This weekend saw Tottenham owner Daniel Levy lash out on the Spurs website at all around arrogant wanker and Manure manager “Sir” Alex Ferguson and Liverpool’s hapless doofus of a manager Rafa “Rotation Rotation Rotation” Benitez. Tottenham’s management finally had enough of the arrogant public poaching of other team’s players. And then to have the hypocrisy to complain when Real Madrid do the same to their players. Last season’s Ramos affair didn’t leave Spurs smelling of roses but at least they try and adhere to the rules regarding players. It has been widely reported that we have approached players like David Villa and Blackburn’s David Bentley but I don’t recall anyone from Spurs mentioning them by name or going to the newspaper and detailing the team’s shopping list or opening encouraging a player to break a contract as Turd Ferguson and Rafa Benitez have done. Sorry, apparently The Sun made up the quote from Ferguson (The Sun? No say it isn’t so) and he is now saying Tottenham are going to be “embarrassed.” Even if he didn’t say anything directly quotable he has had his minions do it for him and everyone knows he made Berbatov a target last year and has been unsettling the player this year. The same way he made it known Carrick was a target two seasons ago. Benitiez was more blatant about it regarding Robbie Keane.
The arrogance of these top three (Arsenal are annoying but they do have a little class) the Chavs, Scousers and Manure just think they can cast their greedy little beady eyes around and like some fat, corpulent nuveau riche millionaire’s son say “I wont dat one, innit.” And players, who have the loyalty of a three year old girl for last month’s Barbie, are more than willing to let everyone know how “flattered they are” by the interest.
Levy would do everyone a favour by trading Berbs to Barcelona and telling Keane to either show some loyalty or sit on the bench for a year and watch Bent get all that service from the midfield.  
It is time for some owners to make a stand and demand that contracts are contracts. The FA will do FA when it comes to Ferguson and the tapping up will continue. I can’t think of another sport that allows this so openly. It is, quite frankly, making the game a laughing stock.

Last season, Tottenham were one of the top scoring teams in the league. I believe only Manure and perhaps Arsenal scored more goals. The fact that Spurs finished 11^th was clearly due to their woeful defensive record. Shambolic was a good word to describe last year’s shenanigans that saw Spurs give up four goals more times than I can remember – and to offensive powerhouses like Reading and Birmingham. 

Jol really didn’t solve last season’s defensive deficiencies and that was the main reason for his dismissal. Ramos started to get a handle on them but it will still need some work. Getting Hutton and Woodgate was great business. The jury is still out on Gilberto. Woodgate quickly sorted out the organization of the defence and led from the back. King spent most of the season injured and it is still up in the air as to how many games he can play in a season. Woody and King, as the Carling Cup victory showed, could be the best central defensive pairing in the League. Unfortunately, they are both made of balsa wood. Dawson is adequate cover but he lacks any leadership or organizational skills, although he is much steadier when paired with either Woodgate or King. 

Onto the full backs. Hutton was a great addition. He isn’t spectacular but he has pace, is fit and is a good defender. He works hard, which Ramos likes, and is a tough little bugger. Look for him to play most games this year. On the other side of the park, Spurs can welcome back young Gareth Bale. He showed some brilliance last year and if he stays fit could be a star player. He gives Spurs something they have lacked – a fast wing back with flair and skill. The defensive part of his game is still a little suspect but may well improve with the right coaching. Another young Welshman is Chris Gunther who will make a good young deputy for Hutton on the right. 

Gilberto was drafted in at left back at Christmas and promptly got us dumped out of the UEFA Cup. His excuse was that he wasn’t fit and he was overweight. How does a professional get away with that? Anyway, he is back in training camp and in better shape. Anyone who makes the Brazilian team can’t be all bad. Should be good cover for Bale. Ramos still wants to get a solid central defender to cover for Woody and King should one or both go down injured, which is more than a 50/50 bet. 

So what of the flotsam and jetsam who are on their way out? Chimbonda is on his way to Spain apparently. I actually liked him and he was one of our better players last year. His attitude sucks but he was a solid right back and was one of the few players to actually show some passion earlier in the season. Lee was a good left back going forward but his small size was exposed more than a few times. He is apparently getting his wish to go back to PSV as part of the Gomes deal, so good luck to him. Gardener, Stalteri, Rocha and Ekotto are all apparently on their way out. No big losses there. Which brings us to Monsieur Kaboul. Tottenham paid a lot for “the mercurial Frenchman and I think I actually said after a couple of games it was a brilliant signing. Didn’t really work out that way and after slagging off the management it is fair to say he is off to Metz or Portsmouth or somewhere. He could have been a good defensive midfielder but he was way too…French, basically. So au revoir pal…enjoy the sea air. 

The threat of injuries is always going to make life stressful for Tottenham fans. The team finally has a solid back four, although the backups are thin on the ground. A back four of Hutton, King, Woodgate and Bale I like a lot. Gunther, Dawson, Rocha and Gilberto, not so much. It the team can keep those guys healthy and find another solid central defender, Spurs and Ramos may go a long way to staunching the glut of goals that screwed the team last year. 

Spurs started their training camp this week and, for all the media speculation, blog reports and general buzz, the team looks remarkably the same. A lot of the same faces showed up to the Chigwell ground and one has to wonder if all that feverish speculation is just that and that Ramos is almost done. Perhaps.
So what will the team look like? Today let’s look at the strike force, which for all the talk may be remarkably the same.
Berbatov is at the camp and, call it a hunch, but I think he is staying for one more year. No one has ponied up the dough for him and I can see Levy and Ramos not wanting to sell him to United any time soon –  the whole Carrick thing still fresh in everyone’s minds. He’s petulant and whiney. But he is probably the most talented striker in the Premier League. When he is on his game he is a genius. Everyone knows he wants to play in the Champions League, but under Ramos and with the new crop of midfielders brought in and potentially on the way he might relish the better service and can anticipate a bumper year of goals and maybe another cup or two. A prediction: Berbs becomes the first striker to hit 30 League goals since Alan Shearer.
The Liverpool bid for Keane was a bit of a shock. The press immediately said Keane handed in a transfer request although the truth turned out to be he had just asked to be kept in the loop if indeed any negotiations were ongoing. None were and it seems that rumour has now died. Although not before Ireland’s manager went to the press to say he thought it would be a capital idea if Keane moved to Anfield. I guess there are going to be a lot of ankle strains for Keane when Ireland have friendlies to play. Keane really needs to stay. He can be selfish and miss the odd sitter but he is still the heart and soul of the team and gives it his all game in and game out. No one was more emotional at the Carling Cup win and if Spurs did let him go there would be a lot of pissed off supporters. Yours truly included. And he does have that great understanding with Berbatov.
Darren Bent was an incredibly expensive gamble and it really didn’t pay off. Admittedly, he didn’t get to play much, but the reality is that when you do get a chance you have to take it. Bent did precious little last year to impress anyone. Tottenham have been trying to unload him onto Sunderland and now he is being touted as a make-weight for the Bentley deal with Blackburn. However, Spurs still need a solid third and fourth striker. Spurs have already paid for him so they may as well hang onto him unless they can pry away another world class striker, which is looking more remote each day.
He should be listed as a midfielder, but I suspect Ramos is going to play Giovanni Dos Santos as a striker. I haven’t seen him play, but reports are he is a special talent. Here is hoping he gets a run out and a few opportunities to really show his stuff. Ramos was pretty astute in picking the Brazilian/Mexican kid as he may be a real Tottenham star of the future.

I thought a baseball metaphor was appropriate given our mayor and all.
With the feds and province looking at their shoes and muttering about not wanting to fund a stadium at Polo Park, which would do nothing for infrastructure or renewal, Winnipeggers are bracing themselves for another 20-year arena saga.
So Mayor Katz, who seems strangely unengaged about the whole process, turned to prospective team owner David Asper and mused publicly if there were any other places the stadium could go. Asper responded by sighing and rummaging around in his desk drawer. Luckily, he managed to pull out some plans for a 400 million dollar redevelopment of Point Douglas, including the stadium, condominiums, a 1000 bed hotel, a world class water park, parking lots, shops, waterfront walks and roads that link South Point to the Forks and a bridge to St. Boniface. Oh and here are the architectural plans and drawings. You know, “just something that came to me a week or so ago” claimed Asper.

The Mayor, who seeing the stadium deal die a slow agonizing death suddenly found himself confronting something equally terrifying –  a bold and expensive plan to revitalize the city core. The question now is given this golden opportunity, does he have the will, power and chutzpah to get it done?
I certainly hope so. He ran as the guy that got the Baseball Stadium built against the nattering nabobs of negativity and a hostile city hall – many of whom are still there. He genuinely wants to change the city for the better  and this is an opportunity to really put his stamp on this city…to achieve his goals of development, increased tax bases, renewal and urban revitalization.
This is a big bold, risky and daring plan. It is the sort of idea that could not only revitalize a crappy part of town but also send a message that Winnipeg is willing to step up and be the sort of place people might want to come to, work in and build in. These sorts of plans have worked and failed in other cities. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for this city to really go for it and give it a go. It might fail, but we are failing anyway. It offers Winnipeg the chance to change to the direction of downtown and seriously challenge the perception that this city is a sink hole when it comes to development. The default position for this city has always been scale back, think small, baby steps first. Big and bold we don’t do. Winnipeg is like the Snailskis on those Shaw commercials. It is time we broke the mold and sucked in our guts and went for it. And do it now, not in 20 years. 

Oddly, the cardigan and beard brigade of anti development types is strangely silent. Is it because they are cowed by the sheer size of the plan? Is it that they haven’t been confronted by something so daring before and they are in disarray? Are they silently marshalling their forces, seeing this as their Alamo – win this fight and no one will ever change a brick in Winnipeg again. Lose and developers will be flooding in from all over tearing down every last derelict “heritage” pile of crap to build stuff people could live in or use. “Remember The Point”
The cool thing about this “off-the-cuff” plan is that it actually demands less money from the taxpayer. The city would have to spend a lot of money on infrastructure like moving Higgins Avenue, upgrading the Louise Bridge and changing the structure of the Disraeli Freeway. But there is a lot of money floating around for these types of projects from all levels of government. And that is the cool thing about this plan. Winnipeg could piss away that money on a hundred little projects or combine into one that may actually result in something.
I have had to overcome my sense that there is something a little hinky about all this. The way it unfolded. The way the plan just plopped out. The speed at which all levels of government provisionally came out in favour of it. There is the whiff of shady backroom dealings going on. The existing stadium site being given to Asper for mall development, the hotel having some link to the Museum for Human Rights, which is being built by his sister, and the water park plan screwing over the Ledohowski’s again.
But that said, the mayor and the city have a brilliant opportunity. To screw this up would be the final straw for a lot of people. It’s in the hands of our politicians and one wealthy private citizen. Here’s hoping they get this right, for once.

Now that the Euro tournament is over there will be a great deal of trade and transfer movement as players who were “concentrating only on the next game” begin to concentrate on their wallets again. 

Spurs were very, very smart to lock up Luka Modric before Euro 2008. He was one of the most exciting players in Swistria and by getting him early Tottenham probably saved themselves a few million and the inevitable fight with the usual suspects. If he performs for Spurs like he did for Croatia, the team is going to make a big splash. His versatility and all around skill could make him a Spurs legend. Although we have all heard that before  — Rebrov/Postiga et al. But he is young and the sort of player you can build a team around. 

Dos Santos is very young, but if you can break into the Barcelona team at 18 you have to be pretty good. He could be brilliant, he could be a flop. It depends on how hungry he is and how well he adapts to the English game. Like Modric, he can play anywhere — up front or in the midfield and, apparently, is highly skilled too. I am seeing a trend here with Ramos. He has gone after players who can play a variety of positions and can switch within games. How very unEnglish — almost seems Dutch and the total football concept.

With Berbatov surely off, Ramos is looking for another striker and Germany’s Lukas Podolski looks like fitting the bill for a couple of reasons – big and strong he can score goals, and for the above mentioned reason, he is also comfortable playing deeper behind a lone striker or on the left side as a traditional winger. 

Huddlestone signed a five year deal this morning, which is odd given all the talk about him being moved. Although I think as he became fitter under the Ramos weight loss regime he improved. It will be interesting to see where he fits in. A defensive midfielder obviously or even as a centre back. Call me crazy but at that position he has the potential to become the new Rio Ferdinand. He is tall, tough and can pass a ball better than most and has a thunderous shot. He just lacks speed, so defence might end up being a better call for him. 

And finally, while it might have cost an arm and a leg Spurs finally nailed down a world class goalie in Gomes. PSV drove a hard bargain but I think he will pay off in spades. The big problem for Robinson was not his saving ability – he could pull off the spectacular save for sure – it was his inability to command the box in fixed situations like corners and free kicks, and his positioning that seemed to allow every long range pop to go in. The number of goals conceded last year that went in from 20-30 yards out was frustrating. I don’t think the Brazilian is going to be caught out as much and if he can, along with Woodgate, marshal the defence into some semblance of order then I don’t think Spurs will get into the same pickle as they did last year. Here’s hoping.   

Ole! Spain finally shakes the tag of greatest underachiever in world football – a mantle that now falls to England. Can history repeat itself? Two years after Spain won the European Cup in 1964 England won the World Cup. It could happen. Then again, a monkey might fly out of my butt!  Spain was the better team on the day and the combination of flair, fitness, teamwork (not something one usually associates with The Spains) and an ability to not give away the ball made them the most exciting teams to watch. I watched the build up for the goal after the game online and the amazing thing is the patience in the build up coupled with a cutting pass and some amazing athleticism to score. England would do well the watch how both teams played and try and understand that it isn’t rocket science – keep the ball, work hard, trust in your talented players. And for the manager pick the best team not the top eleven. Simple. England champions 2010. 

No blogging for a while there….a couple of life’s important moments took up my time. Now, in a much happier state of mind it’s back to the blabbing and whinging….
 Life’s events meant I missed quite a few games in Euro 2008 too. What I did see was pretty impressive — the Spain Italy quarter final notwithstanding. The Spanish were pretty exciting at the beginning of the competition although they seem to have been getting worse with each game. The Dutch, especially in the opening round, were great. Their thrashing of France was brilliant. Germany started brightly, seemed to get worse with every game but then seemed to draw on something else and just pull out wins the hard way. It will be an interesting final – two teams who are getting worse. A free-flowing attacking team against a hard working defensive team. It will be down to two coaches and who can out think the other.
Despite their crappy semi final showing, Russia played really well, especially in the win over Holland. Croatia too deserved better than to go out on penalties to Turkey. All of which has interesting implications for England.
Reading the English press, the consensus was that a Golden Generation of English football had been squandered by sub par management. MacLaren ruined the team’s chances of getting into Euro 2008 because of his tactical deficiencies. Here’s another theory – England isn’t good enough.
Croatia and Russia deserved to beat England and are better teams. Simple as that. In spite of the so called superstars on the team, England have been and continue to be complete and utter crap. Both Russia and Croatia showed they are better coached and work better and harder than England and deserved their place at Euro 2008. England did not.
Perhaps it is all the money and the pumped up egos of England’s elite footballers that make them impossible to coach. Prats like John (boohoo I missed a penalty – could you see Ron Chopper Harris bawling his eyes out?) Terry, Rio (I was too busy for my doping test) Ferdinand and Wayne (what the X!&* Ref! You bastard!) Rooney are puffed up chavs who feel entitled to their caps. England’s new coach would do well to actually pick a team as opposed to a favourite eleven. Coaches in some of the other countries on display in Switzia don’t seem to have a problem dropping or benching so called superstars. Capello needs to figure out a way of playing and pick the players to make the system work. Square players for square holes. It destroyed English football for 20 years but it was the system Alf Ramsey used to win the World Cup 40 years ago.
England would have been humiliated at Euro 2008. Holland, Spain, Germany, Portugal would all have hammered the English in embarrassing fashion. Italy, France, Russia, Croatia and Rumania would have all beaten the England team too with little fuss. England is on par with the likes of Greece, Turkey and Switzerland and not in the elite level of world football. It is going to take a whole lot more than a coaching change to get England back on track. Frankly, I am not that optimistic about the World Cup qualifiers either.

Euro 2008 begins this weekend in Swistria and I frankly don’t give a rat’s arse. I know I should be jumping for joy with all the talent on show ,but I need that emotional investment to enjoy it. Without England I just can’t summon the energy to really get on board. It was like the FA Cup final – I wanted to see the plucky lower division team take on the premiership also rans. But it ended up just being a boring game between two teams who really didn’t fire me up either way. I imagine I am going to feel watching Turkey Switzerland. I may skip a whole lot of the early games and tune in for the later knockout rounds.
And the really crappy thing is that after reviewing the teams competing England would have had a great chance to win it all. But if you can’t beat the likes of Macedonia then you really don’t deserve to be there.
SO who will win it all then? Germany.
Germany were the best team at the last world cup and played a distinctly un-German style – i.e they didn’t score an early goal and hung on for dear life for a one nil win. This German team is an attacking one with plenty of flair and probably the best two strikers in the tournament. Plus they are practically playing on home turf and Germany has that big tournament mentality that England clearly doesn’t.
Portugal and Spain are pre tournament faves this time, but aren’t they every two years. And every two years they suck the bag. Portugal finally made it to a final only to lose to the Greeks of all people. While Spain probably has the best team on paper they are like England in that they always find a way to cock it up somehow. They may have the likes of Ronaldo, Torres, Casillas and Alonso but  don’t expect either Iberian team to make much of a splash.
So what of the two world cup finalists? Italy is fairly unchanged but are a couple of years older and don’t have the pace. France have lost their defensive flair and are older too. And they are in the same group and may cancel each other out.
Will there be a dark horse? I think the Dutch will make a good go of it. They always play with flair and they have a pretty solid team this time out. The Swedes are older but a solid group and the Swiss have a pretty stingy defence. The Croatians are a lot of people’s outside favourties and the Romanians qualified easily. Despite, that I think it will be a Germany Netherlands final. And while I will root for the orange I think it’ll be the sausage eaters lifting the trophy again.
So it is out there. Let’s see how I do.

On the last day of the season Chelsea fired their coach Avram Grant. The second coach they fired this year after dumping the self styled “Special One” around Christmas. Now, nothing delights me more than turmoil with the chavs and I had a good old laugh at John Terry shanking that penalty and then bawling his little eyes out during the Euro final but what do you have to do not to get fired in the premier league? 

There are 20 teams in the premier league. This year eight teams (one twice) fired their managers. Almost half. In the case of Grant he took his team to the European Cup final, the League Cup final and within two points of the championship. No wins (so sad) but really hardly a bad year. Yet two coaches gone. Liverpool got the semi’s of the Euro Cup and finished fourth this year. They want to fire their coach. Strugglers like Fulham, Wigan and Bolton look like they did the best thing by canning their coaches as they did manage to survive the drop. Not so much Birmingham. Man City fired Erikkson for no apparent reason except that they didn’t win everything apparently and the citizen’s new Thai despot owner is apparently a petulant idiot. Maybe this is the problem England’s game is now run by a bunch of wealthy foreigners who know nothing of the game, have no sense of history or any feel for the game. They want to spend a whole lot of money win everything, sip Kristal with some supermodels and then slide off back to their respective countries and their shady businesses. 

Which brings us to Tottenham. Spurs did fire its coach and even though it was handled very poorly it was the right choice. We arguably got a cup this year because of the changes Ramos brought in after Jol was let go. He dropped the clowns, got the team fitter and brought in Woodgate, who changed the entire defence for the better. I guess if you are going to change manager then that is why you should do it. Tottenham will be a better team with Ramos. When Jol was fired Tottenham, who thought they were going to be challenging for fourth, were in 20^th playing like crap, lazy and passionless. 

So there are times a manager change is a good thing. But frankly the firing of Grant and the probable firing of Erikson and possibly Liverpool’s Benitez is ridiculous. No other sport fires managers and coaches at such a rate. Can you imagine taking your team to the SuperBowl, World Series, NBA finals or Stanley Cup and get fired for not winning. Who on earth would want to be manager in the premier league? 

So back in the The Big Dust….or that is what Winnipeg should be called these days. All that grit and crap they throw down to de-ice the roads now sits waiting to be swept up by the street cleaners. Or the gale force winds we have been getting this week.
Last week, I was in the great metropolis of Toronto and frankly it’s good to be back. I say Toronto, but the reality was I was stuck at an airport hotel for a training conference. A certain type of strip mall bland and Kafkaesque purgatory that is hard to describe. A soulless mass of concrete and awful chain restaurants. It would make a great film – ten people trapped at the Delta Airport not knowing what day it was, cut off from civilization with only the noise of incoming KLM jumbos the only tangible sense of the outside world. Or something like that.
One night a bunch of my coworkers drove to an appallingly bland Thai restarant…and that takes some skill I tell ya…and had to cross the majority of Mississauga. I am sure the people that live there are nice but it is just an endless vastness of strip mall and track housing. And just so much of it. Even the downtown is just apartment towers. One vast housing estate with blocked freeways extending like so many constipated spiders. It is an odd thing about Torontonians but the main conversation is always about the traffic. “I just spend four hours on the 401 to go two miles.” Etc. Toronto calls some of its main thoroughfares Parkways…and that is about right…you are parked for hours.
I am not really into slagging off other cities…although people in Canada’s “centre of the universe” are more than willing to have a pop at my home town. They call the crappy skid row area of their city Little Winnipeg. Nice. Toronto does have its funky little pockets and if you know someone who can get you to them they are great, but for the most part it is sprawl, uninteresting sprawl at that and a dreary down town. Nice ball park and tower. I think Peter Ustinov summed it up best when he said Toronto was what New York would be like if it was run by the Swiss.
Toronto is just so vast I don’t see the point. There are cities with bigger populations but is there a city that sprawls quite as badly as Toronto? LA maybe but at least they have the sea and mountains and hills and sun. Toronto has a lake and a whole lotta smog.
So return from my sojourn in the Big Lemon hardly enriched by the city’s great cultural attractions and looking forward to some decent thai food. On a patio. In the fresh air.
And as an aside why is it so difficult is it to get a decent beer in Toronto? Blue and Bud Light everywhere.