Talking Points

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The crowd's already clapping at Roy's Liverpool Swan Song

As football leagues around the world ground to a temporary halt allowing the ruthless International Break train to plod on, Another Prick In The Wall took a look back at the last few weeks to garner some talking points for football fans to chew their brains on, which are currently devoid of any club football thoughts…

Roy Hodgson

The man of the moment is undoubtedly Roy Hodgson. Fulham’s last season’s success meant that Roy Hodgson was full of hope while taking over Liverpool. But his Mersyside dream has come crashing down like the Twin Towers because of a combination of his tactical naivety, shaky foundations, lack of fresh blood in the squad and general pessimism and off the pitch going-ons. While Kenny Dalglish is waiting outside his office with the disposition of Jesus taking back the black sheep into his flock, Roy’s days are inevitably numbered. Oh, and Pellegrini stands a chance of being on a job once more, subject to the will of God, of course.

Liverpool FC

Did I talk about the Twin Towers? While Roy is one, the club itself is the other tower that’s going down, and fast. Liverpool FC is trending worldwide on Twitter for all the wrong reasons. That reminds me of one of the tweets that I read last night which went something like:

Brought to Fame by Shanks and then to Shame by Yanks…Saved by the Bank of yet another Yank

Pretty much sums up the situation I’d say, though I have my reservations about the “being saved” part as Hicks and Gillett seem adamant to fight off any attempt to sell the club without their authorization. Stay tuned for a long, drawn out court battle. This year, Liverpool is the world’s favorite circus!

Wayne Rooney

Lately, Shrek has been appearing in the news for all the wrong reasons. But after all the various drops the poor guy had to endure, a rise in number of mentions in tabloids is quite justified. Dropped out of the World Cup without a single goal scored, dropped by the hooker whose performance standards he could not meet while cheating on his then pregnant girlfriend, dropped from the United starting line-up due to lack of goals (“To protect Rooney”, says Fergie), dropped from Coke’s marketing campaign, on the verge of being dropped from the English NT, things aren’t going too well for big Wayne. The tabloid mentions might just serve as a light at the end of the tunnel.

Marouane Chamakh

The Arsenal striker looks upon Zinedine Zidane as his god and not Didier Drogba, by his own admission. While it’s good to harbor such feelings, he could do taking a leaf out of Drogba’s book and start scoring. Looked upon as an idol or not, Drogba has never failed to shine against Arsenal and the 2-0 states that Chamakh could do with switching loyalties for the time being and take some pointers from the man from Ivory Coast. Talking about Arsenal, they’re once again in their rebuilding phase and their number of titles is far lesser than Alisher Usmanov’s many chins.

Jose Mourinho

After being lauded as Jesus’ second coming and Satan Reincarnated at the start of the season by Marca and El Mundo Deportivo respectively, Mourinho has kept the sound bytes flowing. From labeling Pedro Leon to be the very anti-thesis of Zidane and Maradona to his fabled press walk out post the UEFA Champions League match against Auxerre and finally asking young Juan Carlos if he was shitting himself during Madrid’s demolition of relegation contenders Deportivo la Coruna, the Spanish press has had quite a bit of Mou-bytes this summer, while Barca have had enough of his squad which just doesn’t seem to lose, home or away.

Real Madrid CF

While Real Moudrid hasn’t lost a game so far this season, it hadn’t given fans much to cheer about. Of course, the fickle madridistas don’t cheer 0-0s and 1-0s, which is precisely what a Mourinho coached team sets out to offer its fans (at least that’s the popular parlance). I have to admit, I’ve been waiting for the Mourinho death watch (a term familiar amongst Madridistas as they’ve gone through so many manager death watches and subsequent sackings) to start sooner or later. But instead, I was shocked when the Santiago Bernabeu erupted into a chant for Mourinho…yes you heard it right…a chant for Mourinho. I was reminded of a cule who had once quipped, “It takes little to please the Bernabeu these days”. The chant is enough input to make the fairly accurate deduction that Marca has been the largest selling sports daily in Spain.

FC Barcelona

Talking about the Bernabeu and Marca, it is only logical to move on to the self importance of Catalunya, where everything is self proclaimed to be not just good, but world class. However, subpar performances have blighted the happy summer in Barcelona. Stadium attendances are mediocre, the team has only 17 first team outfield players and with Pedro and Xavi injured, things aren’t too rosy at the Pope’s favored club. Catalans have their excuse ready and still continue to trumpet about their famed La Masia rather than looking inwards and analyzing the obvious fact that their game has become predictable and easy for teams to get a point at their stadium.

Goal of the Month

Now that I have exhausted all my limited facilities and poured out what little I know in yet another drawn out article, it’s worth mentioning that there are so many talking points around you to keep yourself occupied with till the insufferable international break ends. This goal for instance…