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Manchester United Are Going To Be Really, Really, Really Good.

Boggs supports Tottenham. Boggs also can not believe what’s going on at Manchester United.

When Manchester United dominated the Premiership virtually from start to finish, with the occasional look back at Chelsea and barely a thought for Arsenal and Liverpool, many supporters applauded and heralded the creation of a third dominant squad for Sir Alex. But secretly, there were doubts. The season was won on the back of an incredible year from Cristiano Ronaldo and the resurgent form of aging midfielders Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes - the trio proving vastly responsible for United’s trademark attacking verve.

But when it was all said and done, the holes were easy to pick through. Could Ronaldo keep it up? Who would United look to for pace and attacking speed from midfield if he was hurt? Was this simply an indian summer for Giggs and Scholes? Who could United possibly sign to replace them, given that their current second string players were hardly world class and Chelsea and Liverpool were bigged up as having the kind of financial backing to trump any attempt from United to sign the world’s best?

And in one busy week of transfer activity. All questions have been answered.

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Andy Gray Gets It Right Again. Sorry, Make That “Completely Wrong”.

Boggs continues his 2,358,157 part series “Reasons Why I Dislike Andy Gray“, with a look at the man’s latest case of foot-in-mouth disease.

Oh Andy, Andy, Andy.

Oh TV, I find him to be quite enjoyable to listen to despite the horrific biases he has towards or against certain Premiership clubs. But when it comes to his Sky Sports or Football 365 columns, under the title “Britain’s Best Football Pundit“, the only appropriate reaction I can muster is to project fecal matter from my anus. If his title was “Britain’s Kinda OK Pundit Who Usually Gets Things As Right As Any Other Bloke In The Pub” then I would have less of a problem with it.

The latest bout of highly-paid, expert analysis that Gray has delivered came between the AC Milan - Manchester United Champions League semi final clashes. Here’s a sample,

Forget the two away goals. With one swing of Wayne Rooney’s boot on Tuesday night the whole mindset of the tie changed in an instant. The pressure has been heaped on Milan, and I believe that Milan side is ordinary.

Not only will United get a result in Italy next week, they will beat Milan in their own backyard. I think they’ve got the Italians running scared - they’re not a great team and they know it.

Sure, Kaka is brilliant but go through the team - the keeper is dodgy and the back four is creaking and should hold no fear for United’s forwards. Anything else to be scared of? Pirlo? No. Seedorf? No. Ambrosini? No. Gilardino? Definitely not.

If this was a game of jeopardy, the question would be “How wrong can one human possibly be?”. Even in hindsight, there are plenty of things would never have added up prior to the match, or any time in probably two thousand years or so:

Andy Gray Said: The pressure is on Milan, and they are ordinary.
But: The pressure was on Milan despite the Italian side scoring two away goals and taking a mere one goal deficit back to the San Siro? Ok…
The Result: 3-0 Milan, obviously.

Andy Gray Said: The keeper is dodgy, the back four is creaking and should hold no fear for United’s forwards.
But: Milan have maintained a back four of 30+ for years, not just this season. And they’ve done fairly well. One might say a lot better than Manchester United, especially in Europe. In fact, everyone else would say that.
The Result: Clean sheet to Milan, obviously.

Andy Gray Said: Pirlo, Seedorf, Ambrosini and Gilardino are nothing to be afraid of.
But: This is the one where Andy probably had popular opinion on his side. Milan got to the semi final on a typical cup run rather than brilliant individual performances from the whole team.
The Result: Two of Milan’s three goals were scored by players who were nothing to be afraid of.

Sleep well, Britain’s Best Football Pundit, consider that paycheck earned for another week.

Andy Gray Provides No Insight Ahead Of Sunday

Boggs prepares for another dismal Tottenham performance tomorrow by having another go at Andy Gray’s “coverage” of Manchester United vs Chelsea.

Another double whopper from Britain’s Best Football Pundit” as Andy Gray once again picks up two paychecks for the same, awful work, on otherwise fine sites Sky Sports and Football365.

With a massive Premiership clash on Sunday, you’d figure a he’d put a little effort into his analysis - but of course he didn’t, instead opting to ask a neighbourhood child what he thought and passed it off as his own:

“I think the midfield will be the key area where the game is really won and lost.”

“The Gunners [Arsenal] dominated possession and kept control of the ball and United were unable to cope with it. If that happens again with Chelsea on Sunday it will cause them big problems.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if this is a draw, although United will be disappointed if they lose on Sunday.”

“On the other hand, United would be ecstatic to go six points clear of the champions…”

Sheer brilliance. The fact that you could take any of those statements apply them to any Premiership match, or La Liga match, or Sunday league match, and still have it ring just as true shows the level of punditry we’re dealing with here. His handsome appearance must keep him on the telly - oh wait, he’s looks ridiculous.

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What Good Is A Five Year Plan?

Boggs is sick of waiting.

The infamous Five Year Plan.

So heralded by wide eyed optimists upon the arrival of a new manager, so criticised by those unwilling to waste away more of their life for a false dawn. Tottenham and Newcastle supporters more than anyone else in recent times have been force fed the notion that patience is the key to Premiership success. Already, Martin Jol has accepted that it will be another few seasons before the London club is ready to challenge at the top.

A Five Year Plan is great in theory, give a manager time to build “his squad” and install his tactics and football personality on his team. Be patient and stick with him through the thick and thin so that he can develop a team without worrying about being sacked in a week. David Moyes at Everton is the shining example.

But really, patience is for fools. Football is a fickle sport with an established elite and opportunities to make an true and lasting impact are few and far between. Tottenham are a perfect example, sure they made tremendous progress last season by almost claiming that fourth Champions League spot. But last season Spurs had the rarest of opportunities to catch Arsene Wenger’s side in transition, steal the last Champions League spot and in the process deal a huge blow to a club paying off a new stadium and almost certainly sealing the departure of Thierry Henry. We bottled it, and now my life is a little less happy.

The opportunity to spark such a chain of events may not arise again for a long, long time. Tottenham’s best Premiership season also saw them lose their best chance to flip the balance of power in North London. No matter what is achieved in the 3rd, 4th, or 5th year it is unlikely to make as much of a difference as what finishing 4th in the 2nd would have. .. err… or something.

Anyway, taking your sweet time to make progress takes its toll on your playing squad as well. Tottenham have a promising and talented group of players but Michael Carrick already buggered off to Manchester United to help his career. Given Tottenham’s poor start this season, if they fail to qualify for the Champions League or even the UEFA cup will they be able to continue to hold onto the likes of Ledley King or Aaron Lennon? How about the year after that?

The Premiership itself is in a sort of transition, Liverpool and Arsenal are not where they “should be” and if Tottenham don’t take advantage now, in two years time when they’re finally “ready” the established Big Four will likely be back to their best. And at that point, it won’t even matter.

 

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Read more Newcastle articles on the Newcastle section.

 

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Spurs So Wrong, Arsenal So Right. Again.

Boggs retreats into the haze of doom and gloom reserved for Tottenham supporters.

After a weekend that saw Arsenal turn a corner and Tottenham struggle to even find the road, it’s tough to remain as optimistic as I was after last season about closing the gap between the the two London rivals. Even though both clubs began this season with a slump and a mini-crisis, as usual the grass is far greener on the red side of London…wait… err, whatever.

Despite finishing 5th last season, I never really felt that Martin Jol had Tottenham playing confident, creative football with regularity. Significant, but relatively unthreatening possesion with moments of inspiration were usually enough to earn some points but teams were rarely dominated. This year, with the loss of Michael Carrick’s ability to quickly receive and redistribute the ball, and an over reliance on the now-injured Aaron Lennon as a creative outlet, the side looks static and rather incapable of creating regular scoring chances.

Arsenal, on the other hand, continued to tear teams apart from start to finish - with simply their finishing letting them down. There was reason to be annoyed if you were a Gooner, but hardly troubled about the long term implications. You just knew that once things clicked that someone was going to get slaughtered, and an away win over Manchester United should do the trick.

Martin Jol has proven he is a capable coach, but he has to deal with a rather poor transfer window that only replaced existing first teamers and did not address the only key need of the squad (natural wide players). And, thanks to the revolving door of players at White Hart Lane, he has a new batch of players to mold into a cohesive team once again.

I would love to know what the hell Arsene Wenger has Arsenal players do in training, but they seem to be able to bring in new players and, no matter how old they are, where they came from or how long they’ve been at the club, they seamlessly slot into the side and display the same technique and movement as the rest of the team. Tottenham’s midfield, on the other hand, take about 5 seconds just to control the ball and another 5 seconds to decide what to do with it. This is not the foundation for fluid, attacking football.

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How will Mourinho be remembered?

Boggs looks back on a better time, when people looked forward to Jose Mourinho opening his mouth, and wonders if he’s scuppering the legacy he yearns for.

Back when Jose Mourinho was merely a young scamp plying his trade at Porto, he was a breath of fresh air. Their Champions League winning run was not only fantastic for it’s underdog storyline, but because of its charismatic leader who took on, defeated, then wound up Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United with a brashness that we hadn’t quite seen before.

As football fan, I was hooked on his bravado and insults spoken in the perfect level of English - just good enough for you to understand him, but broken enough that you couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic. As a Tottenham supporter, I wanted him to show up at White Hart Lane, punch David Pleat in the bollocks, and drag my club back to the glory days. But of course, he didn’t. Because we’re Tottenham. Still, I thought he would at least shake up the Premiership, given Sir Alex and Arsene a bit of a scare and add some fresh entertainment value. This man was going to change the league.

Two years on, my attitude has changed. The same traits that were so endearing and genuine now seem forced and bitter. The admirable confidence has turned to unnecessary and attention-seeking arrogance, the endless pointless feuds with other managers for the silliest of reasons. And the moaning, oh good lord the moaning! He was first hailed for his famed match preparations and dossiers, but his post-match analysis of every way Chelsea has been wronged is now far more notorious. And that’s even when they win.

His latest bout of delusional paranoia has led him to believe Chelsea players are “unfairly” receiving bookings in the Champions League that other Premiership sides do not. Mourinho is a smart man, so surely the concept of all teams not being equal doesn’t escape him - his Porto team famously used every dirty trick in the book and now we’re meant to believe there’s a larger conspiracy? So what is it? More pointless mind games? Another tired attempt to build a siege mentality within his squad?

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Carrick and Hargreaves for 35M? BARGAIN.

Boggs struggles with his sums as the Owen Hargreaves saga seems to be reaching a climax. And not the disgusting kind.

Yes, paying 18.6M for Tottenham’s poor man’s Andrea Pirlo still seems steep and the supposed 17M it would take to pry the Canadian from Bayern Munich’s cold, incredibly angry fingers is hardly a financial coup - especially considering that Hargreaves has only recently gone from punchline of Sven’s England reign to World’s Greatest Living Player.

Yet both deals still represent fantastic business for Manchester United (assuming Owen Hargreaves’ much anticipated press conference today results in a Bosman-like enforcement of player power although we’re hoping for a lot of profanity and maybe some sort of scuffle).

The recent ’slump’ afflicting the club has not stemmed from a lack of talent, merely balance. It is no secret that the centre of Manchester United’s midfield represented a gaping hole in talent and consistency compared to the rest of the squad and the mere fact that names like Djemba-Djemba or Liam Miller ever graced the position will be an eternal shame for Sir Alex and his children.

Scholes may be on the mend and O’Shea and Fletcher adequate squad players, but Carrick and Hargreaves would represent a strong and potentially dominant partnership in defense and attack for years. More importantly, such a balanced and defensively sound partnership will allow Ferguson to safely play the trademark 4-4-2 he has recently re-discovered after mucking about with fashionable 4-3-3 and 4-5-1’s. Hargreaves and Carrick will be more like Keane and Ince than Keane and Scholes …although Scholes is still playing so I guess Hargreaves and Scholes would be more like Keane and Scholes …well… whatever.

With Chelsea investing so heavily to pull away from the pack, Rafa Benitez spending Liverpool’s cash like it’s going out of fashion and Arsene Wenger continuing to sign wunderkids for nothing, now is not the time for Manchester United to be counting pennies once they’ve identified the players they need.

So chin up, Sir Alex. Carrick + Hargreaves for 35M? BARGAIN.

Boggs: Wenger wants clampdown on diving…need I say more?

Boggs is at a loss for words. And it doesn’t even matter.

I spent some time thinking about how to construct this article based on Arsene Wenger stating that he wanted divers to be subject to trial by video, a ‘clampdown’ on these villains of our game.

I thought about how to properly explain the irony and hypocrisy behind such a statement. But I don’t have to; the fact that I could just say “Whaaat?” and have everyone reading this, regardless of who they support, immediately know the what I’m thinking says more than my poorly-constructed arguments ever could.

Oh…besides this.

And this.

And yes, he lambasted Eboue for his dive in the Champions League final but that’s only because Arsenal lost. If they’d won, do you really think he’d come out and say “We didn’t deserve it, we cheated for the first goal - here’s the trophy back”?

Boggs: What is the point of Walcott?

Boggs would like to punch Sven square in the mouth.

As I sat watching the final few seconds of England vs Sweden, it hit me that ‘Arry Redknapp may have recently made the first insightful footballing comments of his career regarding Arsenal missing child Theo Walcott. Let’s review, shall we?

4th minute: Michael Owen suffers what looks to be a bad injury and must come off. England have already qualified so surely it is time to give Walcott a run out in case Mickey’s a doubt for future matches.

WRONG. Apparently Sven decides it’s time to bring on the yellow card-carrying Peter Crouch who has been fundamental to England’s tactics/long balls thus far. If Crouch picks up a booking, it leaves unfit Rooney and untried Walcott for the second round. Brilliant.

69th minute: Wayne Rooney has had his run out and is coming off, it’s 1-1 and England still top the group - surely we will see Walcott get 20 minutes now with the match winding down and a good chance of securing top spot

WRONG. Sven reckons it’s time for the yellow card-carrying Steven Gerrard instead, after all why not risk losing a key midfielder? Maybe Eriksson didn’t want to deal with trying to decide whether to play Lampard and Gerrard together next match.

As far as I can tell from the 3 friendlies leading into the World Cup, and the first 3 group matches, Sven’s preferred pairings up front are:

1) Crouch and unfit Rooney
2) Crouch and unfit Owen
3) Crouch and Gerrard
4) Crouch and Joe Cole
7) Crouch and Carragher
Tord Grip
9) Walcott (on for Tord Grip after 85 minutes)

Does this make any fecking sense to anyone? Anyone at all? Yes we all figured Walcott was brought as some kind of ‘wildcard’ to come on and change a match, but after drab performances by England in all three group matches surely the opportunity should have come up at least once?

OR…maybe Sven is a total and utter muppet who’d rather listen to his buddies than exhibit any sound footballing judgement. FFS!

Boggs: Patrick Vieira, take a bow…

Or a dive.

Following the ex-Arsenal midfielders less than complimentary comments about Ruud Van Nistlerooy’s diving - even calling the Manchester United striker a ’son of a bitch’ - I felt it more than necessary to point out that if the supposed “midfield hardman” was going to accuse another player of playacting and conning the ref, he probably should have made sure there wasn’t footage of him going down easier than a midget hooker (just wanted to link it a second time for good measure).

Even as a Spurs fan, I can usually see the objective point of view through my own biases but in this case I don’t see how even the most blinkered Gooner could defend their ex-captain’s hypocrisy.

Does Boggs know his arse from his elbow? Let us know in the comments section or send an official rebuttal to submissions@caughtoffside.com and we’ll put it up on the page!