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December 30, 2009

Debate: should Manchester United cash in on Nemanja Vidic?

Nemanjavidicpa

Tim Meston

It looks increasingly likely that Nemanja Vidic will be playing for Real Madrid next season.

Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, is genuinely concerned that the 28-year-old defender's head has been turned by the idea of a move to the Continent and is unsure whether the offer of a lucrative new contract would be enough to persuade the Serbian to stay at Old Trafford.

Vidic's contract expires in June 2012 and the Premier League champions are expected to cash in on the player rather than let his contract run down. United would demand a fee of about £30 million for Vidic, but is sellling him the right decision?

Have your say.

in Manchester United, The debate | Permalink | Comments (45)

December 27, 2009

The Debate: what rule changes or innovations would you introduce to improve football in 2010?

Ahenryhandball385_647674a 

Patrick Barclay

Halfway though the Birmingham City-Chelsea match on Saturday evening, the ESPN pundits were asked to debate a linesman’s decision to deny Christian Benítez a goal on the ground that the striker was offside as he tapped the ball in with Didier Drogba stretched motionless on the turf. Kevin Keegan said the goal should have stood; Matt Holland disagreed.

Keegan was right, because every relevant part of Benítez’s anatomy was level, at worst, with Drogba — never mind that he was behind the ball. The linesman, lacking the benefit of slow-motion and freeze-frame, might reasonably have suspected otherwise, but there should still have been doubt in his mind and therefore, according to the law, the attacker should have been given the benefit of the doubt.

Continue reading "The Debate: what rule changes or innovations would you introduce to improve football in 2010?" »

in Columnists, Featured, Patrick Barclay, The debate | Permalink | Comments (65)

December 20, 2009

Were Manchester City right to sack Mark Hughes?

Hughes585_661342a

Ben Smith

Inevitable, ruthless, surprising. However you describe Manchester City's decision to sack Mark Hughes and appoint Roberto Mancini as his replacement yesterday, it can only be seen as a clear sign that the club's Arab owners will stop at nothing to achieve success - and quickly.

The Welshman was sacked by a club who felt he could not meet their target of a place in the top four despite being given £200m to spend on players and further huge investment in training facilities and other infrastructure at the club.

But have City done the right thing? Should Hughes have been given more time to mould his players into a team capable of challenging the very best? Or are you happy to see the back of a manager who has struggled to address his team's defensive failings and failed to lift his players against the lesser sides this season?

Mancini, who is believed to have been at Eastlands yesterday, is understood to have a three-and-a-half-year contract. Brian Kidd, a former City striker with extensive coaching experience, has stepped up from a role with the club's youth team to assist the Italian, who has been out of work since leaving Inter in May 2008.

But are these the right men to take the club forward? Would you rather have seen someone with Premier League experience brought in?

It's over to you, vote then leave your comments below.

Online Surveys & Market Research

in Manchester City, The debate, TheGame | Permalink | Comments (44)

December 17, 2009

Can Lennon be the real deal for England?

Lennon_blog

Frank Praverman

Here's a snippet from Russell Kempson's match report on last night's Tottenham v Manchester City game: 

"It quickly turned into the Aaron Lennon show, the England winger twisting Sylvinho, the former Arsenal full back, inside out on the right flank. 'All we have to do is keep giving Aaron the ball,” Harry Redknapp said. 'When he has the ball in that form, he’s a nightmare to deal with.'

"Sylvinho had the nightmare, time and again, Lennon cruising past him with a panache bordering on disdain ... The City dam had to give way and, in the 37th minute, it did. Not surprisingly, Lennon was the inspiration behind it."

And here's a snippet from James Ducker's match report on last night's Burnley v Arsenal game: "Without Cesc Fàbregas, who had been simply irresistible, Arsenal lacked wit, with Fabio Capello, the England manager, likely to be particularly dismayed to hear that Theo Walcott, the Arsenal and England winger, was completely overshadowed by Chris Eagles on the opposing team’s flanks.

"Walcott’s substitution in the 64th minute was almost merciful given the licking he was given by Stephen Jordan, Burnley’s left back."

Does this mean that Capello now has the answer to his right wing puzzle? And can we expect the same from Lennon in an England shirt?

In the past, Lennon has flattered to deceive with his final ball letting down all of his previous good work. But many put Tottenham's sustained bid for a top-four place this season down to the impressive and consistent form of the 22-year-old.

Would you pick him ahead of Walcott, who has struggled with injuries for most of the season? Or does Lennon's past patchiness still leave a question mark in your mind?

And while we're picking Capello's squad for him, Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch made a strong case to be included, and perhaps to start together.

Redknapp, the Spurs manager, has seen Crouch as Defoe's main strike partner ahead of Robbie Keane all season and the statistics appear to justify his selection. The Defoe-Crouch pairing has combined for an attempt on goal far more frequently than the Defoe-Keane double act. Last night Defoe scored Tottenham's second goal after Crouch flicked the ball on with his head.

So, two questions: can Lennon be the real deal for England? And should both Defoe and Crouch be on the plane to South Africa. Get your teeth into the debate now ...

in England, The debate, Tottenham Hotspur | Permalink | Comments (41)

December 13, 2009

The Debate: should goalkeepers be stopped from moving forward to save penalties?

Sorensen.385x185

In his Times column today, Patrick Barclay argues that referees do not properly police penalty kicks.

Citing the example of Thomas Sorensen's save from such a set-piece against Wigan at the weekend, our Chief Football Commentator says goalkeepers are nearly always allowed to breach the rules by moving off their line before the ball is struck. He adds that outfield players benefit from similarly lax officiating by going unpunished for encroaching on the penalty area before the kick.

The situation, he writes, "turns penalty deciders into cheating contests" and must be addressed by the ruling authorities. Do you agree? Should referees do more to prevent the man between the sticks from breaking this rule? Let us know your thoughts via the comment box below.

in Patrick Barclay, The debate, TheGame | Permalink | Comments (17)

Has Maynor Figueroa scored the Premier League goal of the season?

Neil Gardner

Wigan defender Maynor Figueroa's wonder strike from inside his own half against Stoke City is rightly being judged as one of the goals of the season so far. Click here to see it.

After referee Mike Dean awarded a free-kick for a foul, the quick-thinking Honduran spotted Thomas Sorensen, the Stoke goalkeeper, off his line and fired in a spectacular dipping shot that evaded the Dane's desparing dive.

It may have only given Wigan the briefest of leads before being pegged back to 2-2 by Ryan Shawcross but the goal has predictably drawn comparison with David Beckham's similarly impressive strike for Manchester United against Wimbledon in 1996, as well as Liverpool's Xabi Alonso's thunderbolt against Newcastle, although the Spaniard was aided somewhat by Steve Harper's last-minute stumble.

"The football arrogance to make that decision to score from that free-kick is something special," Roberto Martinez, the Wigan manager, said afterwards. "We will be seeing that goal for a long time."

But has the goal of the season competition been sewn up already? Let us know your thoughts below.

in Stoke City, The debate, The greatest..., Wigan Athletic | Permalink | Comments (4)

December 10, 2009

Patrick Barclay responds: should agents be eradicated from football or are they useful?

Joorabchian_blog

On Monday, our Chief Football Commentator asked whether agents should be eradicated from football or are they useful? You've had your say, now Patrick Barclay responds ...

Excellent article Patrick. Certainly £71m will surprise many. But surely it's a market situation - where players will always want to pay for the best independent advice, representation and legal expertise they can get. Wouldn't everyone? Incidentally your story provoked an interesting chat on Sky's Sunday Supplement this morning. In case you haven't heard your colleagues were all very complimentary. Your early Christmas present perhaps? Suzanne Heneghan

PB: Thanks for passing on the kind words, Suzanne. Just on a point of information, I have no objection to players or managers or anyone else paying as much as they like for advice and representation. I just don't think clubs should be allowed to use them in the way they do.

I'm surprised The Times is arguing against the market. Most players are young and not qualified to negotiate million pound contracts. They need professional advice and that is what an agent provides. Also it's a short career and players need to maximise their income while they can. The clubs won't look after the players, they never have. In the 1950s there were huge crowds but the money wasn't shared with the players. There was the maximum wage, restrictive contracts and a great player like Tom Finney had to supplement his income with a second job. Players should grab what they can. Andrew Scott

PB: I'm not arguing against the market. Properly regulated, the market is the best way to run football. Football manipulates the market; that is the problem. And I do point out in the article that players should be allowed to take professional advice. Of course they should. I don't quite understand why so many people have missed the section of my article in which I make this clear. Maybe the headline is misleading. 

Continue reading "Patrick Barclay responds: should agents be eradicated from football or are they useful?" »

in Columnists, Patrick Barclay, The debate | Permalink | Comments (2)

December 06, 2009

Debate: Should agents be eradicated from football or are they useful?

Blue-585_653054a

Patrick Barclay

Much was made last week of the disclosure that the Treasury had spent £107 million of public money on advice from City lawyers and accountants on how to deal with the financial crisis over the past two years. And rightly so; there were questions to be addressed.

One concerned the amount: even if we allow an average rate of £1,000 an hour, it means that we were paying, say, 100 supposed experts to devote 1,000 hours each, or more than half every working week, to a problem that was always going to land in the politicians’ laps anyway.

Another asked what was the point of having a Treasury if it could not get together with its counterparts in other countries and work out what to do at a time of financial crisis, just as the Armed Forces are expected to deal, in conjunction with allies, with the military crises that cause us just as much consternation, if not more.

Meanwhile hardly an eyelid was batted at the disclosure that an even greater sum — £71 million in just one year — had left the football industry in grotesquely inflated fees to agents for services that, whatever the stakeholders in this spurious trade might tell you, are simply not required.

Not for the first time, the contrast between the standards expected of the custodians of public and private money was stark.

Yet what is happening in football is a very public scandal. The Premier League’s calculation that £71 million went to intermediaries tallies with one I made a year ago but is probably an underestimate because one club, Hull City, suggest that the sum set against their name is only about half the true figure.

This is the first time the Premier League has published club totals. The Football League has been doing so for several years, and reporting sharp reductions in money wasted, but, while Premier League officials are sincere in hoping that their clubs will follow suit, the publication should be seen in the grim context of a bad situation getting worse.

It is a consequence of a deal cut with the agents’ association last summer in which the shoddy practice of "dual representation" — in which an agent is allowed to act for both club and player in a transfer deal or contract renegotiation — was called back from the seat in death row it so richly deserved. Dual representation is, of course, anti-competitive, but thus far no busybody has taken an interest; when you need one, they are never around.

No club should ever need an agent. If Manchester City, with their wealth of inexperience, require advice on which players to sign, they should ask their manager and, if he doesn’t know, find one who does, or can operate with a knowledgeable director of football. It is more complicated and expensive — City’s outlay on agents over the year was £13 million — only because clubs make it so.

Agents need not be confined to a single club and this helps to drive up their price. Yet transfers should all be done in-house. Most Premier League clubs have chief executives on £500,000 to £1 million a year. For that sort of money, they should be able to arrange a few transfers a year, if necessary hiring lawyers and other specialists on a bespoke basis.

A particularly complicated deal involving image rights and so on might take 200 hours at £1,000 an hour — several times cheaper than many deals done over the past few years.

So why, if agents are inimical to good business, do clubs use them? Because they have become lazy. Rather than scout out talent, they wait for agents to bring it, promising to ward off competition in exchange for a fat fee. That is why agents love naively ambitious clubs. As soon as one is relegated and skint, they move on to the next mug.

The FA, meanwhile, remains so supine in the face of this constant erosion of the game’s finances — I need hardly remind you that £71 million would enable the National Football Centre to be built in a year — as to suggest that all hope of decent governance has disappeared into the bureaucracy.

So shamelessly cock-a-hoop have the agents’ association become that their chairman, Mel Stein (star client: Paul Gascoigne) responded to last week’s report by calling for his group to be incorporated on the FA Council. Where, no doubt, they would represent players and clubs as well as themselves.

My old friend Jon Holmes, who helped with the careers of Gary Lineker and other distinguished sportsmen, is a leading voice against what so much of his profession has become, insisting that agents should work for their individual clients alone.

They could be well enough paid for it, too, while avoiding any conflict of interest. Clubs would make better decisions. There would be fewer deals that leave supporters scratching their heads.

As it is, even no-brainers such as Emmanuel Adebayor’s transfer from Arsenal to City involve the kind of commissions paid to Treasury advisers on something a good deal more important than the movement of a footballer.

And yet the agent (another established figure, Jon Smith) tells us of Adebayor: "It was not an easy deal as there were many people on the outside trying to become involved, saying they could move him into this club or that club."

This is the mess into which football has been allowed to sink, and supporters, like taxpayers in the wider world, are paying for it.

Let the FA do its duty and banish agents from clubs. Then we shall all get better value for money.

Debate: Do agents perform a useful function or should they be eradicated from the sport?

in Columnists, Featured, Patrick Barclay, The debate, TheGame | Permalink | Comments (13)

December 01, 2009

Is Lionel Messi the right choice for the Ballon D'Or?

Celeb_messi_585_563980a 

Neil Gardner

Lionel Messi was last night crowned as winner of football's prestigious Ballon D'Or after being named European Footballer of the Year. 

The Barcelona forward had an outstanding season, helping his side to an unprecedented treble of the Champions Leaague, the Spanish title and the Copa del Rey. 

Messi was also the top scorer in last year’s Champions League with nine goals, one of which helped seal a 2-0 win over Manchester United in the final.

The 22-year-old was a unanimous winner beating nearest rival Cristiano Ronaldo by an incredible 240 points. But is he the only viable candidate? Does Ronaldo, last year's winner, have as much right to the award after helping United to the Premier League title before a world-record £80 million transfer to Real Madrid?

What of Xavi and Andres Iniesta, Barcelona's engine room, who were as instrumental in the Catalan side's success as Messi?

And how about the claims of several Premier League stars, including Didier Drogba, acknowledged by some as the best striker in the world at the moment, Fernando Torres, Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard, all way behind the enigmatic Argentinian?

Let us know your thoughts below.

in Champions League, The debate | Permalink | Comments (61)

November 29, 2009

The debate: should FA ensure an Englishman succeeds Fabio Capello?

Capello In his new Times column, Patrick Barclay notes how "the stock of the English manager generally has risen in the past 15 months or so, largely because of Roy Hodgson’s achievement in guiding Fulham into Europe on a relatively low budget and Harry Redknapp’s invigoration of Tottenham Hotspur".

Our Chief Football Commentator goes on to list the recent achievements of other English managers in the top flight including Steve Bruce, shining at Sunderland, and Paul Hart, whose reputation is undimmed by the loss of a near-impossible job at Portsmouth.

"Meanwhile," he writes, "the reaction to Sam Allardyce’s recent heart trouble has been a reminder that he, too, has earned more respect than his more self-promotional outbursts seemed to leave room for. And, as for Steve McClaren, look at how well he is doing in the Netherlands with Twente. Were he not an England head coach of the past, people would be tipping him as one for the future."

Should, then, the FA ensure an Englishman succeeds Fabio Capello? E-mail us via the comment box below.

in England, Patrick Barclay, The debate, TheGame | Permalink | Comments (31)

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