IMS_Blog

I was going to start the year off with a Happy New Year, here’s what I did in my holidays post (that is coming) but I just sat and worked this out, and it seems an age since I did a purely football post, so hey.

I’ve been thinking about Demba Ba and Cheick Tiote’s absence at the Africa Cup of Nations. While Ba is obviously a huge miss the one thing a team needs when they might be struggling to score goals is not to be letting them in at the other end. Which brings us to Tiote. I’ve just sat down while waiting for dinner to cook and taken at our goals conceded record both with and without the man in midfield. By my reckoning (not double checked, based on nufc.com match reports, league only, assumes a match is 90 minutes), we’ve played 14 matches (barring 8 minutes when he was subbed off) with Tiote and 6 without. Without him we’ve conceded 13 goals, with him one less at 12. That equates to a goal against every 104 minutes while Cheick is on the pitch (i.e. less than one per game) compared with one every 42 minutes (i.e. one per half!) without him.

Of course like all such analysis there a many things neglected (strength of opposition faced, form and availability of the rest of the team, etc) but I still think it goes to show how important he is defensively. We need to keep tight for those harder to come by goals to count!

So, I finally achieved a minor, frivolous ambition: A letter published in the BBC’s Magazine Monitor :-)

[And for anyone actually wondering what the quoted Aitken Head was on about in the original article it’s a reference to the idea that if you cut him open he’d “bleed black and white blood”. Basically he’s trying to get across the passion and feeling involved, as well as how deep seated some things are.]

Incidentally, this isn’t the first letter of mine published. The first, long ago, doesn’t seem to have gotten a mention here.

The only figure above that makes Liverpool a “big club” and better destination is the last column. The only one that matters. Tales of geordie boy and pride in the shirt all mean nothing if Ashley just wants to sink more on the gaming tables of casinos he wishes could be build next door. We can speculate on whether transfer requests come through desire or the realisation that despite all the pretty words of “Nee chance” the club are prepared to sell. Or maybe it’s just that the much vaunted spirit has been broken by the pointless breaking of the seeming magic Houghton had brought. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the £35 million this squad will never see and the lack of strikers to keep us up.

Way back when, in the days we almost became what we’ve dreamed of since a century ago, I can remember Cole going. The thing then was, we may have though Keegan had lost the plot, but you always had a nagging suspicion maybe not. That at least the plan was his. That there was a plan, and ambition. Where’s you plan Mike?

Fuck it, at least we win more games in the championship

That is all :-)

AS the 2010 World Cup draws to a close, it seems it has come time to talk about technology (or the lack of it) in football once again. Being an England fan, with a goal which never was to our name, you might think I’d be screaming for goal line technology, instant replays, and the referee to be a robot. The fact is, however, that I’m screaming almost the opposite.

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