Craven Cottage Newsround

Our leader has explained that Liam Rosenior was given a well-earned break against Spurs, which makes every sense given the latter’s recent performances.   I think most people agree that Liam has potential, but equally that his passing can be awful and his defending erratic.  He’s great on the wing in one-on-one situations, wingers rarely get much out of him there, and he’s exciting charging forward in attack, but those are good building blocks towards developing into a good player, not evidence of being one now.   In slotted Moritz Volz, and as expected, he was terrific.   It creates a mild selection issue for Man Utd, but I can’t see that Volzy deserves to lose his place. 

Interesting comment under the last post about the latest half-time entertainment.  In all honesty I don’t know what to make of this.  In America they have cheerleaders to provide some glamour and to keep things ticking over during the long breaks in play.  But American Football is much more of an ‘event’ than our game, and it does seem strange watching all these gimmicky things invading us.   It was worse at Southend when I was there earlier in the year, we had fishnet clad Essex lasses (nothing against Essex lasses, but the stereotype is there and makes for an easy descriptor (is that a word?) at times like this - you know what I mean don’t you?) giving away… what were they giving away?  I can’t remember.  But they were all around the ground and you couldn’t miss them.  I’m not sure what any of this adds to proceedings.   Do we need to be entertained any further?  Isn’t the football enough? 

And it’s not like there’s nothing to do at half-time anyway.   Here’s my usual routine (no, I can see that this won’t be interesting):  stand up, clap if situation demands, wander to gents.  Fight past people standing in a group by the entrance to the gents, wait for chance to ‘go’, take chance, tilt head back, close eyes, sigh with relief as the pressure eases.   Wash hands, wander back.  Stop at refreshments if possible, occasionally buy pie.  See what’s on screen, decide can’t be arsed, wander back to seat.  Watch the half-time shoot-out thing, admire confidence of little imps (the nine year old me would’ve been absolutely terrified, would’ve shot straight at keeper, and would’ve replayed the miss in his mind for a long time. Forever probably).  Find programme, question self for spending £3 on it when yet again there’s really little of interest in there, find newspaper in bag, read a bit of that.  Look up to see that Clint Dempsey + 1 is warming up for second half.  Note that the team is now on the pitch, waiting for opposition to follow (Think “does Coleman run out of things to say in there?” for the umpteenth time).   If I’ve gone to the game with someone then I’ll just talk to them during the break.

Then on with the game.  Half-time is a welcome break, but that’s all it is.  We don’t really need dancing girls.  But nor is it the end of the world.  That’s about the size of it really from my perspective; it’s the world today, we can fight it all we want but they’ll continue to thrust ENTERTAINMENT! at us until there’s not a second where we’re not bombarded with something.  I’d like to see four horsemen in black robes and hoods gallop slowly but menacingly around the pitch without comment or introduction, then disappear from whence they came.  That’d give people something to think about.  Can someone make this happen?