Chelsea v Liverpool. Only in England!

OK, so explain that if you can! Tonight should have been a non event, Chelsea were as good as through to the semi final and Liverpool, without Gerrard, surely had to focus on hunting down the Mancs in the Prem. And what happens? Two teams packed with experienced players went out and played like a bunch of kids on a Sunday afternoon. You could explain it if this was a game between two teams of Brits, but there were only 3 Englishmen on the pitch! So why, why?

All credit to both clubs. I have posted why I hate Liverpool FC and nothing will change that, but tonight they went to Chelsea and went one better than the mighty Bolton Wanderers managed on Saturday. Four goals at the Bridge! What a shame for the Scousers that Chelsea scored four of their own in reply! But what a joy for the neutral! 4-4 on the night and 7-5 on aggregate, that doesn't happen outside of Roy of the Rovers comic strips! Even my son, who has taken Aldershot to the Prem on his Playstation 3, was calling the game "stupid"!

Mad, crazy, breathtaking, hilarious - you name it. And what a great goal from Lampard to nail the result for Chelsea! Come on you Hammers, put jealousy to one side and applaud both teams for a great game of headless football!

Liverpool Get Their Come Uppence!

Ok, loyalties might be divided here; I mean who, on a West Ham site, wants Chelsea to do well? But the fact of the matter is that I have hated Liverpool with an absolute vengeance ever since they cheated their way to that FA Cup win in the 'best final ever'. It was that England traitor, Carragher, as I understand it, who told his team-mates to close down Scaloni after he had sportingly put the ball into touch so a Liverpool player could be treated. Any fair minded side would have thrown the ball out for a goal kick, but not the Carragher led cheats in red. They threw the ball to Scaloni, closed him, and forced him to hurry a clearance onto the foot of Gerrard; and the rest is history.

The interesting thing was Sherringham's reaction as Scaloni played it into touch. He knew what Liverpool would do and let rip at the Argentinian, pointing down the line to where the ball should have been cleared. Scaloni looked amazed at the verbal assault, no doubt believing what he had been told all his life, about the Brits being crap at football but leading the world in sportsmanship. How ironic, given all the history of games between the two nations, that the Argentinian took the sporting route, and the "Englishman" gave instructions to cheat. Never mind the "Hand of God", we West Ham fans talk of the "High Pitched Whine of God" - "Close him, close him, close him, and to hell with sportsmanship!"

I hate Carragher anyway because, like Scholes, he walked out on England because he wasn't first pick. Patriotism? Just like fair play, Carragher doesn't understand the concept! Well it's 3-1 again Jamie Cheater, lets see you come back from that one!

We're all going on our autumn holidays!

Quote from bbc website: "Referee Mark Clattenburg will miss this weekend's Premier League action because of a planned holiday and not as a result of criticism after last weekend." Presumably, Mr Moyes is wondering who paid for the holiday! I notice that Mr Clattenburg carries an advert for "Air Asia" on his sleeve. Any coincidence that the advert is in red and white? Perhaps Kuyt was suggesting flying when he launched himself two footed through the air. Maybe Steve Gerrard was suggesting possible holiday destinations and the means to fund them when he prompted Mr Clattenburg to exchange his yellow card for a red one. Perhaps Jamie Carragher was suggesting taking it easy on the beach when he invited Lescott to lie down with him in the penalty box!

Something smells fishy? Well I expect Mr Clattenburg is an angler, of one form or another!

Yossi Phone Home

So Israeli E.T. lookalike Yossi Benayoun phones home to his Mamma and asks how she is. "Yossi, my boy" she replies, "things are bad back home. Your father has been taken hostage and they are threatening to behead him. The house was pelted last night by a stone throwing mob and your sister was gang raped on her way home from the synagogue." Mamma Benayoun sobs down the phone before continuing, "Yossi, why in the name of Abram did you move us to Liverpool?"

No Villa for Reo-Choker

What's this? Villa aren't so keen on Reo-Choker now? So, Nigel, that's Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs, Newcastle and Villa who have thought, then thought better of signing you. Wonder why that is? Perhaps it's the pouty face? Never mind mate, Sunderland or Birmingham might yet express an interest! Alternatively, you might just face up (hard with that pouty droop) to a few home truths: starting with, you're bloody lucky to be at West Ham!

Now shut up and put up! Give us eight goals from midfield next season and who knows, a mid table team might express an interest!

Threesomes, strange bedfellows, dogs and the pricking of thumbs

More quotes from the bard for football clubs:

For Newcastle after pairing Barton with Dyer under the subtle leadership of Big Sam: "Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war."

For Portsmouth: "Cry God for 'Arry, England and St George!" (As in George Graham, the patron saint of bungs?)

For Newcastle: "Dear Duff"! (Banquo in Macbeth)

For Arsenal as Arsene shows increasing signs of having lost his marbles hall: "Who can be wise, amazed, temp'rate, and furious, Loyal and neutral in a moment? No man." (And specifically after Wenger's waving of his handbag at Pards) "Th'expedition of my violent love outran the pauser, reason. Here lay Flamini, his silver skin laced with his golden blood and his gashed shin looked like a breach in nature, for ruin's wasteful entrance. There the murderers, steeped in the claret and blue colours of their trade; their boots unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain?" (Macbeth)

For Liverpool, as their fans storm another Champions League final: "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead!"

For West Ham as we await the arbitration decision: "Pray you now, forget and forgive".

For Newcastle as they await the arrival of Barton: "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes." (or for whichever club signs Bellamy!!!!!)

For Sheffield United following their relegation: "Out, damned stripes! Out, I say!" or "When beggars die there are no comets seen".

For West Ham in celebration of threesomes (shared ownership or third party involvement to you and me!): "What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine."

Another for the Hammers: "Frailty, thy name is Ashton!" or for Newcastle, ""Frailty, thy name is Owen!" or for Spurs, "Frailty, thy name is pressure!"

For Liverpool if they sign Owen again and partner him with Crouch: "This is the short and the long of it" or from Owen's point of view, "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows".

For Portsmouth in the light of 'Arry's club 'surprisingly' being "somewhat mentioned" in the bung enquiry: "Something is rotten in the state of Football."

For Man City after the sacking of Pearce: "Not that I lov'd England less, but that I lov'd City more". (Julius Caesar)

For Fulham after the sacking of Coleman: "So wise so young, they say do never live long" or "Et tu, Al Fayed" or what Fulham fans will cry to their chairman under "Long ball Sanchez": "I am dying, Egypt, dying"! (Or is this just an anthology of Diana's last words?)

Thieving Bleedin' Scousers!

Not content with hub caps, cars, credit cards and their own kids' tickets for the Champions League final, those bloody scousers are now trying to steal players. One million for Yossi? What a joke!

We bear a charmed life

Shakespeare quotes as slogans for Premiership Clubs:

West Ham: "Tevez or not Tevez? That is the question" or, in view of how everybody now sees us, "Now you gods stand up for bastards!" (Edmund in King Lear) or in the light of our impossile escape "We bear a charmed life". (Macbeth) or "Then was the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of Argentina." or a cautionary tale, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend"!

Spurs: "Hath not a Jew eyes, hands, organs, senses, dimensions? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not capitulate in the last game of the season, handing our Champions League place on a plate to our bitterest rivals?" (Shylock, Merchant of Venice)

Chelsea: "We are a club more sinned against than sinning" (Lear in Lear) or "Friends, Roman, countrymen, Lend us your billions" (Mark Anthony in JC) or with the Special One in mind, "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."

Arsenal: "Cry God for Henry, France and Saint Joan!"

Liverpool (in the light of their most recent attempt to re-enact Heysel: "Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red!" (Macbeth)

Man City (in the light of Ranierri's defection): "O Claudio Claudio, where for art thou Claudio?"

Sheffield United under Warnock: "Out, out, brief candle! Hope is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the Premiership stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" (Macbeth) or "By foul play, as thou say'st, were we heaved thence" (The Tempest) or "Hag-seed, hence!" (The Tempest)

Sheffield United under Robson: "Drink, Sir, is a great provoker of three things, nose-painting, sleep and urine. Lechery, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance." (The Porter in Macbeth)

Bolton: 'Tis a team, sir,I do not love to look on." (Miranda in The Tempest) or "O, woe is me,To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!" or "They have been at a great feast of football, and stolen the scraps."

Derby: "The old black ram is tupping your white ewe" or translated, "Be careful, your chairman is shafting your manager!"

Blackburn: "All hail McCarthy, once of Porto, All hail MaCarthy now of Blackburn, All hail MaCarthy that shall be at Chelsea hereafter." (Witches in Macbeth)

Newcastle: "A defence, a defence, my kingdom for a defence."

Man U: "Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing."

Watford: "Where the hornet sucks, there suck I; In a Championship hell I lie" (The Tempest) or "The attempt and not the deed Confounds us".

Charlton: "Alas, poor Dowie! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it." or "Adieu, adieu" or, with Pards in mind, "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."

(Not Premiership I know!)

MK Dons "What's in a name?" (Juliet in R&J)

Norwich: "Where are ya? The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Leeds: "For 'tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard" or "He that dies pays all debts".

More to follow!

Red Stripe Robbo Stumbles at the First Bar

So, with the taste of sour grapes in their mouths, the Sheffield United Board went in search of somebody who knows his Chardonnay from his Claret (and blue?), his aperitifs from his chasers and his Fosters from his Stella. Stumble onto stage Red Stripe Robbo, whose first pronouncement as manager was that he intends to get Sheffield United back in the Premiership at the first time of asking. Glad to see, even after a celebratory drink, that the new manager has a better grasp of reality than his Chairman who seems to think the club are still in the Premiership anyway!


Last week Robbo graced 606 with his keen intellect. Asked in a 'just for fun' competition to name the goalscorer in an England game he played in, Robbo was given a clue that included the word "bully" and was played a piece of commentary that gave him the name of the opponents - Czechoslovakia - and the name of the goal's architect, a certain Paul Gascoigne. Robbo, bless him, said, "It can't be Gazza, it was too early to be Gazza" (even though Gascoigne's name had featured three times in the short snippet) and failed utterly to link the "bully" clue to Steve Bull. Never mind, he did spot that the opponents were Czechoslovakia and very nearly managed to pronounce the nation correctly!

How on earth was he given the job? Some believe it was a put up job by the License Victualers Association of Sheffield. I am sure that is untrue. Perhaps the Sheffield United Board noted that Robson has a good track record in the Championship and decided to go with "horses for courses" so giving the lie to their protests that they are still a Premiership club. Let's face it, what Premiership club would be mad enough to appoint a man who has guided Middlesborough and West Brom to relegation?


The Board have appointed the wrong man and they are also blaming the wrong club for their relegation. I thought that Premiership rules required clubs to name their strongest available teams in fixtures affecting promotion and relegation issues. If so, shouldn't Liverpool be in the dock for fielding their stiffs against Fulham? Had Liverpool taken that fixture seriously then the Blades would indeed have survived to die another day in the top division.

Never mind all you Blades fans, the Board have at least appointed a man well versed in the skill of "drowning his sorrows". I'm sure he will keep his players' spirits high, that every glass next season will be half full rather than half empty and that even if the players are cheap, the drinks will be reassuringly expensive. A new slogan for Sheffield United under Robbo? Probably not the best team in the world.

We're only making plans for Nigel

So Nigel Reo-Coker, you don't feel wanted at West Ham! How much have we been paying you each week? Were you ever dropped? Or played out of your favoured position? Were you stripped of the captaincy?

Well Nigel, you're right, you're not wanted! One goal all season? What sort of return is that from a central midfield player protected defensively first by Mullins and then by Noble? The truth is, NRC, you're a legend in your own mind and have been ever since Sven named you as a back up he never needed for the England World Cup Squad. So what Nigel? Sven took a 17 year old Arsenal reserve and very nearly took Harewood! Wake up, superstar you ain't and if any club is daft enough to offer 8 million, we should snatch their hand off!

Go to Villa or Newcastle and see what it's really like to play in an average team. Arsenal don't want you. Nor do Liverpool or Chelsea or United. Doesn't that tell you something Nigel? You're average mate and average is okay if your heart is in the club. Tevez can moan; Di Canio could moan; Nigel, you ain't got the ability to have the right to bleat.