The best view in the house

It’s been five years now since two lucky blokes have been able to watch top European football matches from the best vantage point in the stadium – standing pretty much on the pitch.

Masquerading as ‘goal line assistant referees’, it includes donning referee uniforms and holding a cattle prod.

Duncan Crossley, 46 from Sheffield, interviewed after a particularly thrilling Champions League match at the Bernabeau commented, “Brilliant, bloody brilliant. I only ever get to watch matches in the upper tier, and usually only at Bramhall Lane – and here I am watching Real Madrid inches away from the action”.

However, his colleague behind the other goal, Jeff Jackson, was less than enamoured by the experience. “Granted, I had a fantastic unobstructed view when the action was at my end” he said, “but when the ball was in the opposition box, I couldn’t see an f*ing thing”.

Mystery surrounds the process of how the two fans got to be standing where there were. For the purposes of this article, several online ticket agencies were contacted, but all denied having tickets available for these two vantage points.

Goal line assistant referees hit the news this week when the Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger whined, “I do not know what the guys behind the line are paid for”. What? Not only do they have the best spot in the house, but they are actually paid for it too!!?? If that is not a dream job, I don’t know what is.

Further speculation surrounds the necessity for holding a taser for 90 minutes. Rumour has it that it is solely to be used against Luis Suarez during biting attacks.

Eight ways to get on the Manchester United payroll

1. Be left-footed, Spanish-speaking or preferably both. Of the starting 11 on Saturday, only Phil Jones didn’t fit into either category. Maybe it’s time he took night classes in Castilian.

2. Be an ex-player willing to tow the party line. According to Roy Keane’s earth-shattering revelations this week, United legends working for the club don’t bitch about their current employers. What?!?!

3. Be called anything other than José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix. He could be the last available manager on earth, but if it came down to Mourinho and the tea-lady as the last two candidates, United would be posting a vacancy for someone to make the half-time beverages.

4. According to the official Manchester United website, the club are currently looking for a Casual Museum Assistant. Is ‘casual’ referring to their fashion sense, or maybe someone who isn’t bothered by losing members of their group on the museum tour?

5. Sleep with your brother’s wife (Giggs), sleep with a prostitute whilst your wife is pregnant (Rooney), get arrested for rape (Evans & Van Persie), indecent exposure (Van Gaal & Young), and these are just examples from those in the current set-up – anyone remember Tommy Docherty being sacked as manager of Man Utd for having an affair with the physio’s wife?

6. Be able to run very, very fast. According to Fifa, Antonia Valencia was announced as the fastest player in the world last year. It’s no wonder that Usain Bolt has repeatedly insisted that when he hangs up his running spikes he wants to play for Manchester United.

7. Do your job really badly and then leave. Both David Moyes and Nani underperformed during their respective spells at the club. They were both shipped out and yet the club are still paying them according to their contracts.

8. Sell beer, and lots of it. Singha is Manchester United’s official beer, and they reckon that 20,000 bottles are sold at the ground each game.

David De Gea

If there is any part of the pitch that is under the ownership of one player, then it’s surely the penalty area - the domain of the goalkeeper. Over eight hundred square metres of turf that a goalkeeper must police in order to prevent a goal being scored in his net.

Any goal-keeping manual worth its salt will refer to ‘commanding one’s area’ as a fundamental element to the job.  Top Manchester United number 1’s of recent memory, Edwin Van Der Sar, and before him the great Peter Schmeichel, were masters of this, letting strikers (and even their own defenders) know whose penalty area they were trespassing in.

David De Gea, the current incumbent of the goalkeeping shirt at Old Trafford, has not been grabbing the headlines this season. Apart from his moment of madness against Sunderland in the League Cup, his performances have generally been good. The reasons for Manchester United’s plight this season are manifold, but David De Gea is not one of them.

Having said that, why is David De Gea consistently rooted to his goal-line? He comes for absolutely nothing. And I’m not talking about crosses. The ball bounces and the defender wants to let it roll back to the keeper, they look up, expecting De Gea to be racing in to collect the ball, and yet the keeper has not moved from his goal-line.

Is it a fear of getting caught up in the melee? Gaza is one of most densely populated strips of land in the world. If David De Gea’s penalty area had the same population density as the Gaza Strip, 2500 people would be living there. But it isn’t in Gaza, in fact it isn’t even remotely busy.

Maybe he fears to come out of his six yard box? There are such things as no-go areas on this planet – Brazilian favelas and neighbourhoods of Northern Ireland at the peak of ‘The Troubles’ to name but two. David De Gea must accept that his personal safety is not endangered by straying from his goal-line.

David De Gea must learn to love the furthest reaches of his penalty area. Maybe he could make it more homely for himself - spruce it up a little by planting some begonias in the corners.

Forget manager sack race - dump the players!

FANS RANT: Forget manager sack race - dump the players!

Submitted by Tribal Football Staff 8 months ago

Manchester United mad Anton Marks is fed-up with managers always getting it in the neck when their players fail to perform. He wants the tables turned!


When a football manager fails to do his job, he’ll get the sack. Sometimes it’ll be a slow death: a string of poor results which builds pressure on the owner over weeks or even months, until they finally put the gaffer out of his misery. Sometimes, it will come as a swift reaction to a particularly galling loss against perceived weaker opposition.
Over the medium to long-term, it is not too dissimilar in terms of football players; if they consistently fail to perform they will eventually find themselves out of the team and eventually out of the club.
But players don’t have to fear a good old knee-jerk firing – until now.
In my parallel world of ultimate football justice, players who have endured a 90 minutes which could best be described as a horror show, should be made to clear out their locker immediately following the full time whistle.
By way of examples, a couple of performances of recent weeks spring to mind. With regards to Manchester United, it’s hard to pick out specific ineptitude in a season of taking ineptitude onto new levels, but Chris Smalling’s appalling impression of being a footballer on Tuesday night against Olympiakos in the Champions League should have been enough for him to have been shown the door, there and then, as he was moping off the pitch. Don’t let him shower, don’t let him change, put him in a cab and tell the driver to drive straight to the job centre.
Similarly, Liverpool fans watched in disbelief this month as their defender Kolo Toure endured inexcusable shockers in their matches against both West Brom and Fulham – an own goal, gifting away another goal and at one point clumsily knocking over the referee.
So the match ends and Brendan Rodgers shakes the hand of the opposing manager. He appreciates the support of the traveling Liverpool fans and then marches straight up to Toure to proclaim those immortal words, “You’re sacked!”

Originally published here: http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/fans-rant-forget-manager-sack-race-dump-players-4010501