Offside Ref

I’ve been MIA from the blog of late. In truth I’ve been playing with the back end of it and other parts of the site, so I haven’t abandoned the blog in case anyone was getting worried.

Anyway on to the post.

One of my other interests include reading political blogs like Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale’s Diary, Dizzy Thinks. So I had a little smile on my face when I heard that Iain Dale had started a West Ham blog called West Ham Till I Die.

Iain is a West Ham season ticket holder and aims for the new blog to be a mixture of gossip, humour, reporting and analysis - with the odd rant thrown in too. If it’s anything like his political blog or his performances on 18 Doughty Street it will be well worth the read even if you’re not a West Ham fan.

Added to blogroll is West Ham Till I Die.

So the FA have decided to let Defoe off the hook for the whole biting thing saying that FIFA rules don’t allow them to punish him sufficiently because the ref has already punished him. I got one thing to say, It’s a totally cop out and rubbish.

I was quite surprised that a lot of people are divided over this and appear to fall into one of two camps. The ‘it was nothing, play on’ brigade or the ‘Physical abuse is not allowed, punish him’ brigade (I’m in). For me it’s a cut and dry case any attempt to cause hurt is violent conduct (That’s an automatic red card according to the laws of the game).

Now biting can hurt even if it doesn’t leave a mark, so claims of he wasn’t even marked don’t wash with me. Is it acceptable for someone to even try and bite you in the street? No, so why should it be on the football field. If you are fouled on the pitch then the ref deals with it, you don’t retaliate. Martin Jol’s nibble comments are total crap, what does he think Defoe was trying, foreplay?

Ref’s are only human (they sometimes make mistakes) so the fact he didn’t send of Defoe although disappointing is understandable but the FA have to follow through, which they haven’t done and that is very disappointing.

Clearly Jermain Defoe forgot to eat his Monster Munch crisps before going to play football and decided instead to try and eat West Ham’s Mascherano.  So I’m nominating Jermain Defoe and Martin Jol as my Villains of the week.  Defoe for attempting to eat Mascherano and Jol for trying to defend Defoe’s action.

This case like other recent incidents presents the FA with a problem since the rules don’t allow for action to be taken on offences that have already received punishment, despite the fact that the punishment may not have been appropriate. Although the FA have in exceptional cases ignored this rule.

Personally I think that the panel that sits and looks at video evidence should be allowed to over rule any decision based on what they have seen. Players can already be exonerated, why not the other way?  It may keep some honest if they know will get caught and punished, though I doubt it.

Macedonia is the kind of place that if you can get away from with the 3 points it’s enough.  I said it wouldn’t be pretty and it wasn’t. I said there wouldn’t be many goals and there weren’t. I also said England would be solid and on a few occasions they were found wanting.

Ultimately these are the games you need to win, when you don’t play well and you have a hostile crowd, I think any other team in the group if offered a 1-nil win would take it since Macedonia will take points off some teams in Skopje. I think in England’s next game, again against Macedonia, we will see England take the fight to them a bit more since it’s a home game.

Three games, three wins and ten goals, results count so anyone who is going to moan about McClaren has serious problems.  My biggest worry is Lampard who for large periods of the game was anonymous; it was the same in the game against Andorra where I totally forgot he was even playing.

So England lead Group E on 6 points with the real danger teams in the group, Croatia and Russia having a game in hand over England.

With England’s first competitive game against the minnows Andorra out of the way, the side face the possible stumbling block that is Macedonia.  While they are unlikely to win they have proven in the past that they can take points. Should that happen McClaren’s honeymoon will be over.

Being an away game with a hostile crowd England won’t want to push to far up or take to many chances but I full expect them to put in a solid performance that takes all 3 points, just don’t expect it to be overly pretty or with tons of goals.

For quite some time now we have seen players waving imaginary cards around and asking for the opposition to be booked. I despise this act and think if the player wants to be making the decision that bad he should quit being a player and become a ref. 

I’ve said for sometime that I’d like this act to be cracked down upon but no one appeared to be doing anything about it. Step forward UEFA just before the latest round of Euro 2008 qualifiers and issue a directive saying that and player asking for another to be cautioned should themselves be cautioned.

EUFA also wanting to crack down dissent have said that at least one player should be booked if a group surround a referee.  I also agree with this and can only hope that the directives filter down into the leagues and up to FIFA.

More often than not great players don’t go on become great managers, it seem that its often the really average midfielder or defender who rises to the top of the management game, its almost as if they knew what they wanted to do as a player but couldn’t do it with their feet but were able to put it into words for others. There are of course exceptions and increasingly now days you don’t get a second look if you didn’t make it as a player.

So we come to Roy Keane whose pedigree as a player can’t be argued about. Having just been appointed manager of Sunderland everyone has begun to wonder what sort of a manager he will make.

Keane has as good as admitted that he will need to be a bit more subtle.  For good reason too, the fact is that you just can’t shout at your squad for the entire season as the shock value losses its effect and players end up ignoring the person doing the shouting.  So it looks like Keane will have to mellow a little.

I have to admit that I have no idea how this one is going to go but feel that he will that to it like a duck to water or after a positive start, crash and burn.

I hope for the Sunderland fans it works out as surely they suffered enough last season.