Will Kop King Kenny’s cups runneth over?
As we approach the business end of the season, I ask a few searching questions for you to muse over for a few minutes …
1) Will Chelsea give its owner a bumper summer holiday by winning the 2011-2012 Champions League? After so many misses, they take on tournament favourites Barcelona in the semi-finals. Or will “interim” boss Roberto Di Matteo fall short again and leave the West London big-spenders looking for yet another coach to take them on into 2013 and beyond?
2) Can Manchester United, who now have their noses in front of season-long pace-setters Manchester City, sneak over the finishing line to collect their 20th top-flight title and deny out-of-sorts City their first in 44 years?
3) Could Kop King Kenny Dalglish be the man that brings European football back to Liverpool after a season of watching on the sidelines? Or is an FA Cup run and a Carling Cup victory the best he can wish for this season?
4) Have any of the bottom six the bottle to put a winning run together to escape relegation to the Championship? Or will it be nip and tuck until the final game?
5) Surely England cannot make any headway in this summer’s European Championship finals without a permanent coach in place. Or will that small matter spur on an underachieving country to a historic victory and a place in English folklore?
6) Will clubs who come up from the Championship be facing a season of eternal struggle? Or will they emulate the successes of Swansea and Norwich and have a go at their much richer and stronger Premier League rivals to defy the odds and stay among England’s elite?
7) London Olympics 2012 … does anyone really care or has the Olympic brand been undermined by the greed and the commercial sale of what was technically an amateur competition?
8) Finally, professional athletes who are struck down by life-threatening illnesses in their prime. What more can be done medically to ensure that what has happened to Fabrice Muamba and Stan Petrov this past month won’t happen to players in the future? Or is it a game of chance that these things occur when least expected?
1
I can’t see Chelsea beating Barca, full stop. If you can leak a home goal against a ten-man Benfica what chance against Mr Messi and co? Di Matteo has already summed it up, “It will be a combination of playing to our strengths and being aware of theirs”. That is not a strategy it’s a capitulation. On the home front, Chelsea are looking better than they have for a while and I can see DI Matteo keeping the job until their first loss of next season.
2
Man United will not sneak over the finishing line to win the League they will gallop over it. The only team who can catch them are full of skillful players all playing in opposite directions. City can’t afford to lose their next match against Arsenal. United’s final two games (Swansea and Sunderland) present a potential banana skin but I think they will have the title wrapped up by then.
3
Despite the wishful thinking of thousands of scousers King Kenny aint doing the job at Anfield, the club are currently on their worst run in the top flight of English football since 1954. I saw them win the Carling cup by one kick and they were awful. You need more than a striker who can’t buy a goal and a few old hands who are past their best to progress in Europe.
4
Wolves have already dropped and Villa are a few points in credit. Despite a tough run-in I think QPR will survive, so the contenders are Bolton, Wigan or Blackburn. Unfortunately, the answer is (with apologies to their fans) who cares?
5
They say that anyone who is stupid enough to want to be a politician should automatically be prevented from being one. I think the same rule should apply to the England manager’s job, at least for this summer. It is too late to expect anyone to lick the current squad into shape so why not let them stay as they are (headless) and any progress made will be seen as a victory.
6
Reading certainly have the structure to sustain success at the top level and both Birmingham and West Ham should have learned an important lesson during their spell in the Championship. I’m hoping Southampton will make it, if only because Norwich and Swansea have proven a welcome change for the neutral. As the Secret Pundit said of Swansea recently, there is no pressure on a promoted club’s first season because, as they are underdogs from the off, they can play with fearless flair.
7
The answer is in the question, it was technically an amateur competition but lets get real about the Olympics, were they ever truly amateur? Even in the early days there were sponsorship deals and tails of underhand payments. We have to accept that the modern Olympics are as much a global spectacle as any football or rugby final, as much about GDP as medals. Hence the phalanx of sports stars, businessmen and politicians heading the committee to bring the circus to our door.
8
The Secret Footballer wrote recently of how a club will provide only the most cursory medical when signing a new player. If ever anyone wanted evidence that a player is a commodity then there it is. Only a yearly check by an independent body (yes, more expense) will weed out any deep-seated problems. This is unlikely to prevent cancers but should provide the medics with the information to treat any illness at the earliest opportunity.