Citation Needed!

From wikipedia:

Peacock has worked with the BBC, regularly appearing as a pundit on Football Focus, Score, Match of the Day 2, where his insightful comments and sharp dress sense has become a hit with viewers

He will be moving to Canada to become a priest after Euro 2008, though. That is true.

Bilic Update

His band "Rawbau" perform Croatia's Euro 2008 song:



PS You can also see him on Croatian "Who wants to be a millionaire?"

There's no better bacon

Round Up

1) David "fucking" Pleat gets it totally wrong on the recent Man U - Chelsea game. As Andy Gray pointed out, Chelsea's strength came from the indomitable midfield triangle of Mikel John Obi, holding that shit tight, and Essien/Ballack feeding off each other and making surging runs through the middle. Yes, The Drog is great but he had a poor game.

2) The Economist is doing a continuing series on how football explains economics. I love that shit.

3) I am still yet to see Carrick have a good game.

I fucking hate fucking Liverpool - Part Deux

So they get some soft refereeing decisions and scrape through. Doesn't stop them being boring to watch and extremely lucky...

Euro 2008 Guardian Sweepstakes

Exciting, isn't it? We are just a few months away from the first England-less major soccerball tournament in 14 years. When Taylor's boys fucked up in 1993, the Prem was in its infancy and football was yet to become the great big fuck-off THING it is today. (anybody want to buy some shares in JJB?). How is the country, the economy, and more pertinently to this concern, the footballing press going to cope with it? I can't wait.

One cert: the "England are out. Who should we support?" filler piece. Guardian will be there first, obviously, but will be followed by all the rest. The question is, what will the most "opinion" opinion on this be?

As far as I can see, the frontrunners are:

Poland - but maybe too London-centric and obvious
Germany - maybe too Guardian for even the Guardian
Austria - spirit of Havant & Waterlooville (who could probably beat Austria)

What do we think? (Obviously, I will be supporting France.)

The other dead cert is "In a way, it's better that England haven't etc" which is of course indefensible bollocks.

Carrick, early b-sides and The Emperor's New Clothes

The latest fashion amongst the more "intellectual" end of football journalism seems to be a renewed awe for the "ball-playing" midfielder. Much as any self-respecting music critic will profess a love for a band's early b-sides rather than the famous songs which are good, so a pretentious football writer will effuse praise on a Pirlo or a Xavi, rather than players who actually score the fucking goals.

Witness the Guardian's man-of-the-match rated performance for Carrick. Apparently he "Dictated the flow, covered superbly and composure shone" (which is grammatically inconsistent at best) despite the fact he "Had crowd (sic) on his back for three bad passes". Maybe that crowd have seen him play more times than you, Andy Hunter, and know a stinker when they see one.

Now I am a fan of the anchor-role; the string pulling, linchpin of a side. Paul Scholes, for example, is certainly one of the greatest English players of the last 20 years. He has a knack of knowing what the right pass is, be it 5 yards or 50. In the case of Carrick, however, I just don't see it. We know about the long list of weaknesses in his game: tackling, pace, heading, finishing etc. But even his supposed strength of passing seems no better to me than a Lampard, Gerrard or Barry never mind a Scholes, Hargreaves or Anderson, whom he must battle for a place in the side.

I'm watching you Carrick and I'm not afraid to say it. The Emperor has no clothes!