November Musings

Where has this year gone? I know we say that every year but this more than most has absolutely flown. To be put it into context, 2014 didn’t go fast. In fact, it dragged like you wouldn’t believe, but never a truer word spoken......time flies when you’re having fun.

So, with only 49 days left until Christmas (I googled that btw), it is time to get back into some blogging. And some serious blogging at that. Kicking things off, as usual, with some random sporting thoughts. And as always, don’t be shy in sharing your thoughts and opinions.

When I first felt obliged to write this blog, it was after reading an excerpt from Sir Alex Ferguson’s book Leading in which he named the Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Cristiano Ronaldo as the only world class players he managed. Plenty was made about David Beckham not being mentioned in the list or Roy Keane. Becks’ reply was typical him – ‘I wasn’t world class’. You can debate him as a world class player all day long, but there’s no doubting he’s a world class operator. Personally, I would rate Beckham over Cantona myself.

October had a sad note in the passing of Howard Kendall, Everton’s greatest ever manager. I became an Evertonian because of him and the superb team he assembled in the mid-eighties. That midfield of Trevor Steven, Peter Reid, Paul Bracewell and Kevin Sheedy stands out to me as one of the most balanced midfields ever, and I have something of a random fetish for superbly balanced midfields. Others that stand out? The Leeds midfield from the early nineties of Strachan, Batty, McAllister, Speed. The Valencia midfield of 99-00 of Mendieta, Farinos, Gerard and Kily Gonzalez. Individually, you wouldn’t say any of them were world class, but as a unit constructed by canny managers, they formed a world class team, and credit to those managers – Kendall, Wilkinson and Cuper. RIP Howard.

It has been said that I like to attend one or two decent sporting events in my time. I can’t deny it. One sporting event which may not be that high profile but I would love to attend is the Invictus Games. They held it in London last year and the next one is planned for Florida next year and Australia in 2018. Fair play to Prince Harry for spearheading the campaign for it. Of course, it’s an easy win in terms of PR, but you never get the feeling that he is doing it for that reason. It’s on my ‘to do’ list!

Jose, Jose, Jose. I’m fascinated to see how this all plays out with him, but I felt it back when there was the special Eva Carneiro bust-up, it may be difficult for him to turn this one around. He really does not help himself. I suspect that incident more than the results, are the reason for him losing this dressing room.

On the Chelsea subject, little has been made of Juventus this season, but they too have endured a miserable start to the season, and their fall has arguably been greater given the fact they reached the Champions League final last season. They sit 10^th after scraping a late winner against local rivals Torino last weekend and their form is far from impressive. Chelsea are not the only big team to be struggling this season.

Speaking of under-performing stars, Sidney Crosby has had a ‘shocking’ start to the season with just 6 points in 12 games and 4 of those came in one game. Just how Cristiano Ronaldo had a dry spell for some 6-7 games without a goal at the start of the season, it happens. We’ve just been spoiled by their brilliance for so long, that these barren spells hit the headlines, but it’s only really about selling newspapers and creating some drama. Nothing to see here.

Going back to the Premier League, I am fully expecting a league win for Man City this year. United are still some way off from really challenging, while Arsenal will have sufficient slip ups for them to drop away. City on the other hand, have so much firepower and so many options, it is hard to see them slipping up as much as the others. They may still be a striker short, but I fully expect them to push on, and they may even go further in the Champions League this season than in recent years.

Now that I’m back in blogging mode, there’ll be the usual predictions blog at the turn of the year!