Is Messi The Greatest Ever

The Stellar performance against Leverkuesen the other night has lead to more discussion over who is the greatest footballer ever and has  Lionel Messi attained that title or is he close to getting there,I have listened to many discussions about this over the years and have always dismissed any pretenders to that title because of my love for the great Pele especially as part of the great Brazilian side of 1970.
However I am beginning to reconsider based on the stunning performances of the little man who lights up football grounds wherever he plays and does so in such an unassuming manner and with a smile on his face,maybe he needs to turn it on in a World Cup but even if Argentina fail to win a World Cup with him if he continues to perform at club level as he has over the past few years then shere consistant brilliance will I think elevate him to greatness,lets face it Pele never played n a cauldron of European League football so we dont know how he would have faired.

Re other contenders
Maradonna,well  will never consider him amongst the greats not because of the Hand Of God but because of regular cheating and the drugs

Best European Johan Cruyff by a mile not only for the 1974 World Cup but also the seasons of dominance at Ajax

Best briton well George Best never forget how he used to tear my beloved Wolves to shreds every year in the 60's

Best Englishman Bobby Moore probably the greatest defender I have ever seen and maybe of all time although my dad always said that had he lived Duncan Edwards would have eclipsed them all

What Shall We Teach In School Today

Two articles in today's Observer caught my eye and rather made me weep for the British education system and the future of our youngsters

Firstly on the front page we have the Amy Winehouse Foundation and parents of other kids who died in a haze of illegal substances calling for Drug and Alcohol awareness classes to be made compulsory i8n schools

Secondly the fact that Maths is now so radically different to what it was little more than 20 years ago that even well educated parents are having to get hold of Maths Dictionaries to be able to help there kids even with Primary School maths.

With regard to the first point I have great sympathy for those who have lost loved ones to the evils of drugs but sorry the school is not the place to educate kids about the dangers of such substances that’s still the responsibility of the parents like mine did with me and I have done with mine,whatever you do some kids will always go off the rails.

And may I also ask where the time will be found to teach such things,its only a few weeks ago that we were talking about Driving Lessons in school,add to that the fact that the school day is a good 20-% shorter than “When I Were a Lad” and where will the time be found to teach kids important subjects like Maths.

Ah yes maths now may I say that I was rubbish at maths at school but was still able by knuckling down to be able to help my kids with maths at least when they were at Primary School,so what is this latest version of maths that is so complex,are we teaching Euclidean Geometry to 6 year olds or Integral calculus in nursery?

My heart bleeds for kids today so called experts change the curriculum on a whim so that the kids from one generation to the next see no continuity in their education and parents arrive at a situation like this where helping their children prosper at school is a virtual impossibility.

I know I'm a dinosaur but how about a return to the basics otherwise the generations of dysfunctional jobless kids turning to illegal substances because they have nothing else to do will blight this country for a very long time.

Footballs Finances Ignored

A few days ago in my ramblings about the Wolves manager saga I alludeed to the finances within football and how I hoped Wolves would not be stupid enough to follow the same road as Portsmouth and end up in serious mire,well at the time I was just alluding to Portsmouth and Rangers but the past 24 hours have seen the spectre of administration plus transfer embargo's and possible points deductions hanging over Birmingham,Coventry and Port Vale,and those are the ones we know about.

What stupefies me as more and more clubs head down the slippery soap proving that unless you have a mega rich owner speculating to accumulate in today's climate is a seriously dangerous game and yet club after club are heading down that route seemingly hell bent on destruction.
Both Huddersfield and Sheffield Wednesday sitting in top 6 positions in League 1 have sacked their managers in the hope of attaining the immediate Grail of the Championship by a knee jerk reaction to a few defeats, but at what cost,paying off the contracts of Messrs Clarke and Megson would not have been cheap and no doubt the new contracts of Simon Grayson (What was his payoff from Leeds) and Dave Jones will be substantial.

So what if it goes wrong ,I mean there are only 2 spots available unless Charlton have the mother of all collapses and there are other clubs in and around these 2 and no guarantee of promotion and the increased riches that await,I dont see both going up and would not be at all surprised to see the failure in financial difficulty by this time next year along with a good many others.


Of course all this carries on to a backdrop of the top players earning in a year what would be the full budget of many clubs in the lower reaches,hey ho funny game football

Hey Lets Slag Off Parker & Pearce

So the new era of England has started and for once I was really looking forward to watching an England match, none of the serial failures of the Golden Generation with the exception of Gerard

and my apologies for being a Little Englander but a manager who can actually speak English.

At the end we lost but I liked what I saw an number of players who looked comfortable at international level and in Scott Parker a captain who lead by example ,i know the Dutch were way ahead in technical ability but this is a side with real world class players who have played together for many years so you would expect that.

So what do we get today,a hatchet job not by the papers as we might expect but by Talk Sport radio (Stan Collymore a notable exception, ,yes the same station that come major tournaments are demanding we get behind the national team doing a complete hatchet job on Stuart Pearce and the Scott Parker. Shat did they do wrong well they are not Steven Gerard or Harry Redknapp,yes that's the same Steven Gerard who has not done it for England for years despite doing it on a regular basis for his club and the Redknapp that is the media darling who will help us take over the world.

Now I am in favour of Harry Redknapp getting the job but for a supposed patriotic Englishman I am nor happy with the comments coming from him and from around him that he has to think about the Spurs fans and club,well sorry I am a patriotic Englishman and would walk over hot coals even if I were on the verge of taking Wolves to a European Cup final,at least Stuart Pearce whatever his limitations as a manger has made himself available for his country if needed.

The Wolves Manager Saga

Anybody with even a passing interest in football has no doubt looked at the events going on around Molineux over the past couple of weeks and wondered quite what sort of a mess Wolves have got themselves into,in essence I would agree with that sentiment especially as days went by and more managers seemed to be queuing up to turn Wolves down.

My initial reaction to the appointment of Terry Connor was one of ,If they were going to do that why not do it at the start rather than the end of the 2 weeks? however comments made in the Media,on Twitter and from friends with an ear to the ground around Molineux have made me re-evaluate my initial thoughts.

If the rumours are to be believed a number of the managers linked with the Wolves job have been asking silly money to take on the task or making unreasonable demands about terms,transfer policy and kitty's etc and to be honest I am rather proud of Morgan and Moxey for not caving in to demands such as these just to have an easy life.

But what has really annoyed me since the Connor appointment has been the reaction of many fans on Twitter and radio phone ins,comments such as

We should pay the going rate

No ambition they refused to promise millions to be spend on players

What chance do we have with players ONLY on 20-30K per week at the club.

I think these comments and others like them show that many fans do not really understand football at the start of the second decade of the 21st century,Rangers fans wanted players on big money and managers paid the going rate,Portsmouth did the same and look where they are now and how many others are fast heading that way at all levels of football (Dartlington & Kettering for those who like me follow Non League football.

At the end of the day Terry Connor may be a bad appointment ,although yesterday was a good start,but at least Wolves will be solvent, and don’t come back with the "But they will lose4 £30Mill from Sky",that’s not guaranteed and Portsmouth were hocked up to the eyeballs relying on Sky money until it all went pear shaped.

I wish Terry Connor good luck and say thanks to Steve Morgan and Jez Moxey for at least putting the long term financial future of the club ,whatever division that be in,ahead of short term appeasement of the fans and the media.

Suarez And Dalgleish Drag Liverpool Down

I don't think any of us expected the events of yesterday at Old Trafford prior to the Utd v Liverpool game,i mean even in Suarez still hated Evra for his 8 match ban and all that went on around it surely the Liverpool management would have drummed it into him to shake hands and move on ,well it appears not.

The first reaction is not really one of surprise because Louis Suarez has form from his time at Ajax and we all saw the unsporting reaction during the Ghana match after his sending off during the last world cup but then you wonder is he just a nasty piece of work who ignored all that was said to him or have Liverpool as a club under the leadership of Kenny Dalgleish really started to lose the plot?

Well looking at the interview on Sky Sports after the match and his reaction to the questions (I did not see it) I think says it all and for whatever reason Dalgleish and Liverpool have adopted a siege mentality,pulled up the drawbridge and somehow management to put the most hated club in the country,man Utd, in the right,for god sake I found myself agreeing with Fergie last night.

What makes it worse is that the Liverpool fans who,back in the 70's & 80's were the most admired and respected in the land appear to have adopted this "Our players and managers can do no wrong" attitude and adding themselves to the unpopularity bandwagon.
What was really sad about this blinkered attitude was encapsulated listening to ex player Talk Sport pundit and professional Scouser Micky Quinn on the radio just defending Suarez,saying he was not obligated to shake Evra's hand and to move on and talk about the match.

So once again on a Sunday morning those of us who love the game and it's history are sitting here and weeping for the way it has once again been dragged into the gutter

Do Journalists Really Want England To Fail

There has been a train of thought for a few years now that the football journalists would rather the England football team fail rather than succeed as it creates better headlines and helps sell more papers,well I have never really subscribed to that view until this week.

It's not the sacking of Capello ,he was a dead man walking after 2010's pathetic display  at the World Cup and should have gone then ,rather its the appalling story in the Sun accusing the caretaker England manager Stuart Pearce of racism.

Now the story has been around for a while and dates pack to words said to Paul   in 1994,18 years ago,Pearce apologised Ince accepted that apology and the world moved on,so what the hell are the Sun doing  plastering across the front pages as if it had happened yesterday with no mention that it was an event from history and insinuating that in addition to John Terry England had another  major rascism problem within their football team.

Ok you may say it's the Sun yet another News International rag that should have been closed down at the same time as the News Of The World and that was my initial reaction,what has really worried me though is the reaction of other well respected journalists who have either said nothing or in a couple of cases supported the right of the Sun to publish the story in the way they did.I have challenged a number of journalists via Twitter to condem the story and the way it was presented but to no avail.

So it appears that anything England related is fair game and if the peoples choice and the darling of the majority of the press Harry Redknapp takes the job you can guarantee that at the first chance Her majesty's Gutter Press will look to bring him down and take great relish in doing so with whatever dirty trick they feel like using