BRIAN GLANVILLE
writes for worldsoccer.com each week.
GLUTTONS FOR PUNISHMENT
28/05/08
Oh dear! Here they come again. The Greed Is Good Leaguers, avid in pursuit of still more money for their spendthrift clubs. Next week, the matter of a 39th fixture card abroad is to be exhumed at the Premier League Congress.
It seems hardly believable that as wise a manager as Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger should be in favour of it, but so one hears. Notably and reassuringly, Liverpool and Manchester United two of the big four who ultra dominate the League, are against the crass idea. Not so the deluded Keith Wyness, chief executive of Everton, of whom I confess I hear for the first time. With no great admiration. He is keen as mustard on the 39th step, which has already been properly condemned by FIFA, UEFA and the FA, talking what might be described as fluent nonsense.
“Don’t forget you have got the Indian Premier League and Twenty 20 cricket coming up on the rails,” he burbles. “They are trying to get cricket started off in China and America now, too.”
So what? The dismal fact is that the clubs of the Greed Is Good League, with the exception of Chelsea who have a billionaire oligarch paying their bills, are ludicrously profligate spenders, on absurdly high wages, on enormous transfer fees. So they are hoist with their own petard. Of course the egregious top banana, Scudamore wants it. Fans predictably don’t, but what do they matter? Let it be repeated, however, that the reported average age of spectators at Premier League games is as high as 39. Surely an alarming omen.
Meanwhile, I’m sure they are yearning in Beijing and Sydney to see a game between Wigan and Bolton Wanderers. And how well would even Everton, far away from the dominant big four, draw abroad? Maybe the ideal thing would be to let the daft idea go ahead, only and predictably to fall flat on its ugly face.
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So, goodbye Avram Grant. Even though only John Terry’s literal slip in Moscow arguably cost Chelsea the European Cup.
Frankly, I am not among those weeping crocodile tears for Grant. Had it not been for that crazy own goal at Anfield by Liverpool’s unlucky Riise they would in all likelihood not reached the final at all. Grant’s tactics seriously misfired in the League Cup Final at Spurs. The equivalent of defeat in the FA Cup by humble Barnsley would have brought instant dismissal in Italy.
In Moscow, it made no sense at all to waste Michael Essien at right back, where his defensible limitations made him prey to Cristano Ronaldo, who duly scored, and to use the ineffectual Florent Malouda on the left flank, bringing on Salaomon Kalou absurdly late. Those two embarrassing draws at Stamford Bridge late in the League against Wigan and Bolton, both of which I saw effectively settled Chelsea’s fate in the Premiership.
Surely almost any manager, given the colossal resources and the glittering array of players available to Grant would have done as well or better than he did. Whoever takes over from what at present is the long list of possible successors should surely succeed with Abramovich’s billions.
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Watching Hull City at long long last achieve the heights of the top division, at Wembley thanks to that stunning goal by Dean Windass – but who was marking him? – it was all too plain that Hull’s doubtful survival in the Premiership next season will largely depend on whether they can keep Frazier Campbell. It was he whose clever evasion of the Bristol City defence and beautifully judged and executed lobbed pass from the left enabled Windass to thunder his goal. But, as we know, he is a Manchester United player and if they want him back they will get him back.
After that play off, I asked Phil Brown the Hull manager about the prospects. Suggesting that Campbell, with his easy skills, would be much better off playing for Hull than sitting on the bench at Old Trafford. “You’ll have to ask him,” said Brown diplomatically. He knows better than anybody how much the team owe to Campbell.
As for Nicky Barmby, whose penetrating and speedy run set up Campbell for the cross, he did little else of consequence in the match, ultimately being substituted in his left wing role. After a much travelled and internationally recognised career, he still at 34 clearly has the class, but has he the stamina? Hull will need his technique and finesse.
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Leslie Compton was recently the subject of a readers’ reminiscences in a national daily paper. Interesting, accurate, but only part of a somewhat romantic story, concentrating on his successful days in the 1940s and 1950s as Arsenal’s towering centre half.
In fact he spent years in obscurity at Highbury between 1932, when he was signed from the old Hampstead, now Hendon, club as a full back, and the beginning of the Second World War. This though he did have a spell in the Gunners’ first team and actually played in an England international trial.
He was inevitably overshadowed by the easy brilliance both as footballer and cricketer – he kept wicket for Middlesex – on his protean brother Denis, a marvellous batsman and a hugely gifted and effective outside left. The irony being that though Denis, a wartime football star, never won a full cap – 11 England appearances and a victory international up to 1946, with no caps awarded – Leslie did win two; at the age of 38! That was late in 1950 and Walter Winterbottom the England manager once told me that Leslie was forced on him by the England selectors and whose, word then was absurdly paramount. In the war, however, Leslie played several times for England, once even as a centre forward, latterly at full back, moving so effectively to centre back when football officially resumed in 1946.
He headed a memorable equalising goal for Arsenal against Chelsea at Tottenham in the 1950 FA Cup semi final, from his brother’s corner. This though his distinguished captain Joe Mercer had shouted at him to stay back. After all, he had never headed such a goal before. When he had, he rolled over on the ground, initially unaware that he had scored. Arsenal went on to win the replay, and the Final.
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Greed Is Good: continued. Now its clubs are to increase the price of next season’s season tickets by 7.5%; twice the rate of inflation. This despite the millions pouring in in ever increasing sums from television. The defence rests. Nauseated.
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