Daily Mail - 06.09.2019

81

Daily Mail, Friday, September 6, 2019

English arrogance is

behind window pain

GUTLESS EFL BEND

RULES FOR BURY

Cowley can do

better than

Huddersfield

THE good thing about

the Football League

is they’ve got some

principles. And if you

don’t like those,

they’ve got some

others.

So Bury were out of

the League, right up

until some famous

people — mayors,

local MPs, the

England manager —

made a fuss and now

they might not be.

Every other club that

has gone bust has

been made to reform

several leagues

outside the

professional game

and find their way

back. Now, Bury

might just have to

spend a year in

mothballs before

reconvening in

League Two, the

division below. The

EFL say they will put

it to a vote of clubs,

neatly abdicating

responsibility.

Just as depressing is

the suggestion that

Championship clubs

will use Bury’s

collapse to demand

greater powers —

including a direct say

in major executive

appointments and

commercial deals.

Quite how giving

these prima donna

clubs more influence

would have saved

Bury is a mystery.

They are at each

others’ throats over

finance the whole

time as it is.

IN all likelihood, we have seen
the last of the early-closing
transfer window. Football has
come to its senses and worked
out what should have been
obvious — that Europe will not
fall in line with the will of some
people but will use English
arrogance to game Premier
League clubs in the
marketplace.
So Manchester United had little
option but to pay £175,000
towards Alexis Sanchez’s
weekly wage just to get the rest
of it off their bill — and then had
to take a £10million hit on

Matteo Darmian, or risk being

stuck with him, too.

English football completely

overplayed its hand and reality

did not match an outdated view

of its importance in the world.

Premier League chairmen

thought they could shape

football in other countries with

little more than bluster and

have ended up looking foolish.

Turns out it was much safer,

much better for this country

and its business, the old way.

Feel free to see this as a

metaphor, those who are

metaphorically inclined.

At this rate, by the time

Wayne Rooney (right) turns

up in January, Derby will

be in a fight to avoid

relegation to

League One.

Not exactly what he signed

up for — although it will be

interesting to

see how much

mischief he

can get up to

away to

Accrington Stanley.

Mind you, Vancouver was

quiet until he turned up.

Maybe Souness knows more

than all the keyboard warriors

Born winner:

Abraham

can be an

England star

GETTY IMAGES

TAMMY ABRAHAM was

born in Camberwell.

He was with Chelsea at

the age of eight and

has represented

England from Under 18

to senior level. And

while Kevin

Oghenetega

Tamaraebi Bakumo-

Abraham — to give him

his full name — has

undoubted Nigerian

heritage, it would be a

huge mistake to switch

nationality now.

‘Tammy has a better

chance of playing

regularly for us,’

announced Nigerian

federation president

Amaju Pinnick, but

what does that say of

how he views

Abraham? Pinnick is

implying Abraham isn’t

good enough for

England and should

take a less challenging

route — but Gareth

Southgate’s support

does not endorse that.

If Abraham wants to

play for people who

believe in him, he

should stick with the

country of his birth.

Isn’t it a pity when bad things happen to

perfectly confected twitter storms? take

Graeme souness’s comments about Moise

Kean. He expressed shock that Juventus

had been prepared to sell such a fine

young player, at 19, to Everton. He is not

alone in that. there was widespread

surprise that one of the best young talents

in Europe was allowed to leave.

Kean had rejected a new contract with a

year left on his current deal but even so,

Juventus had 12 months to work on him

and it wasn’t as if Everton’s money was a

game changer. tottenham might feel

resentful at missing out on £80million for

Christian Eriksen but Kean (right) cost

roughly £26m. Juventus could surely have

gambled on their powers of persuasion

with those margins.

souness’s mistake was to speculate that

there was a motivating issue around Kean,

off-field. He made a comparison with

Emmanuel Adebayor, a high-maintenance

character who left Arsenal in his prime.

Different age, different club but the

point had worth: sometimes there

is a logical explanation for what

appears mysterious to the

outsider.

souness might have been

doing Kean a disservice, of

course. He didn’t seem to have

off-field issues at Juventus. Yet

souness is a football man and

football men hear things. they mix

in insider circles. Maybe souness was

putting two and two together and getting

five, maybe he was just repeating

knowledge gleaned. the reaction,

however, did not entertain for one second

that a man who had played and managed

across Europe might be better informed

than the average keyboard warrior.

souness, the man who brought Mark

Walters to Rangers, was racist. souness

made presumptions about Kean because

he was black.

then Roberto Mancini revealed that

Kean (left) and team-mate nicolo

Zaniolo had been left out of Italy’s

squad for the Euro 2020 qualifiers

because they turned up late for a

team meeting at the European

Under 21 Championship in the

summer. It’s not the crime of the

century but maybe souness had indeed

heard some vague detail around that.

Given his background it is certainly

possible he knows a few people in Italian

football. More than the average twitter

user in all likelihood although, in our

push-button world, we are conditioned to

treat all opinions as equal these days.

Wayne could be

different league

tHERE is nothing

surprising in Danny

Cowley’s decision to

turn down the job at

Huddersfield. He’s a

smart man and can do

better. Indeed, one

glance at the

Championship table

explains all.

We hear a lot about

yo-yo clubs but

equally common are

those that go into

freefall having been

relegated from the

Premier League. Look

at League One:

Ipswich, Bolton,

Blackpool, Coventry,

sunderland and

Portsmouth, all

former Premier

League clubs that

have plunged through

two divisions.

In the Championship,

teams such as

Charlton, Leeds,

Blackburn and Wigan

have all known what

it was like to fall to

the third tier. Bottom

of the Championship

table right now are

stoke, above them

Huddersfield, both in

serious trouble, both

recently Premier

League. Huddersfield

gambled on a German

management model

which did not pay off

a second time.

the environment for a

new manager might

therefore be hugely

problematic, yet

expectations will

remain high after the

taste of elite football

under David Wagner

just a year ago.

Cowley (above) is

right to stick with

Lincoln for now.

He is a very talented

manager and his

chance will come but

Huddersfield is a huge

risk for any coach

taking a first step

beyond the lower

leagues.

WHAT do they put in the

Gatorade down at

Arsenal? Following on

from Shkodran Mustafi’s

assertion that the defence

never gets the credit for

the 90 per cent of games

when they don’t chuck

one in, comes Granit

Xhaka’s unique take on

Sunday’s north London

derby. ‘Critics are always

here,’ he said. ‘We had a

good game. I made a

mistake with the penalty

but we could have won.

‘We had a lot of chances

but nobody speaks about

the chances. They always

speak about the

mistakes.’

Yes, and one in particular.

Xhaka’s wholly idiotic and

reckless challenge on Son

Heung-min in the penalty

area, to hand Tottenham

a two-goal lead. So the

reason people talk about

Xhaka’s mistake is that it

might well have cost

Arsenal victory; or, as

this column has

previously observed: you

f*** one sheep...

EVERYONE’S

A CRITIC,

XHAKA, AND

HERE’S WHY

TAMMY HAS

CLASS TO

SHINE FOR

ENGLAND