F365 Opinion

This week we're mostly talking Daryl Harper, the prospects of Aston Villa and Tottenham and the alterations they might need to make, Owen Coyle, Nicklas Bendtner, and other arguments...

"PG - is there any way you can get your Carlos Cuellar point sent across to MON? Our one and only flaw in a great manager is this little RB situation. Read any Villa fans' forum and its been prominent on there for about 2 months now. So glaringly obvious it hurts to watch...." - mattjpa.

"Villa's post-Christmas form is pretty awful - we've only scored in 3 out of 11 games. No rotation and no substitutions before the 88th minute is starting to cost us again - 1 in 3 of the goals we concede are in the last ten mins of a half. Milner, Young, Petrov and Agbonlahor look absolutely knackered" - Ezy Rider.

PG: Mind if we swap roles for a week and I defend Villa against a perceived harsh comment? Because 'awful' does seem excessive given that they've managed, more or less, to keep pace in the chase for that final Champions League place - we're all agreed now, aren't we, that the top three are out of sight? - whilst still progressing in both domestic cup competitions. They're doing well, no question.

The question to be asked now, however, is whether they can stay where they are without introducing some fresh blood - that's a great stat Ezy has unearthed about when they tend to concede but not a great surprise - and a more offensive outlook. Good context for the point about Cuellar is the telling impact Gareth Bale has made in recent matches for Spurs even when he was playing at full-back. As Arsene Wenger noted last week, "Full-back is a very important position in modern football - getting out of pressure most of the time comes through the wings and starts with the full-backs."


"With regards Turbull, no mystery, same reason they signed Sturridge on the cheap. You'll remember last year Chelsea had to drop Ballack from their CL squad because they had insufficient "home-grown" players, therefore they had to forfeit a place in their squad. By signing two freebie young English players, they meet the criteria by artificially inflating that number in their squad, leaving them free to pick the likes of Belletti, Ballack, Ferriera and other such impediments to Chelsea youth players" - Little_Dutch.

PG: Hats off for a really good point. Though it still doesn't explain how, as reported this weekend, they could have decided to sign Turnbull based upon his performance in a warm-up. Sorry, can I re-iterate that: a warm-up!


"On the Kalinic goal, he did hand ball it. No where in the rules does it say anything about circumstance. The ball hit his arm which directly led to the ball falling to the spot where he could unleash. Intent is neither here nor there" - kevinboatang.

PG: Well, it kinda is. As you say, the rules don't mention 'circumstance', but Law 12 in Fifa's Laws of the Game states that a 'free-kick or penalty will be awarded if a player handles the ball deliberately'. Given that his arm was shoved forward by Michael Dawson, I'm rather unconvinced that Kalinic's handling can be adjudged deliberate. Unless, that is, he was using some of Jedi mind trick on Dawson.


"One thing though - Bale, Wilson, Modders, Lennon. That's some midfield, although a tad light on tackles. The question is, where do Hudd and Sandro play?" - kevinboatang.

PG: This is what we were talking about last week, isn't it? In their present form, Spurs look too offensively-minded, and that apparent imbalance is probably why they've conceded so many goals this season against the three teams above them in the table. Especially if they qualify for the Champions League, the availability of two holding midfielders will be a real asset. With Gareth Bale at left back, two from Luca Modric, Nico Kranjcar and Aaron Lennon on the flanks, it's not as if their attack will suffer from a lack of support it Harry Redknapp does add extra grit alongside Wilson Palacios.


"Villa are undefeated in the league this year and a point at Stoke is more than we managed last season" - Turamber.

PG: And Manchester United lost at Burnley this season. Does that mean a draw at Turf Moor would be a good result for United next season if Burnley stay up?


"But what would happen if they lost Drogba?" - Please refer to: Your Anelka comment, January 2010, and Sunderland" - Makelegend.

PG: And please refer to the many times pre-Christmas we predicted that, regardless of African Nations Cup commitments, January would be a good month for Chelsea because it presented such an undemanding fixture list. Beating Sunderland without Drogba is one thing; having to face Manchester United, Liverpool, Inter Milan and maybe Barcelona later this season without Drogba would be quite another.

As we said repeatedly before the turn of the year, all the fuss about January is this season's red herring.


"Biggest winners this weekend: Walcott and SWP. With Beckham and Lennon (more or less) being ruled out of the WC squad, Walcott and SWP can now cancel their holiday plans" - slaphead.

PG: The problems of Beckham and Lennon also gives fresh hope to Joe Cole and Adam Johnson.


"As an Arsenal fan, I agree with nearly everything you wrote on the Hull v Arsenal officiating, two yellows for two sending off offences! However I have to back the lino for an understandable error. Yes he is a yard off, but he was only off for a second or so" - Epideme.

PG: The point I was making - unsuccessfully, evidently - was that Vennegoor of Hesselink was offside from the moment the move began and barely moved at all during the build-up. As far as offside decisions go, this was an easy one.


"I am actually getting a bit worried about Spurs. They're making a really decent push for fourth. Liverpool HAVE to win tonight as a bare minimum. The battle for fourth is proving to be a lot tougher than I first thought at the turn of the year. I really expected Spurs, Villa and City to drop off (or at least one of them). This relentless is a concern" - Fake_Dave.

PG: As we're bringing personal sentiment into the debate, I have to admit that I'm really hopeful that Spurs finish fourth. A different English face in the Champions League would have a welcome appeal just because it would be so very interesting to find out how they fare. One thought that did occur last week when watching the last-16 ties, and those involving Milan and Porto in particular, was that Villa and Tottenham have nothing to fear.


'"Three of the six goals scored by Bendtner in his last four matches have been netted into an open goal from an average distance of four yards'. Sign of a good CF is you ask me" - bustystclair.

"Rather than mocking the fact that Bendtner's been scoring tap-ins, perhaps you should be lauding the fact that Wenger has now discovered that 'fox in the box' to get on the end of all those nice tippy-tappy moves. And perhaps some credit to the player for getting himself into positions that no other Arsenal player seems capable of"- fictionalemu.

PG: As stated in the Winners&Losers edition that followed his horror show against Burnley: 'The good news is that he is frequently in the right position at the right time.'


"Another Winners & Losers section, another chance to ignore Birmingham City. Coming back from 2-0 down against an in-form Everton team to make it 2-2 and keep the gap at four points between us is a bit more deserving than Bolton managing to stave off relegation IMHO. At the very least Everton should be in the Losers section" - KeepRightOn.

PG: Hmm. Looked to me that Birmingham were exceptionally fortunate to finish that game with a point. And the only point of general interest to the game was its arguable status as this year's first end-of-season fixture.


"As for Mancini, why is it that Mourinho gets lauded for making 'brave' early substitutions when he can see that his tactics aren't working, but when Mancini does is is a sign of confusion?" - fictionalemu.

PG: Presumably because when Mourinho joined the Premier League, his team led, more or less, from start to finish in his first season and then set a multitude of records when they won it the following season as well. Whereas Mancini's win ratio since being hired to take over 'the new Chelski' is only a smidgen above 50%.


"Owen Coyle really should be a winner here together with an apology. F365 were obsessed with making his move a disaster and now it looks to be an excellent decision" - Infinity89.

PG: Depends on your perspective. Two months on, we're still awaiting the League Managers' Association first comment on the matter, and it looks as if the outcome most people predicted immediately after Coyle abandoned Burnley will come to pass: their relegation. We'll never know if Burnley would have survived had Coyle stayed, but his decision to abandon ship has seemingly condemned them to certain relegation.

'Excellent', you say? Looked at purely and simply as a matter of self-interest then his decision was certainly correct. Looked at it with some other virtues in mind and the matter is rather less clear cut and approval-worthy.


"Maybe you should actually watch Stoke before commenting. While the Villa game was dire (which was as much down to them as us), the entertainment was actually quite good. It's just the actual putting the ball in the net that we struggle with" - Sergei Shtaniuk.

"After spending the best part of 25 years watching, at best a mid-table Championship side (at worst mid-table 3rd Division) I am now very entertained. So what the armchair viewing plastics and the more clueless sections of the media are not entertained, it's not your club and none of your business, go and watch Dancing on Ice then you can vote for who entertains you" - Stokie Rich.

PG: If only we could. Unfortunately it's written into the league regulations that every team has to be shown a set number of times per season in a televised game - off the top of my head, I think it's a minimum of four - so those of us who do like to watch a game of football from the comfort of our armchair have no choice in the matter. Moreover, as Stoke are earning millions and millions of pounds sterling in television money for every year they are in the Premier League it's most definitely 'our business' and right to complain.

As for Sergei's suggestion that 'you should actually watch Stoke before commenting', that's the problem in reverse. It was when seeing them in action against Arsenal and Chelsea that I realised they had achieved what was previously thought to be impossible and become even more one-dimensional than they were last season.


"Just need to get something off my chest about Sky Sport's Rooney and Man Utd love-in Sunday Afternoon. So Man Utd have scored 100 goals this season in all comps if you include the Charity Shield, with Sky trying to make out that is was a really great achievement because only Man Utd can do this sort of thing. I would like to point out that both Arsenal and Chelsea have passed the 100 goal mark in all comps and that's not including the Charity Shield. So that must make Arsenal and Chelsea much greater than Man Utd in the eyes of Sky if that is how they are going to denote greatness this season" - Chelseablue.

PG: I'm blatantly hijacking your point to go on a tangent, but if you think that Sky, or anyone else for that matter, has been guilty of overdoing the Rooney love-in then think again. Or at least just read what The Evening Standard had to say about him last week.

To quote: 'Wayne Rooney has grown into this year's national hero...Everything about him is heroic...More important is a moral strength which looks like leadership... If he wants to be a role model for literacy and numeracy among the young, he could transform the aspirations of truant boys...Sweet that his indiscretion was with an old hooker rather than the standard glamour model. His heart is local and kind...There's no better role model than Wayne Rooney...'

Aside from the remarkable disclosure that 'romancing' a grandmother is proof of a 'local and kind heart', this type of talk is noteworthy only in one very worrying respect: He's being set up for a crashing fall.

Pete Gill