Hi All,
the latest installment of the snore-fest "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!" started recently on ITV. Imagine my surprise, when flicking channels last night, that I was faced with the gurning image of Rodney Marsh been stretchered away for ligament damage. True to form, he has already caused controversy on the show by being amazingly sexist. He said: "She believes in equality of women and that women should be paid as much as men and that women are equal to men [but] what has a woman ever invented?"

Marsh is a former Fulham, QPR, Man City and Tampa Bay Rowdies striker, he also made 9 appearances for England, scoring once, against Wales. His international career ended after a smart remark to Alf Ramsey.
Ramsey said: ‘I'll be watching you for the first 45 minutes and if you don't work harder I'll pull you off at halftime," Marsh replied: "Christ, we only get a cup of tea and oranges at Fulham!"

Most will remember him for his outspoken TV work, he was a joy to watch amid all the current blandness on Sky Sports and the BBC.
In 1999/00, he predicted relegation for Bradford and offered to shave all of his hair off if they stayed up. They duly achieved it, helped by this last day win over Liverpool, check out David Wetherall's goal. Marsh subsequently got his head shaved in the centre circle of Valley Parade.

In 2005, he was fired from Sky Sports for making a joke about the recent Tsunami and David Beckham, along the lines of: Beckham's move to Newcastle is on hold after trouble with the Toon Army in Asia.
Marsh moved to Talksport and caused further controversy after he made news reader Robyn Schonhofer laugh uncontrollably while she was announcing the deaths of British soldiers in Afghanistan.

So, all in all, a bit of a legend then. Some good video links here, here, here, here, and his legendary skills pretending to be Rooney! See also his Times interview, and official website.

Mark,
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The Champions league is supposed to be the pinnacle of football these - a chance for the top players in the world to play for the best teams in Europe against each other.

So what happened this week then? Liverpool massacred a horrendous Besitkas team at Anfield, Arsenal played their Carling cup team away from home and United barely broke a sweat to beat Dynamo 4-0.

On Tuesday I watched the first 2 goals go in for Liverpool, knew that the match was over and switched over to a program about massively overweight people and how much they eat each day. Thrilling stuff. Flicking back to Anfield on occasion, my worst thoughts were confirmed - a rout for the 'Pool.

The highlights package contained few surprises and Wednesday night rolled around.

Man Utd sauntered out onto the pitch, played terribly, and won easily, despite having Darren Fletcher in the team. In the other 7 games, everything went to plan with Barca, Inter, Lyon & Sevilla all winning as expected. The highlight of the night was former Sheffield United man Colin Kazim Richards (now known as Kazim Kazim) scoring for Fenerbahce to help beat PSV.

This is not the first time the Champions League was ruined by predictability, and it won't be the last. The idiot Platini hopes to include more Champions from smaller countries in the competition, and possibly domestic cup winners too, all of which, while noble, will ruin the competition and create more nights like Tuesday and Wednesday. It is not the major clubs fault that there isn't the same money in all parts of Europe - it is down to the individual country's economy, and, crucially, population. No amount of tinkering by Platini will create a sufficient trickle down effect to substantially improve these countries. What will happen, and is happening, is that the Champions League regulars (for example - Dynamo and Shatkar) get more and more money while the rest of their domestic league flounders. Who is that good for?

TV companies won't be happy with recent one-sided games, that, while great for the team's fans, are a turn off for the neutral, who want to see top class football. The Champions League should be cut down to 24, even 16 teams, with extensive qualifiers before the likes of Levski Sofia or Slavia Prague get a sniff of the main competition. Otherwise, TV money could fall and the cabal of G14 will push their agenda forward - the European Super League

Mark,

JJ here,

Well, what in the name of god can be learned from an 8-0 win against a side who wanted to leave the stadium after the first half hour? Last night’s game was a bizarrely dull affair where eight goals came with a disgraceful ease. Where does it leave Liverpool? It leaves them with some confidence going into the next few Premiership games at least but it had the air of a freak occurrence rather than a revival. A Houllier corner being turned almost.

Kevin Keegan’s last game in charge at Newcastle was a 7-1 defeat of Spurs which tells you that the odd thrashing can’t cover up a multitude of poor performances. In the end; the Yossi hat-trick, Crouch and Babel doubles as well as Voronin’s flick for Gerrard’s goal were nice but no one has changed their mind about this side overnight and many questions remain. How can Crouch be continually ignored in the league when he scores or causes trouble whenever he plays? Are Aurellio or Riise up to the job at either left back or left midfield? Why does Mascherano wait until the game is nearly up before he starts to actually pass instead of lumping it out of play or back to the central defenders?

The win only strengthens the argument that Benitez has no excuses for failure this year, he has an excellent squad but, for the most part of this season, he has used them incorrectly.

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The really interesting result came in Spain where Ronald Koeman got off to a blistering start with Valencia. Actually replace ‘blistering’ with ‘piss poor’. The tubby Barca legend is an odd choice for any side that wants to play decent football – as myself and Mark have referred to on several occasions he’s managed some awful sides in the last few years – and last night was a horrendous result. A two-nil home loss to Rosenborg is about as bad as it gets for a top European side, which, under Koeman anyway, you suspect Valencia won’t be for some time.

Elsewhere it was a dull enough evening so despite my better instincts I’m risking ridicule with some predictions for tonight. I have to improve on the last time when I got one out of eight right… well maybe.

Barcelona v Rangers: Sterling effort by Rangers will result in a four-one defeat.
Fenerbahce v PSV: Meh. PSV to be inspired by losing the Koemanator. 1-2
Inter Milan v CSKA Moscow: Forza Inter, I still want them to win this trophy and hope they crush the Russians. On the subject of the Rooskies, for no reason other than to waste some of your work time here’s a flashback to the good old Cold War: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nLE_Lh9b54. 3-0
Lyon v VfB Stuttgart: Karim Benzema (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMlOITyWSsg) has got Lyon’s season moving in France and they should be too strong for the Germans. 2-0.
Man Utd v Dynamo Kiev: Not even a contest. 3-0. How is this being shown on TV? Show this 45 times instead (Wizard! You shall not pass!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43sbtkQM6zc
Slavia Prague v Arsenal: Hmmm… Cesc and Hleb left at home; Arsenal with a history of Eastern European slip ups; they have to slip up at some stage… well not here. Solid 0-1.
Sporting v Roma: Difficult. 8-9
Steaua Bucharest v Sevilla: Difficult. 8-10.

Right, til tomorrow when they come back and haunt me.

The Mangnificent Ambersons was a great film by Orson Welles, The Magnificent Anderson is equally theatrical and full of innovation. Ba-doom Tsch.

United played Arsenal at the Emirates on Saturday, and, as I expected, Fergie sent out his team with a bit of caution about them. Hargreaves and Anderson played deep, hustling and harrying the opposition. Anderson was impressive for a man so young, in a high profile game and after only a few games for United. His play-acting though, was shameful. He could have had a few yellow cards, he got the merest flick on the ball before engineering a foul from Fabregas and rolling dramatically across the turf, and he waved an imaginary yellow card in front of the ref.

All in all not a good show from the Brazilian, but I expect Ferguson to sit him down, a la Ronaldo, and tell him to cut the shit out.

Back to the game - it was interesting, but never a classic as we had hoped. The first half trundled along with United's tactics doing the job against the one man up front, Adebayor. Hleb, so lauded recently against Liverpool, was missing, while Rosicky and Eboue in midfield offered little. Flamini doesn't look particularly impressive as the nominal holding midfielder, but his distribution is good. Gilberto has been marginalised so far this season, but I would expect him to have a bigger role to play.

The second have livened up a lot, Arsenal kept the ball superbly but, arguably, it was United who had the better chances - Rooney certainly should have scored with a header. Ronaldo, despite doing almost nothing for the entire match, has done a bit to throw off his 'big game bottler' tag, by setting up Rooney to score, and by tapping in Evra's pass. Giggs had another poor game, and Nani surely should have replaced him as the second half wore on. Tevez was pretty terrible, and Saha made much more impact in his short time on the pitch.

Wenger left his changes til late, but Eduardo and Walcott didn't convince. Gallas made up for his own goal (and some poor defending aside) to lash home the equaliser.

So Arsenal passed the test, they have great team spirit, great skill and a great manager. For United, however, they have left the Emirates disappointed at getting a draw, and not many teams will feel like that this season.

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Chris Hutchings has been sacked, which came as surprise to nobody. He won only two of his 14 matches in charge, which is reminiscent of his time at Bradford, where he won one game in 12. Dave Whelan, the Wigan Chairman said "Chris has worked very hard since becoming manager and I cannot fault his effort and commitment to the cause. "

Well, I wouldn't like to see the results if he wasn't trying. Titus Bramble must be shedding a tear that his mentor is gone. Looks like he'll never get that England place now....

Mark,

JJ here,

From the hilarity of pizza being lobbed at Alex Ferguson’s red face to Roy Keane telling Patrick Vieira “see you out there” after the Frenchman attempted to strike a blow for humanity by telling Gary Neville he’s a tosser, Arsenal and Man United tend to serve up controversy as well as good games.

The last two years may have been less intense but Arsenal’s fightback at the Emirates in 06/07 wasn’t a bad affair and tomorrow promises to be a step up on recent meetings. Mainly due to the fact that they both have so much to play for. Whoever wins this game finishes top of the league at the end of the weekend. They won’t win anything for it but it’ll give whoever claims three points a huge boost.

Were United to win for instance it would put them about six leagues above Liverpool’s standard as Arsenal were at least five divisions classier than the scousers last week. Chelsea still have some ground to make up on their rivals too and three points for either Man U or Arsenal would put a great deal of daylight between them and Avram Grant’s increasingly dangerous looking side.

The build up will take up a lot of today’s papers so, considering the fact that I think this could well be a bit of a classic in the making (come on, how many players on the field at 12.45 tomorrow have a habit of hoofing the ball for starters - fuck all at last count), I thought I’d list off a few of the Premiership’s greatest games. At the very least you’ll get a few damn good YouTube clips to send you into the weekend.

Liverpool 4-3 Newcastle 95/96
Okay it’s obvious but that doesn’t make it wrong, and yes it is the first game not the unbelievably freakish second 4-3 a year later. Two teams playing excellent football, with John Barnes in top form in the middle, while Newcastle’s imports (Ginola, Asprilla etc) brought a little class to proceedings for the visitors. I couldn’t see the game due to a knackered satellite dish and had to listen to it all on the wireless (ah we were poor but we were happy in the old days says I). In typical Liverpool fashion though they would go on to lose 1-0 at Coventry four days later, effectively ending their title hopes. If that doesn’t sum up the last 17 years of the Pool I don’t know what does. Anyway, Stanley Collymore will forever remain a Merseyside legend for his 93rd minute finish: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTzuGJb777Q

*** Though he’ll be less likely to be remembered for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtNmNMPjilQ (not necessarily work safe by the way)

West Ham 3-4 Spurs 06/07
Absolute insanity and my game of last season. Two nil to West ham after Mark Noble marked his debut with a cracking finish from outside the box and Carlos Tevez’s first goal for the club. It was back to 2-2 with fine football from Spurs, and then Tevez set up a third with five minutes left before Tottenham grabbed two in the 89th and 95th minutes, the first of which was a peach of a free from Berbatov. West Ham looked dead and buried at the time which made it all the more dramatic. Alan Curbishley throwing up his notebook and attempting to volley it away after the fourth went in was hilarious as well. YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cUTdiIVCpY

Arsenal 2-4 Man United 04/05
Forget Keane and Vieira in the tunnel (we’ve covered it at length in the past: http://www.okeydokefootball.com/ShowMoment.asp?MomentID=4) the great big, bloody huge shock of this game came late on when United were three-two up and with Arsenal pressing for an equalizer, one John O’Shea found himself in space up the other end and lobbed Almunia with a beautiful finish. He turned to be congratulated by his teammates but had a wait a few seconds, presumably as they couldn’t believe it had actually happened (then again, he does have his moments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gasxpPiews). A great game, we can only hope tomorrow matches up. Here’s the United goals and a few more against Arsenal through the years, apologies for the tune though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho9yOxa4x3U

Portsmouth 2-1 Man City 05/06
Bit of a leftfield choice here but bare with me. Pompey under Alan Perrin had looked as gormless as this backing singer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6riY-103vbc - but along came old ‘Arry Redknapp to save them. Though considering three of his first signings were Spurs reserves Pedro Mendes, Sean Davis and Noé Pamarot, Portsmouth fans weren’t bursting with optimism. However this game included two peaches from Mendes, with the second coming in the last minute after a Richard Dunne equalizer.
It was a great Premiership moment - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_61i00MTBQ – the very start of their recovery and it set them on the road to their current status as one of the finest sides to watch in the league.
One other reason for picking it, and one that unfortunately is not available on YouTube, is that RTE’s commentator on the game, one Adrian Eames, emitted a high-pitched sound after Mendes’ winner that was… well a little TOO excited. If memory serves correct the exact line went something like: “Mendes, the shot… aaawwwouuuuuuuooooooaaaaaaaaaaaa”. Reports that he had a cigarette afterwards before changing his trousers are unconfirmed.

Spurs 3-5 Man United 01/02
There is a legendary story of one Spurs fan who, once his team had gone three-nil ahead at home to Man United in September 2001, bet his mortgage on the home side winning just to impress his girlfriend. Whether the lady in question is still with him or not I don’t know but his debts won’t be paid off for a few decades yet. Five second half goals from a rampant United were rooted in a magnificent performance from Seba Veron (“a fuckin great player” as Fergie said). Brilliant and bloody hilarious stuff.
Original report here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2001/09/29/sfgtot30.xml and YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRBWZI00bog

Your favourites?