Football and Sports News Blog from former Charlton Athletic, Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion Professional Footballer Andy Hunt, including Current Football News, blog feeds from Football Fans, Football Videos and Articles
Showing posts with label manchester united. Show all posts
Showing posts with label manchester united. Show all posts
Football stardom is increasingly more difficult to reach so you have to applaud any creative way to get noticed and then recruited by the Professional Scouts and Football Clubs. I became a Professional Footballer at the ripe old age of 20, eking out my path through the amateur Football Leagues.
Rhain Davis from, Brisbane, Australia has been spotted after his family put this video on You tube. He was spotted by Manchester United and is now under their guidance.
What a great player. Very gifted and looks so comfortable with the Football at his feet. Good Luck to the boy and congratulations to his family for their creative use of modern technology to further their boys chances of being a Professional Footballer.
What did Materazzi say to Zinedine Zidane in the World Cup Football final that provoked the French star to retaliate with a head-butt?
"I prefer the whore that is your sister," Materazzi wrote in his yet-to-be-released autobiography, according to Italian news reports Saturday.
Materazzis "furbo" had to be family orientated to get the kind of reaction Zidane produced. I thought he might have spat at Zidane. Calling your sister a whore might even get a reaction from Borat but I still cannot believe Zidane fell for it. This scheming continues to fool the best players in the world as seen by Ronaldos sending off against Portsmouth, forcing Ferguson to admit that he fell into a trap as old as the game of football itself.
As things stand in the Football transfer market and with just a few days to go to the start of the Premiership season this is where I see the Football title heading next year in 2007/2008.
Manchester United
Liverpool Football Club
Chelsea Football Club
Tottenham Hotspur
Newcastle United Football Club (If they keep Owen Fit)
Tevez signing for United gives them an undoubted attacking edge over all the other teams in an already formidable United line up and I see them going from strength to strength over this coming season. (Manchester United thrash Home Team Football Club 14-0). It will be very close but I think that even with my predicted sensational transfer of the season by Chelsea to lure Beckham back from the MLS (Beckhams Major League Football mistake), the title will be red this year.
Will Signing Carlos Tevez make Manchester United untouchable
When I played professionally I used to have a little wager at the start of the Football season on who would win the various leagues. I would place a £100-£200 yankee bet at the local bookmakers which if it came in would bring a big return. Looking back now I believe that this was probably illegal and against the FA rules, but with all the corruption and scandal that is hitting the Leagues at the moment I doubt they would even bat an eyelid.
If I did win the 4 bet Yankee I would send a "friend" to pick up the winnings in case I was spotted by an observant fan. I have just returned to the UK for a months break so I might re-ignite my pre-season ritual and make it to the bookmakers one last time.
Manchester United Football Club get closer to signing their man as Carlos Tevez looks set for his medical at the reds. Although not seemingly the most prolific goal scorer, notching 25 goals in 75 appearances for Boca Juniors, 25 goals in 38 appearances for Corinthians and only 7 in 26 for West Ham United, Tevez as he shows below is in the mould of many footballing geniuses.
Travel Forward in Football Time - 2007/2008 Season - Home Team 0 Manchester United 14
Now cast yourself forward to the 2007/2008 season as United take the field against a gutsy lower team from the Premier League called Home Team FC. (take your pick from any side outside the top 4 or 5 elite premier league sides).
Manchester United field their strongest side with Tevez, Ronaldo, Saha, Hargreaves, Scholes and Giggs providing devastating rapid passing and moving, honed by their pre-season football training sessions.
At home Manchester United find it more difficult to break teams down because the opposition play with a more defensive attitude. But Home Team FC are the hosts and under pressure from an expectant crowd they have to attack the Reds.
Ronaldo Scores and Winds up the Home fans
Manchester United play with a sense of freedom and after 5 minutes Ronaldo puts them 1 up. Ronaldo is getting baited by the home team fans who still can't forgive him for his 2006 World Cup antics, but needless to say the PFA player of the year rises above this and continually eludes his markers.
Remember this is just football fantasy - but it could come true??
Several late tackles by Home Team FC defenders earn them yellow cards. After just 15 minutes another bad tackle, this time against Tevez reduces Home Team FC to 10 men. Manchester United are in full flow scoring several more goals before the half hour mark.
Billy Bulldog
Billy Bulldog, the heart and soul of Home Team FCs midfield and player of the year from the previous season is charging around the field trying to get close to Manchester Uniteds superstars. Home Team FC's own foreign imports are conspicuous by their absence and not "digging in" for the teams cause.
"Twat the dago *&$@&*? " (fill in the accent) bellows a Home Team FC fan to Billy Bulldog. Billy, frustrated by his teams inability to get into the game, rallies to the Fans cry and smashes into Tevez, leaving the Argentinian in agony on the floor. Another Red card for Home Team FC.
30 minutes gone and Home Team FC are 4-0 down and with only 9 players on the field they are in a desperate state.
Manchester United score another 3 goals before half time and relax in the dressing room with a 7-0 lead.
Home Team FC substitute their star foreign striker who has not touched the ball all day and play with a 4-4-0 formation in the second half. It doesn't stop United from notching another 2 quick goals after just 10 minutes of the second half. 9-0 to Manchester United.
172 passes, 5 minutes of uninterrupted Passing and 84% possession
Manchester United, full of players who need little coaching or encouragement to keep the ball, pass the ball from left back to center half to right back, back to center half, into midfield, back to the right full back and so on, exhausting Home Team FC's players.
The key to playing against a team with only 10 men (or 9) is to keep possession and make the opposition work hard chasing the ball. Too many times 10 men teams inspirationally survive because the 11 men teams do not move the ball and keep the penalized side working. After an hour of chasing a ball with one less player a side will wither.
United string together 172 passes and keep the ball for a full 5 minutes of play. At one point Rio Ferdinand actually sits down on the center circle, only to be lectured by Alex Ferguson for his arrogance and disrespect to Home Team FC.
Ferguson brings on Solksjaer for the final 15 minutes of the game and the little Norwegian scores 4 goals in just 9 minutes of play to bring the scoreline to an unlucky 13 for Home Team FC.
Van der Sar, Manchester Uniteds Goalkeeper, scorers their 14th goal from the penalty spot in the final minute of the game, after a tired and desperate Home Team FC defender lunges at Tevez and brings down the diminutive Argentine striker.
The stats show United had 78% possession in the first half and 84% possession of the Football in the second half.
Ok, so this is all fantasy but I really think that Manchester United could do this to an unlucky team this year, especially if they do secure the services of Tevez. What do you think?
Could Manchester United beat a Premier League Football Team 14-0 this season?
How can any Football Club hope to compete with Manchester United this year if they are able against all odds to create some order out of Carlos Tevez's numerous contracts and sign him to their team for the upcoming 2007/2008 Premiership Football season.
Lawyers from Manchester United United, West Ham United, The Premier League and Media Sport Investment (a subsidiary of a secretive investment firm registered in the British Virgin Islands, who initially brought Tevez to the Premier League) will be fudging their way through Tevez's affairs including who owns his registration. Read about the murky side of Footballs agents and middlemen in the Tevez and Mascherano transfers : Click here.
Back to the Football
Any player capable of pulling the strings for the incredibly talented Argentinian side must be worth signing but with Ferguson's attacking options already bursting at the seams with Ronaldo, Rooney (http://www.waynerooney.com/), Saha, Nani, Solskjaer, one has to wonder how Ferguson is going to juggle all this talent. What seems clear is that he is building a team which will display lightning fast attacks and interplay that will at times be dizzying and breathtaking to watch. I would not be surprised to see a double digit scoreline this year in Uniteds favour if they catch a team off-guard.
No doubt this flair will be matched by the sides fiery Latino temperaments, although I doubt that this will cause Ferguson too many sleepless nights as his dream of collecting the worlds finest footballing geniuses on his Manchester United doorstep come true.
In the spirit of fair play to the rest of the premiership teams, I hope that United do not get their man, although the irresistible thought of Tevez, Ronaldo, Giggs, Hargreaves, Scholes, Nani et al, strutting their stuff is something that every Football Manager can only dream of (unless your Ferguson)
Will Signing Carlos Tevez make Manchester United untouchable
Vote on who got the best deal by signing Thierry Henry (Barcelona) or Darren Bent (Tottenham)
What is going on in the Premier League? Just as the Roman Empire spread itself too thin on the ground and collapsed amid much corruption and double crossing it seems that the English Premier League is awash with dirty deeds and mis-appropriated funds.
After Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool have been snapped up, Arsenal are sure to follow. After that though reports of other teams being bought are appearing all over the news.
With all due respect to all these teams, there can only be one Premiership winner and only a few clubs who will make it into Europe where they can boost their Broadcasting Revenues. Manchester City, Blackburn and Birmingham City are not going to leapfrog Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal in the near future unless the worlds 5th richest man does decide to duke out, head to head with Abramovich. That would be a battle worth watching. Maybe Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft could join the battle also after his reported interest in buying Southampton. He is Americas 5th richest man and between them these 3 could fight a great Premiership Cash match, pushing the salaries of the premier league football gladiators closer to the £200,000/week mark.
A book about the Leeds United fall from grace should be posted to all prospective Football Club purchasers, with West Ham and Newcastle United surely the most vulnerable.
Newcastle United Football Club in constant crisis and flux is destined for a choppy future, with millions wasted on players, and manager after manager coming through the door. Jean Alain Boumsong, signed from Rangers for an incredible fee of £8 Million seems to sum up the ludicrous amounts of money flowing through and out of the game into the pockets of the Premiership Emperors. Quite incredibly this £8 Million player was signed by Rangers for NOTHING and sold to Newcastle for a handsome profit.
United, a club that attracts a massive fan base is caught up to its neck in the corruption scandal, with one of its former managers (Graeme Souness) and its current manager (Sam Allardyce) both implicated deeply in the corruption and the club itself guilty of inconsistencies in its evidence to the report. Mike Ashleys continued purchasing of Newcastles shares must be seen as very risky.
And the agents who have played a pivotal role in this upward spiral of benevolent behaviour are now being pulled up by the independent report from Lord Stevens, targeting numerous mis-handling of transfer by Football Clubs, Managers and Agents alike.
It seems that the foundations for the fall of the Premier League Empire, although not imminent yet are being laid and the "House of Premiership" is on shaky grounds.
When the dust settles on this latest round of inflated cash incentives for the clubs, we will see a lot of losers and I fear business as usual for Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. Many successful businessman will be licking their wounds over bad Premier League investments ruing the day they joined the 2006/2007/2008 Premiership Boom.
It sounds astonishing to think that a Premier League player can command £200,000 a WEEK, yet this is the figure that is being talked about by the Deloitte Report on the Financial state of the Football.
Television Rights Deals are spiralling upwards, inevitably pushing Players wages upwards and the author of Deloittes report suggests that it will not be long before a player commands a £200,000/week Salary. The mind boggles that an average Premiership player and Journeymen (players who move from Club to Club) could then earn £50,000/week. Far fetched I hear you cry. Yet the money continues to pour into the game at a breakneck speed as the Premier League Football appeal spread across the world.
The English league is dwarfing its Italian, German and Spanish peers, with Match day, Sponsorship and Broadcast revenues reaching £1.4 Billion in the 2005/2006 season. The Serie A Italian League generated £1 Billion, falling well short of the English games financial windfall.
European Success
Perhaps these numbers explain the success of English clubs in the Champions league with Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United all reaching the final 4 this season.
Chelsea have spent big over the last few years backed by their owners generosity, yet Manchester United are not falling behind, having already spent £35 Million this week on Anderson and Nani, plus quite probably another £17 Million on Owen Hargreaves and the 2006/2007 season has only just ended.
With the newly negotiated TV deal kicking in this season the premier league clubs will be receiving £2.7 Billion over the next 3 years and the spending will not be stopping yet. The highly lucrative Television Rights from abroad will boost even further the amount of money the clubs have at their disposal, pushing towards the first predicted £10,000,000 a year salary.
More Figures of Note
In 2005/2006 Football Agents scooped a noteworthy £50 Million for brokering all these deals.
The general opinion is that Derby Countys victory against West Bromwich Albion is worth an extra £60 Million to them.
Manchester United sell Match day suites for up to £150,000/season
Match day attendance in the Premier League is 92%
Manchester United have an estimated 75 Million fans worldwide with 41 Million residing in Asia
650,000 South Korean Football Fans have signed up for a branded Manchester United Credit Card
It's not a fair game anymore
It's very hard to get an understanding of all these numbers and what they mean in real terms. My dad has been telling me all his life how it's not a fair game and that it cannot continue (referring to wages of players) and that ticket prices are too expensive. Yet is does continue and in fact Match day income is not the biggest earner for the Premiership Clubs anymore with Broadcasting rights providing the bulk of their income. Football has come a long way since the cloth cap days and there is certainly no turning back to these bygone eras, ridiculed in the Harry Enfield Video below :
My Dads stand against £200,000/week footballers
He has made his decision to stand up for the small club, not because he doesn't want to watch the big games but because he believes it is just plain wrong that people earn this kind of money. He quit watching Premier League Football, cancelled his Skysports subscription and now follows Kings Lynn Football Club week in and week out. The football isn't so good but it is still exciting and it doesn't cost him a large chunk of his weekly pension to see the games.
Maybe though nothing has really changed. The big clubs still have to get their players. Of course their net is cast ever further looking for the best young recruits and this is not so good for the small English clubs as the money leaves the country. However money still pours down to the lower leagues through Transfers. This is where the smaller clubs have to be run well and managed efficiently.
This is also the lifeblood of football. Without the small clubs, managers do not learn their art, players do not build their skills and perfect their trade, coaches do not gain experience. After all Alex Ferguson, Sam Allardyce, Michael Owen, Frank Lampard et al, did not just appear from thin air. My Father may have lost faith in Football but it may be just that the structure of the game has changed. The smaller clubs will be feeder clubs to the big clubs, and in effect this is what has always happened, as the best move up the Footballing ladder and the worse slide back down, whether you be a club, manager, player or coach.
It's not just the smaller English clubs that can cry foul. The massive buying power of the Premier Leagues elite is also giving them a huge advantage over the rest of the European clubs. It looks like Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool have very healthy futures ahead of them. So long as they keep one eye out for the less fortunate teams all should continue to bode well in the English game or Football will simply cease to exist without the whole Footballing structure in place.
And is it worth it? Well you be the judge.
Champions League Football Video Highlights 2006/2007
Ferguson, Mourinho, Wenger, Ronaldo, Drogba and the rest of the premier league circus that inspires us week after week are revving up for the showdown of the century. A finale to the Premier League football season whipped into a tantalizing display of the best footballers and teams in Europe, and showcased by the best new technology of high definition TV, a million different camera angles and a host of media bustling to give us every little titbit we can devour.
I am heading back to England for a few weeks break from Belize, full of excitement to see the Premier League finale and the culmination of the Coca Cola Championship. I have a special interest in the Championship as I lived in Birmingham for 5 years playing for West Bromwich Albion Football Club for that duration. I know the passion and rivalry between Birmingham, Wolves and West Brom, and the tension must be at breaking point. The possibility of West Brom and Wolves playing each other in the Play-offs is incredible for the people of the midlands, especially as Birmingham may be joining them if they cannot secure one of the top spots.
I have often said that I do not believe Footballers deserve the money they earn. Yet when the teams serve up a season of endless possibilities: First All English Champions League final; 2 teams in search of the treble; Premier league and Championship all going to the wire, I can only congratulate everyone involved. The Gladiators on the field, the Generals directing from the sidelines all have played a huge role in creating the end of season spectacle we are now witnessing.
Whether you are a Barnsley, Kings Lynn (my first team), Wigan or Kettering Town (my second team) Fan you will all be picking your favourites for the end of season run in regardless of whom your first football love is. The stars of the show will have the world talking about them in a never-ending barrage of compliments, abuse, admiration, despair, frustration and disappointment. They will be the talk of the town up and down the country and although their salaries resemble telephone numbers, Ferguson, Mourinho and the rest of the premier league crew deserve enormous credit for bringing English Football a season’s finale to be proud of.
The only problem I have is finding a good spot to soak up the last few weeks of football as my family don’t have Skysports…..
Just got back from a relaxing Sunday league game of Football In Belize. Still able to play 90 minutes, although in 85F heat it's a bit of a stroll for me these days. I know we all complain about referees and linesman, but today I was strangled around the neck (no penalty - in fact the foul was given against me), had a header cleared off the line with a hand (no penalty - and it wasn't the goalkeepers hand) and was given offside almost every time the ball was cleared up-field to me.
I really enjoyed the game though and don't get too stressed about these issues anymore..I even had a laugh and a joke with the Referee about the awful decisions, although for some reason he told me he is a coffin maker (during the half time break), which kind of threw me a bit. Not sure if he was suggesting I shut up and leave him alone.
Best to leave the stresses and pressures to the Premier league managers and players. Fox Sports TV our American Channel that shows the Premier League has just had the EPL premier league review, which I tuned into at the Belize Jungle Dome.
Thierry Henrys 1st goal today against Reading looked so simple but I just want to comment on the quality of Henry. His composure was so perfect before he slotted the ball home, it bordered on arrogance. Many players would have snatched at the shot and pulled it wide of the goal or more commonly lashed it high over the bar. Not Henry. He just calmly placed it first time into the bottom corner and the Reading Goalkeeper did not even move. Sheer Class.
After a shaky start it looks like Arsenal are firing on all cylinders now. With their game in hand over Manchester United and Chelsea and 5 straight wins, I think this year is going to be a cracking Premier League Football season. Hopefully right to the wire.
As for my old Football Clubs, Charlton and Newcastle United do not seem to be in for a good season. Charlton especially must be getting a bit nervous now, after missing out on 3 points against Watford. Amazing to think that with such a poor start to the season, Darren Bent is the joint second top scorer in the Premier League. He is undoubtedly a great talent and it won't be long before Charlton start fending off phone calls enquiring about him. If they can't start picking some wins up then keeping Bent could be tricky, especially now he has England credentials.
The Geordies will also be getting nervous and extremely disappointed as another year of failure looms. With the size of their stadium and transfer budget, anything less than top 6 is unacceptable.
Congratulations to West Bromwich Albion Football Club, who won the Black Country Derby. I played in many of these games and know that tomorrow morning the Baggies faithful will be happy to tease their Wolverhampton counterparts at work. Looks like the Baggies are marching back to the Premier League.
