The magic 8 ball - What does it say?

ANYONE who knows me will already know that I am absolutely dreadful at predicting anything.  It's a pure fact.  2010 was a luckier year for me in that aspect, but 2011 has already followed the previous poor rate of success.  I may not have a crystal ball, but the magic 8 ball, which you can still get at weird shops and fairs, and also even as a phone application is my predictor.

So, last night, I put him to the test and asked it some questions.  This is the feedback it gave me.  Trust it as a sign...

Will Jamaica still be in the Commonwealth by this time next year? Don't count on it

Is Gordon Brown going to make a sensational return to politics? My sources say no

Will a Skins movie ever be made? Without a doubt

Does Milton Keynes stand any chance of ever gaining city status? Concentrate and ask again

Do you see wedding bells for Nicole Scherzinger and Lewis Hamilton? Without a doubt

Should Chelsea realise they made a mistake and sell Fernando Torres in January 2012? Outlook not so good

Will a British side win the 2011/12 UEFA Europa Leauge? Outlook good

Do you see Ed Miliband remaining as leader of the Labour party at the end of the year? As I see it, yes

Is Sebastian Vettel going to wrap up the 2011 FIA Formula One world championship next weekend in Singapore? It is decidedly so

Will Gaddafi be found in his hiding place? Without a doubt

Will England win the 2011 Rugby World Cup? I'd better not tell you now

In 2,000 years, would you say that dinosaurs return to rule the planet? Reply is hazy, try again

A u-turn by Simon Cowell; will he return to be a judge for the live shows of The X-Factor?  Yes- definitely

A Manchester club to win the 2011/12 Barclays Premier League? Reply is hazy, try again

Do you see Sarah Palin being the next president of the United States?  Very doubtful

Can Nick Clegg make himself even more unpopular with another change of heart?  My reply is no

Will HMV follow Woolworths in going bust by the end of the year?  Ask again later

Do you see it snowing on Christmas Day 2011?  Yes

Out of someone I personally know, will there be a winner of the National Lottery?  Cannot predict now

Do you see Hollyoaks being axed by Channel 4 next summer?  As I see it, yes

So, there you go.  Believe it or not, the magic 8 ball has had its say - let's see if it carries physic powers!

The UEFA Europa League - Is there any point in it?

By Simon Wright (Personal viewpoint)

EUROPE’s second premier club competition began last night, as the third edition of the UEFA Europa League returned.  However, is there any prestige in this competition for let’s be honest; the second-rate sides in European club football.

     The UEFA Europa League made its debut on the football scene in the 2009/10 season, following the decision to restructure the even worse UEFA Cup.  Back in the 90s, there were three European competitions, which were merged into two in 1999, when the Cup Winners Cup was ditched.  The old UEFA Cup format had an opening first round, a tedious and pathetic second group phase where losing two of your four group matches was normally okay to progress, then more knockout football until a predictably drab final.  British success in this competition was fairly normal though, with Liverpool winning it in 2001 following that amazing 5-4 final against Alaves in Dortmund.  Both Celtic and Middlesbrough made it all the way to the final and if it wasn’t for UEFA Cup glory in 2003, the name Jose Mourinho would still largely have been unheard of. 

     The new format of the Europa League does make the competition a bit more entertaining to watch, despite the demanding schedule.  Four qualifying rounds are followed by 48 teams proceeding into a typical group stage.  Twelve groups of four teams, with the sides competing playing each other home and away, like the Champions League.  After Christmas, the 24 sides that ended first and second go into the third round, joined by the eight ‘lucky losers’ who finished third in their UEFA Champions League groups.  From there on, knockout football takes place until the final at the beginning of May, which this year, will be held in Bucharest, Romania.  The final play-off round this year saw the likes of AS Roma, Sevilla, Panathinaikos and Palermo knocked out before even reaching the group phase; teams you would expect to be around in the final reckoning.

    This season, Britain will be represented by five sides.  After winning the Carling Cup in February, Birmingham City enter Europe, despite playing in the Npower Championship.  After reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League last season, Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham start rightfully as favourites.  Two years after their historic run to the final in Hamburg under Roy Hodgson, Fulham are back in the Europa League, with Martin Jol in charge.  Stoke City embark on their first continental campaign in over 40 years, a fitting reward for their run to the FA Cup final last season.  Finally, Celtic earnt a reprieve into the competition, after the side that beat them in the final playoff round; FC Sion, were expelled for fielding ineligible players against the Scottish side.  However, it wasn’t a great start for the British teams last night in the opening set of fixtures.  Celtic lost 2-0 to Atletico Madrid, Fulham were held 1-1 at home by dangerous Dutch side FC Twente, Birmingham got soundly beaten 3-1 at home by last year’s uninspiring runners-up Sporting Braga, Tottenham escaped with a 0-0 draw from Greece against PAOK Salonika and Stoke held Dynamo Kiev to a 1-1 stalemate in the Ukraine, coming so close to a historic win.

     With the extra demand on playing Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons every fortnight, most Premiership managers will see it being a poisoned chalice rather than a reward to play in the UEFA Europa League and I can’t blame them.  For example, my team Liverpool missed out on European football this season for the first time since 2000.  Although the club won’t get any of those special Euro evenings at Anfield, lose a bit of income from television revenue and ticket sales, it is predicted that Kenny Dalglish will see a major benefit for not being in an extra competition which, providing going all the way, will consist of another 20 matches!  Not only does it mean that Liverpool can focus more on the domestic cup competitions, but it provides a far clearer run than say Tottenham in the fight for fourth place in the Premiership. 

     Despite the added demand, I’m disappointed that many clubs, not just English ones don’t treat the competition with the respect it does deserve.  Once you are in it, you should do what you can to win it and it can provide memorable moments for the fans.  The UEFA Europa League is the perfect competition to blood some of the youngsters in your squad into battle.  Harry Redknapp has sent this message across already, by controversially leaving the gifted Rafael van der Vaart out of his 25-man Europa squad until the knockout stages at the earliest.  Although I admire Harry’s determination to play the youngsters, he hasn’t got the right balance.  After all, the fans and TV viewers want to see the likes of Bale, Lennon, van der Vaart, Defoe and Modric – not Livermore, Kane, Obika and Cudicini.  Youth policy has worked in this competition before.  Chris Smalling would never got his move to Manchester United had he not featured for Fulham in the early stages of the 2009/10 competition and Hodgson used the group stages to gives the likes of Martin Kelly, Jonjo Shelvey and Jay Spearing a chance in Liverpool’s first team last season; without compensating for a swift early exit too.  I love to see youth given a go, but it is frustrating to see some treat it better than others and that leads me to the question; if you don’t want to take it seriously, don’t bother qualifying for it.

     This season’s competition does have the likes of Atletico Madrid, PSV Eindhoven, Sporting Lisbon, Schalke 04 and PSG – but they aren’t the Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and AC Milan of today’s world.  I think UEFA have found the right balance and don’t need to make swift changes to the UEFA Europa League.  It works well but should be taken far more seriously.  Otherwise, you have to question its general worth.  Channel Five don’t bite!

Roy Hodgson dismissed as Liverpool turn to Kenny

ROY Hodgson has left Liverpool by mutual consent with immediate effect.  A statement on the club website confirmed the Englishman’s dismissal today, after a string of poor results.  Former Reds manager Kenny Dalglish has been installed as manager until the end of the season, with the Scot racing back from a holiday abroad to take charge of the team’s FA Cup trip to Manchester United tomorrow afternoon.

Principal owner John Henry released the news this morning, with the following message; “We are grateful for Roy's efforts over the past six months, but both parties thought it in the best interests of the club that he stand down from his position as team manager. We wish him all the best for the future."

GONE: Roy Hodgson got the chop this morning as Liverpool boss

Hodgson, 63, was installed as manager in the summer of Liverpool, after Rafa Benitez’s acrimonious departure.  He came with a big reputation, having guided Fulham to the UEFA Europa League final last season and also managing Switzerland to the last 16 in the 1994 World Cup finals.  Shortly after taking over, he convinced star players Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres to commit their long-term futures to the club.  Joe Cole arrived on a free transfer from champions Chelsea, but after that, it all started to go downhill for Roy.

The fans never seemed to question his appointment from the start and results simply didn’t come.  Liverpool were embarrassingly knocked out of the Carling Cup on September 22 by League Two strugglers Northampton Town at Anfield on penalties and less than two weeks later, Blackpool won 2-1 at Anfield, which left Liverpool in their lowest league position for over 40 years. 

The takeover of the club by John Henry and Thomas Werner provided Hodgson with some respite, and progress was made in the Europa League, with a super Gerrard performance seeing off Serie A high-flyers Napoli.  League form also improved briefly, with a Maxi Rodriguez late winner seeing the Reds secure their only away win of the season at Bolton Wanderers, then two terrific Torres goals bought Chelsea down to defeat at the beginning of November. 

Sadly, that was the high for Hodgson in his tumultuous reign at Anfield.  Awful away form, coupled with a horrific home defeat to bottom side Wolves and the dismal form of new signings Raul Meireles and Paul Konchesky.  Despite a bit of respite by a late win over Bolton Wanderers on New Year’s Day, another shambolic display on the road at Blackburn in midweek turned out to be the final straw for the board.  Seven wins in 22 FA Premier League matches with 12^th position in the league is simply unacceptable for a club of Liverpool’s stature, which left Roy in an untenable position. 

POPULAR: Kenny Dalglish is back, to the fans delight

He was LMA manager of the year last season, so it shows how fickle that football can be.  Overnight, he isn’t a bad manager and is certainly one of the nicest guys in the game.  However, Roy Hodgson proved out to be the wrong person at the wrong time and tested the patience of the fans to the limit.  He won’t be missed by many around Merseyside and the question is; can King Kenny turn around Liverpool’s ludicrous season. 

Victory at Old Trafford tomorrow in the FA Cup would be the best start. . .

Daring Desmond Buys Out Five

The future of Channel Five has been secured for now, after it was taken over last week by Richard Desmond, the owner of the Daily Star and the Daily Express.  Desmond’s company, Northern Shell completed its takeover with immediate effect from the German broadcaster RTL, in a deal worth an estimated £104 million.  RTL confirmed that a pick-up in the UK advertising revenue convinced them that it was the right time to sell.

Mr. Desmond, who has also indicated that he’d like to buy The Sun newspaper off Rupert Murdoch and News Corp of recent times, was delighted with his new acquisition:

“I am delighted to have taken over as ownership of the network, and know with the right leadership, drive and investment; it can go from strength to strength as a competitive broadcaster and a modern player for the big consumer.”

Richard Desmond has had a very enterprising career in the media industry since he left school with very few academic qualifications.  By the age of 21, he owned two record shops, and acquired the rights to the Daily Express in the year 2000 – through money that he had made in the adult entertainment market.  Under his ownership, the Daily Express and OK! Magazine seem to have thrived underneath his ownership, both on a content and commercial basis, which will make this move very positive for Dawn Airey, the chief executive of Five.

Channel Five was launched by the Spice Girls on March 31^st 1997, but was hit very hard by the slump in advertising revenues during the recession last year.  It has managed to rebuke several attempts and suggestions for a merger with Channel 4, but has struggled to make an impact on the major players in the terrestrial market.  Five is currently home to CSI, Flash Forward, UEFA Europa League Football and Australian soaps Home & Away and Neighbours. 

It is likely that Desmond will make significant cuts to begin with, like he has with the Daily Express.  However, he has already indicated that he wants to bring back Top of the Pops, and possibly attempt to revive Big Brother, currently in its final series with Channel 4.  It will be very interesting to see how things work out, but whilst RTL were only in the game for a moneymaking venture, Desmond’s takeover can only be seen as a positive step forward for Five.  Not only has it secured its future, which has been questionable for some time, but it will give them the stepping stone to start competing heavily with other channels in public broadcasting.           

Steve McLaren - A Dutch Master

Do we all remember England’s shambolic failure to qualify for Euro 2008 in Austria/Switzerland?  The ‘Wally in a Brolly,’ headlines and the failure that was Steve McLaren.  Well, things have changed since that soggy, miserable Wembley night in November 2007, for both parties.

Whilst under the guidance of Fabio Capello, England have breezed into the World Cup finals in South Africa this summer, making the world sit up and take notice whilst doing so.  Meanwhile, McLaren has been attempting to rebuild his destroyed coaching reputation at the unheralded Dutch side, FC Twente.  This he has managed to do rather impressively and he will have bound to have raised a few eyebrows across Europe with the success over the weekend.

FC Twente became Dutch champions on Sunday, McLaren leading them to their first Eredevisie success in their 45-year history.  Facing Europa League hopefuls NAC Breda on Sunday, FC Twente stayed cool under the pressure and overcame the 10-men 2-0, with goals from Chelsea loanee Miroslav Stoch and their club-record signing, Bryan Ruiz.  It meant that Twente held on to win the league, one point clear of Martin Jol’s Ajax side.

Ajax may have won their last 14 games, including a 2-0 win over their title rivals a fortnight ago and amassed a staggering goal difference of +86, but Twente held on for a historic triumph, in an incredibly consistent season, which saw them lose just two games.  With the likes of AZ Alkmaar and former European Cup winners PSV Eindhoven beaten comprehensively into submission, this is a very impressive statistic.

McLaren, who turned 49 today, may not have the best Dutch accent around, but he has been able to master the Dutch game for sure.  Last season, his first season in charge, he took the club to 2^nd in the table and a Dutch Cup final appearance.  To have gone one better is very impressive, for a man, who when he took over in June 2008, it looked like a desperate move for a manager on the verge on liquidation.  He also steered FC Twente to Round three of the UEFA Europa League this season, eventually going down in a bruising encounter with German neighbours, Werder Bremen.

Despite successful spells as No.2 at Derby, and as Sir Alex Ferguson’s right-hand man at Manchester United, plus a five-year reign at Middlesbrough, which saw the Teesiders win the 2004 Carling Cup and reach a UEFA Cup final, it’s his England reign that will haunt his career.  His failure to get through a seemingly easy group on paper was galling, especially some of his questionable selections throughout the Euro 2008 campaign, including dropping David Beckham altogether and playing the has-been likes of David Nugent upfront.  However, his spell at FC Twente has been nothing short of a success and I wish them all the best in the group stages of the UEFA Champions League next season.

Congratulations to FC Twente and Steve McLaren, he truly is a Dutch Master!

UEFA Europa League - The Fulham Fairytale Continues

Well, who would have thought of it, Fulham are the most successful British club in European competition this season!  Last night, Roy Hodgson’s men continued their incredible fairytale infront of a delighted Craven Cottage crowd and achieved the improbable, by knocking out another giant, in the form of German opposition. 

Hamburg SV may have been without a permanent manager, but with the incentive of playing the UEFA Europa League final, infront of their own fans in Hamburg and with stars like Mladen Petric, Joris Mathjisen and Ruud Van Nistlerooy amongst their ranks, surely they would be able to extinguish the burning Fulham flame.  It looked so for a large proportion of the semi-final, second leg encounter at Craven Cottage, with Petric’s stunning free-kick given the Germans the critical away goal.  However, never write Fulham off at your peril and once again, they showed the incredible chemistry that Hodgson has managed to bond together throughout this historic journey.  Simon Davies equalised with a clever finish, then Hungarian Zoltan Gera capitalised on sloppy defending to fire Fulham infront.  They held out for the final fifteen minutes, to complete the greatest victory of their history, and send them into the final in Hamburg on May 12^th.

They will face Spanish underachievers Atletico Madrid in the final, with Madrid overcoming the Anfield factor, to overcome Liverpool after extra-time.  Despite losing on the night 2-1, a critical away goal in the extra period from the ex-Manchester United flop, Diego Forlan, handed the final shattering blow on the Liverpool career of Rafa Benitez.  With no trophies in four seasons and a dismal 7^th place finish on the cards, there is surely only one option now for the board at Anfield to consider.  Their season has been truly forgettable.

However, this night belonged to Fulham and rightly so.  Hamburg will be their 19^th game in this competition, starting the staggering run way back in July 2009.  They scraped past FC Basle in the group stages and came through two bruising games against AS Roma, very much with pride intact.  Knocking out the talented holders Shakhtar Donetsk was a very impressive achievement, but to rip apart Juventus was another story.  Trailing 3-1 from the first leg in Round four, the Cottagers fell a goal down early on at home, to David Trezeguet.  However, they stormed back to win 4-1 on the night, and 5-4 on aggregate, as the Serie A legends were made to look like amateurs.  German champions VFL Wolfsburg were no match in the last eight for Hodgson’s men and now with Hamburg out of the way, who would be a fool, not to put any money on them winning the inaugural UEFA Europa League.

Two years ago, it took a Danny Murphy header at Portsmouth on the last day of the season, to keep Fulham in the FA Barclays Premiership by the skin of their teeth.  Now, captain Murphy will lead Fulham out for a European final.  Let’s hope this fairytale gets its deserved happy ending….

Goal-Line Technology Rejected - Another Own Goal From FIFA!

Another meeting involving the world’s football governing body and once again, another own goal.  At a high-profile conference in Zurich, FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his fellow officials from FIFA have rejected the calls from many, both inside and outside of the game for goal-line technology.  I personally hope that this won’t come back to haunt them.

The need for video technology in football is of essential importance, especially as we have the technology to do it.  It is a debate that has raged on for nearly five years and is not set to continue.  Maybe there hasn’t been enough corporation from other football governing bodies, but whatever the outcome, this was the chance for FIFA to show their authority and once again, they have failed to deliver.

Jerome Valcke, FIFA’s general secretary said that “Technology should not enter into the game, it was a clear statement made by the majority of the IFAB.”  “Let’s keep the game of football as it is.”  So, if the World Cup in South Africa is plagued by controversial decisions, then who do blame.  It could well be another tricky summer for officials and linesman, quite possibly on the run from angry football associations.  The World Cup in Germany suffered from this.  Graham Poll could have avoided human error, when deciding to give Josip Simunic three yellow cards, during the Croatia v Australia group match.  Then the Australians were knocked out by Italy, due to a blatant stoppage time dive from left-back, Fabio Grosso.

Recently, Ireland were robbed of a place at the 2010 finals by Thierry Henry’s ‘Hand of God,’ in the World Cup play-off in Paris and just today, Birmingham’s Liam Ridgewell was denied a blatant goal in Birmingham’s 2-0 FA Cup 6^th round defeat at penniless Portsmouth.  His header was clearly shown over the line by ITV cameras, before David James could block the shot.  Ironically, this came just hours after the frustrating meeting in Zurich.  Talk about stupidity. 

Technology works in so many other sports.  Both Rugby Union and Rugby League have embraced the device with winning results.  Cricket’s success of the 3^rd umpire has made decisions for dodgy dismissals a thing of the past and the game of Tennis has been advanced by the introduction of Hawk-Eye on some critical points.  Football has been very slow to possibly embrace the technology and now, it has ruled it out altogether is very disappointing. 

FIFA did say that they would consider extra officials behind the goal-line, a feature that has been trialled with the UEFA Europa League this season.  However, having watched many Europa League games this season, I have branded this as a spectacular failure by UEFA.  Consequently, it wouldn’t surprise me if FIFA’s incompetence would mean these feature would be installed into competitive games.

Maybe it is time for associations like the FA and UEFA to break away from Blatter’s viewpoint and trial technology.  What is for sure, technology in football is needed and would make the game a better place.  Sadly, after today’s meeting, it looks like we are even further away from this proposal.