Tony Dorigo is a 'tard.
:ph34r:
Duncan Ferguson: youth team coach. Not a job description one would have associated with the Scot during his notorious playing career but the mantle now fits after the former centre-forward made a surprise return to Everton.
The 39-year-old retired from football five years ago and moved to Spain, returning to Goodison Park only occasionally such as for his induction into the Everton Hall of Fame in 2009. Recently, however, he has been seen patrolling the academy pitches at the clubâs Finch Farm training complex, having stunned David Moyes by asking for work at his former club as he takes his coaching qualifications.
âI have to say I didnât foresee him going into coaching when I had him as a player,â the Everton manager said. âBut Duncan has been away for five years and I think he misses the smell of football a wee bit.â
Ferguson is not employed by Everton in an official capacity but has been assisting Alan Irvine, the clubâs academy manager, for several weeks. Moyes said: "Duncan came back about a month ago and met me. He wants to watch and see whatâs going on. He is back and helping Alan Irvine. He is not a qualified coach yet because he is going through his badges, but we have got him in and heâs happy to do the time and he is working down at the academy.
âHe is showing he really wants to do it. What I have to say is he is putting the hours and the effort in. He still has to get his B licence and A licence but he is shadowing Alan. He is out and about helping some of the younger teams here, he will get the chance to take some sessions.â
Ferguson achieved iconic status in the eyes of many Everton supporters during his two spells at the club, despite a poor injury record and, perhaps because of, several scrapes with authority. And Moyes has not ruled out a full-time role for the Scot in the future. He said: âCould it lead to something here? It could do, but what you need is your qualifications and that is the first thing.â
The latest article from Jonathan Wilson:
Is the Premier League the most competitive league in the world?
Itâs the most competitive league in the world. Anybody can beat anybody on their day. There are no easy games in this league. The mantra of the Premier League apologists is well known. Every time a team from the Little Fourteen (as nobody ever calls them) plays a team from the Big Three (it is just three now, right?) the cliches come trotting along: in our league nobody gives anybody anything, everythingâs a glorious struggle.
Itâs nonsense, of course: itâs obvious the Premier League is a closed shop that can be opened only with the application of around a quarter of a billion pounds. In England in the past decade there have been three different champions. Thatâs the same as Spain, Italy and Portugal, poorer than France (four), and Germany and Russia (five). But then in the past decade there have been Champions League winners from England, Spain, Italy and Portugal, and not from France, Germany or Russia. It seems fairly obvious that competitiveness is something that must be balanced against quality: would fans prefer an exciting domestic league, or for teams from that league to do well in continental competition?
Thatâs not to say that a low number of different champions is necessarily a sign of strength or high quality. In Croatia, Dinamo Zagreb have won the league for the past six seasons and made next to no impression in Europe. The problem, Igor Biscan said, is that their players get used to winning easily; come a tough match, a game against a side of even slightly lesser ability, in which they have to do things that donât come naturally, like defending, they have no idea what to do. âOur players walk through games against villages so they forget how to run,â as a Crvena Zvezda director put it to me a couple of years ago. âBut what are we meant to do? Buy players for the other teams in the league as well?â
Rangers and Celtic have perhaps suffered from that at times in Europe, which may mean that the domination of European football by Barcelona and Real Madrid many have predicted is not quite so sustainable as many think. That in turn is something to consider for those who would tweak the balance of competition in the Premier League by doing away with collective bargaining for TV rights (quite apart from asking whether the product will remain so appealing if games are hideously one-sided). That answer to the Zvezda officialâs question, in fact, may end up being âyesâ, if only indirectly.
If you want a true range of champions, you need to leave Europe. There have been six different champions in Japan in the past decade, seven in Brazil. In Argentina, where the [i]apertura-clausura[/i] system means there have been 20 championships in the past decade, there have been 11 different winners â but there the spread of champions seems a function of weakness, with the best players from the best sides being skimmed off by predators from Europe and Brazil after each championship in whatâs effectively a reverse of the draft system in US sports.
But even if we accept competitiveness per se as a good thing, there are different types of competitiveness. After all, while there have been five different champions in the past decade in Germany, Bayern Munich have won the title five times, the same number as Manchester United, Barcelona and Internazionale (Porto and Lyon, incidentally, are the most successful individual clubs in the 10 leagues considered with seven titles each in the past decade). In effect, in Germany there is a Big One and, if they fire, nobody else has much of a chance. Whether one giant and a handful of occasional challengers is preferable to two or three giants is debatable.
Looking at the number of champions, though, says little about whether a team at the bottom can beat a team at the top. To try to come up with a statistical basis for assessing competitiveness within a league, I looked at four metrics across the 10 leagues (England, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal, Russia, Brazil, Argentina and Japan) over the past decade: the average gap from first to second at the end of the season (how dominant is the champion?); the average gap from first to fourth (is it only two or three teams who challenge the champion?); the average gap from first to last (whatâs the gulf in quality from top to bottom?); and the average gap from fourth to fourth-bottom (whatâs the difference in quality between the mid-ranking sides?). Because different leagues have different formats and are different sizes, these gaps have all been expressed as points-per-game. (Points deductions were ignored).
Team 1st-2nd 1st-4th 1st-last 4th-4th last
England 0.17 0.52 1.92 0.79
Spain 0.14 0.5 1.42 0.62
Italy 0.19 0.53 1.66 0.68
Germany 0.2 0.4 1.4 0.71
France 0.19 0.42 1.3 0.54
Portugal 0.27 0.72 1.68 0.64
Russia 0.11 0.34 1.49 0.68
Brazil 0.17 0.33 1.18 0.56
Argentina 0.17 0.46 1.5 0.7
Japan 0.19 0.36 1.39 0.62
In terms of exciting title races, it turns out that Russia is the place to be, with Spain some way back, and the rest trailing far behind. Perhaps not surprisingly, given Portoâs domination, Portugal has the highest gap from first to second, but what is striking is that Germany has had the second-least-close title races over the past decade, a fifth of a point-per-game separating first from second. The gap between first and fourth in the Bundesliga, though, is the fourth smallest of the 10 leagues surveyed, the gap from top to bottom the third smallest and the gap from fourth to fourth-bottom the smallest. That suggests that the leader often streaks away while the rest remain relatively tightly bunched.
The biggest gap from first to fourth is in Portugal. Again, thatâs in line with expectations: since the second world war, only Belenenses and Boavista, once each, have interrupted the flow of titles for Porto, Benfica and Sporting. There is a very clear historical Big Three who continue to dominate. In Italy, similarly, the two Milan clubs and Juventus (calciopoli notwithstanding) have clearly been dominant. What is perhaps unexpected, though, is that England have the third-biggest average gap from first to fourth: perhaps the Big Four was always something of a myth.
Brazil has the smallest gap from first to fourth, which it is tempting to ascribe to the size of the country. A population of almost 200 million can perhaps sustain more big clubs that smaller nations. It is also worth noting, though, the relative immaturity of a national championship in Brazil; it could be that as the present system becomes more established, money and success gravitates to a more select few.
But whatâs really telling is the last two columns, which show that there is a bigger gap between top and bottom of the Premier League and between fourth and fourth bottom in the Premier League than in any of the other nine leagues under consideration. Far from being the most competitive league in the world, in fact, it turns out to be the least. The league where the bottom is closest to the top, rather, is Brazil, which is remarkable when you consider that the statistics include the 28-team top flight of 2001 and the slow contraction to 20 in 2006 â the more teams there are, the wider you would expect that divide to be.
Now of course an analysis of points tells only part of the story. It may be, in some hard-to-quantify way, that lower Premier League teams fight harder before losing to the big guns, and it certainly is true that the culture of arranged games, mutually beneficial draws and the like, seems less pronounced in England than elsewhere.
In terms of hard statistics, though, the message is clear. The Premier League may lead the way in terms of marketing and self-promotion, but if you want competitiveness, go to Russia or Brazil.
Next week, Iâll look at how competitiveness has changed in England over time, what the reasons for those changes may be and what the potential impact of scrapping collective bargaining for television rights may be.
stand out bet of the weekend
spurs to beat blackburn -1 @ 5/2
spurs at the back have a few injuries and likely to concede but the likes of bale, adebayor, defoe etc should have chances aplenty against blackburn. could be the last game in charge for steve kean if this goes badly wrong as I suspect it will.
Good piece that from Wilson. Really puts the boot into the idea of a âbig fourâ. It is gap between top and bottom though which is probably true measure of strength in depth of a league and is where EPL is the worst of a bad lot in European terms. In fairness though EPL seems to be marketed better than most other leagues.
Chris Sutton in âgreatâ form on Soccer AM this morning.
In what sense?
His dry laconic wit wouldnât be in keeping with the buffoons at Soccer AM these days. Heâs quite good.
Sutton is a legend. Heâs forever just making shit up in interviews and has a cracking deadpan delivery style. That said I canât bring myself to watch Soccer AM, even with him on it.
Wolves really donât look like they have any goals in them. Miserable performance from them here.
Just as you say it Doyle pulls one back
:rolleyes:
And OâHara levels it, great assist from Doyle
Swansea had played them off the park for 80 mins plus. Dyer and Sinclair embarrassed Ward and Stearman. Two dire defenders it must be said. Swansea played some lovely football and had another good few chances. Wolves seemed to have no ideas before Doyleâs tap in and I thought McCarthy might be trouble with 6 defeats on the spin and some awful hoofball being played. The natives were getting very restless and leaving in their droves before the late burst.
Wolves were pathetic really, Doyle taking throw ins and standing out wide for a lot of the game, what is he doing out there needs to get in the box like with the goal. His movement off the ball is gone to pot. Hopefully the goal will give him a boost, to be fair he did really well with the assist for the equaliser. OâHara the scorer of the equaliser looks disgracefully unfit, let the Swansea man go for the second goal and generally seemed off the pace. Bit of a risk playing only two in midfield with his lack of mobility.
shane long has limped off after a bit of a horror tackle by hutton.
stephen reid didnt cover himself in glory for the penalty but the clown keeper ben foster was more at fault i reckon.
Suarez causing mayhem for the Norwich defence already.
âŹ35million of lanky shite. Carroll should have scored.
An appalling result from Liverpoolâs perspective. 29 attempts on goal, Suarez alone must have had 11 or 12. I could see the fucking draw coming early in the second half, you canât miss that many chances and not have it come back to haunt you. For all the opportunities created, very few beyond the first quarter came from particularly intelligent build ups. No control in the midfield at all, they might as well not have been there. Says a lot that the only goal we scored came from a long thump up field. Fair play to Norwich. They gave us plenty of rope and we duly hanged ourselves.