The Opening Weekend Fixtures

Blackburn Rovers Vs Wolverhampton Wanderers
This game could potentially be interesting with the reverse fixture of the last game of the season which finished 3-2. Since both of these teams were involved in a last day relegation battle both teams will want to start off strong and avoid a similar scenario. My Verdict 1-1
Fulham Vs Aston Villa
This interestingly first game for both Martin Jol and Alex Mcleish. Aston Villa must get off to a good start or the fans may turn even more on the newly appointed manager and so will Fulham. My verdict 1-2
Liverpool Vs Sunderland
As a Newcastle fan i would love nothing more than Sunderland starting off the season terribly and i think they will Liverpool away is always a difficult game and Henderson could make his Liverpool debut on this occasion. My verdict 3-1
Manchester City Vs Swansea
It will be a tough start for a long season for Swansea which i think will end in relegation and i think man city will be wanting to start the season off strongly if they want to win the title. My verdict 3-0
Newcastle United Vs Arsenal
Unfortunately this game wont be as exciting as last season 4-4 but hopefully it will be. Arsenal will want to start the season off strongly due to title aspirations but could be hard if Fabregas and Nasri leave before this game and Newcastle will want to start off well in front of their own fans and will want to provethat  the Nolan sale was a good deal. My verdict 1-2
Queens Park Rangers Vs Bolton
Q.P.R will start off the season at home to Bolton which they could class as winnable and if they are to survive they will have to have good home form and start off well. Bolton will also be wanting to start off well if they want to qualify for Europe or a top ten finish. My verdict 2-1
Stoke City Vs Chelsea
Chelsea have a difficult first game as Stoke is  a hard place to go everyone always seems to mention and whoever there new manager is will want to start off well to mount a serious title challenge. My verdict 1-1
Tottenham Hotspurs Vs Everton
Everton always seem to start off the season slowly and Tottenham may be a difficult challenge for them. My verdict 0-1
West Brom Vs Manchester United
The reigning champions start off the season at the Hawthorns who had a very strong finish last season and may prove to be a hard team to beat under Roy Hodgson. However i think man utd will be too strong for them and win the game comfortably. My verdict 0-2
Wigan Athletic Vs Norwich City
Both of these teams will be wanting to avoid relegation and will want to start the season off strongly. My verdict 0-1

Why are the english fans so expectant and demanding?

At the end of every major footballing tournament all England fans seem to be disappointment and will find scapegoats and excuses for why yet again we failed to win a major international competition. Why are our expectations so high for a nation who have never held the number one ranking spot since the introduction of the system in 1992 and the highest ranking of 4th place be so expectant of success?

England's average ranking in the 19 years of this system being in place is 10th so a quarter final appearance on average should be classed as a success but yet when England crash out in the world cup at the quarter finals the national tabloids display discontent and disappointment with England and class it as a failure even though our ranking suggests that quarter finals is the stage we should be getting knocked out at.

One of the main reasons we are disappointed every major tournament is not our national teams performance but our traditional pre tournament national team big up claiming that we are going to win the world cup even though they are clearly better teams. To put this in comparison in premier league terms it is like before the start of the season Everton claiming they are going to win the league, there is no disputing Everton are a great team and have a chance but they are clearly a few better teams who stand a more likely chance of winning the league and everton fans do not expect to win the league so why should England fans expect to win?

Another reason why we are disappointed is that the whole nation manages to find scapegoats and excuses for the defeats which superficially knock us out which adds to the disappointment as we never as a nation admit that we were outclassed and deserved to go out. Even in the 2010 world cup when we were completely outclassed by Germany we still made excuses and blamed Rob Green for which was a huge error the whole failure of the world cup was placed on his shoulder which was wrong. People said it knocked England's confidence which it may have done but they are professionals and one mistake in the first game of the tournament should not affect the whole tournament

Maybe if we accepted our defeats rather than thinking what could have happened and blaming referees, cheating Argentinians, linesmen and penalty shootouts. The nations habit of making excuses just adds to the ignorance of us believing we are the best football team in the world and deserve to win every game when we unlike other western European countries which are the best football team in the world. If we admitted defeat maybe that would spur us on to make severe changes to improve our nations footballing system as it clearly is not working for whatever reason and making excuses makes it appear that we have been unlucky in tournaments which I'll admit we have been quite unlucky but every single winner of the world cup has deserved it and i don't think we have deserved to win a world cup

Another reason could be our geographical position in Europe. The most successful countries in the past 40 years in Europe are Italy, Germany, Holland,Spain and France which are all predominately in the centre of Europe but the country's which are on the outskirts of Europe such as England, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Russia and other Baltic, Balkans, and former soviet countries all have been unsuccessful in international football. This can be all link to geographical reasons as due to the distance from the "core" of Europe leads to less information been spread regarding tactics, fitness, lifestyle and training which puts the out skirted countries further behind the core European countries as due to geographical reasons networking is easier for inner core European countries even with modern developments.

The only team to prove this thesis wrong is Greece at the 2004 Euro which the nationality of the coach was German which are a key member of the core European group and therefore maybe having an Italian managing England is such a good thing just like having a swede (who spent managerial time in Italy) as this will bring about the Italian knowledge and more networking into England which could only benefit England.

Another underlining reason is the amount of English players in the premier league and perhaps more importantly the lack of English players playing abroad. With most industries foreign imports (which in football represent foreign players) benefit the economy (premier league) as it makes the economy quality improve due to improvement in efficiency which benefits the premier league money wise but does not improve the national game and therefore it may not be possible to have the most successful and best league in the world which the premier league claims and proves to be and the best national team in the world which the English fans claim to have but fail to prove. 

If more English players were playing abroad they may be able to learn more skills and techniques which are associated with those leagues as similar with another economic reference a way to improve a certain industry you learn on the job which in football is playing and therefore playing in different countries and leagues would surely benefit the English players. 

So is the reasons why we all feel disappointed at the end of a major tournament all because of bad luck and a poor performance or are they even more deeper issues built into English football that are uncontrollable and should we just accept that we wont be successful and world cups and maybe hope for more achievable goals so that we don't feel disappointed, discontent, angry, gutted and many other feelings whenever England are knocked out of a major international competition

The only success England have ever and perhaps will ever achieve

Martin Jol a good choice?

It was announced tuesday morning that Martin Jol would take over as the Fulham manager only 11 months after turning down the opportunity to manage Fulham last July and the former Tottenham boss will take charge of his first Fulham game at the end of June where Fulham enter the Europa league via the fair play system.

Martin Jols playing career saw him play in Holland, Germany and England  and his managerial career also followed the same pattern as he has already managed in Holland, Germany and England and is set to return to England to his new role in south London.

In his time at Tottenham he achieved a fair amount of success finishing 5th twice in a row and just missing out on a champions league place due to his Tottenham squad being struck down by a sudden illness which prevented them from champions league qualification.

His time at Tottenham unfortuantly came to an end at the beginning of the 2007/2008 premierleague season when tottenham started off the campaign terribly when expectation were very high for that season due to the amount of money spent and Tottenham were highly tipped for champions league qualification. His time at Tottenham also ended with him having less control in the transfer market which undermined his position as manager.

Hopefully in his time at Fulham he will be given full support from the backroom and total control over all transfers and maybe with this he will prove to be a success at Fulham. However it depends what you would class a success for Martin Jol at Fulham would be and more importantly what do the Fulham board expect from Martin Jol.

Mohamed Al Fayed the Fulham chairman on Tuesday spoke about the appointment and stated that

He understands my vision for the club, and believes in what we are striving to achieve here. I know that he will dedicate himself to helping us move forward, and is with us for the long term, to help us build and progress

from this statement we can speculate that Jol is expected to maintain Fulham's top 10 finish and build on the success to take Fulham forward to the next level. Hopefully he will be given time to achieve this and may potentially play more attractive football which Martin Jol brought about at his reign at Tottenham.

At the current time of writing this Chris Hughton is rumoured to become his number two which would be another great addition for Fulham as Chris Hughton is an established Assistant manager and also had a successful spell as a full time manager at Newcastle United earlier this season.

So the big question is will Martin Jol be successful at Fulham?

Martin Jol at Craven Cottage during his time at Spurs

Englands Summer Fatigue Problem

After another abysmal England performance yesterday it got me thinking why when it comes to the summer are England hugely disappointing. In the interviews after the Switzerland game Fabio Capellos excuse for the abysmal England performance yesterday was

"We missed those chances but I can see that in the last 10 minutes some players were without energy."

After this excuse i got thinking what are the main reasons for this fatigue problem we seem to always have at this stage of the season and is this one of the main reasons why we have so many disastrous major tournament campaigns as up until June we seem to be world beaters and when it comes to big tournaments we seem to fail to pieces and maybe the main reason is this fatigue problem which we could solve and perhaps have a better chance of winning a trophy of some sort.

In order to find a solution for this problem we have to compare ourselves to different European nations and how they go about there national teams to solve this problem as other nationalities have players who play similar amount of games as the England players but somehow are less tired. I think the main reason for debate is that the English premier league unlike most other foreign leagues does not have a winter break which is the first point i will look at.

The winter break debate is a big debate in football with most premier league managers backing for the premier league to adopt a similar winter break like most European countries adopt most notably La Liga, Serie A, Eredivise, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. A winter break in the premier league could help solve England's  fatigue problem and could help England perform better at major tournaments as currently in the Premier league there is a tiredness problem which maybe could be solved by a 2week break in  winter while of which in recent years weather has caused postponements anyway.

At the 2010 World Cup the big players who failed to impress mainly came from the premier league such as Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres failed to impress and the countries with numerous premier league players such as England, France, Ivory Coast and Nigeria all failed to impress whereas the countries with less premier league players performed admirably such as Spain, Germany, Uruguay and Argentina and players who were branded as premier league failures such as Diego Forlan performed admirably in the world cup so was this all because of the other leagues winter breaks or just a coincidence.Fernando Torres for example at the 2010 world cup was shocking whereas at the 2006 world cup while playing in a league with a winter break.

Or is there bigger issues with the premier league and is it a league which will come crushing down in a matter of years. Does the uncompetitiveness of the premier league add to the weaknesses in the English national team as the English internationals who play for the big clubs aren't challenged enough in the league and Wayne Rooney can be made to look world class against a team like Blackpool and Wigan (no disrespect to those teams) whereas against a bigger team abroad he is often gone missing.

Other factors causing fatigue at this stage of the season could also be that in England we have two additional Cup events (The FA Cup and The Carling Cup) which adds to the fixture congestion and maybe reduced fixtures in these events which would reduce the fatigue of many England internationals.

The premier league is also a very high intense league which is maybe completely different and is unsuited for international players to compete well in both club and international fixtures and major tournaments and perhaps a better idea might just to have a winter break in the years where a major international tournament occurred as the premier league chiefs obviously are set against the idea of a winter break.

Maybe another reason for yet another England performance is that we big ourselves up as world beaters when we clearly are not as well as the ignorance of most of our fans who had the attitude of if we cant beat Switzerland we don't deserve to qualify and who are clearly showing disrespect to a nation who was the only team to beat Spain at the 2010 world cup.

Whatever the reason for England fatigue problem it needs to be solved in order for England to have any chance of a successful tournament and the FA and the premier league need to investigate the main reasons for the problem and solve it immediately.

England Vs Switzerland Review

The game as most England games usually are was rather disappointing with the final score reflecting what was quite a frustrating afternoon watching England and the result leaves uncertainty if we can qualify for the Euros and has obviously made qualification a lot more difficult. The final score finished at England 2-2 Switzerland with Barnetta scoring two for Switzerland and Both Frank Lampard and Ashley Young Scoring for England

I think the biggest shock at the start of the game was Fabio Capellos decision to start James Milner over Ashley Young who in his recent England game had impressed and the decision seemed to be a strange one to all football fans and also Peter Crouchs absence from even the bench despite having a tremendous scoring record internationally.

 In the first half an hour of the game both teams had their chances but Joe Hart was the busiest keeper. On 30 minutes England were forced into making the first substitution of the game when Ashley Cole was replaced by Leighton Baines. The first Switzerland goal came from a Barnetta free kick which in retrospect look to be a cross rather than a shot which uncharactertisally Rio Ferdinand missed the header and resulted in Joe Hart been unable to save the cross/shot at the back post. A few Minutes later Switzerland scored their second goal of the game with another free kick from Barnetta this time the goal came from a James Milners error separating from the wall at the last minute leaving a wide gap for the ball to go through and beat Joe Hart at the front post. However 2 minutes after the last Switzerland goal Jack Wilshere was fouled inside the box from his Arsenal team mate Johan Djourou which led to a penalty which Frank Lampard drove to his bottom left which the Switzerland keeper was unfortunate not to save.

 At half time Switzerland led 2-1 and England's first half performance was below par and they showed huge signs of fatigue. At the beginning of the second half Fabio Cappello made a bold decision to sub off the goalscorer Frank Lampard for Ashley Young. The substitution paid off 5 minutes into the second half when Leighton Baines cleverly chested the ball to Ashley Young for him to skillfully put past the keeper. After the equaliser Englands shape looked far more comfortable and tactically seemed to be improved and England created a few clear chances two of which thrown away from the natural goal scorer Darren Bent who missed two clear cut chances, Jack Wilsheres fantastic run and superb pass set up Darren Bent perfectly but he was denied by a brave plunge by the Swiss goalkeeper and then a few minutes later he missed arguably a clear goalscoring opportunity when he side footed a shot over the bar which if it was on target would have been a certain goal, as the second half progressed both teams had chances to score and win the goal but nobody was successful and it highlighted Fabio Capellos mistakes in his team selection when another substitute Stewart Downing who could well have started had a great chance in the last minutes of the game.

This draw leaves Englands position at the top of the group in danger and have certainly made life even more difficult to qualify for the Euro 2012 competition and adds more doubts in the capability's of the manager Fabio Capello

Joe Hart - 7
Glen Johnson - 7
Ashley Cole - 7
Rio Ferdinand - 6
John Terry - 7
Scott Parker - 8
Theo Walcott - 6
Frank Lampard -7
Jack Wilshere - 8
James Milner - 6
Darren Bent - 6
Leighton Baines - 7
Ashley Young - 8
Stewart Downing - 7

Q.P.R, Norwich and Swansea City

Hi, this is now my 4th blog entry and for this entry I would like to discuss the 3 promoted teams and how I think they will get on in next seasons premier league. I'll start off by congratulating all three teams who had amazing seasons in the championship and can be very proud of their efforts and I hope all three of them stay up as I always like to see promoted teams survive their first season as long as its not on Newcastles expense obviously.

I will start off with the champions of the championship which is QPR who had a memorable season and sealed promotion even with the transfer saga circulating the club for several months. Adel Taarabt was key in their promotion and they have some brilliant championship players such as shaun Derry, Fitz Hall, Peter Ramage, Helguson, Paddy Kenny etc. However I don't think they will survive unless they spend big as most of their players are unproven in the premier league as Wayne Routledge as proven on several occasions he is a brilliant championship player but has for some reason never managed to do it in the premier league despite his huge potential and I hope he does finally prove it but I doubt he will. Unless they spend big I just cant see them staying up however I hope they do I just cant see it - My Verdict 19th

I might as well do them in order which leads to Norwich City who got the other automatic promotion place who proved many people wrong and secured promotion despite been in league One the season before and have a great manager in Paul Lambert and have probably been the most active team already in the transfer window making a big start signing some good players to add to the team and getting in their early which surely would be a benefit the team. I honestly think they will survive under the guidance of Paul Lambert if he stays for the full season and if they continue adding to the team like they are doing at this current time and i think they will stay up obviously it will be a hard task and it may go down to the last game but I honestly think they'll stay up - My Verdict 17th

Finally the last team that was promoted was Swansea who put in a stellar performance in the play off final beating reading 4-2 however despite that performance and the fantastic achievement of promotion and being the first Welsh team to grace the premiership i think due to the style of football that Swansea play i think they will become to exposed and will find it difficult to win games and also there players may not be good enough for the premiership and if Brendan Rodgers buys new players they might not fit into the style of the play but at the end of the day he is a successful manager who knows what he will be doing to keep them up whereas I'm just a guy who watches football and blogs my opinions. Unfortunately i think Swansea will be relegated and not just relegated but well and truly relegated as I simply don't think they are good enough. -  My Verdict 20th

Thanks for reading this entry, hope you have enjoyed reading sorry to any fans of the teams i said wouldn't survive, I really hope they do prove me wrong

My Team Of The Year

Hello, this is my 3rd blog entry of the day, i'm really enjoying posting entrys and my views, for my 3rd entry i am going to choose and explain my team of the season. My Team of the season is;
                                         Edwin Van der Sar
Bacary Sagna   Brede Hangelaand   Nemanja Vidic   Leighton Baines
                                            Scott Parker
                           Jack Wilshere           Charlie Adam
          Gareth Bale                                                    Charles N'Zogbia
                                           Carlos Tevez
Bench
Ben Foster
Vincent Kompany
Cheik Tiote
Pablo Zabaletta
Peter Odemwingie
Javier Hernandez
Yaya Toure

Obviosly there are other players who have had fantastic seasons with their clubs but in my opinion this is my team of the season this is why
1.Edwin Van Der Sar - In his final season before retirement he made countless match winning saves and was a true asset to his team and was hugely influential in the Man Utds title winning team and made 33 league appearances and kept 14 clean sheets.
2. Leighton Baines - He had a very good season and is amongst one of the best left backs in the world in my opinion and this season he was magnificent for Everton and often scored some very crucial goals for everton and his sweet left foot is a prize asset to him which shows in some the brilliant goals he scored he also started every premierlague game for everton and scored 5 league goals
3. Nemanja Vidic - The captain of the title winning team is a magnificant achievement and this season he put in some memorable performances and his commitment to a tackle and his braveness in the air has proved a vital asset to his club and he can be very proud of his season
4. Brede Hangeland - Once again he has proved to be a brilliant Centre Back in the Fulham defence, he has been very consistent this season and has helped Fulham to have one of the best defences in the league and he has also chipped in with a few goals this season
5.Bacary Sagna - Despite it being a horrible season for Arsenals defence Sagna has proved to be one of the best right backs in the premiership, however i must admit this was the hardest player to choose as to be brutally honest i dont think any right back has shone in this season
6.Scott Parker - Been Football writers player of the year in a relegated team says it all really, he managed to prove to everyone how good of a player he is and thoroughly deserved his award despite been in a relegated team, it was also a good season for him as he finally made an impact on the national stage and i think he will be getting more england caps in the future
7. Jack Wilshere - This has been a breakthrough season for the young englishman who has showed on the pitch his technical abiltiy as well as hard work, he was also rewarded with several england caps this season and is one of the brightest teenagers in the game and has a great future ahead of him if he carries on how he played this season
8. Charlie Adam - Again another player in my team of the season from a relegated team, he has been the surprise of the season and has put in some memerobale performances and he pulled the strings in so many games for blackpool this season and his assists and goals per game is phenomenal
9. Charles N'Zogbia - Charles was an essential part in the wigan team that stayed up on the last day of the season and can be very proud of his season which saw him score goals and assist a lot of goals for his team mates and will probably be moving to a big club this summer as he will be in demand
10. Gareth Bale - This season Gareth Bale has been a revelation scoring some memorable goals and putting in some memorable performances, he has impressed everyone with his pace and exciting dribbling aswell as his goals, unfortunatly he was out injured for a few months of the season and he was missed by tottenham who didnt play as well without him
11. Carlos Tevez - This guy scored 20 goals for his club and as captain he led the team by example due to his high work ethic which has seen him been hugely inlfuential in Man Citys 3rd place finish and FA cup triumph

Thanks for reading this entry, feel free to comment with your team of season of which players you disagree with my judgements