Football News

Avram has recently been appointed as West Ham’s new Manager. I struggle to understand how can Avram Grant be a successful coach and manager and keep getting jobs??  As a coach I try to be enthusiastic and inspiring, Avram Grant seems to be none of these things, so what is his secret when it comes to getting his players up in a game?  He may know the game inside out, but his man management and communication skills don’t seem to be all that good!

Who knows? We can probably guess who will not win it. North Korea, Australia, New Zealand etc, will enjoy themselves, cause a shock or two, but won’t win the World Cup.

As we can all understand, with football being such a fast moving and dynamic game. Referees and their assistants have to make decisions instantly. As a result, they will at times get them wrong. Sometimes with devastating consequences. France, for example, are only at the World Cup because Thierry Henry managed to accidently handle the ball twice when setting up his countries deciding goal against the Republic of Ireland! France go through, Ireland don’t.

There has been criticism in the press this week by mainly international goalkeepers about the new adidas footballs being used for matches in the world cup.  This criticism always happens when a new ball is introduced before the big tournaments.  If the ball swerves and dips then it may well make goalkeepers look like fools, but won’t there be loads of fantastic goals being scored?  As a fan I would rather the ball didn’t swerve and dip as it would be a shame if England gets knocked out by a goalkeeping error.  But for entertainment value I suppose Adidas and FIFA are doing the right thing?

Without being too patriotic, I feel that England, whilst not having the strength of depth in the squad, has potentially three players who, if England are to do well..and maybe, just maybe, win the World Cup; have to perform to their very best, on footballs biggest stage.

With the World Cup about to start, we the fans and the teams will be faced with the lottery of penalty shoot outs. How many times have we seen inferior teams defending for their lives to hang on and try to get to a penalty shoot out?  Seeing it as their best chance of winning. The result? Not always does the better team progress through the competition and the competition is somewhat diminished. As an England fan, I am of course biased, because we have suffered so often from defeat in a game we should have won, because we have lost the penalty shoot out.

Is it a good thing that Blackpool have gained promotion to the Premier League? Does this promotion somewhat devalue the Premiership, as Blackpool’s financial ability to compete for and attract the type of players they might need for survival will be dictated by their income and this will be severely restricted by their stadium capacity. There is no doubt that a Cinderella story in football is a great thing and Ian Holloway and his team have done a fantastic job. But, Blackpool's stadium capacity is only 10,000? There are at least 6 teams from the North West in the premier league, so from an football perspective, arguably Cardiff would have added greater value to the Premiership, being the only team from Wales and having a greater stadium capacity. Maybe there needs to be criteria for promotion with regards to stadia capacity. But, maybe just maybe, Holly and his boys can upset the odds and stick two fingers up to the big boys and survive.  Good luck to Blackpool and hopefully they give a good account of themselves.