The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Clearly, managers make or break teams Posted: 23 Aug 2011 05:00 PM PDT AUG 24 — The weekend has come and gone, well the extended weekend, what with Monday Night Football and a pathetic Spurs showing. But let's not waste time and space on Spurs as there was plenty of good football by other teams. The boys from the Etihad Stadium in Eastlands surprised with a very positive line-up away from home and deserved all three points at the Reebok. The fluent and fluid football, at least until Carlos Tevez came on, was more about Roberto Mancini changing his mentality by playing Edin Dzeko and Kun Aguero as a front two and boy, were they simply on the same wavelength. The promptings of David Silva added intelligence and flair with Yaya Toure looking comfortable in a deep midfield role. At the Emirates, we saw a Liverpool side that struggled in the attacking third with Andy Carroll upfront as all the smooth combination play would end with a meaningless cross into the box. Then on comes Luis Suarez and Raul Meireles and the attacking third comes to life culminating in a deserved win. I refuse to be drawn into the Arsene Wenger-bashing opening weeks of this season as I do have tremendous respect for him as I have always felt he would be perfect for Spurs. A mature squad with better players than Arsenal, the Spurs are bumbling along. Make your own conclusions. The situation at Arsenal Football Club is unique as Wenger worked on instilling a certain playing philosophy and spent a long time painstakingly putting the pieces together. However, the sell-by date seemed to pass the team without realisation and hence the exodus of a few key players together. The Gunners seem to lack a spark as Wenger desperately tries to revitalize the team. And this is so not happening as Thomas Rosicky and Andre Arshavin seem to be the go-to players while Theo Walcott instead, looks more like he could give Usain Bolt a run for his money than simply dribble past a defender. Let's be frank though, there definitely are worse teams than Arsenal in the Premiership, and the Gunners could still see a difference in approach with a couple of hackers added soon. Unfortunately, this weekend comes too soon with the very challenging proposition of a visit to Old Trafford to meet a Manchester United team playing with verve and energy in the shape of Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans, Phil Jones, Tom Cleverly and Danny Welbeck. These players bring hunger and desire — not something Rosicky and Arshavin can be accused of — and it will make a huge difference on Sunday. Alex Ferguson almost forgot his own Fergie's Fledglings philosophy of the mid- to late-1990s but seems to have recovered in time while Arsene Wenger stills seems reluctant to take a step back in order to take two steps forward by reverting to a tried and tested formula that made his name at Highbury. At White Hart Lane, a successful philosophy of keeping the team from getting relegated has brought one good season from the Spurs and despite the wealth of talent, they seem to be going nowhere. This season is going to be more about a manager and his tactical nous than players and Harry Redknapp needs more than the Luka Modric excuse to justify the teams poor form. And I don't only mean at the start of this season. The visitors to White Hart Lane will want to keep their momentum going and expect Manchester City to be positive again as Mancini will not want to change a winning formula. The Spurs are there for the taking! At Anfield, King Kenny will have to put sentiments aside and play his strongest team and not his favoured signings as Bolton have a determination about them. The central midfield partnership of Fabrice Muamba and Nigel Reo-Coker have the ability to disrupt Liverpool's fluid midfield and we could be in for an intriguing clash. But all attention will be on Old Trafford as Fergie's Fledglings 2.0 take on the gullible Gunners. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. |
| Posted: 23 Aug 2011 04:57 PM PDT AUG 24 — If there's one thing we're consistent about, it's electing clowns into Parliament. For me, it is one of life's mysteries, one other Malaysians often contemplate very loudly at a mamak stall. I think I've figured it out. We don't elect idiots for entertainment value. More likely, it's just that Malaysians have an inferiority complex the size of Putrajaya. While our political quagmire is similar in many ways to that of the United States -- loud, right-wing faction, business and political interests colliding -- but unlike the American people, we don't like putting our leaders up on pedestals. No, we seem to like having our politicians stay in the gutter so we can look down on them from our own lofty moral pedestals. The thing about having good men lead us is they are such a hard act to follow. We are Malaysian: we like convenience, ease and as little effort as we can get away with. After all, our idea of an education is force-feeding badly-written textbooks down the throats of our youngsters and then pretend to be surprised that the stuff they regurgitate isn't too pretty. A good man will find it hard to last in Malaysian politics. Going on the campaign trail, you need plenty of money to grease palms along the way. Everyone will be expecting "sweeteners." From the factory owner in your constituency to the printer in charge of your campaign paraphernalia, they will all be expecting a nice, fat little envelope. Good men wouldn't stand for that. Which is why the good men, for the most part, don't win elections. We complain about corruption but Malaysians perpetuate it. We pay off the cops so we won't get summons or fines and keep driving like idiots anyway. We do little "favours", figure out who to sweet talk to make things easier because it's all about the "orang dalam" (person on the inside) if we want to get things done. Change is hard. Doing the right thing is hard. We know that. Yet we keep voting for that guy who is just like us; we vote for the guy who doesn't want to do things the hard way. We like voting in the undereducated, the boors, the womanisers, the corrupt because seeing them display their shortcomings in public probably makes us feel a little better about ourselves. If YB so-and-so is taking under the table money, why shouldn't we? Somewhere along the line, we lost sight of the big picture. We forgot that electing the mediocre means resigning ourselves to mediocrity in every aspect of our lives. At the end of the day, can we continue to justify our culture of electing the undeserving to high posts? Next time, Malaysians, if you want to watch clowns just go to the circus. They cost too much in Parliament. * The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist. |
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