
'Scotty' does another Parker Pirouette
by David Sweeney
Eddie Mitchell
Bournemouth this weekend plunged to yet another home defeat, this time at the hands of MK Dons. However it was a variety of off field antics from chairman and co owner Eddie Mitchell which snatched all the negative headlines. Firstly the half-cut chairman bizarrely allowed the wife of Russian co-owner Maxim Demin to speak to the team at half-time after recently publicly supporting manager Lee Bradbury. To me this makes no sense whatsoever: why would you go in and take away the manager’s limited time with the players? You need to trust the manager to do his job. Despite trailing The Cherries were playing some decent football in the first half and there was no need for anyone to put their nose in especially a woman with, to quote Mitchell himself, ‘limited football-intelligence.’ If that wasn’t bad enough good old Eddie went on national radio to confront critics slamming his actions. The chairman had to be taken off air after swearing three times on the 606 phone in show. Today a sober Mitchell issued an apology stating he is a ‘passionate man’ and he ‘deeply regrets’ his outburst. For me that is not good enough, if you can’t control yourself then keep away from the demon drink and certainly keep away from the media. It is not his job to talk to the press after the game; that job is the managers. He didn’t even discuss the football in his rant which was sadly all about him. What a complete embarrassment and those were not the actions of a professional, rational chairman. Thank the lord he doesn’t run my club.
Mark Hughes
Yesterday, reduced to 10 men and a goal down against his former side ‘Sparky’ used all of his tactical nous to move 5 ft 6 inches Shaun Wright-Phillips into the centre of midfield. Safe to say the decision backfired and QPR slumped to another dismal home defeat. In my opinion Hughes was the wrong man at the wrong time for Rangers who needed a motivator not too dissimilar to Neil Warnock, who already had the job. Hughes is not a motivator, nor is he a tactician, read his managerial CV and his biggest achievement is doing ‘okay’ with a very poor Welsh side which is hardly impressive. He setback Manchester City’s progress by 12 months whilst adopting the unhappy knack of being able to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory. Now, at QPR, he must be considered one of the most desperately poor appointments the club have ever made..Every week it’s looking more and more like a ridiculous, knee jerk, short term decision. It’s never going to work out for him there. Nobody can tell me Rangers would be doing any worse with Warnock still in the hotseat, because quite frankly if you did I just wouldn’t believe you. The West London club are now down £20 million and not the slightest bit better off for it; if anything performances have been getting worse. With Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs, United and City still to face the likelihood of the R’s surviving is getting slimmer by the week.
If half of Spurs players were half as good as the media would have you believe, they would batter Barcelona.
Scott Parker
This is a very unpopular opinion but in my view Scott Parker is THE most overrated player in the Premier League and how he won the Writers Player of the Year whilst captaining a relegated side astounds me. His whole game is based around making a little pass to a defender under no pressure and getting the ball back before making another short pass. Repeat for 90 minutes incorporating the odd pointless pirouette and there you have it, one of the main contenders for next England captain. Granted he displays grit but with little attacking substance. I believe the main reason he suddenly is getting so much praise is that he finally has two matey media mouthpieces in Harry and Jamie Redknapp constantly bigging him up on television coupled with the fact he now plays for the London media’s favourite team. For the record I’m not saying he’s a bad player – he is very dependable and has a great team ethic – my main criticism is that he just isn’t as good as everybody would have you think. He certainly lacks an eye for goal, his most productive goalscoring spell was while on loan at Norwich in the year 2000 where he managed a goal per game ratio of 1 in 6. He’s been an ordinary player his whole career, but suddenly, at 31, he’s fantastic? I don’t think so. If half of Spurs players were half as good as the media would have you believe, they would batter Barcelona but anyone with half a brain knows otherwise and against top class midfielders Parker struggles immensely. Yesterday he was given the runaround by the worst Arsenal midfield for years yet still it came as a shock that despite having an awful game and getting himself sent off little Scotty didn’t win Sky’s man of the match award.
As for appearing for England, I’m afraid the only thing that shows is just how poor the competition is and if he is in the starting eleven come the summer we will not get past the group stages. Terry Venables boldly backed Parker to succeed John Terry and be the next England captain, strange given he is not even a certain starter and with 10 international caps to his name his appointment would be pure lunacy.
Kenny Dalglish
Just a quick well done to Kenny Dalglish for dressing up for his big day out at Wembley. Think for my next interview I will ring him up and asked him where he acquired his questionable black bin bag puffer jacket from.