Kevin Keegan…eternal optimist turned pessimist?

The sporting media made a great deal of Kevin Keegan’s remarks that the Big Four’s monopoly of the Premier League was boring him and that his side, Newcastle, would find it impossible to bridge the gap. Many chastised him for what he said.

Keegan’s comments were surprisingly realistic when you consider his usual optimism but various stakeholders in the money-making behemoth that is the Premier League took it upon themselves to prove that the so-called ‘best league in the world’ was also the most interesting.

Keegan said: “This league is in danger of becoming one of the most boring but great leagues in the world. The top four next year will be the same top four as this year.

“We’re a million miles away from challenging for the league but if my owner backs me we want to try and finish fifth and top the other mini-league.”

Odds are that the top four next year WILL be the same top four as this year – you might have the odd breakthrough by a club like Tottenham or Everton and with the right investment and players Newcastle might aim for the same in the next few seasons, but by and large that top four is likely to stay the same unless something drastic happens. A one-time appearance in the top four by Everton doesn’t break the order – a club (or a couple of clubs) would need to consistently dislodge one or more of the top four in the Premier League to change the big four into a big three or big two.

Do you see that happening? There’s a chance, and in some corners there is plenty of hope, but Liverpool did finish 11 points ahead of Everton. Everton will need to step up massively just to catch up, and that’s before one accounts for the improvements Liverpool are likely to make to their playing staff this summer.

Tottenham had a dismal second half of the season (save the Carling Cup final) and Juande Ramos has a lot of work to do over the summer to whip his boys back into shape.

For both teams, the realistic objective next season is to close the big gap, a gap that cannot be crossed in one big leap.

For Keegan to say that he wants to play for 5th may sound heretical to Newcastle fans but in the short to medium term it’s a realistic and very positive objective. By putting themselves at the forefront of the chasing pack, Newcastle could benefit from the mistakes of one of the top four and / or push forward to close the gap themselves and in the long run, make a serious attempt at
regular Champions League football.

The shelf-life of managers doesn’t allow Keegan to plan for 10 years – it gives him room for 3-5 years, and within that time frame if Newcastle can achieve 5th spot more than once, and do it convincingly in an increasingly competitive league, that will be quite an achievement. Maybe then he’ll be kept around for phase 2, or maybe they’ll go towards someone to carry them over the finishing line.

Keegan’s comments have been treated like an act of betrayal by the Premier League faithful. From the BBC to the Guardian and beyond, every journalist has worked hard to come up with arguments against his point of view. As ‘one of their own’ (in the sense that he is a Premier League manager), he was expected to employ the same rhetoric used by marketers and conveniently peddled by managers and players alike. He broke ranks, and was lambasted.

The reaction was way off the mark though. While the critics spend a lot of time trying to prove how ‘interesting’ the mini-battles in the league were, they missed the point Keegan was making. His accusation was that the gap between the big four and the rest of the league was too big to be overcome in a single season, and the way he said it made it sound like there was no way to bridge it. That, for him, made it boring.

Some people thing the gap is bridgeable, and I’m sure it is, but you won’t see Tottenham regularly challenging for the title from 08/09 onwards. Everton won’t either. Both sides need time and money to get themselves to that stage, not only because they lack the quality but also the depth that the big four seem to possess. These things take time, and Keegan probably won’t be kept around long enough to see it happen.

The board needs to back Keegan, not undermine him. They might not like their manager being honest and robbing the fans of a few flights of fantasy, but they themselves need to realise that while it’s certainly possible to break apart the big four oligarchy, it’s going to take more than a couple of years to do it on a consistent and regular basis for Newcastle. In the next 5 years, cementing the 5th / 6th position (like Everton have done) should be the primary target.

And right now, Keegan is their best man to make it happen.

The Cup Final…the romance returns?

With the FA Cup final just days away bloke in the pub has been listening to other blokes in the pub talk about how the romance of the cup will return when Cardiff and Portsmouth arrive at Wembley on Saturday afternoon. The journalists have been purring over the fact that two complete outsiders will contest the final, rather than two teams from the now traditional ‘Big Four’, as described controversially by Kevin Keegan last week and highlighted in a Times article on Sunday. But is it really going to be that romantic?

Ofcourse the journalists purr because the week’s worth of build up to the final fills plenty of column inches with players making outlandish comments about what the cup means to them.

Take Nico Kranjcar, probably the most skillful talent that will partake in the cup final this weekend. He claimed to soccernet this week that winning the cup final would be better than when his country, Croatia, knocked England out of the European Championships at Wembley earlier this year. What nonsense! Beating a Championship side would be better than knocking one of the fore-fathers of the game and former world cup winners out of a major tournament in their own back-yard?

Look at it this way. Croatia’s win over England almost changed the face of the entire English game overnight. A new coach was brought in and claims were made that the entire structure of English football would need to change if England were ever to challenge for top honours again. If Portsmouth beat Cardiff on Saturday, English football won’t bat an eyelid.

It’s fair to say that it will probably never get any better for Portsmouth if they win the FA Cup, as reported in the Telegraph last week, but that says more for the state of the Premiership than it does for Pompey’s aspirations of additional silverware. The Cup is, this year, the trophy that Arsenal, Chelsea, Man United and Liverpool forgot to try and win.

Sorry to be a cynic, but bloke in the pub will put his money on another dull final with the favourites winning by the odd goal. All credit to Cardiff for getting there but there hasn’t been an entertaining cup final for years and this one will be no different.

The Cup Final…all mouth and no trousers…discuss!

English refs for English players…a theory?

Bloke in the pub has just got in from the pub after watching the climax of the Premier League season.

He watched on as Manchester United fans raised their glasses to another championship won…but what caught bloke in the pub’s eye was a moment mid-way through the first half.

Having already been booked, Paul Scholes, the United midfielder, charged into Wigan’s Wilson Palacios for what looked a clear second yellow. The United supporters held their collective breath in the pub only for Steve Bennett, the referee, to give Scholes a lecture and nothing more. This got me thinking…are English referees biased in favour of English players?

What was Mr Bennett thinking when he made that decision? There was no pull of the shirt and Scholes did not leave the ground to make the challenge. If one sticks strictly to the letter of the law, was it a booking? Or did the ref look at the hard working professional, one of the mainstays of English club football over the past decade, who’s off the field attitude to life is near exemplary and think ‘I don’t want to send him off…he deserves to win another title, he’s one of us’?

As an island nation the English have for a long time been xenophobic of foreigners but is it going too far to think that refereeing decisions may sometimes rest on the nationality of the man who committed the offence?

Well there are several incidents that suggest this might be true. Earlier in the season Ashley Cole was let off the hook at Spurs for a blatent show of dissent. Days later and Javier Mascherano is sent off for the same offence at Old Trafford. Mascherano was rightly criticised but were his words any worse than those used by Wayne Rooney on what is seemingly a match by match basis?

England captain John Terry went unpunished for a horrific lunge on Cesc Fabregas earlier in the season and there was nothing for Rooney when he ploughed in to Nico Kranjcar during United’s FA Cup defeat to Portsmouth.

Look at Bolton’s Kevin Davies. He has committed the most fouls in the league in each of the last four seasons and yet was not sent off once in the whole of this campaign.

Think back to the Merseyside derby and Jamie Carragher having wrestling matches with Everton players inside the box and getting away with it. That would be the same game in which Steven Gerrard, an Englishman, stepped up to the plate and virtually refereed the game for Mark Clattenburg single handed!

Let’s look at the make-up of English football for an explanation. The Premiership referees are managed by the Professional Game Match Officials Board, formed in 2001 by The FA, The Premier League and The Football League.

The FA coincidentally also runs the English national team. The FA therefore needs to keep the big clubs sweet, Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea in particular because of their English contingents, because they need the big name players for kit launches, charity projects and to play for England of course.

Some stats:

On the last weekend of the season 35% of the players in the Premiership were English and 65% were foreign. That’s probably a similar figure for the whole season but when one looks at the red cards produced over the season (there were 61 in total) 14 went to English players (just less than 23%).

It’s by no means scientific…but is this the makings of a conspiracy? Discuss!

What’s the deal Setanta?

Setanta Sports has stuck its head above the parapet and challenged Sky Sports in the broadcast of live Premiership football matches. This is all well and good, a little healthy competition never hurt anyone and it’s about time someone challenged Sky’s domination of the Premiership. But some customers have already got more than they bargained for with the Setanta Sports package.

 Setanta’s package enables customers to cancel at any time with 30 days notice, with no contract time, which appears an excellent incentive to sign up and give it a try. But the bloke in the pub has observed that when customers no longer want to watch mediocre matches – Fulham vs Middlesbrough anyone? (Setanta are beaten by Sky to matches between the big four clubs) - cancelling the service is easier said than done.

Bloke in the pub has heard from other blokes in the pub that numerous customers have met with some quite severe resistance from Setanta when viewers try to quit.

 Users can not use email to cancel the service, they have to phone through their cancellation. After speaking to customer services, callers are often put through to a manager, who is believed to then try, in some cases, to ‘persuade’ customers to stay on and ask for reasons as to why customers are cancelling the service.

In some cases this phone call ‘cancellation’ has gone on for more than ten minutes and even that is not enough to stop receiving the service.

One customer said:  ”Seven days after my phone call I get a letter to say I had to re-instate my direct debit, I again phoned them and I was informed the cancellation wasn’t confirmed during the phone call.

“I rang again, another 10 minutes later I was still no further along and they said they would not cancel my subscription insisting that I will owe them money for Decembers payment.

“I sent four more emails refusing to re-instate my direct debit and I receive one back saying my phone calls did not cancel my subscription.”

So the next time you’re losing the will to live while watching Reading vs Sunderland, consider the potential rigmorole it could take to stop watching it!