Hi All,

We all knew it was going to happen, but the Football Association of Ireland wait until past our bedtimes to tell us that Stan had parted by mutual consent. We were deprived of sleeping soundly and dreaming of Jose because those buffoons thought it would lessen the media attention by not sacking him until after the deadline for the morning papers. What do they take us for?

In a way it's sad to see a player with more than 100 caps have the mickey taken out of him in the media, and have torrent of abuse reign down on him at matches, but his hapless, distrustful & shambolic management style has brought it about. Ireland had a bad manager, but some very good players (Given, Finnan, Dunne), good players (Ireland, O'Shea, Doyle, Keane) and they failed miserably,. most importantly, in terms of performance, and in terms of points. Stan wouldn't have been sacked if we achieved plucky moral victories while showing team spirit and resilience, he was sacked because of the players attitude, his attitude and the inability of anyone to change things effectively.

I'm sure there will be more about in the coming weeks, but the managerial position now up for grabs should not go to any of - Souness, Venables, any Irish ex-pro with no experience, or mercenary types like Philippe Troussier. Please FAI, pick up a youngish manager from Europe with some experience of success and pay him what he wants, performance related, on a contract until the World Cup.

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The Champions League last night threw up plenty of great goals. Arsenal's 7-0 victory was superb, as was United's attacking play in Kiev, while Rangers did well to get a draw with Barca. All 3 British teams should be in the last 16.

To tonight's matches - Liverpool are away to Besiktas in a kinda-have-to-win-but-must-not-lose encounter, but they are lucky in that Turkish football is absolute crap these days and Besiktas have lost their first two matches in Group A without scoring a goal.

They do have a couple of decent player to trouble old man Hyppia though - Edouard Cisse (ex-West Ham), Ricardinho (21 caps for Brazil, World Cup winner & ex-Boro!), Rustu Recber, Matias Delgado and Marcio Nobre.

So, not all plain sailing for the Pool, who have a few injury problems, but they should be strong enough.

Benfica play Celtic, and they really should look to break their Champions League away form hoodoo, and Benfica are not up to much really. However, it is more than likely that Celtic will remember their 3-0 thrashing in Portugal last year, and cave in again.

Finally, Chelsea play Schalke, and I fancy them to scutter through it, primarily for the reason that German teams have been poor in the CL for a few years now and also that John Terry is injured, so they should be more solid at the back. Peter Lovenkrands and Kevin Kuranyi could cause trouble however but it is hard to see anything other than a home win.

Mark,

http://www.okeydokefootball.com

 

These Champions League reflections are much easier than predictions, so with ease of mind, I'll get started.
Liverpool - Benitez is assuming the look of a desperate man (and no, I'm not talking about his 'goatee deflecting attention away from fatness' look) and he has started blaming his players outright. The players he bought.

"Everything was wrong" he blubbed, "it is the whole team who played badly". The team you picked, Rafa.

"Today the team was not good enough". "We were not controlling the middle".

It is hard to control the middle when you have the position-insensitive Gerrard buzzing around the place, and Momo Sissoko, the professional footballer for whom the old quote applies - he can control it further than I can kick it. His misery of attempting to control a football was shown last season against Man Utd, when he attempted to solo the ball, but instead kicked it 20 yards up in the sky. Last night he gave another reminder of his ineptiude.

So, tough times for the 'Pool, but they plays Spurs at home next, which should be the perfect chance to get their season back on track, and take the heat off Rafa. And if they can't, what fresh excuse will he dream up?

Man Utd - another lack lustre (like an empty can of pear halves) performance, but another 1-0 win. Roma had good chances to at least draw the game. Nani showed glimpses of his talent in his best game so far, but his play-acting and poor decisions are reminiscent of the old, bad Ronaldo. Anderson's cameo was lively enough, but he looks a bit lightweight yet. United have Wigan at home to continue their run of wins but the absence of Fletcher, Carrick & Hargreaves will probably mean the horror of O'Shea in midfield.

Arsenal - another game, another win, how long will it be before everyone is tipping them for trophies? Doubts remain, but they are cruising so far.

Chelsea - is the old spirit back? No, it's Carvalho. A fantastic player who made vital interceptions and organised the back line well. That John Terry fella looks like a good player with him in tow. Terry and Ferdinand must get together and pray that their co-defenders never get injured again. Sheva must wish he invested in an English teacher rather than make the move to London to learn the language. Nobody missed his witless presence last night.

Celtic - they are short on quality but they held their own against a Milan team who didn't look too bothered about the whole thing until they fell behind. Gave away a ludicrous penalty but fought back well and received their just rewards. They are handicapped by having an extremely annoying, jumped up runt of a manager and idiot supporters who think it's a good thing to run onto the pitch and caress Dida's breast.

Rangers - I thought they'd head to France and get a draw but they surpassed themselves against Lyon. Poor oul Alain Perrin must be feeling the heat over this one. 6 points from 6 for Rangers mean even a spectacular collapse should see them into the UEFA Cup.

Now, not that I would want to dance on the misfortune of a thoroughly awful human being, but by god it’s good to see John Gregory has been found out again as the joker he truly is. I watched the 5-1 drubbing that West Brom handed his tepid QPR side on Sunday and, looking like an eighties vampire as per usual, oul Johnny was not a happy fella.

His chairman, Gianni Paladini, would take only 24 hours to give his good friend Gregory the heave-ho and with a heavy heart he told the BBC, “It was a very hard thing to do. I have nothing but admiration for what John has done for the club.”

This is the point that you realise that Paladini had long since ceased to be a sensible chairman and instead become an over-protective friend. Gregory’s time in charge saw QPR play 48 games, lose 23, win 13 and draw 12. Yup, with a win ratio of less than 30 per cent, Gregory’s mark will stay with the club for a long time Gianni. I’d say the fans will miss him as much as Nottingham Forest supporters treasure their memories of David Platt’s infamously idiotic time in charge there.

The sad thing is, in football, it’s really not what you know at all, but who you know… and what they can get you and how large can your buy-out clause be. Hiring your friends to positions that are worth hundreds of thousands of euro (and that’s at the lower end of the scale) is common practice in the game, yet few chairman seem to realise they’re on to a loser.

Being friends with those in charge might get you the job but it won’t keep you there. Just as sure as Gregory will prop up the dole queue in west London in the coming days, John Barnes shall never return to management. The Liverpool legend was brought to Celtic at the turn of the century, during which time his brainwaves seemed to be the only thing affected by the Y2K virus. He was a good friend to Celtic’s then kingpin on football matters, Kenny Dalglish, and got the job because of that and nothing else.

When Barnes was being escorted out of Celtic Park in a police van surrounded by thousands of angry supporters as Celtic crashed out of the Scottish Cup to Inverness, even he had to realise that perhaps he wasn’t up to the job.

Bryan Robson was Boro chairman Steve Gibson’s best mate for the guts of a decade before the latter saw the light at last and off-loaded the once great player and his awful brand of football. They became too close and had Robson been given the sack earlier, the talent that was in his side could have been far better utilised.

But episodes like this haven’t stopped chairman from ignoring logic and their fans’ wishes when making appointments. Dennis Wise being chosen for Leeds United by his mate Ken Bates springs to mind (nope, seven wins and a draw in the third division does not count as good management when you consider last season). Then there are the obvious two examples that currently have fans of their respective teams tearing their hair out: Avram Grant and Stan Staunton.

Grant was hired due to being good company around a dinner table. Stan was hired for being great craic whenever he met up with FAI (god I shudder when I write this) ‘supremo’ John Delaney for a few scoops.

It doesn’t work. Managers should be hired on their record and not a friendship with a chairman. Gregory had not been in management since 2003 before he was hired last year by Rangers; this surely should have said something to his friend. But no, against all sense in the world he hired him and Paladini now must deal with the consequences.

But like Gibson, Delaney, Dalglish and countless others, he can have no one to blame but himself. There are even rumours that another friend of his, Gianluca Vialli, may take over. Well what with his sterling record in the Championship (a 40 per cent win-rate from five years ago with Watford) who could argue with that.

He’ll be hiring from Facebook next.