I enjoyed the equine action this weekend more than the miserable business of winning cups in team sports. However for all Frankel’s dominance the unyielding surface and desperate finish of the Preakness topped it. Continue reading
It’s an oddity after another display of quite how far Chelsea have fallen as a team the call was for the interim manager to be retained by the media. Chelsea despite a Billion quid of money burning are a side on the decline. Their best players are 34 year’s old next season and one of them is out of contract. Continue reading
It took some doing but John Terry’s ego and seeming lack of any kind of personal insight took over in Munich and may have further cemented his status as Football’s no 1 villain. Continue reading
In the end the luck went with City. Continue reading
Is David Beckham one of the 3 best older GB players not going to a major tournament this summer? Continue reading
Hodgson has some failures on his CV just as Redknapp does. The Blackburn and Liverpool not to mention the OK year at Inter may be seen poorly. Yet Clough would have had Leeds and Brighton on his CV and may indeed have been lucky not to get the England job! It seems to have enhanced no one’s CV bar Venables since. Continue reading
In another hat tip to Roman Abramovich’s great ancient hero General Pyrrhus Chelsea reduced their chances of winning the Champions League and being in it next year to be a 4/6 shot to win a point-less bauble. Point-less in that the winning of it does not stop the Manager getting the sack. Therefore the manager is stuck with a moral hazard rather than what the employer would wish. Continue reading
As said before I think the Grand National needs to be made safer with more stringent checks and qualifications on runners. Crucially cutting the field to 30ish runners. Nonetheless and not withstanding today I don’t think it’s a big issue in reality as it is a one off not a facsimile of racing the rest of the year. Continue reading
When Tevez would not warm up we heard how S’Alex would never have tolerated this. Now we’ll hear how Balotelli would be on his bike already and never have played for United. Continue reading
Strauss staved off whining till the 2nd innings at least with a grim 61 today. Nonetheless he seems the latest to be pointed to by the fickle finger of tabloid speculation [All UK newspapers are tabloid in ethos if not size]. Continue reading
Stuart Lancaster was no sooner England’s official shiny new manager than he was on The Rugby Club giving a play by play on his management and mentality. Less please. S’Alex has been a manager for 30 years and I have no idea what he does except produce bitter and twisted nutters who think the world is against them – they’re not paranoid either it is.
The more serious point is that managers use a variety of means on a variety of players to get results. The code is that the manager does not tell everyone what he is doing. Indeed the lowest point of S’Alex’s career, and Hugh McIllvanney’s, literally and figuratively was his historic ‘Managing My Petty Score Settling’ book period born of the hubris of 1999.
Whatever you do as a manager leave others to speculate. You want the guy you’re motivating to think you mean it not “ah he’s motivating me now”.
The media coverage of AVB’s selections in Napoli was that he’s been petty and got his tactics and selection wrong. Thus one expected the media to castigate di Matteo who bar having a fit Cole dropped Lampard and Essien. Continue reading
Charlie Mackle @ Large Cream’s Tweet