The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Posted: 08 Aug 2011 04:56 PM PDT AUG 9 — If the new season is going to be anything like Manchester United's second-half performance in the Community Shield, then bring it on! It has been a long time since MU played with such high intensity and creativity that opponents are really going to have to be two levels better to compete. This second half was a stark contrast to what was dished out last season and this is down to two things. First, the footballing lesson at the hands of Barcelona shook Sir Alex Ferguson so much that he was literally shaking at Wembley. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the young players brought on at half time meant more energy and power. The outstanding individual was Tom Cleverly, the midfielder who showed such creativity, maturity and vision that he most certainly deserves to be a regular starter this season. The assurance and calm of Phil Jones in defence seemed to have a positive effect on the normally nervous, at least in the last two seasons, Jonny Evans. The defeat at the hands of Barcelona quite perhaps made Ferguson look at himself and realise that he had abandoned the very policy that made him the lord of the English game as it is, Fergie's Fledglings. By abandoning the policy that provided the platform for years and years of domination, he now is taking a shortcut by signing the best young players and promoting from within. And how did Bebe ever wear a Manchester United jersey, Sir? For the Blue half of Manchester, they still have not located Mario Ballotelli who went missing at Wembley. They scored against the run of play but looked sluggish especially in defence. Too much muscle mass seemed to make Micah Richards, Joleon Lescott, Vincent Kompany and Alexandar Kolarov look like carthorses. And with a hesitant Gael Clichy, the City defence will not be so generous again, I hope. They still look title contenders with the ability to score goals from nothing and Roberto Mancini should take heart from that. The problems were in midfield where normally City are well organised but on the night were too loose with David Silva, Yaya Toure and James Milner not quite sure what their positions were. It is fine to allow freedom in midfield but there still needs to be some shape and pattern. All in all, a great start to the season and with Chelsea looking sharp in Hong Kong and Liverpool sure to uproot some trees, this looks like it is going to be a bumper season after last season's bummer! * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Ups and downs for ex-England bosses Posted: 08 Aug 2011 04:45 PM PDT AUG 9 — Five years ago yesterday, Steve McClaren took charge of his first England game — a misleadingly promising 4-0 victory over Greece — after succeeding Sven Goran Eriksson as the national team manager following the disappointing 2006 World Cup Finals campaign. Now, both managers are in the Championship, hoping to lead their new clubs back into the Premier League after a lengthy absence from the top flight. Laconic Swede Eriksson took over at Leicester City last October, effecting an impressive immediate upturn in results after a poor start to the season but ultimately not doing quite enough to lead the Foxes into the play-offs. A few months later, McClaren took over a few miles up the M1 motorway at Nottingham Forest, replacing Billy Davies after the City Ground club's promotion challenge ended in accustomed disappointment with yet another defeat in the play-offs (something Forest have made their own unwanted specialty in recent years). The new Championship season started on Saturday, with Leicester earning a hard fought 1-0 win over Coventry but Forest frustrated with a 0-0 home draw against Barnsley. A lot of hard work lies ahead for both clubs. It's been an eventful and not always smooth ride for both McClaren and Eriksson since the latter took over from the former as England boss in 2006. McClaren, who first made his name as Alex Ferguson's assistant at Manchester United in the 1990s, was doomed to become the shortest-serving permanent manager in the national team's history, leading the team through a desperately disappointing Euro 2008 qualifying campaign which saw them finish third in their group behind Russia and Croatia, failing to even make the play-offs. The group phase, and McClaren's managerial reign, came to an appropriately dismal end with a 3-2 home defeat against Croatia on an extremely wet night at Wembley in November 2007, with the image of McClaren hovering under an umbrella on the sidelines, earning him the disparaging moniker of "The Wally with the Brolly" — an unkind piece of mockery that lives with him to this day. After a brief sabbatical, McClaren re-emerged in unlikely surroundings at FC Twente in the Netherlands, and promptly re-established his tattered reputation by immediately guiding the unfancied provincial club — so long accustomed to being outshone by Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord — to runners-up in his first full season and then securing their first Dutch title in the following campaign. Reputation amply restored, McClaren headed a little further east to take over at Wolfsburg, who had just enjoyed an impressive season, finishing mid-table in the German Bundesliga and reaching the quarter-finals of the Europa League. He failed. Wolfsburg stumbled through the campaign, narrowly avoided relegation, and McClaren was sacked. Such are the vagaries of football. New hero in 2006; tragi-comic fool in 2007; tactical genius in 2010; on the scrapheap in 2011. Now offered another lifeline by Forest, it will be intriguing to see how he fares in the coming campaign. If anything, Eriksson has undergone an even bumpier ride since departing the England job five years ago. His next stop was Manchester City, where in hindsight he was perhaps a little unfortunate to arrive just before the splurge of spending by new owner Sheikh Mansour. After just a year in charge, having led City to a ninth-place finish in the Premier League, he was on the move again to take over the Mexican national team, but his reign in central America lasted less than a year after a series of poor results — including defeats against Honduras and Jamaica and a draw with Canada. Then came the bizarre Notts County experiment, when Eriksson was installed as the League Two club's director of football by mysterious new owners Munto Finance, who were promising to inject untold riches into their acquisition and developed a five-year plan to climb into the Premier League, signalling their intentions by recruiting former England international defender Sol Campbell. County looked like becoming the Manchester City of the lower leagues, but Munto Finance's plan contained just one, fairly significant drawback: they didn't actually have any money. So, after a few months of broken promises and unrealistic, daydreaming, Eriksson was released from his contract. Another unlikely destination ensued as the Swede took charge of the Ivory Coast for their World Cup finals campaign in South Africa, but once again he endured disappointment on the international stage as the African nation crashed out in the first stage in a tough group also including Portugal and Brazil. And now he's at Leicester, working for wealthy Thai owners and benefiting from a significant budget in an attempt to realise their dream of a place in the Premier League. A number of quality players have arrived at the Walkers Stadium in the last few months, including powerful defender Matt Mills for £5 million (RM25 million) from Reading, striker David Nugent, former Liverpool full back Paul Konchesky and Swiss international Gelson Fernandes. The players are in place, and Eriksson's job is to mould them into a successful team; without wishing to be unkind, the evidence of the last few years does little to instil confidence that he'll be able to do that. Forest and Leicester, McClaren and Eriksson: both are expected to deliver promotion this season, but the Championship is a notoriously competitive and difficult division, and the odds are that one of them, or both, will fail. If that does transpire, at least they've both had plenty of practise at coping with disappointment. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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