? can i get some?
How about you start by getting rid of yourself, thats as good a defensive move as any!
Sir Boom
With Arsenal news thin on the ground of late i thought instead of wasting my time trying to predict who we should and shouldnt bring in to replace the unreplacable, i would take the opportunity to take a look at the blockbuster international that was Australia v Singapore.
To be honest i was actually really looking forward to this game, not because it was a meeting of 2 world powerhouses, hahaha, but more to see how the inept Graham Arnold was going to hamper the progress of Australian football. I have to say straight out, i am not Arnold's biggest fan, and i think the sooner we get rid of him and move onto a manager who knows the basics, the better off we will be.
Sure, we won the game 3-0 and ultimately as far as the record books are concerned a win is a win, however this is a case of the result having no reflection on the game as a whole. In truth, if it wasnt for a couple of decent saves from Schwarzer and a lot of help from the woodwork Singapore would be celebrating a deserved victory. Indeed in wasnt until the introduction of Kewell early in the 2nd half did things start to click.
Now my fears dont lie within the attacking half of the pitch, i believe there we are more than capable. It is in the area of the park where a defensive line should be placed that i have great doubts. In Lucas Neill we have a worldclass centreback and in Schwarzer we have a worldclass keeper, sadly thats where it finishes. For some unknown reason Arnold continues to chop and change the backline looking for some magical solution that isnt there, and with the Asian Cup getting closer and closer it is obvious he still has no idea what his best XI is!
Luke Wilkshire should not even be in the squad, let alone playing at left back, the man is a gimp. Brett Emerton is getting better playing in the wing back role, but his defensive capabilities are still of concern, and as for Michael Beauchamp, are you kidding me? I cringe everytime i see this man warming up on the sidelines, how this man is getting selected is beyond me. He has the ability of a dead camel and thats being a bit harsh to dead camels everywhere. Also whats up with that haircut? He left the A-League to go overseas and earn the big bucks and he looks like he is getting his haircut at the local butcher, please someone take the boy aside and point out that he looks like a dick!
After the match Arnold had this to say -
"We've been working very hard during the week so it was the performance I expected on the fatigue side of it,"
"Singapore tested us and were very unlucky. We have a lot of work to do. Our attacking play was fantastic ... but we've got some work to do in defence."
"Some" work? what drug are you on Arnold? can i get some?
How about you start by getting rid of yourself, thats as good a defensive move as any!
Sir Boom
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)