Ian Holloway - coming to a Premier League ground near you

The football season may be in its last breaths before the World Cup roars into being, but the old dog has shown in the last week that it still has plenty of life in it yet. This week has seen a brilliant Championship play-off final at a boiling Wembley, a rather tedious Champions League final, a worrying England game and yet more wild rumours about the imminent movements of players and a certain manager alike.

There is though only one place to start this week and that is in the rather decrepit (and I think that is being kind) northern seaside town of Blackpool. This town has a football club made up of a collection of lower league journeymen, a comedy manager, a three sided ground and a home kit of lurid tangerine. Back in August Blackpool were bracketed with the mighty Scunthorpe in being joint favourites to finish rock bottom of the Championship but by some minor miracle they will be playing at a Premier League ground near you from August. The promotion of the Seasiders shows that most clubs in the football league can dream of reaching the promised land as they have done it not with a billionaire sugar daddy and backed by a large home support, instead they have spent next to nothing and with an average attendance of less than ten thousand. The game that clinched their promotion was nothing short of exhilarating as they shared five goals with Cardiff in a breathless first-half played in soaring temperatures. The game showed that Blackpool approach games in a refreshing manner as they did not look to start in a defensive manner as would have been perfectly understandable for a game of such magnitude. Instead they attacked throughout and scored three goals for their rewards, but their defence was anything other than watertight. This should be some warning for possible future misery for plucky old Blackpool as Premier League teams are rather adept of punishing cavalier promoted teams with fairly devastating consequences (just ask those poor people from Burnley and Barnsley). Anyway now is not the time for worrying about the future as Blackpool should enjoy their summer and the sheer novelty of it all and look forward to the new stand, new training ground and new players that they intend to buy with their £90million. As for Cardiff they now face an uncertain financial future that Leeds fans will be able to advise them on having also had experience of Peter Ridsdale’s chairmanship, so expect fire sales rather than purchases of shiny new footballers with lovely Sky money in the capital of Wales. So good luck Blackpool, and all of football should applaud their arrival in the Premier League, but no doubt Fergie, Arsene and Rafa will moan about the poor conditions of the ground (especially if they return from Bloomfield Road pointless) next season.
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Messi's 4 goals eliminate Arsenal

Well dear reader another week has passed since we last met and the end of the season is now very much in focus which inevitably leads to drama in more games than not. The week just passed began with Arsenal and Manchester United trying to continue the Premier League’s dominance of the latter stages of the Champions League. An injury ravaged Arsenal attempted to beat the greatest football team since records began (as decided by the English media in 2010 so ignoring the Milan team of the 1990s, the Ajax team of the 1970s and the Real Madrid team of the 1950s) and predictably got thrashed by some chap called Messi. Lionel played rather well but it must be remembered that Arsenal were completely under-strength for the game and I would fancy most half decent teams to score a few goals against a back four containing Mickael Silvestre.

So with Arsenal out all eyes turned to that big warehouse in an industrial estate in western Manchester (which for some reason is branded as the “Theatre of Dreams” by the self-titled biggest club in the world) to see if Manchester United could beat Bayern Munich and so make it to the semi-finals of the Champions League. After twenty minutes United had steam-rollered the Germans and were cruising but then somehow managed to throw it away courtesy of a brilliant goal by that crock who used to play for Chelsea – Arjen Robben. Alex Ferguson’s (I refuse to call him Sir) reaction to this game was hilarious as he said the Munich players pressured the referee into sending off Rafael. Now for those of you with short memories I would ask you to remember every time a decision has gone against Manchester United in the last twenty years and think of the sight of Roy Keane, Gary Neville, Jaap Stam and Rio Ferdinand surrounding countless referees. That man Ferguson really beggars belief. He also decided to play the clearly injured Wayne Rooney further showing that United are nothing other than a one man team.
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Rooney picks up a knock at Munich

Good day dear reader, it is safe to say that quite a lot has happened in the last week which has made it slightly difficult to focus on particular points for this blog. I therefore apologise if I have missed anything that you feel worthy of discussion. I am currently writing this on Tuesday 6 April 2010 in the play-off fearing garden city of Leeds. This means that I am still awaiting the outcome of Manchester United’s and Arsenal’s Champions League quarter final games. Having seen the first legs though it seems inconceivable that they both can progress to the next round. Starting with Arsene’s lot from North London via France, I don’t think I have witnessed a more dominant first twenty minutes of a game (that is until Manchester City travelled to Turf Moor but more of that later) as Barcelona completely out-Arsenaled Arsenal.

I am not a huge fan of the club from Catalonia as I find that they are usually over-hyped by commentators and analysts to the point where it is just assumed that all of their players are absolute geniuses (in the same way that we will be treated to in the upcoming World Cup in every game involving Brazil). I have to admit though that they completely destroyed Arsenal at the start of the game in such a way that they should have been at least 5-0 up at half-time, however, by some miracle Arsenal managed to come back to snatch a very fortuitous draw.

The Arsenal game followed a similar theme to that involving those lovely bunch of chaps from Manchester the night before, being that all the talk afterwards was of nothing other than injuries. In Arsenal’s case it seemed to be that every single one of their players was now injured for a number of weeks, but in the case of Manchester United it was one injury in particular that had the whole of England in a cold sweat. Yes dear reader the worst case scenario seemed to have passed – Wayne Rooney looked to have badly injured his ankle right at the end of their game with Bayern Munich. The sight of Rooney hobbling off the field without one boot on brought back images of his withdrawal from Euro 2004 – surely it couldn’t be the curse of the metatarsal?
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Jose Mourinho has a successful return to Stamford Bridge

It has been another action-packed week in the continually wacky world of football that has managed to provide numerous talking points (luckily for me in the sense that this article would be rather sparse if nothing eventful had happened). I will therefore dear reader attempt to cover the main headlines that have emerged from the Champions League, the Europa League (nee UEFA Cup), the Premier League and lastly the Football League.

To take you back to the middle of last week, we were in the midst of the second round of fixtures to decide the quarter final line-up of the Champions League. The focal point of hype was the second leg of the Chelsea v. Inter Milan tie as this saw the return of “The Special One” to Stamford Bridge (Sky got so excited in the build-up to this fixture that they even led one bulletin with a report that Jose was going for a walk in Hyde Park, which seems to put question marks on the use of the word “News” in “Sky Sports News”).

Going into this game I fully expected Chelsea to be too strong for Inter as despite losing the first leg 2-1 they were actually the better team in that game. What transpired, however, was a tepid Chelsea performance as Inter controlled the game from start to finish and fully deserved to progress into the last eight. I therefore feel obliged to partially eat my words on the weakness of Serie A as suggested a couple of weeks ago as Inter completely out-played Chelsea and seemed to have superior players in every position. Since arriving at Stamford Bridge with his billions in 2003, Roman Abramovich has craved the Champions League more than any other trophy. Despite hiring a manager with an extremely good record in the competition and a team packed with winning experience they have again failed. It may be harsh to dispense with Ancelotti but there is an increasingly valid train of thought that the Chelsea team is an ageing group that is only going to get worse. Therefore expect Roman to get the cheque-book out to reinvigorate his Chelsea team to give them a fresh crack at wining the ultimate club football prize.
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Career over for David?

Having in recent weeks put my neck on the line by attempting to predict the outcome of the various ongoing battles in the Premier League, I am retreating to safer territory by giving my take on the goings on in the last week in the world of football.

If I can take you back, dear reader, to the middle of last week you will recall that we were in the midst of the first installment of the second leg Champions League ties (I don’t really know what this round of the competition is actually called but I do know that I refuse to call it the round of 16 as this is Europe not America). These games saw Arsenal and Manchester United progress with considerable ease into the quarter finals with comfortable wins over Porto and AC Milan, however they confirmed the fact that Italian football really must be rather poor as AC Milan looked absolutely hopeless at Old Trafford yet they sit only 3 points off the top of Serie A – but more of them later. Special mention also to Samir Nasri who scored a truly brilliant goal in the Arsenal game which I urge you to check out below if you missed it.

As the games involving the English teams were relatively incident free, special mention should go to Lyon who hilariously knocked out Real Madrid. For the last couple of years Michel Platini and Sepp Blatter have made increasing noises about the debt levels of English clubs as they continue to dominate European club football yet ignoring the spending of the big two from Spain. Safe to say that Madrid did not find Ronaldo, Kaka, Benzema and Alonso under the Christmas tree – they actually borrowed a lot of money to pay for them. Despite of this they have again been knocked out in the first knock-out round to the far more modest Olympique Lyonnais. They will no doubt react by sacking their manager and signing another bunch of over-priced attackers only to suffer the same fate next year. It seems they just don’t learn having witnessed the previous Galactico nonsense end in complete chaos.
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Barcelona win the Champions League

So I was half right. I did manage to predict 2 goals from Barcelona. It’s just that Man Utd let me down and didn’t score the 3 they were meant to.

First of all, hats off to Barca. They were majestic. Although, Pep Guardiola has surely been playing Football Manager. He employs the exact same formation that I have used to guide Newcastle Utd to multiple League and European titles. The whole tactic revolves around your midfield 3 (in this case, Iniesta, Xavi and Busquets) controlling 80/90% of the possession combining with 2 attacking midfielders/wingers (Messi and Henry) and a strong forward (Eto’o). So, congratulations to the Football Manager community. This victory is yours.

It was however, one of the poorest United performances I have seen for a while. And I must start my analysis with questioning Sir Alex’s team selection. He must have had an idea that Barca would have fielded this tactic, as they have done in almost all of the games this season, so one thing you will want to avoid, is being out numbered in midfield. Yet that is exactly what happened. Giggs and Anderson were often far too far away from Carrick, leaving him isolated, and as a result, he ended up giving the ball away almost as soon as he got it. Surely Scholes would have been a better bet.

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Champions League Trophy

So we come to it at last, the Great Game of Our Time.

Or something like that. The Champions League final marks the finale and the pinnacle of European (and World) Football. And what a game it’s shaping up to be this year!

Whilst I felt sympathy for Chelsea when they were knocked out by Barcelona a couple of weeks ago, I’ve always felt that this fixture would offer the better proposition for the neutral fan.

Sadly time dictates that I can’t offer a full preview of the game (you can get one here) as my dinner is imminent, but suffice to say I can’t wait to see it, even though it requires me to be up at 4am!

My prediction: Man Utd. 3-2 in an enthralling game.

Didier Drogba rages at the referee.

It’s been a night of high emotions at Stamford Bridge, where Bracelona scraped through to the Champions League Final on away goals.

I really feel for the Chelsea players and fans, because it is such a frustrating way to go out of the competition. Despite dominating the tie they failed to kill the game off, and Barcelona scored with their only shot on goal (albeit a pretty spectacular one).

Rather then the two exceptional goals that were scored, what will be remembered from this game, are the ugly scenes that followed the final whistle, with Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack leading the Chelsea players in a verbal attack on referee Tom Ovrebo. Whilst such behavior is unprofessional and will warrant deserved punishment from UEFA, you can’t help but feel for them.

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