The Monday Miscellany

It’s officially Footballing Heresy week here on TMM, so I’ll take the fatwas from Scousers and Mancs as read, if you don’t mind, and get on with it.

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1) Liverpool and Everton would be daft not to share a ground. The current economic conditions would make building two 50,000-60,000 stadia in Liverpool a ludicrous indulgence. It is only the increasingly tribal nature of the two sets of supporters which stops people seeing sense on the issue. One 70,000 seater stadium in Stanley Park, with red seats at one end (they could even give it a nickname: ‘The Kop’, for example), blue seats at the other and neutral colours down the sides is the only sensible way forward.

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2) Xavi or Fernando Torres should have won the Ballon d’Or, not Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo might believe, even be prepared to shout from the rooftops, that he is all of the top three players in the world, (father, son and holy spirit, perhaps?) but in the highest profile competition of the year he was ordinary. He scored one quite good goal against the Czech Republic but did nothing in the quarter final, which Portugal lost 3-2 to Germany. In the Champions League, he missed key penalties in both the semi final and the Final shoot-out and remains at Old Trafford solely because of the sheer force of Sir Alex Ferguson’s will.

Xavi was the best midfielder at Euro 2008 and has been part of a Barcelona side which has destroyed all before them in the first half of the season, a run which continued with a 4-0 mauling of Valencia on Saturday evening. Torres, meanwhile, has belied the notion that it takes time for foreign players to settle in the Premier League, instantly becoming the division’s best striker. He scored a superb winning goal in the Euro 2008 Final and, just as a bonus, conducts himself with class and dignity utterly lost on the Manchester Utd winger.

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3) The Club World Cup, which begins on Thursday in Japan, is not a worthless tournament. It is merely a badly-run one. Seven is a prime number, yet that is the number of competing clubs. The Oceanian representatives now cannot come from Australia after FIFA did nothing to stop the country’s absurd defection from the OFC to the AFC, despite Australia being no more of an Asian nation than Egypt or Bulgaria. So welcome back Waitakere Utd, a terrible team from a terrible league in New Zealand, a nation which doesn’t really care about football.

The tournament is taken very seriously in Africa, Asia and South America, who are represented by Al-Ahly Cairo, Adelaide Utd and LDU Quito respectively. Indeed, this tournament might be more competitive than the previous three, which have been processions to a Final between the European Champions and one of Brazil or Argentina’s giants. LDU Quito’s shock win in this year’s Copa Libertadores, the South American equivalent of the UEFA Champions League, gives the tournament a new dynamic, with Al-Ahly or Mexico’s Pachuca standing a decent chance of reaching the Final. And if you think it will be a cakewalk for Manchester Utd, just remember São Paulo’s win over Liverpool in 2005 or Internacional beating Barcelona a year later.

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4) ITV’s FA Cup coverage is at least as good as the BBC’s, albeit with the qualification that they have the rights to fewer matches than the Beeb did last season. No more hurried build-up in a programme which begins ten minutes before kick-off and no more silly waiting until Monday afternoon to hear the draw for the next round. Some parts of football’s heritage are best left in the past.

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5) A salary cap in the Football League would be a bad idea, at least in the form proposed by the woefully inadequate Lord Mawhinney. Limiting wages to a percentage of club turnover would simply make life easier for teams relegated from the Premier League, who have the ‘parachute payments’ to fall back on. If there is to be a salary cap, make it an absolute figure division-wide and make one for the Premier League too.

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6) England do not have a goalkeeping crisis, nor do they have a left-side problem.

Between the sticks, they have David James, Paul Robinson, Joe Hart, Chris Kirkland, Robert Green and Scott Carson. Even Steve Harper, Newcastle’s reserve keeper, is better than Steve Mandanda, France’s current incumbent and it is only loyalty to his club that keeps him at St James’ Park. Robert Green, currently playing very well indeed for West Ham Utd, keeping clean sheets at home to Portsmouth and then away to Sunderland and Liverpool, cannot even get in England’s squad. If we have a goalkeeping problem, it is only that the best ones do not always get picked.

Holland, meanwhile, have nobody remotely capable of succeeding Edwin van der Sar, to the extent that the Manchester Utd man was hauled out of international retirement to cover for the injured Maarten Stekelenburg in Holland’s last World Cup qualifier in Norway. Germany’s René Adler and Tim Wiese were both unconvincing against England; the only difference between them and the hapless Carson is that their errors did not result in goals. Italy have the superb Gianluigi Buffon and then a number of mid-table Serie A stoppers. If Buffon were to get injured, they’d be up a gum tree.

On the left of midfield, Joe Cole was England’s best and most consistent performer when they struggled in Capello’s early matches. Stewart Downing was superb in Berlin and then there’s Ashley Young, scorer of two ruthlessly taken goals at Everton yesterday, who can’t get into the England side.

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7) Just because Arsenal fans pay an extortionate amount of money to get into the Emirates Stadium does not permit them to ridicule so mercilessly one of their own players. Yes, Emmanuel Eboué was rubbish against Wigan but what did they expect? He is an ordinary player so often employed out of position as Arsenal have so many players injured. Setting aside the fact that abusing your own players is an idiotic, wholly counterproductive activity.

Yes, Eboué dives a bit but so did Robert Pirès and the Arsenal fans still love him long after his departure to Villarreal. I doubt, furthermore, that too many Gooners would hold it against their right-back had they held on to their lead in the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final, attained with a Sol Campbell header from a free-kick given after an Eboué dive. Booing him off was another sad example of Britain’s increasingly confrontational culture of mocking, bullying and ridicule, in which bitter, angry people see no shame in being undignified and rude.

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And a final snack from the General Ignorance lader: Contrary to widespread assumption, Kingston-upon-Hull never was the biggest city in Europe never to host top-flight football; that ‘honour’ goes to Wiesbaden in southwest Germany, which has a population of over 300,000, compared with approximately 257,000 in Hull.

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Lest we forget, many received wisdoms, though, are founded in truth. Monday night matches are still a bane; Blackburn’s trip to Blyth Spartans or Bournemouth, both geographically inopportune places for the Lancashire side’s supporters, has been moved to 8pm on Monday 5th January for Setanta coverage. Yes, the Monday 5th January when everybody traditionally goes back to work. It would be better at 8pm on the Saturday, at least fewer fans would have commitments early the following morning. Before then, Chelsea’s long trip to Liverpool to face Everton, their first fixture of the festive period, will be on a working Monday night for the same reason. The Setanta Clause? No thanks.