Monday 27 April 2015

Backing The Boro

First off, I'm not pissed off. Boro were magnificent in their 4-3 defeat at Fulham and although it was a little heartbreaking to not get owt out of the game at all, they've got to be feeling that the play-offs is ours to win.I didn't blame the manager or the keeper - let's face it he's not the first reckless Greek we've seen in recent times.

The play-offs beckon. The prize the right to play David Cameron's favourite team next season - whoever the fuck that might be.You don't simply forget the name of the team you support unless you fucking well made it up. It's symptomatic of the superior, patronising and all too stage-managed nature of this election that some stuck-up knobhead thinks he can make us like him more by saying he's supports a football team. 

Any road, a visit to Chelsea next season will mean playing the Champions. Which means the rest of the League has been pretty poor. Not that Mourinho will give a fig. I don't particularly like the fella or the way he sets up his teams to play - especially in the big games - but frankly the bloke is nigh on a genius when it comes to eking out results. 

The team itself has lots to admire about it. It's just that those qualities  - organisation, discipline, efficiency - are the least uplifting. They're less a football team and more a high quality private security firm. At the Emirates, Arsenal fans resorted to calling Chelsea boring, and to be fair, I've had conjunctivitis that's easier on the eye. But one, George Graham was duller still, a Phil Collins to Jose's Coldplay; and two,  Wenger simply doesn't know how to beat Mourinho - be that football, or banter.

Indeed Wenger's comments about Chelsea are the verbal equivalent of an underhit backpass. He keeps making Jose come across like Groucho Marx.

Wenger: It's easy to defend.
Mourinho: You lost 3-1 to Monaco. You call that easy?

Arsenal fans: Chelsea are boring.
Mourinho: Not winning the league for ten years - that's boring.

You can almost see John Terry in a Harpo wig, honking the hooter at every retort.

Indeed Mourinho was right to point to his captain as outstanding. Terry continues to be the best centre-half in the country, and his fellow pros appear to agree with me. It's annoying when someone who is patently a git is undeniably good at something, though isn't it? It's like when people always insisted that Bernard Manning was a brilliant comedian, technically. He was also a great ball of vitriol and bile. Which trumps funny, I reckon.

So while the molten bronze gets poured into the mould for Mourinho's Special One memorial statue, the other managers huff and puff about might-have-beens in a somewhat self-delusional mode. Van Gaal reckoned Man Utd would have won the title had they made a better start... well, duh King Louis, and Paula Radcliffe would have won the London Marathon if she'd only done the first bit on a scooter. It's irrelevant.

Brendan Rodgers praised his side for their goalless draw at West Brom. 'Outstanding' he called them. Which is like calling an impotent man 'fertile'. Liverpool have a lot of head-scratching to do. I hope Rodgers sorts it out as he seems like a decent enough bloke.

At the bottom Tim Sherwood laughs off the notion of relegation. T'ain't a laughing matter. I'd rather I had Nigel Pearson telling me 'there was still a lot of work to do'. The prospect of Newcastle being caught on the line hasn't vanished yet. John Carver looks like a bloke trying to build a house with a sack of balsa wood and some cheese-string. Poor fella. Half the fans are staying at home while the others are bringing sofas into the Gallowgate so they've got something to hide behind.

Having said that it looks very much like Burnley and QPR are down, not least because every time they get a spot-kick, the taker shows all the confidence of a nd Sunderland/Hull will be slipping from the summit. If it's the Mackems then at least there'll still be two North-East teams in the top division.

Won't there?





54 comments:

  1. Rogers is a decent enough bloke but motivation ........
    Good blog, Robbo

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  2. Good stuff and good luck Robbo, although an 18-0 win and a defeat for B'mouth might get it done. Apologies on behalf of all Bolton fans, granted that's not many these days, but it's sincere.

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  3. Good blog, Robbo!

    Are the lower point totals of the top teams a dip in form, or a sign of 'parity,' which is an American buzzword used by NFL pundits to suggest that any team can beat any other team? (Meanwhile, the Noo Inglund Patri-ats appear in and win yet another title game)

    The Everton win Sunday was satisfying in that they played well, but a win against United definitely had more value a couple of years ago. So I might have just answered my own question.

    Chelsea are annoying, Terry is a talented jerk, and Rodgers' main problem is that the players he bought have not panned out. They also had an exceptional season last year. Applying the cold logic of the cash register, Liverpool should be vying with Arsenal for 4th place. So they punched a bit above their weight last year, a bit below this year. Law of averages, right? Maybe not - that Suarez guy was a talisman...

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  4. Wonder whose hooters JT is honking...

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    1. Does England have Hooters? If so, I'm sure he's honking all the hooters at Hooters...

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  5. Mourinho has a go at pundits, the media, keep-ball, and football from the moon! I like him when he is in form - very keen observations, but humorous, no petulance:

    http://tinyurl.com/mh9u4k8

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  6. Yes, I was feeling very confident of Villa staying up since Tim turned things around... but as soon as he laughed off relegation I started worrying again!

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  7. We'll see Del Boy what happens in the playoffs.

    If we both reach the final I'm up in the North East that weekend.

    Blue Bell?

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  8. Wow, Robbo's had his blogger All Bran - regular as bullshit stories in the Sun.

    Hippie Crack - or Entenox as it's known is what is given to footballers when they are treated on the pitch for serious injuries, not oxygen as most reporters like to write. But the Sun will probably say that Ben Davies was just the latest in a long line of players to be taking this killer drug - IN FULL VIEW OF CHILDREN!

    Just thought I'd do an Erica Roe and get it off my chest!

    Rastafairy

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  9. Goal-less draw with West Brom and a loss to Hull. Not just a loss, but one with no chance of being anything else.The only surprise was we didnt lose by more goals. Given that this was pretty much do or die as far as 4th spot is concerned, the starting lineup was disappointing. I can only imagine BR is trying to finish behind Spurs and Saints to avoid having to play europa.

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    1. looked as if Balotelli had a tenner on Hull.

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  10. Cameron phoney twat. Doesn't prince William also pretend to support villa? They've decided it's the team least likely to offend anyone, and who cares what west brom fans think anyway. I would like to forget the team I support as they're shit and wake up one morning thinking I'm a Barcelona fan but it would minimum take early onset alzheimers in which case no one would be voting me in as pm any time soon. One billion times More likely to be shithead fakery.

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  11. Doesn't Tom Hanks support Aston Villa too?

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  12. Nigel Pearson is the Hamlet of football I cant tell anymore if he's mad or just pretending to be for effect, and Im not sure if he knows either.

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  13. Bolton striker Emile Heskey, 37, is set to sign a new deal at the club as the Championship side target promotion to the Premier League next season.

    that's just fuckin' great news. Frank Worthington is also making a comeback.

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    1. Works for Drogba and Chelsea.

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    2. yeah, he's 3rd string, 4 league goals all season. Frank Worthington will be our Diego Costa.

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  14. Big game tomorrow col u vs. Preston. Colchester win, they stay up, Preston win ..they get promoted. Preston the better team but Colchester have home advantage. One game season for both teams.

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  15. Footballers really are brain dead aren't they. Sol Campbell the latest evidence. From the age of 9 they are groomed by similarly brain dead failed footballers to focus entirely on running up and down and kicking a ball. Past 14, it's pretty much the only thing I their lives. Other sports leave space for things like education and collecting antiques ('Graham le said, the middle class footballer') but not football. It's not even tune, it's the culture of the sport. Shocking really, considering how few make it. Of all the kids playing in all the academies at every age group right now only 9 will ever pay in the premiership, they reckon. That's nine. More in the other leagues, but once you're down to league 1 the money isn't there. It's all a weird combination of dream factory and border line child abuse.

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  16. The whole Chelsea is boring bollox, is boring. I personally can't stand Chelsea, but that's neither here nor thre, they will win the league and deservedly so.

    Maureen is a grade A twonk, a horrible excuse of a person, completly void of humility or class, but he is a winner and he knows how to get results in a, let's say, not so asthetically pleasing manner. Defending is also an art, one his teams are well scholed in. I think people take offence because he sets his team up to stiffle and strangle a game, which is acceptable if you are relegation fodder, but not acceptable for a team that has cost billions.

    He really doesn't have to play that way, at the start of the season Chelsea were blowing teams away and looking good doing it, but in the end he always turns his flair players into cogs in a well driled defencive machine. His overly cautios approach got them knocked out of the CL, if they had bothered just playing against PSG they would of walked into the next round.

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    1. Maureen is like one of those irritating characters in Game of Thrones that you can't wait for them to meet a grisly end. They seem invincible then die from something banal when you least expect it.

      Spider

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  17. Maureen plays the averages if man city and united had competed the approach would be more justified. Killing the game with arsenal looked more a matter of pscychic warfare with someone who could be the main rival next year (if they get a top striker) in the context of the season and a massive lead he didn't need to do it but he was determined not to boost arsenal morale

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  18. Exciting end to the season in the prem. Not the top 4, obviously, which has a hardy perennial feel about it again. Liverpool and spurs have been joined in their europey mini league by Southampton, for now at least. Usual stoke, Everton, west ham suspects in the middle who will never win anything ever, ever again. Pardrw and pulis have performed miracles with palace and west brom who looked contenders for the drop until they arrived. Burnley and qpr would need to employ pardew or pulis tomorrow to survive, which is another way of saying tara. Villa will be ok, hull, Sunderland struggling. The club looking must like they will never ever win again are Newcastle who are in crisis 8 defeats in a row with a manager who looks hopelessly out of his depth with a bunch of players who dont look like they give a shit.

    But as the Mag pies turn ostriches I've got to ask, what the fuck has Nigel Pearson been putting in the energy drinks at Leicester recently, the new physio with the pulled down cap that's not lance Armstrong is it? Incredible turn around for them and looking a good bet to stay up now.

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    1. Forgot to mention Gary monk. Sherwood doing well too. The rise, at last of the English manager. Scots on the way out, in more ways than one. Good luck to them, the Tories esp Thatcher and Cameron have finished the union. Hope their economy dies better than their footie. Post-oil I'm not sure it will, lol.

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    2. dies/does but same thing

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    3. The UK governed by Wallace wearing a wig used by the hitman in No Country for Old Men and Jimmy Krankie. What a pair of comedians - oops forgot that one of them's Jimmy Krankie!

      Spider

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    4. Fandabbydozzi!

      Lazy gammon faced shyster Cameron and his pip squeak aside kick not forgetting Boris the Clown and that oily piece of shit Gove, currently locked in a cupboard until after the election, don't to me at least present a particularly appealing alternative, spider, particularly if they need the support of man of the people (lol) farage and the sinister neo nazis of the DUP to form a government but admittedly they all have the advantage of not being monsterec by the right wing foreign owned press for five years. The fact that ed had proven able to strung a sentence together and do up his own shoelaces has probably pleasantly surprised a lot of voters. The UK has profound and probably terminal political divisions and who ever wins on Thursday isn't I think going to get far in fixing them. 5 more years of Cameron will see the certain exit of the Scots though and I might just move up there with my family.

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    5. You take the high road…...

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    6. Don't have any time for Smarmy Dave either. He's just Bliar in a blue rosette.

      Spider

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  19. Ninja warrior UK fantastic fun. And then...a parcour professional rips up the course in a minute. Oh.

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  20. Pacquiao defeated (not on my scorecard). I'm not sure how one judge only gave Pacquiao 2 rounds and the other two judges 3 rounds The result was predictable though, even for someone with my poor predictions record. Manny had to knock out Mayweather to win. Unfortunately Mayweather decided to run and Pacquiao couldn't catch him. The judges were appointed by the Mayweather camp; it was part of the deal to get the fight up and running.

    Anyway, it's all over now and there will not be a rematch.

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    1. I've loved boxing all my life. I became a referee and judge in the amateur ranks to help support youth boxing, and my efforts have led me to the professional ranks. It's really nothing more than a hobby, as no one makes their living doing it, even in the pros. I love a good scrap, and I like being around it. The gyms, the characters - it's a truly amazing spectrum, from the respectable to the despicable.

      There was no way I was watching this fight. Mayweather is a lot like Chelsea on the defensive side of things, but like his father (and unlike Chelsea) he has little in the way of power on offense. He just sits behind his left shoulder, moves or clinches when his opponent is about to throw, throws his own jab, and a few combinations, especially when his opponent has landed, or at the end of a round. He's fought that way his entire professional career, and people pay their money because they think the next guy is going to get through and beat him. Fools. Again, like Chelsea, he plays within the rules, and doesn't care if people say "boring."

      But since he's been champion, Floyd never takes a fight he can't win. Never. That's why he's been avoiding Pacquiao for 5 years. A bit over two years ago, Manny got hurt bad in his KO loss to Juan Manuel Marquez, in the rematch of another war. That's when I knew Floyd would fight him. And that it would be like this.

      But it's like I told a friend - if you can make a couple hundred million dollars, and you have the choice of risking your professional record and (Floyd's not mine) claim of being an all-time great, or winning with very little risk, which are you going to choose?

      And as of today, the Telegraph (via ESPN) is saying Floyd told a reporter he'll fight Manny again in a year, when he's healed from surgery. If it happens, the result will be the same.

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    2. Never knew you were into boxing, Scott. I wouldn't have watched the fight anyway but it got so over-hyped it was ridiculous and could never be lived up to. Reckon you've called it right - when boxers get to the top their team keep them there by hand-picking their opponents and avoiding anyone who might actually beat them.

      Spider

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  21. Well, just two things of interest remaining in the PL - who gets relegated along with Burnley and QPR (if there is a God, it will be Newcastle) and which one of Spurs/Saints/Pool fails to wriggle out of the Europa (hopefully Spurs, but most likely it will be Liverpool).

    I agree with H2. All this talk of boring chelsea is just sour grapes. The annihilated the competition. On top since August, lost their top scorer for most the second half, yet comfortably strolled to the tile with 3 games left. That's how you win stuff.

    If we had managed boring 1-0 wins against Hull and West Brom, we'd be in 4th spot right now.

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    1. then we could say "boring boring Liverpool"

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    2. I'd gladly take those chants if it got us to play CL footy.

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    3. you had your chance this season, focus on the leage for a while eh? Top priority should be avoiding relegation.

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    4. It worked for us at Everton. Once we got out of that irrelevant Europa, silly League Cup, and (dammit, thought we might have a chance this year - again) FA Cup, avoiding relegation was in the bag! We win! Er....

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  22. Hope I'm not being premature in wishing Happy St Totteringham's day to y'all.

    Rastafairy

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    1. 'Tis Christmas for clubs that can't win the league.

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    2. Gloater.

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    3. Didn't he play for Man City?

      Like a suspended JT in a cup final, I do enjoy basking in glory to which I contributed nothing.

      Besides, I have to get in some kicks now since next year we won't have any fit strikers and our defenders will be a year older and a step slower (which we will attempt to conceal by purchasing another four flashy rotatable midfielders and camping out in front of Courtois)... who knows what will happen.

      Actually, Mo knows.

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  23. The Game of Thrones guide to UK elections (with the real Jon Snow)

    Full story: http://on.mash.to/1Evt06z

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  24. Now I may have dreamt this but over just read a story that days the Spanish government are puling the plug on three real Madrid/barca stitch up in Spanish football, with other teams preparing to strike in protest and ALL domestic Spanish football has been suspended...nah shome mishtake shurely?

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  25. According to the BBC this morning Blogidy,the top 2 divisions in Spain agree with the new proposal of collective bargaining for tv rights,it's the players' union that disagrees with a couple of items and wish to carry on negotiations.Probably comes down to agents and their percentages.

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    1. Anything that undermines the Real/Barca hegemony is good news, Jacks. They can hoover up all the best players at the moment from age 12 upwards always struck me as odd considering the Spanish economy (bankrupt). If we're going to have unfair competition I want to see the unfairness tipping in favour of English clubs.

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  26. Looking forward to the East Anglian derby Jacks? It's over two (broken) legs so when the dust settles the winners might not even have enough players to play in the final. So if Boro can beat Brentford.... but even to suggest such a thing is to invoke the curse of Robbo. Can Warburton use his loaf?

    Spider

    Spider

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    1. In a word Spider,no.

      Nothing to do with local rivalry,more to do with they have the Indian Sign over us at the moment.We haven't beaten them since 2009 when Jim Magilton was manager.

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