Football 2012/2013

[hoverdonkey]

Aces! The bloke seems quite sound from rumours Ive read.

Absolutely. He often seems to be the Spurs player other fans love to hate but he's a legend at the Lane. He's never anything other than totally honest. He gets his hair done on the High Road and seems a very genuine sort.

[Bobby Treetops]

And here's the great man himself

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/14510618

[rjd2]

Absolutely. He often seems to be the Spurs player other fans love to hate but he's a legend at the Lane. He's never anything other than totally honest. He gets his hair done on the High Road and seems a very genuine sort.

Aye seems like a sensible lad. I recall this Guardian interview.

If  there is one thing guaranteed to vex Benoît Assou-Ekotto, it is hypocrisy. The trouble is, as the Tottenham Hotspur defender acknowledges, his working environment, the parallel universe that is the Premier League, is bogged down in the stuff. It is evident in so many areas but the one that he chooses to highlight involves the interviews that players give to television. Assou-Ekotto has seen it time and time again. Players that he knows to express one view in private, usually strident and expletive-laden, switch to bland when the camera rolls.

"I say: 'Come on, you have two personalities?'" Assou-Ekotto says. "I can't listen to people when they speak like that. I know that they lie, and I hate lies. Me, I am not like that. I am honest all of the time, although the truth is not always good to say."

Assou-Ekotto is the top-level footballer who cuts through the hypocrisy to break what his peers may consider as taboos. The Premier League, he feels, is a shallow and bizarre world, in which friendships are transitory and the hangers-on, particularly the kiss-and-tell girls, are dangerous. He says what plenty of people think. But it is when he discusses his motivation for being a professional that his honesty hits home. To him, football is little more than a job and the driving force has always been the money.

"If I play football with my friends back in France, I can love football," he says. "But if I come to England, where I knew nobody and I didn't speak English ... why did I come here? For a job. A career is only 10, 15 years. It's only a job. Yes, it's a good, good job and I don't say that I hate football but it's not my passion.

"I arrive in the morning at the training ground at 10.30 and I start to be professional. I finish at one o'clock and I don't play football afterwards. When I am at work, I do my job 100%. But after, I am like a tourist in London. I have my Oyster card and I take the tube. I eat.

"I don't understand why everybody lies. The president of my former club Lens, Gervais Martel, said I left because I got more money in England, that I didn't care about the shirt. I said: 'Is there one player in the world who signs for a club and says, Oh, I love your shirt?' Your shirt is red. I love it. He doesn't care. The first thing that you speak about is the money.

"Martel said I go to England for the money but why do players come to his club? Because they look nice? All people, everyone, when they go to a job, it's for the money. So I don't understand why, when I said I play for the money, people were shocked. Oh, he's a mercenary. Every player is like that."

Assou-Ekotto describes life in the Premier League as following the plot lines to a film. "You read the paper, it's like a movie," he says. The 26-year-old is referring to the more scurrilous stories on the news pages. "Very bizarre ... only in England. That's why football is not my passion because when you are professional, the world of football is not good. There are people around you only because you play football; the girls, the same. I have my girlfriend, who I met when I was 18, 19, and I do not want to lose her because when you are a footballer it's not good to meet a new girl at 26."

What of his relationship with Tottenham team-mates? "I have a good feeling with [Aaron] Lennon and [Jermain] Defoe, more these two players but I have a feeling with everybody. I have a problem with nobody. But I have nobody on the phone, except [Adel] Taarabt, who is on loan at QPR and I know from Lens. I only call him. I don't call footballers in my team. I don't believe in friendships in football."

Assou-Ekotto's father, David, introduced him to the game. He had come from Cameroon to France as a 16-year-old to play professionally for Nice and when later he became the coach of Roclincourt & Beaurin, an amateur team, Assou-Ekotto followed them every weekend. It was as much the fear, however, of a modestly paid life within the four walls of an office that drove him to make the sacrifices to become a footballer.

"I knew for a fact that I didn't like school and I also knew that I didn't want to work in an office where I would be paid €1,500-a-month and, at the end of my career, be able to buy a little suburban apartment or something," he says. "Where it became definitive for me was at 16, when I was expelled from school because I was no longer paying attention. I had nothing to fall back on and this forms part of my attitude to football. I give it my very best, being as efficient and professional as possible, because it's all that I have."

Assou-Ekotto argues that his attitude to the job ought not to concern Tottenham's fans because he always switches on his total commitment in matches and training. "Whatever attitude you bring to it, it doesn't matter as long as you are 100% professional, the coach can say: 'He is good enough,' and you are prepared to lose a tooth or an eye for the club, which I am," he says.

Assou-Ekotto has thrived under Harry Redknapp but things were more difficult under previous Tottenham managers Martin Jol and Juande Ramos, with whom he had problems. He also lost any respect for Damien Comolli, the club's ex-sporting director, who brought him from Lens in June 2006.

"Comolli, oh la la, la la," Assou-Ekotto says, having let out a long, low whistle. "I have one simple rule; try to be a man all your life. I said to Comolli that I had a problem with Jol but he said it was all in my head. But then, after Jol left, he said: 'Yes, there was a problem.' Try to be a man!

"With Jol, he had a hierarchy within the team, everybody didn't have the same starting point. He also said to me that I didn't smile a lot. Ramos was always picking little fights. He told me that I was too aggressive in training. I said, 'We don't do tennis, we play football. You think that we are in Spain but we are in England, my friend'.

"With Harry, it's cool. We don't speak a lot and he doesn't care if I smile or if I know who the next team we play is. If I do my job well, it's OK. He is doing simple things that the previous two managers couldn't even think of. He is straightforward and he doesn't play games."

Assou-Ekotto is beginning to look ahead to the World Cup finals with Cameroon. Although he was born in France and has a French mother, there has never been any issue over his allegiance. Like many young people in France born to an immigrant parent or parents, he feels that "the country does not want us to be part of this new France. So we identify ourselves more with our roots.

"Me playing for Cameroon was a natural and normal thing. I have no feeling for the France national team; it just doesn't exist. When people ask of my generation in France, 'Where are you from?', they will reply Morocco, Algeria, Cameroon or wherever. But what has amazed me in England is that when I ask the same question of people like Lennon and Defoe, they'll say: 'I'm English.' That's one of the things that I love about life here."

Before South Africa Assou-Ekotto is on the brink of history with Tottenham. They entertain Bolton Wanderers this afternoon, with a place in next season's Champions League within their grasp. "It would be good for the team, the club and the supporters ... they'd enjoy it," he says. "But for me, it would be just another set of games. When we play Liverpool and Chelsea, it's like the Champions League anyway so for me ..."

Assou-Ekotto shrugs. It is only a job.

[hoverdonkey]

That's the article I was trying to think of. Let's hope AVB doesn't 'play games' with him. I think VdV could have the biggest problem with the new man. He doesn't fit into the way AVB's teams play.

[gabrielconroy]

It's looking like we're seriously going after both Sigurdsson and Oscar from Internacional, who looks like he could develop soon into a world class player. If that's true, then maybe VDV is on the way out. Would make sense financially, since his value is probably at the peak right now of what we could get for him.

[MuteBanana]

Mixed feelings on AVB. I think as long as Spurs make top 6 I'd be happy for him to stick around long term. A period of adjustment is understandable, especially for such a young manager.

[Subtle Mocking]

Bloody hell, Daniel Sturridge is being treated for suspected viral meningitis. Hope he can pull through, he has a ton of potential.

[Bobby Treetops]

I've just realised the new Tottenham manager is younger than me.

I'm officially an old fuck.

[BlodwynPig]

All-conquering England up to 4th in FIFA rankings, Brazil down to 11

[thesonya]

thanks for sharing

[Subtle Mocking]

RVP isn't re-signing with Arsenal. Where now? I feel like if he goes to City, we might have the PL's next great feud on our hands.

[castro diaz]

Hello there 2012/2013.

I know I pompously banged on about this in the previous thread but I'd like to share something I wrote (again) about the Cardiff City rebranding.  It's a little different to before as the club have allowed Season Tickets bought before the decision to be refunded (minus £20 'aministration, the utter cunts) and my dad, a life long fan and has emailed me asking me what I suggest.

I know how much the club means to him.  He took me a lot as a kid and it was our strongest bond, especially since I moved abroad.  Anyway, he is very conflicted about it all and, without wanting to be dramatic, I can see it's hurting him.  For context he is against the kit/badge change but unsure on whether to cancel.  Here is my reply.  Sorry for the recurring self-indulgence.  I await negative karma, though apparently it's killing the forum anyway.

I can't really tell you what to do.  I can you tell what I'd do, and what I would advise you to do, but it's obviously a personal thing.  I understand completely what they mean to me, you and us and what I feel about it all has hurt me, still doesn't seem real and has taken something away that may never be replaced.  I always took it for granted I'd be a City fan forever, and that whatever we went through it'd at least be the same club.  I was asked for the first time they other day who I supported.  With one guy I said Athletic Bilbao (in no way a replacement, and nor do i want them to be.  They'd be my Spanish club even if the Malaysians never came) for ease and with a Scottish guy I said it used to be Cardiff but I hope they get relegated until they change back to blue, our badge and if the Malaysians go (or severely back down).  If they do then they'll be my team again and they can start making it up to me.

I think the dilemma is quite basic.  Do you approve of the changes?  They way football is going?  The way the kit is merely the first step (Malaysian on the badge soon?) and how we've lost control of our club?  The way the fans were patently lied to and eventually ignored?  The way global image is more important than a century's tradition?  The idiocy of it-we all know it will only harm us as a club and a city.

If you think the way I do about all that and care about what the club was then you simply can not buy a season ticket.  It's legitimising something that feels like robbery.  It's a seal of approval.  'I'll support them regardless.  Do what you want to them.'  It's a financial message that gives them the green light to continue.  You could never legitimately claim to disagree with the decision again because you would have endorsed it.  The decision to change was a financial and marketing decision only.  Whether it continues is entirely down to whether they make money and keep the majority of fans.  If you give them £350 then you help proving them right.  Wearing a blue shirt and singing a song about it will do nothing.  They proved this when they ignored fan complaints and national ridicule.  If the language they speak is money then we have to answer with money, not a blind sense of loyalty to something that no longer exists.  The figures on returned Season Tickets will be published in the media here and and Asia.  You can help decide that message.  Other people are doing it.  We have to show solidarity.  They'll work out exactly how much it cost.  The higher the better.

So you won't see them for a year or two.  How would the experience be anyway?  Would it honestly feel the same?  They are categorically not the same team I started supporting.  Not the same team as 2 years ago even.  I genuinely think to support them now and to back the marketing bullshit would be a betrayal to the real Cardiff City, my real team, not these impostors.  I want them to get relegated.  The sooner the better.  If we do go down, play in front of low crowds then the Malaysians will give it up as a lost cause.  No chairmen last forever.  The sooner they leave the sooner we get our club back.  Anyone buying the club will immediately change the kit and badge back.  It's a no brainer.  Instantly get the locals behind you and show yourself to be the antithesis of the previous regime.  It'll happen in 2, 5 or 10 years, but it'll happen.  Buying a ticket, a shirt, being silent only prolongs that.  I honestly feel when that day comes it'll be the real city fans who boycotted and should be proud to do so.  And if we go bust?  Then we'll start again with our traditions.  If AFC Wimbledon can do it why can't we?  And they've had a great time doing it.  And to the doom mongerers who say it's red or dead-absolute nonsense.  Look at Pompey, in dire straits financially, will probably take a decade to get back up but they still exist and still have their pride.  I'd take being a Pompey fan a league lower than City any day of the week.  A Pompey fan has to watch a slightly lower quality of football.  But he still has his club.

I think you should cancel the season ticket, take them to small claims court for the £20 admission fee (along with everyone else), protest in the city, and then before the first match in  front of Sky TV and go and watch Merthyr for a year or two, or take up fell walking or learn the flute.  I know there will be a void in your life and week and there will be to thousands of city fans.  We have no other option.

A ticket is a vote and a vote endorses what they did and encourages them to go further.  Whoever goes along with it is partially responsible.  Be the solution or the problem.  Don't be an accessory.  I'd always thought that we stood against what football was becoming as a set of fans.  Now we've got an opportunity to prove it.  That we can't be rebranded and molded.  Or at the very least we won't go gently into that good night.  And if it doesn't work?  Then when will you ditch the club?  This is surely the first straw.  A piece by piece approximation into what they eventually have in mind.  They get away with the kit, 'altering' the badge then why not move stadium, city, merge with Bristol or the jack[nb]Swansea[/nb]s, play a guaranteed percentage of Malaysian players, change of name?  That's what happened with Wilmbledon.  First they moved to Miton Keynes and stayed as Wimbledon FC.  A season later they changed the name to incorporate MK.  A year later the badge.  Then the kit colour and that was it.  A slow and calculated abduction of a football club piecemeal.  Do them all together and there will be problems.  Do it in drips and people care less and less each time.  It's not such an affront.  It's not so obvious.  It'll happen to us and you'll leave them eventually anyway, but know that by collaborating with them you helped it happen.  Like Theseus' Ship: at what point will it stop being your club?  Where do you draw the line?  Isn't it here?

Sorry if this seems like I'm telling you what to do.  I tried not to be so partisan but I couldn't help it.  It's not an easy decision that's for sure.  I loved them too.

[Jamie Oliver is fat]

I think that's probably more words than I ever spoke to my dad.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

Cardiff City stuff

It may be different for fans of teams who have not yet played in the Premier League, but at the top level English football was sold a long time ago.  The fans who go to matches are becoming less and less important, as TV rights and merchandise sales abroad becomes the be all and end all.  Local/domestic fans don't really matter, other than for their matchday cash and providing atmosphere for the telly.

Fortunately, my club Aston Villa have one of the better foreign owners in Randy Lerner.  Although he seems curiously naive for a billionaire (giving O'Neill free reign to spunk his cash on the mediocre; appointing Alex McLeish), he does at least talk a good game - describing himself as a mere custodian of the club, talking in glowing terms about the history and heritage of the club, and most importantly using his own money to finance the club.  At least I can be sure he wouldn't pull a stunt like what is happening to Cardiff.

Personally, I hope Cardiff get relegated, and their red shirts seen as some sort of curse.  I'd also like the vampiric MK Dons go under too.  Sadly, they seem here to stay.

[Queneau]

Great post castro diaz. I hope that Cardiff fans unite on this matter.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Do every team in the Chinese league play in red then, just to make sure they aren't unlucky or unmarketable? That must be quite confusing.

[holyzombiejesus]

Whilst I feel for Cardiff City fans [nb]actually, I don't as I've always found them to be bone headed thugs[/nb] and think that it's disgusting what the owners are trying to do, it does seem that they're complaining about the 'drip drip effect' only now it's reached a point that they are unhappy with. I wouldn't say it's hypocritical but it's something close.

[rudi]

Is it just me who doesn't really care what colour their team plays in?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yes, just you in the world. HOW DOES IT FEEL

[RickyGerbail]

in other news van perster is not signing a new contract. i think there's a good chance he's right in doing so, Wengers inability to remove dead weight and to leave the "the squad will get better with time" mentality drags down the club. It might be a final way for RVP to put some added preassure on Wenger to change his mind on a number of different issues.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

If I was a Cardiff season ticket holder I'd have sent mine back. Fans have to show that they won't put up with bullshit like this on the promise of Premier League football.

(A promise that they can't just follow through on by throwing money at it. Look how well Leicester and Forest did last season...)

[phantom_power]

in other news van perster is not signing a new contract. i think there's a good chance he's right in doing so, Wengers inability to remove dead weight and to leave the "the squad will get better with time" mentality drags down the club. It might be a final way for RVP to put some added preassure on Wenger to change his mind on a number of different issues.

It is also another step on the way to breaking Piers Morgan's head

[Glyn]

Is it just me who doesn't really care what colour their team plays in?

I'll stuck my head up and say I'm a cardiff fan who isn't that bothered about it. I was far more worried under Ridsdale when the club was limping from one court hearing to the next with the real threat of winding up orders. judging by the Rangers situation its only due to a lucky judge that Cardiff aren't sat in the welsh league.
I dont believe for a second that it'll last more than 5 years so I'm happy to ride it out and see what happens.
I know its more than the colour issue but this is a club that was financially crippled by Hamman and then 'rescued' by Ridsdale. I've got full sympathy for those who feel a real connection to the club but its naive to suddenly pretend Cardiff werent screwed long before the Malaysians took an interest. It's probably equally as naive mind for me to believe this stops at the red issue ,and it being as simple to change as a new owner sweeping in with a blue reboot.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

What if it transpired Cardiff would be more marketable to the Chinese if it was renamed Swansea?

[castro diaz]

Yes, City are financially fucked.  Like the majority of football teams.  The worst that will happen is we'll sell our best players (a theme not uncommon, hey Ramsey, Earnshaw, Ledley?) and tumble down the divisions.  Is that really so bad?  We'll be where Plymouth are.  They'll be back up there because they're a relatively big club and city, just like we would.  Glynn:  We were in the 'dungeon' not so long ago.  It really wasn't that bad.  A lot of fans preferred it.  I'd much prefer a night out in Torquay, outnumbering home fans and standing on a terrace, ticket on the gate and no service station pick up than drawing away in a faceless future dome at Leicester/Coventry/Pick a name.

And to Holy Zombie Something:  I really don't want to get into a protracted discussion about this as I'm trying to divorce myself from football, and it turns out she's getting the house, but how exactly have Cardiff fans asked for this?  They were happy when the new owners came in as most fans are.  Most believed the 5 year plan bullshit and promises and the previous owners were awful so it was seen as a new start.  So far so normal.  We had a good season with a young cheap team and the first news of any change whatsoever to anything at all of any merit whatsoever was leaked by an insider moments before our semi-final play-off defeat.  The fans that believed it reacted in the game and have since formed protest groups/returned season tickets etc.  In what way have we encouraged their actions?  Who on earth was expecting them to do that?  It came from nowhere.  I'd agree with you if you meant that allowing a new owner control without a fit and proper persons test was illegal.  That fans should own the majority of the club, like in Germany, and that sweeping changes be put under a referendum.  But Cardiff City are one of 92 league clubs that operate like that and it's the FA/FAW's job to sort it the fuck out.  But they haven't and they never will.  from Man Utd to Mansfield, we have jumped the shark and are sucking the bone marrow.  The boat has sailed.  The last chopper has left Saigon and we're being fucked by Ho Chi Minh.  Goodnight Port Vale.

P.S.  He returned his Season Ticket, for what its worth.

[Subtle Mocking]

Reports saying that Walcott wants to leave Arsenal if RVP goes. Most Arsenal fans don't seem to be too bothered about this prospect.

[Subtle Mocking]

Also, Asamoah Gyan has buggered off to UAE side Al-Ain, for £150k a week. Pretty sorry story all in all.

[holyzombiejesus]

And to Holy Zombie Something:  I really don't want to get into a protracted discussion about this as I'm trying to divorce myself from football, and it turns out she's getting the house, but how exactly have Cardiff fans asked for this?  They were happy when the new owners came in as most fans are.  Most believed the 5 year plan bullshit and promises and the previous owners were awful so it was seen as a new start.  So far so normal.  We had a good season with a young cheap team and the first news of any change whatsoever to anything at all of any merit whatsoever was leaked by an insider moments before our semi-final play-off defeat.  The fans that believed it reacted in the game and have since formed protest groups/returned season tickets etc.  In what way have we encouraged their actions?  Who on earth was expecting them to do that?  It came from nowhere.  I'd agree with you if you meant that allowing a new owner control without a fit and proper persons test was illegal.  That fans should own the majority of the club, like in Germany, and that sweeping changes be put under a referendum.  But Cardiff City are one of 92 league clubs that operate like that and it's the FA/FAW's job to sort it the fuck out.  But they haven't and they never will.  from Man Utd to Mansfield, we have jumped the shark and are sucking the bone marrow.  The boat has sailed.  The last chopper has left Saigon and we're being fucked by Ho Chi Minh.  Goodnight Port Vale.

I never once said (or thought) that  Cardiff fans have asked for or deserved this.

Whilst I feel for Cardiff City fans[1] and think that it's disgusting what the owners are trying to do, it does seem that they're complaining about the 'drip drip effect' only now it's reached a point that they are unhappy with. I wouldn't say it's hypocritical but it's something close.

My point was that the way that football has changed over the last 20 or so years has (IMO) benefitted the likes of Cardiff City massively (and sometimes unfairly) and it's a bit rich to happily jump on the gravy train but then complain because it's gone in a direction you don't like.

[Beagle 2]

Reports saying that Walcott wants to leave Arsenal if RVP goes. Most Arsenal fans don't seem to be too bothered about this prospect.

Well, where's he going to go? I can't see any of the top sides finding a place for him and I assume he wouldn't want a big pay cut. Villa? It's Villa isn't it....

Oh. Apparently AVB is after him. Ridiculous.

[Subtle Mocking]

Hah. Well, in any case, this has come from The Sun. Pinch of salt and all that.