Weekly Rant

Rant Blog: [02/07/2010]

The Week In General:

Well I might as well start with the obvious subject, Germany vs England. Everyone is saying “oh we were poor” or “oh Germany deserved it” but think of it this way, if that goal was allowed [which it should have been, we all know that] then the game would have been much different. Obviously, with it being 2-2, we’d have gone on for the winner and for the half an hour after our allowed goal, we were all over the Germans, until they scored their 3^rd. Look at their 3^rd goal, we left 2 people back [Glen Johnson and, obviously, David James] and once Lampard hit the wall [as per usual!], Germany broke 3 on 2... If we’d have been a 2-2, I very much doubt we would have conceded that goal [or the 4^th goal, which was also a counter attack like the 3^rd] as we would have left more people back as we wouldn’t have been as desperate to score as we was at 2-1.

The talks of whether Fabio Capello should stay or go, I say keep him. The reason being, remember when Steve McClaren failed to get us to EURO 2008 and then got sacked [as he was shit] and the team was at rock bottom, who was it who wasn’t scared of the job, came in, and turned us around into one of the best international teams in the qualifiers? Fabio Capello. He came in and took no nonsense, as far as to ban the players from phoning home to anyone, ban them from mobile phones whilst on international duty, ban girlfriends/wives from being near them when with the squad and even go as far as to tell them what not to eat. Sex was also banned [ironically enough as whom would they have sex with... Each other?].

If we are to blame anyone for our failure in the World Cup, we should be blaming John Terry. Firstly losing the captain’s armband because he slept with Wayne Bridge’s ex girlfriend which meant Bridge retired, temporarily, from international football for as long as Terry was in the team. That probably never helped team confidence. Then, before the Slovenia game [a game we needed to win and eventually did, thankfully], he comes out and reveals that the team had meetings with Fabio Capello and revealed that 9 players had their own personal meeting [although it was later revealed they were just talking about what went wrong in the last match, John Terry stirring up shit again]. Then, if reports are to be believed, there was a split in the camp between the Chelsea players [Lampard and, of course, Terry] and the Liverpool players [Gerrard and Carragher] about who should be captain, again proving John Terry was jealous and was stirring shit up. It’s not down to the players who is captain, it is Fabio’s decision, so why Terry moaned at Gerrard and Carragher, I’ll never know. Unprofessional, very childish and pathetic.

If I were the England manager [or, more to the point, Fabio Capello] I’d be telling John Terry that, for as long as I’m in charge, you’re never playing for England again. I know people would moan about whom would we have at centre back [although we have many candidates, Ferdinand, Carragher, Dawson, Richards, Upson and [dare I say] King] but someone who acts this way does not deserve to play for England, no matter how good or bad they are. If they’re unprofessional or childish then they shouldn’t play! Ever!

Keeping on to football [for a moment at least], it’s finally good news that FIFA will look into goal line technology, although don’t hold your breath about them implementing it into the game, this is FIFA [& Sepp Blatter] after all! When we all said this needed to come in, FIFA were adamant it was a one off and wasn’t likely to happen again, although we’ve seen incidents like Mendes at Old Trafford a few years back, Luis Garcia vs Chelsea, the other week Italy had a shot blocked off the line by Martin Skrtel [although I doubt it was in, but there were no other camera angles that could definitely say it was in or not] and Lampard vs Germany [of course]. Tennis have this technology in their game, Rugby have it, Cricket use it, Snooker even uses it in some circumstances, why not football? FIFA say they don’t want this because it will disrupt the flow of the games and the fans won’t appreciate the break in play, I don’t know about you, but when you see in Rugby if the ball was put down behind the line or for who puts it down [be it defender or attacker], they have video replays and the suspense waiting for the decision is good and when the decision is finally announced, it’s either big cheers for a try or big cheers for it being a 22m scrum [if it weren’t a try].

Also, after a disappointing World Cup, and finishing bottom of their group [not by the want of trying, their keeper, Vincent Enyeama, was outstanding], the Nigerian government have banned their team from playing in internationals for 2 years. FIFA will expel them from international football unless the government overrule themselves in their decision by Monday at 6pm.

If you’ve been living in a hole this last day or so, Liverpool have finally named a new manager, Roy Hodgson. From what I’ve saw, he wants to bring Gilberto Silva, Rafael van der Vaart, Brede Hangeland and [former Liverpool player] Danny Murphy to Anfield with him with his gigantic transfer budget of £15m [please note sarcasm!].

That’s enough about football for this week, whilst in Afghanistan, more troops are dying and giving us yet more reasons to call our troops back, our meaning Britain’s troops, leave America there, this is their war, not ours!

Fun story about the new Apple iPhone where, if you hold the iPhone in a certain way, it eventually loses all signal, and a person sent an email to Apple explaining about this [when it first come out] and I assume he was expecting a proper answer about how to sort it but, instead, he got a reply basically saying “well don’t hold it that way then”. It just goes to show that you can have the best phone in the world but have a shit help service, a bit like Virgin with their internet.

Just a quick laugh at the idea of Ryanair’s plans for standing seats. Let’s just hope no one chooses them seats for long haul flights, they might be a bit tired afterwards. I don’t know about you but I’d go to a fun fair if I wanted something like that.

That’s all I can be arsed saying this week as I had other things to say but they seem to have fucked off out of my head. I don’t know what the topic will be next week so suggestions would be nice. =]