Thank you for taking the time to write to me and my fellow Spurs supporters.

In response to your letter, which covered many different areas including addressing some of the criticism levelled at you personally for your leadership of the club, I should like to take the time to respond to your letter in kind.

In your letter you say, “We always take decisions in the best interests of our club at the time we make them”. Of course you do. However, unfortunately that is often the very source of the problem, is it not?

In the 7 years you have been in charge, you have now appointed 6 Managers/Head Coaches. I am sure they all seemed like the correct appointments at the time, but then something changed and you decided instead to move in a completely different direction.

Nobody doubts that you think you are doing the right thing at the time, but with each new appointment comes the conclusion that you feel you had previously chosen the wrong manager. This proves that you clearly do not know what you are doing.

As much as I hate to admit it, I must credit the Arsenal board of directors for how they have run their club over the past 20 years. Every decision they make always has the best interests of the long-term future of the club at heart. Take a look, Mr Levy, at how that club has grown and flourished.

In stark contrast, every footballing change you have made as chairman of the club has been a knee-jerk reaction to the specific failings in the previous regime, and in this sense it has been blatantly short-termist and poorly thought out.

For example, you fired George Graham because you felt some of his comments might encourage Sol Campbell to leave the club, to obvious little effect. Thus a team of characters learning how to win together was broken up in favour of creating one mired in the traditions of the so-called glory days with Glen Hoddle chosen to lead the blind (or otherwise punished by God). Instantly, all our characters were replaced by the likes of 35-year-old Teddy Sheringham, perennially injured Jamie Redknapp (to play in midfield alongside perennially injured Darren Anderton), the gutless Gus Poyet, and the hapless Milenko Acimovic and Goran Bunjevcevic. Remember them?

Most disturbingly, through these painful early years you chose to accept the counsel of alleged kerb crawler and all around village idiot David “the sight is in end” Pleat. What kind of football chairman listens to the advice of a man who tells his TV audience, “For those of you watching in black and white, Spurs are in the all yellow strip…”?

In more recent times, you fired Martin Jol because of a slow start to a season which you were so desperate to rescue in a vain attempt to crowbar the club into the Premiership’s top four. Now you have fired Ramos in an attempt to rescue this season in similar fashion. Where will it end?

For now, it seems we are scrapping the role of Sporting Director. I agree with your assertion that the success of a football club is not about structure or job titles, but about people. Damien Comolli was clearly not the right person to replace Frank Arnesen. That does not necessarily mean scrapping the role altogether is the right move. This step was obviously taken with Redknapp in mind.

Knowing Harry Redknapp to detest not having full control over player transfers, it seems the role of Sporting Director had to go. In your letter, you claim we are not in this position because of any single individual. That’s true. The advantage now is that you will now only have to sack one person when you decide Redknapp has not worked out any better than his predecessors.

Undoubtedly Redknapp’s influence and Premier League savvy will save us from the position we currently find ourselves in. However, will the safety of mid-table be sufficient enough a league position to satisfy you next season? Of course not. With you as Chairman, a Tottenham Manager’s shelf-life is only as long as the next short-term goal. One wonders how long a 61-year-old Manager is destined to stay in the job.

None of this will matter of course when the club is sold in the next 6-12 months. As long as the club retains its Premier League status, it should still attract the desired number of zeroes.

You claim, “there is an inaccurate perception that our club is run entirely for profit and that football is secondary”. Nobody thinks that. Of course you want to be successful. After all, successful clubs make more money and you are quite right to point out that the two go hand-in-hand. However, demanding success and knowing how to achieve it are two entirely different things.

At the start of last season you demanded a finish inside the top four. Why? Why did you feel it was a good idea to burden an improving, young team and a good manager with that unnecessary extra pressure? We were all frustrated with a lack of progress in games against the top teams in the Premier League and many of us did have our reservations about whether Martin Jol was the right man to take us any higher than fifth in the league, but nobody demanded he be sacked immediately and certainly not in the disgraceful manner in which it was carried out.

Such actions not only embarrass us fans but also cast the club in a very poor light with the media. Of course we true fans are still going to love our club through thick and thin but we still value the respect and good wishes of neutrals and fans of other clubs. We want to be the non-Spurs fans’ second club. This becomes impossible when we conduct our business in such an unsavoury manner and are quite rightly slammed for it in all quarters of the media.

Seemingly not satisfied with ruining the 2007-2008 season, you then soured a very promising pre-season campaign again this year by allowing this Dimitar Berbatov nonsense to drag on right through to the very end of the transfer window. How can you honestly expect us to believe that, “the final decision to sell Dimitar was not a financial one but a footballing one”? Poppycock.

Your letter admits Berbatov wanted to join Manchester United as early as the Summer of 2007. You should have drawn a line under this whole affair at that point. Anyone who knows anything about football or about any sport knows that there is no point in persisting with a player who does not want to play for your team. It is poisonous to team spirit and without team spirit you simply cannot achieve real success.

When Gareth Barry was flirting with joining Liverpool over the summer, Aston Villa did not want him to leave but eventually they accepted they had no choice but to let him leave if the offer was right. They then set a deadline for Liverpool to complete the deal.

This is the crucial difference between the failed Barry deal, and the Berbatov deal. Aston Villa knew a long drawn-out saga would only end up hurting their own club so they set a deadline for BEFORE the start of the season for Liverpool to try and complete the deal, and if they did not, then tough luck. The date passed, Villa said that was that, and they were able to start the season with their squad already in place. They did not let the affair spoil the atmosphere at the club for the start of the season.

The most vexing claim your letter makes is that, “the timing of the transfer was completely immaterial and unconnected to our bringing in a replacement for him”. Oh please. How stupid do you think we are? If that was the case why was this deal for the loan of Frazier Campbell concluded at 11.59 PM on transfer deadline day with the very club who were buying Berbatov.

Your ridiculous obsession with squeezing every last penny out of Manchester United has backfired completely. Now we have had to spend all our profit from the sale of Berbatov on paying off an entire coaching team, a director of football and compensating yet another club for poaching their manager. How ludicrous your “tough stance” over Berbatov appears now.

Your stewardship of our beloved club has forced us to suffer one blunder after another. Every footballing decision you have taken has been made with purely short-term motives in mind. This has led to constant flip-flopping within the club which has left us with no solid base of stability for our players and coaches to build upon.

We need leadership from the boardroom. We need someone in charge with a vision for success and who has a clear idea of how to achieve that success, instead of endless quick-fixes.

Whether he turns out to be a successful Tottenham manager or not, Mr. Levy, your decision to appoint Harry Redknapp is just another in a long line of quick fixes and that is simply not good enough for our club.

Therefore, for the sake of our club, you must resign.

Soccersnobs.

The statement, issued to the three major supporters clubs read, “Though Dr. Shinawatra appreciates the passion and support of a small minority, the position of Manchester City fans as a whole is to be reviewed in full at the end of the season.”

A senior source at the club conceded that, “Thaksin feels the City fans started the season extremely well, but after Christmas felt they just weren’t pulling their weight any longer. He thinks he can find better fans to replace them.”

The source went on to concede that Dr Shinawatra has a number of other “personal” reservations about a large proportion of City fans he sees as “badly-dressed, oafish, and too ugly to be permitted to breed.”

Indeed, it is rumored that Dr Shinawatra first became attracted to buying the club because of its largely impoverished working class support base – mirroring the support base he enjoyed politically in Thailand.  Insiders now say, however, that the Chairman has become disgruntled with City fans, who he accuses of “false poverty”, whereby a large percentage will line dole queues but still drive sports cars and subscribe to premium Sky Television packages.

Shinawatra is also reported to be privately “sick to the back teeth” of fans constantly singing terrace favourite, Blue Moon, which he sees as “repetitive, tuneless, and de-motivational”. He is, however, said to have been hugely impressed by the singing of Rangers fans last Wednesday before their team’s Uefa Cup Final in Manchester. Their signature tune “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner, as well as their anti-Celtic favourite, “The famine’s over, why don’t you go home?”, are said to have particularly entertained the City chairman.

It is thought Shinawatra has even privately set aides the task of recruiting new City fans with a similar level of passion to these Rangers fans as well as those captured on CCTV in the hours immediately following the Glasgow club’s defeat in Wednesday’s European final.

Our club source went on to reveal that, in a more politically-motivated move, Shinawatra, who allegedly presided over the extrajudicial killings of 2,500 Thais in one three-month period at the start of 2003 during the notorious “war on drugs”, plans to replace the club’s motto, “Superbia in Praelia” (Pride in Battle), with “If you sell drugs, I’ll have you F**cking killed you motherf**cker”.

City fans, for their part, are said to have been left shell-shocked by the planned changes. One fan told me he could not have ever imagined that a club who averaged 30,000 attendances while the club was playing in the 3^rd tier of English football could ever contemplate sacking those incredibly patient, loyal fans.

The Gunners boss emerged from a trying week with the north London club in defiant mood and began Monday morning’s press briefing with all guns blazing.

After being knocked out of the Champions League by Liverpool in midweek and then losing at Old Trafford in Sunday’s do-or-die league encounter with bitter rivals Manchester United, a defeat which effectively ended Wenger’s quest for a 4^th Premiership crown, the Frenchman assured disillusioned fans that his side would emerge victorious in Wednesday’s crucial Lotto draw presented by Jenni Falconer.

On entering Shivas Newsagents on Highbury Park, Wenger told assembled journalists, “You have to accept you might lose, but what is important is that you can believe you can win. But if I didn’t believe we could win the Lotto jackpot… I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

The Arsenal manager’s bold prediction will smack of desperation to many observers. A season that offered so much promise at the turn of the year has failed to reap any real reward and since the end of January the Gunners have suffered one disappointment after another.

First came the heavy defeat in the Thunderball draw. Wenger has always used this “lesser” competition as an opportunity to blood some of Arsenal’s young guns. Though the prize is not as desirable as the more lucrative competitions, many fans feel that after having had so little success to celebrate in recent years, more experienced players should have been given the nod to pick the numbers, particularly the Thunderball itself.

More recently, Wenger’s side made a botched attempt to win the latest Euromillions draw. With a substantial jackpot on offer, fans were again left bewildered by the Arsenal boss’s selections after he handed pensive defender Philippe Senderos the responsibility of choosing one of the all-important Lucky Star numbers. After much dithering, the bamboozled-looking Swiss internationalist eventually plumped for ‘1′.

“It was utterly incompetent. ‘1′ almost never comes up. Senderos has never been good enough to choose numbers for the big draws. I’m just so disappointed. I mean… he wasn’t even close!”, despaired one exasperated fan after numbers ‘5′ and ‘7′ were drawn.

Wenger has risked much in making this latest declaration and more criticism of his decision-making ability is certain to follow after he revealed that he intends to purchase only 1 ticket for Wednesday’s massive £2.5M draw.

“I believe just 1 ticket is necessary to select the numbers we need to win… I believe very much in my squad and if we can recapture the spirit of the San Siro, we will be victorious”, he explained.

WHAT NUMBERS SHOULD ARSENAL PICK FOR THE BIG DRAW? SHOULD SOBBING SENDEROS BE GIVEN ANOTHER CHANCE TO SHINE? IS THIS WENGER’S LAST CHANCE AT SAVING ARSENAL’S SEASON? PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW…

First, there was the events at White Heart Lane on Wednesday evening. Then came a few home truths in the Sunday papers from ref supremo Keith Hackett. And finally, there was the ‘contentious’ sending off of Javier Mascherano in Sunday’s disappointing encounter at Old Trafford, and the debate that has ensued.

Let us begin with Chelsea vs Tottenham last week.

Ashley Cole certainly deserved a red card for his inexcusable behaviour. The challenge was poor, and though the actual contact appeared minimal, it warranted a caution from referee Mike Riley at the very least. Cole’s subsequent reaction to his yellow card should then have seen him walk.

Referees chief Keith Hackett said as much in his column in the Sunday Telegraph this week:

(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/03/23/sfngue123.xml).

BBC Sport editor Mihir Bose then stuck his oar in:

(http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/mihirbose/2008/03/post_14.html)

In his blog, Bose suggests Steve Bennett, the referee for Sunday’s match between Manchester United and Liverpool, must have read Hackett’s criticism of him (Bennett was fourth official at White Heart Lane on Wednesday) and Riley while eating his corn flakes on Sunday morning, and then sent off Mascherano because he feared receiving another ticking off from his boss.

For those of you who do not know, Mihir Bose is a chartered accountant who then became a business journalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihir_Bose). He is essentially a cricket fan and knows next to nothing about football as evidenced by his recent report for Inside Sport from French Football Academy, Clairefontaine, where he claimed that Gerard Houllier’s was the greatest football mind of all time (or words to that effect).

What Bose does not realize, is that not everyone went to private school or votes tory in general elections, so there exists a remote possibility Bennett did not read the “Telegrawwwf” on Sunday morning.

Even more difficult to understand is how Bose could come to the conclusion that Bennett was frivolous in sending off Macherano given that the same newspaper’s website published an extensive list of every time Mascherano displayed dissent to Bennett during the “Super Sunday” clash:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/03/24/ufnferg224.xml

Mascherano berated Bennett the entire first half and absolutely deserved a second yellow for it, despite Rafa Benitez’s protestations.

It is therefore wrong of Benitez to suggest Mascherano was unfairly sent off for simply asking “what was going on” after the official booked Fernando Torres for dissent. If he was really so curious, why did he not just ask his fellow Spanish speaker rather than storming 20 yards, arms aloft, to indignantly confront the referee, who by then had lost all patience with the Argentinian? Rediculous.

As well as his column in The Telegraph, Hackett wrote an excellent piece for The Observer criticising the BBC’s Match of the Day pundits for their ignorance of amendments to the offside rule made in 2005.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sport/story/0,,2267601,00.html

On last Saturday’s show, Messrs Hansen and Shearer failed to comprehend why Jeremie Aliadiere’s goal against Arsenal was allowed to stand. Together they claimed, “If you put 10 referees in a room, you would get 10 different decisions”.

This ignorance of the rules of the game has long been a problem at the BBC. Even now, you can often hear commentators like John Motson complaining about a referee not blowing his whistle for hand ball when “the ball clearly struck the defender on the hand”, as well as other nonsense like there not being “daylight” between the attacker and the defender “so how can the striker be offside”? They also cannot seem to understand that a player is only offside if a part of his body that can legally play the ball is in an offside position. In other words, if your arm is stretching past the last second last defender but the rest of you is level then you are NOT OFFSIDE.

There is no excuse for this level of incompetence. The reason commentators and pundits are confused about the rules of the game is because they are too lazy to actually read them. There can be no other explanation. These days, any fool can look up the rules of football from the comfort of his or her own home:

http://www.thefa.com/NR/rdonlyres/095F9568-466D-4D71-ABF5-C1253A1C28FD/122272/FIFALaws2007_08_book.pdf (Page 77)

The rules for offside (Rule 11) are quite clear and even come with illustrated examples. ILLUSTRATED! That means if you are too thick to read more than a few paragraphs, you don’t have to: Someone has been kind and patient enough to draw you not just one but several pictures by way of explanation.

As Hackett points out with the MOTD analysis of the Aliadiere goal, “They suggested the goal should not have stood, that the striker should have been flagged for ‘gaining an advantage’ after being in an offside position from the long ball. That is simply wrong… It is not an offence to be in an offside position… a player is only penalised when he becomes active… it is the definition of ‘active’ (that confuses pundits).”

The rest of his article very clearly explains what ‘active’ means, and Hackett does not magically dumb the complicated rules down into layman’s terms. He simply quotes what is stated in the rulebook.

But Match of the Day pundits like Shearer and Hansen are too arrogant to bother doing any research. Their attitude is “We played the game. We know how it is played. Any changes we will pick up as we go along.” Anything more complicated and requiring more than 30 seconds to digest is therefore dismissed as incomprehensible. Their defence is that players and managers are as confused about the rules as they arel.

Football players and ex-players might not be all that bright? Surely not.

When Portsmouth were playing their first pre-season match since the new directives for the offside rule were introduced in 2005, Harry Redknapp went ballistic that the assistant did not flag “until very late” when the opposition forward received a long pass while he was clearly in an offside position.

The rule had been in force during that summer’s Confederation’s Cup. It had also been widely reported in the media that amendments to the offside rule meant that assistants were no longer going to raise their flags until AFTER the attacking player standing in an offside position had played the ball or had otherwise become active.

You could understand a manger on holiday not being aware of some obscure Lithuanian player signing for a lower division Bosnian team – even managers need a break from football in the summer. However, to not be aware of a significant change in the offside rule?? This level of ignorance from a manager of a Premiership team is unforgivable.

On the whole, what is needed in football at the moment is a great deal more education. Most fans rely on their trusted media sources, like the BBC, for their information regarding obvious rule changes and what to make of refereeing decisions made on a Saturday afternoon. More importantly, for our youngsters in the early years of lacing up their boots and having a go themselves, stronger guidance is required at the top level to provide a model for what behaviour is, and is not acceptable on a football pitch.

 SOCCERSNOBS

THAT’S WHAT WE THINK. BUT WHAT DO YOU THINK? PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LEAVE COMMENTS BELOW…

In an astonishing revelation in his column for The Observer newspaper on Sunday, David James exclusively revealed he had secretly been addicted to homosexuality for 15 years.

Such rumours have dogged the Portsmouth and England goalkeeper his entire career.

Strong denials by close friends, team-mates, coaches and his ex-wife had seemed to put the accusations to bed in recent years, but James has now broken his silence over his gay past in stunning fashion.

James wrote of his perverse addiction: “I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t confess my own 15-year 20-a-day habit. As ludicrous as it now seems, I spent much of my career puffing away on fags: after training, before matches and even on the team coach. It makes me feel ill just thinking of it.”

Ironically, as recently as last year, James wrote in the same newspaper of his desire for more gay footballers to come out.

In what now reads as something of a call to arms, he wrote, “A senior executive in football said to me he wished all the gay footballers would come out so we could just get on with it. I find that view refreshing.”

“Just imagine, football’s first gay couple playing for rival teams, arguing about offside decisions over the dinner table. They would do Hello! magazine, chatshows, advertisements. Would it upset players being naked in the changing room together? What about the after-hours highly homoerotic activities – indulging in football threesomes and roastings? Would football culture ever be the same again?”, James enthused.

In the same article, he confessed to enjoying other homosexual pursuits such as yoga, painting, and, most disturbingly, reading.

In this latest article, James reveals how the origins of his orientation began in his early teens after injuring his finger making a save at the local leisure centre.

“Participating in any kind of sport after that was not an option while I had a large metal pin sticking out of my finger. Frustrated and bored, I succumbed to peer pressure… Before I knew it I was on 20-a-day of some of the strongest fags around… light fags were soft.”

On speaking of his childhood, he confesses, “I never understood how my friends could fancy a girl.”

Frustrated and understandably cautious about revealing his dark secret to friends and team-mates, James explains the lengths he went to in order to keep his depraved encounters from becoming public knowledge: “I remember sneaking out of my digs in the middle of the night to sit in a bush.” The article does not reveal if the clandestine venue was actually “Shepherd’s” Bush or just an ordinary bush you might find in gay person’s back garden.

The pressure of keeping his shameful truth a secret clearly took its toll on James in the early part of his career. It was only when he joined Liverpool that he felt he could fully reveal himself.

He now admits to having openly indulged his base desires after training sessions, in the players’ lounge, and even on the team bus. As James explains, “If my team-mates complained, I argued that they visited nightclubs without a problem so what was the difference?”

However, James now sees such incidents from his past as deeply regrettable. “In hindsight it was disgraceful behaviour on my part,” he asserts.

In spite of his frequent indiscretions, James won the first of his 36 caps for England while at Liverpool (http://soccersnobs.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/the-too-many-caps-11/). Indeed, it seemed he was on the path to stardom.

Unfortunately for James, this success was short-lived. Over the next 10 years James made numerous costly errors for club and country, which earned him the undesirable gay sounding country & western nickname, Calamity James.

In light of Sunday’s revelations, the reason for James’ numerous losses of concentration, inexplicable gaffes and his inability to effectively throw or catch a ball now seems all too obvious.

In recent years, James has enjoyed something of a return to form. This, he attributes to the decision he made some years ago to become less gay. “Football was going through a period of modernisation and with that came more intense training regimes. It was getting harder to perform and I made a conscious effort to cut down.”

Freed from his unnatural urges and no longer feeling tempted to sodomise his team-mates and coaches, James now feels he is reaping the rewards of keeping his mind on the job. “Whereas I used to struggle with training, now I actually enjoy it,” he admits.

It is unclear why James has chosen now to set the record straight on his bent past. The accompanying photograph in The Observer article merely shows James pushing away a man dressed as a cigarette, possibly because the man had been trying to grope the Portsmouth ‘keeper, or one of his team-mates.

What is clear, is that James has strong views on how to discourage footballers from turning gay. “If Premier League bosses were to adopt a zero-tolerance approach, it would send out a strong message to everyone.”

Soccersnobs

Could you be my special one? – Swarthy charismatic Portuguese M, coming out of bad break-up, seeks wealthy ambitious partner for spicy fling to get back at ex. I speak my mind and can be v. naughty. I don’t play by the rules & controversy really turns me on. You Italian? – Let’s be naughty together…  

Mend a broken heart – Affable simple ginger Yorkshire M in excellent dental condition, longingly searches for that special anyone for any kind of relationship at all. Am willing to travel long distances. Rainy climates also not a problem. Please please don’t make me your second choice!  

Roman Emperor needs his slave!! – Billionaire Russian Dom M, desperate to fondle some big cups, demands subservient insignificant other to submit to plans for universal “domination”. I enjoy punishing and humiliating slaves for obedience. All boundaries respected initially with a view to going all the way before too long, hopefully in Europe. In return, you can help me splash the cash on other frivolous unnecessary purchases. Looks and personality not important.  

Soccersnobs. 

Want to reply? You can do so in our comments section below.  

Manchester United assistant manager Carlos Queiroz got the ball rolling in the wake of his team’s defeat to arch rivals Manchester City with a puzzling complaint about his players being left tired after returning from England duty against Switzerland, where 3 United players averaged a gut-wrenching 65 minutes of playing time.

Perhaps he was referring to the epic cross-continental trek from London to Manchester.

Another strong contender was Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger for his harsh criticism of Birmingham defender, This Guy, for his clumsy leg-breaking challenge on plastic Croat, Eduardo da Silva.

“It was the result of a very bad tackle that’s not forgivable… A three-match ban is a joke… This Guy should never play football again,” Wenger complained.

His subsequent retraction of these comments removed the Arsenal manager from being seriously considered for the award.

Understandably upset that no Derby players’ legs have been broken yet this season, bleating Ram’s relegation shepherd, Paul Jewell, put forward his case for winning the Moaning Manager award by launching a stunning tirade against his own players for their abject performance in the 2-0 defeat to Wigan.

“Anyone who knows me knows I might not have been the best player but I always gave my best and still do. I will defend my players all the way if they are giving their best and things are just not happening. But I just can’t defend that performance. It was absolutely disgraceful.”

A Bradford City spokesman, who knows Jewell, later confirmed he was not the best player.

Three worthy efforts, but the award for Moaning Manager of the Month could only go to one man.

After leading his vastly superior squad to their first cup final defeat of the Abramovich era, Chelsea puppet overlord, Avram Grant, deservedly claimed the prize, firstly for his assertion that Wayne Bridge’s forearm juggling of the ball in Chelsea’s penalty area did not constitute a penalty. He then went on to insist that blowing the final whistle while Chelsea were not winning was somehow illegal. 

“I have never before seen the referee finish a match when this situation is happening.”                                                                                        

The following week, in the face of mounting criticism of his team selection in the final and his general lack of tactical acumen, Grant hit back.

“You’re (the media) trying to hurt the team, hurt the club because we lost one game. Wait with the knife a little bit… You didn’t behave too nicely. Now I don’t respect you too much because we lost one game and you’ve taken it too far. I don’t like it. You hurt my players, you hurt the club and this is not the right way.”

Congratulations Avram for winning the inaugural Soccersnobs Moaning Manager of the Month award!

Soccersnobs.

Who gets your vote for February’s Moaning Manager of the Month? Please feel free to share your views in our comments section below.

For months now, the number of places has effectively been cut to two with Derby County rooted at the foot of the table – their place in next season’s Championship is all but secured.  

Similarly, after their convincing 3-0 defeat to Manchester United, Fulham also seem destined for a place in English football’s second tier.  

This leaves 7 teams locked in a heated battle for the one remaining qualifying place with Reading, Bolton, Birmingham City, Sunderland, Wigan, Newcastle and Middlesbrough all separated by a mere 4 points and each team desperate to secure a place among England’s mediocre.

League Cup winners Tottenham Hotspur, while only seven points ahead of the 3^rd qualification place, are thought to be focusing on their European campaign and club insiders have secretly admitted their squad is too thick to launch a realistic bid for relegation – this season at least. 

At present, much of the momentum appears to be with Newcastle United, who dramatically escaped a tricky encounter against Blackburn Rovers with 0 points after a last gasp defensive collapse allowed Matt Derbyshire to secure a late winner for Rovers.  

“It was looking a bit hairy there for a while. Michael was presented with a number of opportunities you would expect him to score,” said a relieved Kevin Keegan. 

“I’m really pleased with the application and determination of the players. When you look at the way we threw that game away against Blackburn today… well, it shows character.” 

“It was a set play. That’s something the lads have worked on in training. When you throw everyone forward for a corner at the end of the game you risk scoring a goal but you also leave yourselves very open at the back. That’s how you successfully concede. It doesn’t take a genius to work that one out.” 

Keegan’s team has seemingly come from nowhere to make themselves realistic contenders for Championship qualification.  “We don’t want to go thinking too far ahead of ourselves but we know what we want to achieve here. We want to be playing in the Coca-Cola Championship. I want it, the players want it and, most importantly, the fans want it. Playing against the likes of Barnsley and Hull City, playing midweek games at Turf Moor, Selhurst Park and The Walkers Crisp Stadium, it’s those special nights the fans crave. The fans up here have been made to wait for a very long time for this opportunity. They deserve it.” 

Middlesbrough also did their Championship ambitions no harm by conceding an added time winner to Reading. “A team like Reading make it very difficult not to score against them,” said Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate. “They had been on a fantastic run of 8 straight defeats, but I think what our players have shown today is that on their day they can lower their game and be as poor as anyone in the division.” 

“I had been getting a bit worried about us for the past few games but this result has put us right back in it. We are only 4 points off that final Championship place and the competition is tight, but I have every lack of confidence in my players. I know we can lose.”

Reading manager Steve Coppell was philosophical in the wake of his team’s unexpected victory. “There’s no need to start hitting the panic button yet. We were doing superbly ever since the 6-4 defeat to Tottenham. Today was a setback, nothing more.” 

“We now have a huge game against Derby next weekend. Very few teams play them at home and lose, but that has to be our focus.” 

Saturday saw Derby inflict a rare away point on Roy Keane’s Sunderland. Wigan were also desperately unlucky to come away from Manchester City with as much as a draw.  

The real shock of the day came at St. Andrews, where Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish was left tearing his hair out at Mikael Forssell’s careful finishing. A defeat would have seen them ease into the Championship places just ahead of Reading and a resurgent Bolton. 

Back at the start of January, Championship football seemed at best a remote possibility to Gary Megson’s team. It was thought that a striker of Anelka’s class had too many goals in him for Bolton to ever successfully achieve relegation.  

Two months on and with Anelka now at Chelsea, Megson has shrewdly picked up Grzegorz Rasiak, a proven Premiership flop, to blunt Bolton’s potentially effective attack. 

“Grzegorz is a terrific signing for us. He is one for our future in the Championship really, provided we can get him on a permanent deal, but we saw today against Liverpool that there is already no understanding between him and the other players, especially Diouffy,” enthused the Bolton Manager.

Indeed, many Bolton insiders are excited by what they see as the budding of a fruitless partnership between anti-social wide man, Diouf, and disoriented Pole, Rasiak. Fans have already affectionately labeled the pair “Spit and Polish”.

The real hero of Bolton’s impressive 3-1 reverse against a previously shaky Liverpool, however, was goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen. In the 12^th minute, the Finn pulled off a truly miraculous diving header to divert a tame Steven Gerrard shot into his own net.

“Jussi is one of the few players I’ve seen who is capable of something like that. If we do win the final qualification position, I think we will look back at that own goal as one of the real key moments,” Megson later added.

Each team now has 10 games to play, and with 20 fixtures to be contested exclusively between the 7 teams vying for the final Championship place, this race is sure to see many more twists and turns before this season reaches its exciting climax.

Soccersnobs.

Who do you think will win this race for the Championship? Please feel free to leave comments below…

Their real thoughts on performances are often kept out of the public domain and what is shared with the media can often be a diluted version.

But there comes a time when the gloves have to come off, a time when the pussy-footing has to stop.

That time came at the JJB on Saturday afternoon after Derby County players were forced to participate in yet another embarrassing performance by the coaching staff, headed by Paul Jewell.

A player spokesman said, “That was just dire. There is no getting away from it. That’s the worst performance I’ve ever seen in the Premier League.”

This thinly veiled attack on Jewell has been coming for some time. At Bradford and Wigan his combined record was 19 wins, 17 draws, and 40 defeats. This unquestionable success has not yet been transferred to Derby County, where, since arriving at the club, he has managed only 11 defeats, 0 wins and a mere 5 draws.

This inexplicable lack of consistency has clearly taken its toll on the players, who, under previous manager Billy Davies, had grown used to winning.

“Before Paul arrived, we were a team which was capable of getting a win. His arrival has disrupted our flow and you can only bite your tongue for so long.”

It is difficult to deny assertions that the 2-0 defeat by Wigan on Saturday was Jewell’s most abject performance of the season.

Our source went on to say, “I will defend my managers all the way if they are giving their best and things are just not happening.”

“But I just can’t defend that performance. It was absolutely disgraceful.”

And there was a further stark warning from the players, “Some managers are not worthy of being here and the sooner we get them out the better.”

Soccersnobs.

I felt it necessary to delve further into this phenomenon. Thank god for the internet, where trivial desires can be instantly satiated. The internet may be used, of course, to satisfy a wide range of desires but, dear reader; I sought only one thing – factual evidence. What I found was startling: did you know 53-cap Glen Hoddle and 57-cap Paul Gascoigne, England’s stand-out players of the 80’s and 90’s respectively, have less caps than Phil Neville?  

But poor Phil Neville is not the only one: in fact I have come up with an entire team of players, who despite limited ability have amassed a collection of caps to make the dead-ball genius Matt Le Tissier (8 caps) cry into his daily fry-up. Whether by virtue of managerial stupidity, luck or lack of left-footed alternatives, this motley crew have collected a staggeringly undeserved haul of caps. Some points must be noted: your writer being a mere slip of a lad means only players from the last twenty years are included (in reality, caps were not handed out so easily before then so it’s probably about right); and it is rather subjective list. To make your own ‘Too Many Caps 11’ go to: http://www.englandfanzine.co.uk/records/appearances.asp  

Presenting… The Too Many Caps 11: 

Player Name (Caps, Goals) 

James, David (36, 0)

Mills, Danny (19, 0)

Mabbutt, Gary (16, 1)

Brown, Wes (15, 0)

Neville, Phil (59, 0)

Palmer, Carlton (18, 1)

Smith, Alan (19, 1)

Batty, David (42, 0)

Dyer, Kieron (33, 0)

Vassell, Darius (22, 6)

Blissett, Luther (14, 3) 

Total Caps: 293. Total Goals: 12. Goals-per-Cap: 0.04 

SubsRobinson, Paul (41, 0), Young, Luke (7, 0), Bridge, Wayne (28, 1), Salako, John (5, 0), Lee, Robert (21, 0), Wise, Dennis (21, 1), Jenas, Jermaine (18, 1), Heskey, Emile (45, 5).

SOCCERSNOBS.