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BBC Football

football

barmy european laws

actor_alec_baldwin_5060546IS Tottenham winning a Champions League place one of the greatest footballing achievements of the last few years?
Or is it just a sad synopsis of the game today when finishing fourth is considered ‘better than winning the FA Cup’ to paraphrase Harry Redknapp?
Well it’s a trick question really because they’re both true. Spurs beating Man City last week to secure a top four finish was one in the eye for the oil-rich sheiks who spend millions trying to buy success, as well as a bloody ace bit of season-long management from Harry himself.
But BBM has a sneaking suspicion that this is just delaying the inevitable, and the big losers of all this could actually be Liverpool.
Let’s look at next season. There’s a good chance that Liverpool will lose both Torres and Gerrard in the summer. Losing just one of their two star men would leave the Reds looking decidedly mid-table next year. If they’re lucky, Rafa Benitez will fuck off as well.
As for Spurs fans, we have one piece of advice. Suck it up because it’s going to be downhill from now on. Distracted by Europe’s biggest competition, which they will do well to get out of the group stages in, there’s no bloody chance of them getting fourth again. Which paves the way for Man City to spend more mega bucks over the summer and take the very short step into the ‘big four’, possibly replacing Liverpool for the next few years. Some of you might dismiss us as cynical arseholes, and you’d be right, but as a great man once said to Luke Skywalker after chopping his hand off: “search your feelings, you know it to be true!”
Granted, you’re probably not yelling “but that’s impossible!” while gripping a metal pole one-handed in a big wind tunnel, but the point stands.
 

WE CAN'T WAIT FOR SEASON'S GREETINGS

THERE was a single point separating Chelsea and Man Utd in the title race, going into the penultimate weekend. Exciting stuff eh?
Well no not really. Shock-horror. Chelsea and United battle for the championship. Again. Wup-de-fucking-do.
Yes the race for fourth place, and the chance to get knocked out at the group stage of the Champions League, is fairly exciting thanks to Liverpool's implosion. But, really, if you'd been asked at the start of the season which teams would make up the top eight, are there any there now who you wouldn't have chosen?
Predictable, boring bollocks.
But the most disappointing thing about this season, although Kop fans may disagree, is that the usually much-less predictable, much-more nailbiting relegation battle is already over.
We loved watching West Ham and Tevez cheat their way out of trouble a few years ago, Newcastle getting relegated was hilarious and Bradford beating Liverpool was fucking brilliant. Even Hodgson getting Fulham out of trouble, or Allardyce doing the same at Blackburn, had us scratching our heads like an Arsenal defender up against Messi.
The problem this year, of course, is the fact that as soon as Bolton decided to make Owen Coyle ‘an offer he couldn't refuse' (i.e. the chance to leave Burnley), there were only ever three teams in it.
But wait! It's not all misery from EbenBBM Scrooge! For hope comes to us in the most unlikeliest of forms. And that form is Wolves striker Chris Iwelumo (bear with us on this one).
"We can all dream we can be up there, but I'm telling you now next season will be just as hard, if not harder," waffled Iwelumo about Wolves chances next season.
"Look at the teams coming up - Newcastle and West Brom. They've been there, done it, have strength in depth and money behind them."
Amazingly, the ugly bastard is right. Much as we love laughing at them, Newcastle and West Brom should come up next season in a stronger position than when they went down - and, more importantly, with better teams than the three going down. So with the top getting weaker, and the bottom getting stronger, we might actually be in for an exciting season of oddball results next year. Sing hosannahs!
 

DELETED FOR LEGAL REASONS

mystmanHAS anyone else heard the sensational internet rumours doing the rounds about a top Premier League footballer?
Word is, that (deleted for legal reasons) got a (deleted for legal reasons)-year-old pregnant which is why he's (deleted for legal reasons) this season, while his (deleted for legal reasons) was shagging around with a player from Championship side (deleted for legal reasons).
Also, according to the rumours, he'll be sold to (deleted for legal reasons) in the summer and has sought a (deleted for legal reasons) to stop (deleted for legal reasons) printing the story.
It makes the whole John Terry/ Wayne Bridge thing look like a Womens Institute meeting!
Of course, it could also be a load of old bollocks. Still, it livened up our week.
And remember readers. You heard it here first at (deleted for legal reasons).
 

BUTT OF THE JOKE FOR JOZY

jackinbox_jaebotTHE big problem for clubs that get relegated from the Premier League is that they're usually still playing top flight wages the following season.
There's usually a few contract clauses in there that help but, inevitably, the following season is just as much about trimming the budget as it is bouncing back up.
So it's all about recouping losses for Hull City following their, effective, relegation last week - and striker Jozy Altidore has already given them a heads up.
Dozy Jozy, on loan from Villareal, had been hoping for a full-time deal at the KC Stadium.
But he did his chances a wee bit of damage by headbutting Sunderland's Alan Hutton in the 1-0 home defeat by Sunderland that sealed their fate. Now he's been fined two weeks' wages - £40,000 - and packed off back to Spain.
 

POP IN CIRCUMSTANCES

200px-Portsmouth_FC_crest_2008IF THE global financial crisis has taught normal workaday folk anything, it's that the so-called financial genius five percent of the population who own 90 percent of the wealth are, in fact, the dumbest inbred bastards on the planet.
And yet more proof of this has emerged from Portsmouth this week, when latest account figures revealed that when they said they were up the shitter financially with £80million debts, they were, actually, slightly off the mark. About £40million off the mark to be exact. Their total debt is around the £119million mark.
Roughly £38m is owed to previous owners, such as Sacha Gaydamak and Sulaiman Al-Fahim, but the best bits are the smaller debts.
For example, they've had to pay £1million to Spurs for keeper Asmir Begovic - even though Spurs never had him. It's something to do with a double deal for Younes Kaboul that Begovic welched on by joining Stoke instead.
There are also a multitude of other small debts which are far more interesting. For example, they owe former England midfielder Neil Webb £150, 20p to Qatar Airways, £40 to Pukka Pies, £697 to Guernsey Scout Association, £230 to Bognor Regis FC, £60 to Chichester College and, best of all, 1p to Proton Southern Ltd (don't ask us).
"The mismanagement that has taken place at this club over the past few years has been staggering," said the man trying to make sense of it all, Andrew Andronikou, quite needlessly.
 
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