The Million Pound Drop

Since the dawn of time, man has thrived on one basic instinct. Survival.

Admittedly, that’s a bit of a grandiose opening, but an appropriate one given the implications of relegation from the Premier League. While it’s certainly considered a ‘life or death’ matter amongst fans, it may well be worth more than that for clubs, with an estimated cost of £200 million plus pounds.

To put that into perspective, that’s University education for 7407 people.

Or 2 and a bit Gareth Bale’s.

Either way, such a fall can literally implode a club, as seen with the likes of Portsmouth, Birmingham City, Leeds and Wolves, all of whom have seen a catastrophic decline, of which relegation played a major (although not entire) role.

Entire empires can fall in an instant and biblical-level legacies can be made. All from one kick of a ball. One 90^th minute equaliser. One wonder-save.

And this is very much why the relegation fight is my favourite part of football. On all levels, but particularly the Premier League.

The absolute unmatched elation a goal can bring in this scrap is incredible, and has seen pitch invasions and statue erections alike. You can see the pain; the anguish; the euphoria on fans faces, you can hear it, you can feel it. I’ve been there myself.

While similar things can be said about the title race, I generally prefer the lower-end fights as I believe it provides much more entertainment value. Sure, the football’s nowhere near as pretty, but this very factor coupled with the unpredictability makes ‘shock’ results that much more significant and memorable.

So, how do you beat the drop?

This question has never been so pertinent, with a meager 10 points difference between the bottom 10 clubs. All of them could go down, and all of them have the potential to stay up.

Essentially, what I call the ‘survival formula’ boils down to some very simple criteria, littered with clichés.

First of which, is a proven goal-scorer. At the end of the day, as ignorant and cringe-worthy as it sounds, goals win you games. A defence able to keep a clean sheet is one thing, but a player capable of turning that 0-0 into a 1-0 can be immensely significant. This year in particular, some of the league’s best, and underrated strikers are involved, which is perhaps one of the reasons it’s so enthralling. Shane Long, Christian Benteke, Darren Bent, Wilfried Bony, Steven Fletcher, Peter Crouch, and Andy Carroll could all conceivably play for top 6 teams, and will have major roles to play come crunch time.

Experienced players are also essential to these teams. Having seasoned pro’s in the dressing room that have been here before and lived to tell the tale can be absolutely pivotal for a team’s chances of staying up. Your Kevin Nolan’s, your Scotty Parker’s, your Kevin Phillips’. After all, the logic of being involved in the relegation fight dictates that you are going to lose a lot of games, plain and simple. And having these players to rally the drooping heads and lead the younger players through is an invaluable asset, and will be the key to getting the shock results that keep a team up.

The dreaded C word also remains a huge factor on two levels. No, not that one.

On the pitch; consistency is one thing that needs no explaining. But consistency off it is perhaps more important. Barring nuclear-level incompetence, fans and owners must remain patient with their manager and allow them to steer the team out of trouble, chopping and changing rarely gets you anywhere. Changing a successful manager is bad enough (eyes on you, Vincent Tan) but trying, mid-season to implement a new style of progressive football is nothing short of suicide, as West Brom have tried to do.

“Right. We’re in trouble and need to stay up. Let’s bring in an unproven manager from a far inferior league mid-season and start playing attacking possession-based football.”

Hmm.

This is fine at the start of a season, and should be encouraged - with the whole of pre-season to introduce such tactics, as Stoke have done, but is generally disastrous to do at this time, and is the result of desperately trying to keep up with the growing trend of tiki-taka.

"All goalkeepers are crazy, but some are more crazy than others." A quote from a book I read at Primary School. I can’t remember what it was called, but for some reason that extract stuck with me, and always proves to hold some relevance come this time of the season. As I’ve said earlier, one wonder save can make all the difference, and team’s having a strong, solid goalkeeper have a distinct advantage in surviving.

Almost ironically placed – last, but not least, is the fans. Ask any player past or present: creating an intimidating, partisan atmosphere has an effect on the team and is vital for the survival effort, its importance undoubtable given almost every manager will ask the fans for this in the pre-match programme once the big games start coming. The sea of passion and noise can give players a massive lift, provide a second wind, inspire confidence, and is just as important as any other factor.

Or you can pull a West Ham and field a load of ineligible players. Your call. 

So, here's where we end up. 

Given that table, my picks must be Fulham, Albion, and Palace.

Football Snobbery

24 hours ago, Stamford Bridge and Villa Park were making their preparations for the 80,000 supporters that would grace both stadiums; ahead of two mid-week local derbies to be played under the floodlights.

At the same time, Sam Allardyce and Pepe Mel were putting the finishing touches to their respective team sheets, and with the two games 125 miles apart, the two mentalities applied by the two weren’t much closer.

Albion came to Villa Park with a fire under their arse, and came right out of the blocks, playing some respectable free-flowing attacking football, and after some excellent moves (and a helping hand from the wind and an own goal) found themselves two goals ahead within the opening 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, at the Bridge, Big Sam opted not to park the bus for a change. Instead, he parked the bus, a couple of vans, a fleet of cars, and a burger stand; showing less ambition than a traffic warden from Slough. They found themselves lucky to be at 0-0 within 10 minutes following a superb save from Adrian to deny Oscar.

In hindsight, you wouldn’t give a second glance to a bloke running down to Paddy Power and putting his life savings on Albion dishing out a tanking, and West Ham receiving one. However, true to the predictably unpredictable and often hilariously cruel nature of football, Albion went on to lose 4-3, while Big Sam’s 11-man brick wall secured a hard earned point at one of the fortresses of the modern day Premier League, with no side ever winning there while Jose Mourinho has been at the helm.

Mourinho has accused Allardyce of playing ‘19^th century football’, but I fail to see this as an insult in the slightest, being as it has proved successful on this occasion. It also comes across as a tad hypocritical, especially in hindsight of Mourinho’s 2-0 win at the Nou Camp with Inter Milan in 2010, where Mourinho adopted a similarly defensive stance. With West Ham in the bottom 3, and the immense financial implications of staying in the premier league, you simply cannot argue with the results. Had the Geordie cart-horse known as Andy Carroll buried his chance from 8 yards out, there would be no such discussion.

One must only cast a thought back to the likes of Hull and Blackpool, who enter the league with intent to attack, and while often providing excellent short-term results, ultimately shows its long term unsustainability with relegation come May.

Playing attractive, attacking football may be easiest on the eye, but Football is, and always will be, a results-based business – a cliché becoming more and more relevant given the growing gap between the ‘elite’ clubs and the rest of the league, with every point worth their weight in gold for clubs outside of the top 7. The fact that Chelsea themselves serve as a symbol for the modern spending habits of the big club makes this sort of snobbery all the more laughable, as this is arguably the top factor in causing this absolute desperation for points from lower clubs, and because of this I would have done the exact same thing.

As thoroughly unlikeable as a back-hand-receiving slimy fat bastard can be, I commend you Big Sam.

5 Reasons Why Modern Football is Great

What do Movies, Pro wrestling, and the game of Football have in common?

Aside from the fact that the top level of these revolve around hard-working people paying extortionate amounts of money to watch sweaty millionaires fall over each other, more importantly they are popular hobbies and sources of entertainment that have been around for multiple generations. Because of this subsequent appeal to old and young, there will always be a nostalgic and often arrogant claim that “things were better back in the good old days”.

I disagree.

While this sort of statement is often fuelled by the ageing longing to relive their youth, where their optimistic and energetic approach to life would have made any hobby seem wonderful and literally the greatest thing ever, I find it necessary to provide 5 reasons why ,in regards to football at least, the present is very much superior to the past.

1.  Safety

Safety first as they always say, though this remains the most obvious and widely used example of the football of yesteryear’s inferiority. Policing both in the stadium and on public transport is nothing short of superbly organised, and while once in a blue moon there is a fixture that provides news channels with scenes that could easily come out of the 1980’s, most recently games involving London’s East End and the Second City Derby, in general there is rarely trouble at games. Long gone are the days where thousands of scarf-bearing brutes would roam the stadia exteriors looking for trouble, as now both sets of opposition fans can pass each other freely outside the ground without the threat of a Doc Marten to the temple. As someone who briefly worked at Villa Park, I have seen first-hand the capabilities of the security team, able to zoom in with high clarity on any seat in the ground, the effectiveness of which being displayed recently with the swift arrest of a Spurs fan who decided it would be a good idea to throw a flare at the linesman.

Although safe-standing as largely been abolished in the UK (for now), nobody can argue against football being a family friendly activity in today’s climate, with parents having no problems taking toddlers to games, which can only be good for the morality and progression of football as a whole. There are many who use this aspect to discredit modern football, claiming that the lack of free standing has seen a decrease in atmosphere at games, but you can’t tell me that since the Taylor Report of the 1990’s, the Kop hasn’t roared, the Holte hasn’t rocked, and Parkhead hasn’t inspired.

2. Player’s closeness to the fans

I won’t deny that footballers are paid orgasmic sums of money. That might be a weird way to describe it but you’d be pretty pleased too with 200 grand a week, and personally I think they often earn it. This isn't the problem though. The problem comes from the misconception that they find themselves in a different world to the general public, seeing themselves high above us muggles in an ego-filled stratosphere of glory, a far cry from the days of players getting plastered in pubs with fans the day before a game. It’s my belief that players of today are actually far closer than those of generations gone, through social media platforms such as Twitter.

Nowadays fans can call Joey Barton all the curses known to man while simultaneously informing the new signing from Ghana that he put in a good performance, as well as witnessing hilarious interactions between players themselves; and it is for this reason that I see players as now being much closer to their audience.

3.  24 hour coverage

Thanks to creations such as Monday Night Football and channels such as Eurosport showing games between teams you’ve never heard of from obscure countries you can’t find on a globe there’s essentially a never-ending stream of live football, if you wish to view it, particularly if you’re into streaming on dodgy Middle Eastern sites. This gives the casual football fan far more chances to witness the beautiful game at all levels, and gives drunkards covered in kebab on a Friday night the opportunity to watch mid-table La Liga clashes with sure-firing certainty. Many critics will claim such obsessive and incessant coverage is damaging, and may well be responsible for the creation of the dreaded ‘armchair fan’, but as far as I’m concerned – the more football I can watch, the better.

4. Improvement in Quality

The level of quality amongst almost every aspect of modern day football is astoundingly high. Pitches are immaculate, medical facilities and staff are world-leading in many cases, and the footballers themselves are remarkable athletes, with conditioning and diet taking over their lives completely. Sport Science has become a huge part of the game as well, with immense levels of mathematics and science implemented in designing football boots, which in the past have had very basic designs. All of these factors have culminated in a more appealing and impressive product on the pitch, ultimately supported by the growing trend of teams striving to play good, attractive, passing football – started arguably by Johan Cruyff and optimised by Pep Guardiola’s success with ‘tika taka’ during the late 2000’s and beyond with Barcelona. Even Stoke City, infamous for ‘hoof ball’ have joined the bandwagon with the sacking of Tony Pulis, now providing possession football under Mark Hughes.

This type of football may seem like snobbery to some, though as long as Football continues to promote this progressive attitude to tactics (as it seems to be), it will only further improve in quality.

5. Big Games and Upsets

While the growing gap between the ‘small’ and ‘elite’ clubs in football, and rising amounts of money involved, are causes for great concerns, these two issues have respectively created some remarkable games of football. The huge gap between clubs now has left upsets in cup competitions now bearing huge significance, with the chubby kid crying at Anfield as his Havant & Waterlooville took a 2-1 lead over Liverpool being one of my most cherished memories of watching the FA Cup. While such Cup moments have been a staple of English Football for years, it’s undeniable that they are becoming both rarer and more significant as the gap grows.

As for the rising amounts of money involved, this has spawned what has now become what has become one of the most exciting and important games of the season, the English play-off final. Previously being considered somewhat a formality, victory in this game is now estimated to be worth £60 million, with the victor given entry into the promised land of the Premier League. It’s a similar story with Champions League qualification providing similar immense financial benefits, as well as almost every major cup final in the modern era.

While this raises many troubling issues in themselves, you can’t tell me saying that Kevin Phillips scored a £60 million penalty in extra time last summer isn’t bloody exciting.

England: Papering over the Cracks

The air was cold with a sharp edge, darkness had fallen on the nation yet Wembley stood illuminated upon the capital, mostly from the beaming floodlights but partially from the thick, engulfing smoke emanating from the away end, as a sea of red embarked on Wembley Way.

 

This may read like a work of fiction, yet there were no shock surprises, twists, or miracle upsets. Instead, England achieved qualification for the World Cup without the usual dramatics, which coincidentally may be considered a surprise in itself after all. While the events of last night are rightly being held in high regard, and have even seen some of the most positive press regarding the national team that one might recall since South Africa, there should be concern that they are overshadowing a serious debate that arose in recent weeks. The issue of whether players from foreign shores who attain British Citizenship should be eligible to play for their new-found home.

My stance on the issue is a precarious one, in that it may come across as xenophobic or to an incorrect, extreme degree even racist, in that I am firmly against this notion. While these unfortunately may be the motivations for some small-minded individuals, and are in themselves top, top issues in football that need addressing, they are certainly not mine, and I want to establish that beyond retort.

For a long, long time now, as long perhaps as I have even considered myself an avid fan and part of football, there has been much debate and discussion on whether the English Premier League is being ‘overrun’ by foreign talent with great detriment to the National team, as opportunities that could be afforded to young English players are instead being handed to foreign imports, stunting the growth of the afore mentioned home grown talent. My concern with allowing foreigners to play for England is that this will establish a similar precedent, and it remains a firm belief of mine that the highly sought-after ‘fix’ for English football on an international level is not through simply encouraging players from abroad into attaining British Citizenship, with popular fantasised targets being Mikel Arteta and recently Adnan Januzaj. Instead, the powers that be should be making improvements at grass-roots level and encouraging superior youth development, rather than simply papering over the cracks.


As somebody that has played organised association football from an early age I have seen first-hand the politics and general level of effort placed into kids football in this historic country of ours. There isn’t the high-level of coaching and facilities found on the continent, instead it’s literally run by volunteer dads, with referees and linesman often parents asked to do the job on match-day. Pathetic when you consider they could be responsible for the future of English football. Admittedly a bit of optimistic hyperbole, yet the point still stands.

It’s no longer a shock to think that there are 15 times more qualified coaches in Spain than in England holding the UEFA A and UEFA Pro licenses. There are just over 1,000 coaches in England and about 15,000 in Spain. This highlights Spain’s bottom-up approach compared to the English approach that by creating competition and a high level of quality at the top level, the rest of the pyramid will somehow follow.
The stats speak from themselves on which approach is more successful. The Barcelona team of 2009 that won the treble of the Champions League, the Spanish League, and the Spanish Domestic Cup, 14 of them were raised through the clubs youth system, with 10 out of the 18 members of the squad for the Champions League final being Spanish. Now compare that to their opponents of that final; Manchester United of England that possessed only 5 English players out of 18 in their squad for the final, of which only 2, Jonny Evans and Paul Scholes, were raised through their youth academy. It’s no surprise that Spain have absolutely dominated international football for the last six years, while England have floundered like a fish out of water. 

So what is being done to address this? 

Chairman of the FA Greg Dyke has tried to combat these issues by calling a council of various powers from English Football to attempt to save our country’s game, yet the invitation has been declined by one significant party. The Premier League. Arguably the most important party involved, as any acts to improve the National Team will most certainly need to involve promoting English players to a higher level of importance within the league, perhaps by introducing a less lenient home grown player minimum rule? Alas, While England remains the only country with the top division a separate entity to the governing body of her football then it seems little will change. 

Once the money-grabbing figures at the top of these organisations cease thinking of their own bank accounts and more about the interests and success of the nation as a whole, then Brazil 2014, France 2016, and the tournament’s that follow will be more than the stimulus for misery they unavoidably equate to.

Money Makes the Noise Turn Down

Money. “Money makes the world go round” said John Kander in the musical, Cabaret. This this phrase certainly bares relevance today in reference to modern day football, with money being one of the key culprits under fire when the issue of the decline in atmosphere comes into the inevitable limelight. 

Within this issue comes multiple areas to consider, but perhaps most importantly is the television company, SKY. The television company has ‘invaded’ modern football and offers near non-stop coverage and analysis of football 24/7, helping to create such inventions as ‘Monday Night Football’ and of course the privilege of being able to watch mid-table Spanish sides battle it out at almost any hour of any given day. This may be considered a strong benefit of modern football, as coverage is now light years ahead of the coverage of many years ago, and is accompanied with the added bonus of making missing games less of a dramatic ordeal for the avid football fan, as you can still get to see the full 90 minutes of action from any Premier League game on ‘game of the day’. However, this is precisely its downfall, as many fans are encouraged to stay away from games. With travelling to the game, buying food, merchandise, and needless to say a ticket, amounting to an almost immeasurable titanic value, the concept of watching the game from the living room with a Tesco meal deal is becoming far more appealing and is ultimately contributing to the killing off loyal fans, creating the epicentre and love-child of modern football in the 'armchair fan'.

This in turn, perhaps more concerning, is having an adverse effect on the atmosphere at games, and ultimately destroys the very heart and soul of British Football, leading to strong feelings of fan undervalue. The English game has always retained a global acknowledgement for passionate and loyal fans, that come hell or high water, rain or shine would follow their team to the molten depths of The Earth’s core (well, Plymouth away) and this is starting to no longer become a true reflection of the game. However, in the defence of SKY, the decline in atmosphere and attendance at games can be perhaps blamed on the infamous Taylor Report concerning the aftermath and causes of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, which lead to the law that any stadium in the top two tiers of English Football must be all-seating, and that no supporters must be obliged to stand. Obviously, pure logistics dictates that this law has resulted in a decrease in attendance, as 10,000 seats fill an area that may have perhaps housed 30,000 standing fans, as there is now a set limit to the amount of fans allowed into one area. There is much criticism of the Taylor Report however, and is seen by some followers of the game as an ‘overreaction’ to the events, that may be the result of extraneous factors other than the fact that people were allowed to stand. In fact, the Taylor Report itself primarily blamed overcrowding, stadium layout, and poor policing. It did not ban standing nor claim it was inherently unsafe. Inevitably from this long-running debate, the issue of bringing in ‘safe standing’ into modern British football has been considered, as many fans see this as perhaps the only reasonable method of resurrecting the powerful atmosphere of the English game. For example, 92.3% of the users of popular Aston Villa fan’s forum, ‘Heroes & Villains’ voted that they would welcome the introduction of safe standing to Villa Park, and also, the Football Supporters Federation (FSF) have currently acquired more than 12,000 signatures for their petition to bring standing areas into British Grounds, reflecting the overwhelming support to bring these ideas in.

One key criticism of the current system that works in favour of those crying out for standing is that even with seated terraces, many fans still continue to stand at football, which creates problems with stewards and police officials who are obliged to enforce the rules that these fans should be seated, as well as problems amongst other fans who may not want to stand, yet are forced to in order to view the football they have paid to see, as there are people standing in front of them – obstructing their view. Another positive outlook and arguing point for the supporters of standing is the example being set by other leagues, most notably in the Bundesliga, who have managed to incorporate safe standing back into their game, especially in the case of Borussia Dortmund, who possess the largest standing area in European football in the ‘Südtribüne’ terrace, of which houses an impressive 24,454 fans and as a result both creates a world-renowned intimidating and intense atmosphere that has become a tourist attraction in itself. This has also been credited as enabling the club to sell over 50,000 season tickets, as fans are eager to experience this unique atmosphere, as well as the fact that the stadium is praised for being more socially inclusive, as the standing area requires much cheaper ticket prices, appealing to all social classes, and an increase in feelings of being valued as a fan by the supporters of that club – all of which makes for a convincing and unavoidable argument for the introduction of safe standing into British football. The Bundesliga boasts the lowest ticket prices, with an average of £10 inside the afore mentioned stadium of Borussia Dortmund, and the highest average attendance of Europe's five major leagues: In the 2009/10 season, La Liga attracted an average of 28,478 fans, Ligue Un, 21,034, Serie A, 25,304 and the Premier League 35,592 - all made to seem minuscule by the Bundesliga's average of 41,904.

As inarguable as it is that there is causation between these two variables, the situation is quite different in England, as in order to view football from teams of the same size and standard of Borrusia Dortmund you will be required to pay as much as four times the amount as the German fans, surely accounting in some consideration for the poor attendance rates in England and the pricing out of the working class from the game, and the general feel that fans are not valued, that they are being exploited for their money. This is widely considered a failing of modern football in Britain, being as this has not always been the case. Average ticket prices have represented an inflation of 700% at Old Trafford since the 1989-90 season, with a 920% inflation at Arsenal from the same era in comparison to today. In a fans survey conducted by popular English football magazine ‘FourFourTwo’ in 2010, 57.1% of voters claimed that their club treats them like a customer, rather than a valued fan, with an extra 12.4% feeling like their club treats them like someone to be exploited. These harsh figures underlines the key problem in modern football of our nation, in that we are not treated like the ‘valued fans’ that the fans of the Bundesliga are, and this will likely continue to negatively affect attendances and atmospheres until the clubs change their attitudes to fans to reverse these feelings.

However this is not always the case, as there are plenty of examples of displays of extraordinary goodwill from clubs, such as the refunding of Wigan fans who travelled to White Hart Lane in winter of 2009 only to see their club get destroyed 9-1, and the many cases in which free travel is provided by clubs for their fans for long-distance away games, yet overall these acts by the club are almost irrelevant in consideration to the overall differences between fans of English and German clubs. While there are many more factors to consider, the correlation between ticket prices and attendance rates, and therefore atmosphere, cannot be ignored, and it remains a widely-thought opinion that the Bundesliga possesses aspects football that the English game is absent of and sorely needs. Perhaps this is a result of the fans themselves, as in the same survey by ‘FourFourTwo’, 55.6% of fans claimed that they would still buy tickets if they became 20% more expensive in price representing perhaps a blind obedience that needs to be addressed. 

Perhaps the English game cannot evolve into the heights of the ‘proper’ Bundesliga until the fans themselves take a stand and hurt the powers-that-be where they hurt most - their wallets.