Can Fans Save a Club?

People are idiots. A person can be a fine, fully operational individual with positively genius ideas, but people as a mass, talked of as one entire organism, become a lumbering moron devoid of rational thought. After Mike Ashley made the mistake of becoming one of ‘the people’, he listened to mob idiocy rather than basic sense and appointed Kevin Keegan.

Now, Liverpool seem to be going one step further as fans of the club may well decide to take over the entire team. 100,000 of them. 100,000 Mike Ashley’s with £5,000 investments. Good God, the thought of it. Mark’s post on Ebbsfleet United last November pointed to some of the difficulties but also some of the excitement that can come when fans take over a club. Admittedly, the Liverpool supporters concerned will not be picking the team, and are investing far more than those involved with the Ebbsfleet project, but to me the plan sounds just as far fetched.

The people involved - football business lecturer and Liverpool fan Rogan Taylor, former director of communications at the Premier League Phil French, and lawyer Kevin Jacquiss (who is listed by the BBC as “an expert in launching co-operatives”) – all sound like reasonable individuals to start off the investment. But it all has the air of floating on the stock exchange about it. In the long term that model didn’t work for Spurs or any other club that I can think of.

Right now, it’s claimed this model would have more in common with the Barcelona system of ‘membership’ whereby everyone who pays a yearly fee gets first dibs on tickets, a membership card and a vote in the elections when a new president is being decided. Is this really the way Liverpool wants to go?

To have the club involved in Spanish style club elections where presidents make ludicrous claims of signing the biggest players in the world to sway the voting fans? The kind of tactics that has often left Barcelona in a mess (they’ve had plenty of barren years in amongst their success due to internal turmoil); the kind of politics that left Real Madrid having to be saved by the Spanish Government who bought their training ground for an insanely inflated fee?

David Moores and Rick Parry certainly have to take some blame for where the club is now – on the brink of collapse on the field; turmoil off the field and little hope of any more money coming in for signings. The two scousers spent several years trying to bring investment into the club, turning down many ‘unsuitable’ bids in the process. That’s why when they settled on Hicks and Gillett most Liverpool fans felt they were in the right hands. We had good reason. Surely after years of searching, Moores and Parry had gotten an indication that these were the men to bring the club forward. Both, I feel, are culpable for the massive mess the club now lies in.

All of this has led to this morning’s news about the fan takeover and such headlines - such absolutely outrageous unworkable ideas – show how low the club is feeling at present. At this rate, I’d stake a fair few quid on Liverpool beating United’s 27 years without winning the league. They may even hit 30. After spending the guts of a decade looking for the right fit, Moores and Parry must take a share of blame at least for setting the side back for possibly a further ten years.

Later, JJ

Okey Doke Football Podcast tonight where we discuss football jailbirds, Defoe and Cashley's ugly birds on the side as well as much, much more. Subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball

Ranieri & Sissoko

Ranieri. The Tinkerman. And Sissoko, the erstwhile defensive midfielder.
Now fate has combined to bring them together. For £8.2 million.

Momo made his first senior appearances for Valencia when Rafa was at the helm and subsequently followed him to Liverpool becoming an anchor in midfield, the new Patrick Vieira with the disciplinary problems to match. His career gathered pace until he suffered an unfortunate eye injury in match where he was kicked in the head by Benfica player, Beto, in February 2006 but returned sporting Edgar Davids style goggles.
Unfortunately for Liverpool, Sissoko has since only looked half the player since that incident. His passing is woeful, way below the standard one would expect at that level. His overall game has also gone backwards, and now looks like a slightly better version of Djemba Djemba. In truth he hasn't been helped by Javier Mascherano's arrival at Anfield, meaning he has been 'rotated' to within an inch of his life by Rafa and is now off to Juve, only 6 months after signing a 4 year contract.

Claudio's career has followed a similar pattern. He earned plaudits early on for leading Cagliari to Serie A from Serie C1 (88-91), and getting Fiorentina promoted and winning the Coppa Italia in 1996. Joining Valencia he laid the groundwork for their future success with some canny signings and youth development and arrived in England (via Atletico Madrid) to take charge of Chelsea.

Just like Sissoko, Ranieri settled quickly, with probably his best achievement being finishing 4th in the League in 2003, despite having Sam Dalla Bona and Enrique Lucas, an even more ineffective version of Jesper Gronkjaer, in the team.

Roman Abramovich took over and despite some progress in the league cups, it was ultimately failure for a man who splashed an initial £120m that summer. In his last season, Claudio got it spectacularly wrong in the CL semi-final second leg against Monaco.

Ranieri went onto to fail at Valencia by taking Rafa Benitez's double winning team (league and Uefa Cup) buying crap players, losing loads of games and getting the sack in Feb 2005. He and Giuseppe Rossi kept Parma in Serie A in 2007 and he somehow wound up replacing Deschamps at Juve last summer.

So now Momo & Claudio are together, dreaming of better days together after their ultimately unsuccessful England stints. Claudio is on his last chance at a big club, and the way Momo is regressing, this could be his last chance too. With Agnelli's millions, Claudio has every chance of success, while Sissoko only has Tiago as competition for defensive midfield chopper. Could this be the start of a beautiful friendship?

Mark,
Okey Doke Football Podcast is available every Friday morning, subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball

The Return of Random Monday

Well folks, where better to start this Monday than at the soccer circus itself – Newcastle United. Hot of the presses comes the news that, and I quote, “Leeds United boss Dennis Wise will be offered a role in Newcastle's coaching set-up, BBC Leeds understands”. BBC Leeds understands eh? Why does the BBC, in Leeds or anywhere else for that matter, always have to assure us that they “understand”? There’s just something about the choice of that word which I don’t like.

But moving on from my odd obsession with news-speak and on to the story itself…

Wise of course has a solid record with Leeds this season, a blistering start obliterating their 15-point penalty for the financial mish-mash they ended up in last year. Currently they sit in fifth place in League One, 12 points adrift of Swansea at the top, but within two points of second-placed Nottingham Forest. Yes, yes, I know they’d be top without the points’ penalty but then again, had the whole saga not started – thereby putting a freeze on all financial transactions last summer – they would have lost most of their squad before the end of the August transfer window. They forfeited the points, but they kept the players to win them back.

Wise, like Paul Ince at MK Dons (who are topping League Two), has taken the route of going down the divisions to build a solid reputation. One that, coupled with Premier League experience as a player, should comfortably see both of them into a top division job within the next few years.
Wise and Ince could well be disasters at the top level, but even though we hate both of them at ODF, you have to give them some credit for the job they’re doing in the lower reaches of the game. Certainly it’s a route that “man’s man” Alan Shearer is a little reticent to take.

I can’t see Wise taking the job, whatever it may be, mainly due to the little Londoner’s ego issues. Wise sees an opportunity to establish himself at a club with a huge (and hugely battered) reputation. Being number two at Shambletown United on Tyneside would seem like a step down to him I would say.

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Moving on and we’ve just had the FA Cup draw with Man United pitted against Arsenal in what we can only hope is not a repeat of their 2005 final. Dear god that was an awful game and should serve as a reminder to all that neither Arsenal nor Man United have stuck to any policy of ‘always entertaining the crowd’, especially when it comes to big games. When it calls for dour, they both do it with aplomb (ah aplomb… now there’s a BBC word I like far more than this ‘understands’ bullshit).

You’d have to pick United what with this game coming in the middle of Champions League and Premier League fixtures. In these circumstances, United’s superior squad, plus their home advantage, should ensure victory. The full draw reads like this:

Bristol Rovers v Southampton: Eh, I’ll go for a win for…. (insert flip of a coin here) Southampton.
Cardiff City v Wolves: Right, where’s that coin again? I’ll go for good old Mick McCarthy to keep the backside off the bacon slicer and win this one. Away win.
Sheffield United v Middlesbrough: Start crying into that Guinness Bryan. Boro to go through.
Liverpool v Barnsley: Pool to stumble onwards. The club get more embarrassing with each passing week and will most likely choke in the semi finals.
Manchester United v Arsenal: Please let it be good. Please don’t let Jonathan Pearce be commentating. Man U win.
Preston v Portsmouth: Interesting one, I’ll go for the draw, with Pompey to take it in the replay. I’d like to see Portsmouth win the cup this year actually.
Coventry City v West Brom: Eh… going on Championship form, an away win.
Chelsea v Huddersfield Town: Foregone conclusion. Home win.

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After those exciting predictions, what could be more fun than, yep you guessed it, more predictions. The Premier League gives us a midweek blast of games so here’s a quick rundown of what I expect to happen in Tuesday games (I’ll leave Mark to stick his neck out for the Wednesday matches)

Arsenal v Newcastle: Little Keggy Keegan couldn’t really have asked for a worse start to his reign. Playing against the anti-football of Bolton, then facing the total football of Arsenal and now he has to face Wenger’s men again. Hopefully he gives a better team talk than the rumoured one on Saturday, but I can’t think it’ll make too much difference. 4-1.
Bolton v Fulham: I have a feeling that Fulham might win this one, or at least get a point. It’s one of those predictions that has no basis in fact or form, but I’ll go for 1-2.
Middlesbrough v Wigan: Home win here I’d say, with Boro boosted by their cup win at the weekend. 2-0.
Sunderland v Birmingham: Sunderland to take an early lead, Birmingham to equalise, Sunderland to win late on. That’s what I would have thought earlier in the season. Now though, I think McLeish’s men may have too much for Sunderland. Split the difference and I’ll go for a repeat of the early season 2-2.

That’s 12 predictions in one post. This is going to end horribly.

Later, JJ

Okey Doke Football Podcast is [usually]available every Friday morning, subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball

Arsenal's Wheels & Juande Ramos

Arsenal's Wheels

The discussion has lately reared its head , will Arsenal's wheels come off? They've kept to the pace at the top of the Premier League, to the 4th round of the FA Cup and the Second Phase of the Champions League. So they are having a great season, so far, and one terrible defeat to Spurs shouldn't change that. But much more so than United or Chelsea, the Arse' have the ability to implode and fall away in the league. Wishful thinking? No.

Wenger, despite sitting on millions of pounds, will not spend any money on the squad during the transfer window, seemingly in the belief that various never-will-be's such as Senderos, Hoyte and Walcott will be enough to get them through a tough league and cup program until May. Gilberto looks finished, suffering either from poor fitness or motivation. If the over-achieving Flamini gets injured, who comes in, Gilberto, Diaby, Song? At centre back, the problems have long been known. Gallas and Toure have been good together, but Senderos is a waste of space and Djourou doesn't seem to have made any progress despite his loan spells.
Similarly, up front, Bendtner has shown flashes of potential, but more is needed. Walcott needs to apply his talents, Van Persie has had a litany of injury problems which only leaves Adebayor and Eduardo up front to score the goals.
So, that's a fair amount of weaknesses in the squad, which Wenger will not address, and I have the feeling that it will be their downfall this season. Ok, they won't finish fifth, but I feel they won't win anything either.

Juande Ramos
After their disastrous start, Spurs have achieved a UEFA cup place already this season, by virtue of qualifying for the Carling Cup Final against Chelsea.
[EDIT - the losers of the Carling Cup final will not get a UEFA Cup place, if Chelsea win, and they have already qualified for the CL, then the place will go to 7th in the league]
It's a bit too simplistic to say that Jol's team would have blown it, but Ramos has impressed so far. If the serious Spaniard can get a top half finish and a good run in the UEFA Cup, it will be an excellent platform to build for next season. How different things could have been for Jol if King was fit....

Mark,

Okey Doke Football Podcast is [usually]available every Friday morning, subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball

JJ is off on his working holiday this week, a supersub hasn't been found, so I'm afraid there will be no podcast this week, but we'll back next week with more lame jokes, obscure Anchorman, Seinfeld & Father Ted references and tales of bold footballers from the tabloids...

In the meantime, check out the Irish minister for Sport showing off his football skills in Africa, at least he is better than Tony Blair, but neither will live up to the excellent Boris Johnson in a seniors 'friendly' against Germany

Steve Finnan – underappreciated, under-used, understandably sick of it

If one sight during Steve Staunton’s reign as Ireland manager made my blood boil ever so slightly it was the treatment of Stephen Carr. Basically, the over-indulgence of a moody git whose best days were long since behind him.

I know it’s easy for people to pick on Carr as his lack of media interviews mean whatever pre-conceptions you have about the man can stay in place due to a lack of evidence to the contrary. None of his team-mates ever have a bad thing to say about him true, but you don’t hear anyone screaming off rooftops, telling the world to lay off Carr because he’s a decent bloke either.

Carr decided when Stan took over that he would return to the fold and help out the Irish team, a noble thought if ever there was one. But the knock-on effect of this was that once again Steve Finnan was treated like a piece of crap that could be thrown around a starting eleven because "he wouldn’t mind sure".

Finnan, a superb defender who never performs at a level of anything less than seven out of ten, has won a Champions League medal and FA Cup medal to boot. He’s handled the finest wingers and strikers in Europe on a consistent basis and is rarely the victim of Rafa Benitez’s rotation policy.

Yet, for years he has played on the left or on the right wing for Ireland. Then, back in late 2005, when it looked as if he would finally get the right back spot as his own, along comes Carr to ‘save’ the day. Carr, a man who could be accused of treating the national team with contempt due to multiple retirements and lackluster performances, decided to grace us with his presence and Finnan was shoved aside.

There was never any logic to this decision. Though of course, Carr is one of the old boys who Stan loved so much and the petty Dundalk man thought he could do what he liked with the consummate professional Finnan. Carr was first choice right back; a decision that on form alone would not have been made by any other coach I can think of. Fat boy with an attitude versus dependable right back who delivers as many assists in Europe or the Premier League as any man in his position. No contest in the logic stakes, but then logic was never Stan’s strong point.

Even when Carr was injured, we then had the John O’Shea at right back with Finnan on the left fiasco. The poor ‘Pool defender was treated with continued disregard by a manager who, rumour has it, Finnan said taught him less than any other coach he had worked at in any level of professional football.

Remember Finnan has played in every league from the Conference up in his time. That’s a pretty damning indictment. If that rumour is true of course, but it has a ring of truth about it to me.

It came as no surprise yesterday when Finnan announced his retirement from international football, having been used as a human Swiss Army knife by Ireland for too long. He wants to prolong his career at the top level and fair play to him for it. I doubt there’s a football fan alive who would begrudge him that.

However, I still think the way this world class defender was treated by Staunton, and to a certain extent Brian Kerr and Mick McCarthy, was horrendous. And all simply because he wasn’t one of the old boys network. Before a new man even has the chance to reassure him of his place he has decided he’s had enough with the FAI and their woeful choice of coaches. Perhaps personifying the frustration many fans feel with Irish football over the last few years.

A fine player. If only those managing his country appreciated him.

Weekend Reaction

Man City 1-1 West Ham

Things I thought I'd never say, pt1. Carlton Cole scored a fabulous goal to help West Ham to a draw. City have started to drop points in the league and need to keep with the pace if they are going to get Champions League. At the moment, it doesn't look good.

Wigan 1-2 Everton

Joleon Lescott is a fantasy football team's dream. He scores a lot of goals and helps keep Everton tight at the back. The cup competitions may distract and tire them in the coming months but on current form, it should be a battle for 4th.

Birmingham 0-1 Chelsea

Chelsea really rode their luck on this one. That the useless Pizarro scored the winner was rough justice. The machine rolls on and there hasn't been a whimper from Grant about injuries, in contrast to his illustrious predecessor. When Anelka starts scoring, and Drogba returns there should be a 3 way battle for the championship, especially as Arsenal and United have to go to the Bridge.

Blackburn 1-1 Middlesbrough

The forgotten Derbyshire rescued a point for Blackburn. Middlesbrough have their problems but they are successfully bringing youth through to the first team - in Wheater they have a highly promising centre back (and goalscorer). The contrast is Derbyshire's bench warming in a queue behind Santa Cruz, McCarthy and Roberts. Excellent last summer in the under-21 Euro Championships, Maceo Rigters is nowhere to be seen.

Fulham 0-3 Arsenal
How good is Clichy as an attacking full back? He's the equal of Evra at least

Newcastle 0-0 Bolton
It had to happen didn't it? Things I thought I'd never say, pt2 - Keegan in bore 0-0 shocker. Hands up who still thinks it was Sam's fault....

Portsmouth 3-1 Derby
Wayhey! 3 home goals. Against Derby. There is tougher work ahead for Pompey who have slid down the table. Their loss of momentum, and their ANC players unavailable make this a crucial few weeks in their quest for Europe

Reading 0-2 Man Utd
Again Reading troubled United, but superior finishing got the points. Van der Sar is showing some inappropriate rushes of blood to the head, just like the tail-end of last season

Tottenham 2-0 Sunderland
Playing Huddlestone at centre back was one of those decisions that could have back fired massively, he's even slower than Jaap Stam and milk would turn quicker. His passing ability is top drawer but where to play him? In defence where he could make a costly mistake or in midfield where the pace is high? Ramos will deserve his money if he figures that one out. Tom - head off to Spain or Italy

Mark

Podcast Fixed - Sorry About That

Sorry about the podcast difficulties, there was an issue with the company we use to host the mp3 files

You can download it now: http://media.libsyn.com/media/okeydokefootball/odf18jan08.mp3

Everything should be fine now....

Mark