Suspected racist Chelsea fan is an ex-cop - Guardian

Ex-policeman Richard Barklie caught up in Paris metro incident denies he's racist. Guardian report here.

His lawyer's statement reads, in part -

“Mr Barklie is a Chelsea season ticket holder and has travelled to matches for over 20 years now without incident. He travelled alone to the Paris Saint-Germain match and has no knowledge whatsoever of the identities of the other people depicted in recent YouTube video releases. He wants to stress that he was not and never has been part of any group or faction of Chelsea supporters.

“He did not participate in racist chanting and singing and condemns any behaviour supporting that. He accepts he was involved in an incident when a person now known to him as Souleymane S was unable to enter a part of the train.

“He has an account to give to police which will explain the context and circumstances as they prevailed at that particular time.”

Separately, the victim has said he wasn't going to take up Jose Mourinho's offer to visit Chelsea, and only wanted justice to be done.

Swansea 2-1 Man United - Unlucky?

Luck finally ran out on MUFC, after 1 defeat in 19 games.

BBC report here. Here's another one from Guardian, calling out Louis van Gaal for his "lame" excuses.

MU created 18 shots, but only had 3 on target, whilst Swansea only had 10 shots, with half of them on target. MU also had 65% of possession but still lost 2-1.

Swansea's winning goal was deflected past De Gea, although it seemed he could have gotten a hand on the shot. But calling him out on that would be harsh on our Player of the Season so far.

Swansea's first goal was down to a great cross, but Shaw's tracking should have been better. It's hard to imagine Evra (in his prime) letting something similar past him.

As for their 2nd goal, the real problem came from a hospital pass into the middle to Fellaini, who turned into 3 defenders and was dispossessed easily, creating the mismatch in midfield before Shelvey got free to shoot. Both Blind and Rojo could have done better to be closer to Shelvey, but losing the ball in the center circle (and from a forward pass from the defenders) was unforgivable.

Fellaini did well to hold up play, and give the defenders and midfielders an option to pass to, but he should NOT be getting the ball in the center circle from the defenders. His touch is not good enough, and Blind/Carrick need to be the pivot guys. This is precisely why Carrick's contract will be happily extended by MU, and why Blind is currently MU's best outfield player.

Having said that, this was van Gaal's most attacking line up in a while, and it seems he's coming round to the idea of playing the 4-4-2 diamond more often. I like this formation, and on another day, the Swans might have been killed off way before Shelvey had the chance to shoot.

MU had a good 15-20 mins of attack v defense but couldn't create anything of note. Di Maria was again poor, and Robin van Persie looked unfit (and his injury was aggravated as a result). I thought Valencia should have started instead of McNair, and that would have saved a spot for either Falcao or Wilson to come on for RvP late in the game.

Herrera's goal was a beauty, and Shaw needs to make these sort of forward runs more often. I'm sick of watch him face down a defender, attempt a couple of stepovers, only to pass it backwards to Di Maria or Rooney. Same goes for Valencia. It's inconceivable that players of United's caliber cannot generate enough forward runs from their wingbacks to trouble defences like Swansea's.

Next up is Sunderland at Old Trafford. That is now a must win. MU are still in fourth spot, but only 3 points separate MU from Spurs in 8th.

After the Sunderland game, will be a run of 4 games in March to make or break United's season, IMHO -

EPL Newcastle (A) - 4 March
FACup Arsenal (H) - 9 March
EPL Spurs (H) - 15 March
EPL Liverpool (A) - 22 March

Racist Chelsea fans push black man off the Paris Metro

Guardian report and video of the incident here.

This happened and you can see it on the video -

"The fans on the train are then heard chanting a song that appears to be celebrating what has just happened and includes the line: “We’re racist, we’re racist and that’s the way we like it” while a black woman is standing directly in front of them."

This is ridiculous and appalling behaviour from idiots who call themselves fans. Police and the football community should come down hard on these dicks. We haven't heard the last of this one for sure.

MUFC - FA Cup 2015, Preston North End (A)

BBC Sports' report on the match here. This paragraph summed up the game, in my view -

"After an hour, Van Gaal had seen enough. He hauled off the ineffective Falcao for Ashley Young in a change that helped turn the game in his side's favour. Young supplied the pass for Herrera's equaliser and Fellaini, pushed further forward as part of the switch, followed up his own saved header to power home United's winner from close range."

I only managed to catch the 2nd half. But it was clear that the Falcao substitution changed the game for the better.

It's a bit disturbing that Fellaini and Young seem to be United's main game-changers nowadays.

I'm just happy we're in the QFs, although if United doesn't find it's rhythm and tempo soon, we're gonna get f@*ked at OT.

UK TV rights for EPL up 70%

These are some eye-watering amounts. £10.8 million for each game?

Closer to home, Singtel and Starhub have both declined to make any comment on this increase. The only thing we know is that the renewal discussions (for 2016/17 and beyond) are expected only at the end of 2015, and likely to stretch well into 2016.

The current monthly subscription with Singtel is $60 per month. If we extrapolate the UK increase, this will take the monthly sum to well over $100.

Would you pay $100 to watch live football on your TV, when you can get paid (ie legal) IPTV services for less than a fraction of this?

My doomsday prediction is this - subs will go up to $80-90 per month, and the IDA introduces legislation to ban legal IPTV streaming in Singapore.

If that happens, I'm going to migrate* to Australia. Live football is cheaper there. Plus, I think I can buy a nice Porsche for the amount we'd pay for a used Honda Civic.





* j/k, dear.

What's ailing Manchester United

Another lucky draw away to West Ham United, after last minute equaliser from my Player of the Season so far, Daley Blind. And please it's pronounced "Bleend", not "Blahynd".

Louis van Gaal arrived with a lot of fanfare and after the depressing Moyes, he was quite the breath of fresh air. He also talked a good talk, too, and United fans like me were quite optimistic.

Despite a 10 match unbeaten run in the league, it's all gone a little pear-shaped now, and United were lucky to escape with a draw last night. Even during the unbeaten run, we were lucky against West Brom (away), Stoke at home and Southampton (away) where we absolutely stole the 3 points.

van Gaal has changed and tinkered and tried to impose his 3-5-2 formation, only to change it now to a hybrid 4-1-3-2, and sometimes 4-4-2 diamond. Whatever it is, it's not working, and the end-product on the field is turgid and toothless. We scraped a draw "thumping the ball forward" at WH according to Allardyce.

Previously talented and explosive players like Di Maria, Januzaj, Falcao have all disappeared or look disinterested, whilst creative, intelligent and useful role players like Valencia, Rafael, Herrera, Mata and even Rooney, have either not been given the chance, lost their heads completely, or totally fallen off the grid.

It's telling that in the last 2-3 months, our consistently best players have been Blind, Carrick and Fellaini, and before he got injured, Ashley f**king Young was our best option on the left wing. If you'd told me all that at the end of last season, any normal United fan would have said - WTF?!

There's something fundamentally wrong with the team, and I can tell you it's one of these few things -

1. Key players lacking confidence - Robin van Persie is too good a player not to be able to adjust to a different coach, esp one who made him captain of his national team at the World Cup a few months earlier. Valencia / Young / Rafael / Jones / Evans - all these players were key players in Fergie's teams  just 2-3 years back (even if they weren't great), and you don't simply become completely useless in a matter of months.

2. Lack of leadership - Rooney as captain was quite revealing when announced, and I'm guessing there are some senior players who didn't take that decision too well. I'm not saying that Rooney is disliked or disrespected, but if he's running around shouting at the rest, I'm thinking van Persie, or Di Maria, or even Falcao or Mata might just not be listening too hard.

3. Discord in dressing room - This is a consequence of 1 and 2 above, and despite all the publicly positive tweets from players alike, I believe that the dressing room is not a completely united one. The youngsters look damn scared on the field, whilst some of the seniors players appear not to give a shit at times.

It's also interesting to re-examine the list of the main players who have left - Kagawa / Welbeck / Zaha / Fletcher. These may not have been great players (except Kagawa), but it was clear but the time each of them were sold, that they had lost confidence in themselves, or in van Gaal or vice-versa. Question is - if van Gaal somehow thinks Fellaini is a good player, how come not Kagawa? And given his paucity in midfield earlier this season, why didn't Anderson get a run?

All the above points to one man in particular - Louis van Gaal.

Lack of leadership, confidence and dressing room discord - these are all issues of man management, and I strongly believe that was David Moyes's biggest problem (which was why Vidic and Evra left too soon), and why Fergie has been missed terribly. Even someone like van Gaal (who is undisputably a winner and excellent coach-trainer) is finding it tough to change mindsets, and pre-existing tendencies around.

He's doing a good job of selling himself so far this season, but the table and stats don't lie. United right now aren't doing much better than when Moyes was in charge, and we are only in the top 4 because everyone else except Chelsea is playing badly. And this is after Woodward and van Gaal spent > 150B pounds.

Time will tell whether my gut feelings above are borne out or not, but a team like this on paper should be cake-walking all over the Premier League. Yes, even with a defence featuring Smalling and Evans.

Man United's January transfers

Despite all the rumours and last minute "news", Man United only brought a couple of youngsters (here, and here) in the January transfer window, and signed a (IMHO) very very good and experienced keeper in Victor Valdes. For free some more.

Louis van Gaal continued to pare down his squad of "hanger-ons", and it was sad to see some of them go, e.g. Anderson and Fletcher. Another one whom I'd though would do well was Zaha, who returned to Palace. Some of the promising youngsters were also sold (Keane, Vermilj) or loaned out (Janko, Pearson, Rothwell, Lingard)

All in all, a pretty quiet (as expected) transfer window, and it seems van Gaal was telling the truth a few days ago when he said United's business was done.

A full list of the ins and outs can be found here.

Looking ahead, despite the clear need for an experienced CB, this is the squad who will have to take United back into the Champions League in 2015-16.

Bring it on.

Man U v Leicester - Good win, back to 442!

Good win against sub-par opposition. Match report here from Guardian.

I love that both Falcao and RvP scored. It's the formation, LvG! Hopefully it continues.

There is also a link to Adnan's Januzaj's return to form. LvG also said this -

“The results are good but I’m looking always to the process and what our next step is now in that process,” Van Gaal said.

Damn it, stop talking about the "process" lah. It's been 6 months plus, you should know your best 11 and formation by now. NB...