Ahead of the Game

The news in 60 seconds

BIG SAM WILL PLAY IT AGAIN
It turns out it was more like mutual discontent than mutual consent. Speaking for the first time since joining the dole queue, Sam Allardyce has said he was surprised to lose his job, despite yesterday’s claim that he left by mutual consent. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so shocked, though. A close friend of Mike Ashley says that the club’s owner wants to install “his own man”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/newcastle/article3165858.ece

EVERTON DENY MOYES MOVE
Bill Kenwright says that rumours linking the flint-eyed David Moyes with the St James’ Park job are all nonsense. The Everton chairman says he has spoken with Mike Ashley, who told him he would never do that to a nice club like Everton.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/everton/article3166906.ece

WILKINSON CRITICISES SACKING
For the eighth time this season, Howard Wilkinson, the chairman of the LMA, has criticised the decision of a Premier League club to dispose of their manager. "It debases the position of manager," Wilkinson said. "You have to start to ask, what's the manager there to do?” No idea. Win some games? Play nice football? Whatever next.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/newcastle/article3165655.ece

ANOTHER FINE MESS
“If Ashley cannot parade Allardyce’s successor in time for the match against Manchester United on Saturday, and certainly the FA Cup third-round replay with Stoke City on Wednesday, this is amateur night at the Roxy.” Martin Samuel on the latest shambles at St James’ Park.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/newcastle/article3162615.ece

FANNING THE FLAMES
“Why would any top manager want to join Newcastle, given the unrealistic expectations of their fans and board?” For the job security? Anyway, even Newcastle’s dedicated fans are beginning to lose faith after yet another crisis.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/newcastle/article3162602.ece

GILBERTO TO STICK IT OUT
Gilberto Silva has promised to stick it out at Arsenal, despite having about as much chance as Jens Lehmann of regaining his place. “I will do my job, and I did that again against Tottenham which was another good opportunity for me to show that I am capable to come back into the team,” he said. “At the moment, I prefer not to think about moving and to fight for my position.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/arsenal/article3166774.ece

IN THE NIC OF TIME
Nicolas Anelka is hoping to complete his move to Chelsea this week, according to his agent. “Nicolas is calm,” Doug Pingisi told L’Equipe. “He hopes that everything will be finalised this week. He has been waiting for such an opportunity for years.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article3166862.ece

CHIMBONDA ON MOVE
Pascal Chimbonda has issued a come-and-get-me plea to Aston Villa. Willie McKay, the Tottenham right back’s agent, said: “Would Pascal welcome a move to Aston Villa? Of course he would. He is looking to leave Tottenham and Villa are a big club with great potential.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article3166825.ece

BULLARD ON MEND
Have you read this story before? We’ve certainly written it once or twice. Jimmy Bullard is still on his way back from injury and still looking forward to making his comeback for Fulham. As he has been for more than a year. The difference this time is he could be ready for a Premier League return.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/fulham/article3166951.ece

MOMO ON THE GO-GO
Mohamed Sissoko has told a French radio station that he will complete his move to Juventus. “I’m still a Liverpool player,” Sissoko said. “But I expect a big announcement in the next few days.” He is expected to agree a loan deal with a view to a permanent deal at the end of the season.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article3165857.ece

ROBINSON’S DAYS NUMBERED
Paul Robinson fears he has played his last game for Tottenham after he was dropped for the Carling Cup semi-final first leg against Arsenal last night. Still, he’s had previous experience of letting chances slip through his fingers. Jermain Defoe – who looked about as sharp as his haircut when he came on as a substitute – also fears the worst.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/tottenham/article3163095.ece

If you've got another couple of minutes

LOONEY TOONS
More cloaks and daggers than you’d find at a Dungeons and Dragons convention. It would appear that no one wants to rule themselves in or out of the vacant Newcastle job today. First the BBC softened its story saying Alan Shearer didn’t want the job – last night the headline said he had “ruled himself out”, today it said his sources were merely “playing down” the link – and now ’Arry has told a local media outlet that he has not spoken to anyone at Newcastle - not that he doesn’t want to. “I really do not know anything about this,” he said. “I have not spoken to anyone from Newcastle. When I saw Sam had left my immediate thoughts were that Alan Shearer was a certainty to take over. There’s nothing in my being linked with the job. I had an offer not so long ago to take over at what I consider a massive club but I didn’t go. I am happy down on the South Coast.”
Which, as categorical denials go, is about as convincing as that time he said he needed a complete break from football – shortly before popping up at Southampton. Or that time when Chris Mort, the Newcastle chairman, apparently said Allardyce’s job was safe.
So here’s a novel question for you. Who’s more likely to give you a straight answer: the press or the horse’s mouth? 

WHAM, BAM: IS THIS THE END FOR BIG SAM?
Big Sam could be about to discover that a spell at St James’ Park is to career progression what a stint on Celebrity Big Brother is to showbiz: a guarantee that you will never be taken seriously again. Few will feel sorry for a man who can promote his own cause with more guile than Max Clifford, but even his powers of self-publicity could be tested if he wants to come back from football’s equivalent of a job with Bravo as a one-way ticket to obscuredom.
Of Allardyce’s predecessors – Glenn Roeder, Bobby Robson, Graeme Souness, Ruud Gullit, Kenny Dalglish and Kevin Keegan – none is still working in the top flight. And while several of those – most notably Robson – could rightly argue that their status has not been diminished, the same cannot be said for the likes of Roeder, Dalglish, Souness and Gullit, whose reputations were tarnished by their stints in the North East.
Indeed, of those predecessors, Roeder is the only one with a decent job in English football – at Norwich City. And they are two places above the relegation places in the Championship.

YOUR CHANCE TO FINISH SOMEONE’S CAREER
Frankly, a transfusion from an American blood bank seems more appealing than the choices available to replace Big Sam. Ant and Dec are more likely to take the job than Jose Mourinho or Jurgen Klinsmann, while if ’Arry is silly enough to give up what he’s got down on the Sarf Coast then they shouldn’t give it to him anyway. As for Alan Shearer, he’s got about as much experience of managing a top-flight club as Adrian Chiles. But without the on-screen presence.
So now that we’ve bigged up the potential managers, we’d like to encourage you to vote for the man whose successful career in management you would most like to ruin. Pick the next Newcastle manager. 
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/

>>>>>THE TABLOID EXPOSE<<<<<
POSH ’N BECKS HEAD WORLD CUP BID (that’s Wills, not Victoria) - The Sun
What you need to know: 1) Prince William and David Beckham are to front England’s 2018 World Cup bid. 2) Goldenballs will have an ambassadorial “supporting role” alongside the sports-mad royal. 3) Beckham is used to working with a partner who is famous just for being famous. 

A quickie before you go, sir?

SHEARER SEES RED
Having spent much of this week criticising Alan Shearer for being more boring than a round of golf with Alan Hansen and Gary Lineker, confirmation that he does have a sense of humour. It makes you wonder though. He can play, he can ref – what can’t he do? Maybe Newcastle are about to find out. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ncw0L1VImE

8
It’s like Question of Sport, but without Sue Barker, Matt Dawson and Phil Tufnell. So immediately, it’s better. Eight Premier League managers have now lost their jobs this season, the most in any previous campaign before January 10. But can you name the eight managers who moved on in 1994-95?

In TheGame

In Fanzine Fanzone, Gareth Harrison, our Newcastle fan, says that the fans should show some of the patience they have criticised the club’s new owners for lacking. Sacking Big Sam was a brave decision and Mike Ashley and Chris Mort could yet be vindicated.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/fanzine_fanzone/
If Big Sam’s teams could defend themselves like Martin Samuel, he’d probably still have a job. Our Chief Football Correspondent has been responding to your comments in this week’s postbag after he said it was time Alan Shearer declared his intentions about the Newcastle job.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2008/01/the-debate-mart.html
Eight months, that was all he got. Not even enough time to give birth to a baby, let alone the five years he said he needed to turn the club around. Were Newcastle right to sack their manager? Or should he have been given more time?
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2008/01/vote-now-were-n.html
Tony Cascarino, Times Online’s agony uncle, on defending set-pieces, how to control the ball on your chest and when to pack it all in and join the vets’ team. 
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2008/01/defending-set-p.html
What should constitute a dangerous tackle: two feet, studs up or intent to maim? Help draw up guidelines for what really is dangerous – and what’s just part and parcel of a physical game.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2008/01/when-tackling-b.html

>>>>>THE RIVALS<<<<<
* All yours, Redknapp: Newcastle axe Allardyce and go for Harry – Daily Mail
* Harry talk of Toon … but fans want Al as Sam is axed – The Sun
* Big Sam gets the bullet – Daily Express
* Ash and ’Arry: Big Sam sacked now Toon owner wants Redknapp – Daily Mirror
* Allardyce loses his stripes – The Daily Telegraph
* Newcastle target Redknapp as Allardyce is driven out – The Independent
* Redknapp in line after Newcastle wield axe – The Guardian

Joe Bloggs’ Soapbox

In response to AOTG and the view of Mikel's tackle deserving a red card I think that this is wrong: how can you expect a player to go in without his studs showing when it is a split second decision to make the tackle? He just would not have had time to correctly position his body to make the tackle in a way where studs where not showing. However he only missed 20 minutes and his three-game ban is nothing as he isn't there!
Which leads me on to Liam Trotter. Obviously as an Ipswich fan I am biased here, but the whole world can see that he did not deserve a red card on Saturday against Portsmouth, he slid in, thus didn't dive in, and went with one foot, and barely caught Mendes. Halsey wasn't going to send him off and you could tell from the reaction of the players that it didn't deserve one, they were lining up for the free kick to be taken!
This means that Trotter missed 66 minutes of that game, and will now miss a further three games.
Is this a case of Prem refs supporting Prem teams as happened last year in the cup? How can every pundit, our manager, their manager and 24,000 people in the ground be wrong and one individual be correct - somehow I don't think if it was Steven Gerrard the red card would not have been rescinded but as it is a nobody at a Championship club it is alright to make an example out of him.
Football will be a non-contact sport if things carry on this way, surely a tackle is dangerous if:
- They jump in two footed with studs showing
- They straighten the leg on expected impact
- They go over the top of the ball
- They show no intention of winning ball
And all the above are not mutually exclusive!
And all that from the appropriately named Joe Fairs.

Whilst I am not convinced that the standard of tackling has deteriorated this season, what does seem to me to be the case is there is less tolerance of any tackle that does not cleanly win the ball. I am an Ipswich supporter and was at the Portsmouth game on Saturday when Liam Trotter was sent off for a tackle that was mistimed and overenthusiastic, but neither reckless nor dangerous. My surprise at his dismissal has only been compounded by the FA’s astonishing decision that Mark Halsey’s judgment was correct, thereby condemning a player with only a handful of first-team games under a belt to a three match ban for “violent conduct”.
What next? Is football to be turned into a non-contact sport?
Would it help Ipswich if it was non-contact? We’ll allow Richard to answer that himself…

The most frustrating part of this latest flurry of red cards is trying to figure out whether or not this change in refereeing has been communicated to the players prior to its implementation.  What all players and fans want out of a match official is to: 1) Get the calls right (duh) and 2) Be consistent in applying the rules of the game.  That’s it.  Sure, 1) is a very difficult goal to achieve, but 2) is not. 
If the decision of match officials is to now red card all studs-up tackles, regardless of perceived intent, that’s fine.  But for the good of the sport (and the fans who pay good money to watch it), the officials should clearly communicate this change to each squad so the players can adjust.  If this change is made, football hasn’t gone soft and we’ll see better matches (and less broken metatarsals) because of it.
George Hasenecz makes a lucid and reasoned point which we can’t take issue with in any form. Which is why it has no place in a flippant e-mail such as this.

I have it on good authority that Alan Hansen is so mean he only breathes in...
Steven Ives. And have you also heard that he’s tighter than Mike Ashley’s belt?

I think giving the US Soccer Saviour his 100th cap is exactly the sort of thing Capello should be looking to do if he wants to start his (I can only assume it will be) ill-fated tenure as England boss with minimal scrutiny. By giving the golden nuts his moment in the spotlight, the FA can make a huge fanfare about the milestone and hopefully media coverage of team selection and performance may be lessened. Fab Fabio can go about his business in peace. 
Al from Glasgow has confused milestone with millstone, we hope.

Would giving Beckham five minutes at the end of the game as a sub appease everyone? Sentimental supporters happy, he gets to his cherished century and goes back to the American wastelands and Fabio can move on to building a team for 2010.
That’s fine with us, Amar Purohit. But why not just make it a testimonial, replace the national anthems with a Spice Girls hit and donate all the money to Goldenballs’ academies? 

Sometimes you just say it better than we do, which is why we’ve dedicated a corner of this e-mail to your views and boos: sport@timesonline.co.uk

Tomorrow’s news today

- Is Flash ’Arry the man for Newcastle?
- Spurs line up Robinson replacement
- All the latest transfer news

And expect…

Redknapp to declare a lifelong affinity for the Norf East and to be seen supping a pint and scoffing a stottie on the Bigg Market. A day’s a long time in football, remember.

Spread the word. It’s like pyramid selling, but without the hassle or the money. Click on the following link if you (or your friends) want to subscribe to this newsletter.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/subscriptions/e-mail_bulletins/