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Alan Swann: on football phone-ins, Joey Barton and Fabio Capello
IT'S a fact that radio football phone-ins are the natural home for the hard of thinking, and not just when Alan Green and Spoony are the hosts.
IT'S a fact that radio football phone-ins are the natural home for the hard of thinking, and not just when Alan Green and Spoony are the hosts.I find the daddy of them all on Radio Five impossible to listen to because it is always hi-jacked by opinionated idiots with a love of their own voice. Facts and reasoned arguments are conspicuous only by their absence.
And sadly it's a disease which has reached our own fair city judging by the reaction of the local loons after Posh lost at home to Hartlepool on Saturday.
Sacking a manager with the second best record in the club's history would apparently make the Posh strikers convert all their chances and force the defenders to stop conceding goals that would shame a girls team.
It's nonsense of course. Darren Ferguson would be the first to admit that he is lucky to be at London Road at a time when resources are considerable, but he has still fashioned the most entertaining side I can remember watching since the first half of the 1997-98 season under Barry Fry.
I do find myself wondering why we signed certain players (Liam Hatch for one), but I don't let it concern me because the joys of watching George Boyd, Russell Martin, Craig Mackail-Smith and Aaron Mclean far outweigh any negative feelings.
Posh employ a vibrant, exciting style of football which is entirely down to the manager and coach. I am convinced results will soon reflect performances more accurately.
When they do I trust those doling out the abuse on the radio and those who have started taking the mickey out of under-performing players during matches will admit they were wrong.
THE most horrible sight of the Premier League this weekend was the nauseating presence of Joey Barton at The Emirates Stadium.
There couldn't have been a more inappropriate setting for this ugly thug to make his return than the home of the most attractive side in English football.
Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan should hang his head in shame and so should that posturing chairman Mike Ashley for allowing Barton to sully further an already tarnished product.
But as Ashley allowed himself to be filmed downing a pint in three seconds on the terraces at Arsenal, I suspect the right public image is not high on his priorities.
Fabio Capello is a bigger fool than I suspected if he seriously expected any help from England's top club sides.
Steven Gerrard's operation was always going to be done at a time to suit Liverpool rather than the England team. The Premier League's insistence that its creation would help the England team is the biggest sporting lie since Kevin Pietersen claimed he was English.
Mind you having watched Liverpool at Aston Villa on Sunday, when their main hope of a goal seemed to rest on 60 yard shots from Xabi Alonso, I can understand Rafa Benitez's anxiety. Surely he can't hide his incompetence behind warring owners for much longer?PAUL Scholes can add the tag of most stupid footballer in the Premier League to the tag of the most over-rated.
The deliberate handball which secured his red card in that meaningless European Super Cup match was the act of a fool, but no doubt his supporters will still point to the three goals he'll score this season as proof that his international retirement is somehow a blow to England's chances of qualifying for the next World Cup.
DAVID Moyes is busily dismantling his reputation as a formidable football manager.
Signing brittle-boned Louis Saha is either the act of a madman or the act of someone keen to leave Goodison Park.
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Weather for Peterborough
Saturday 11 February 2012
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Light sleet
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Wind direction: South west
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