Catching up: Danny Murphy signs

Confirmed here.

If there is such a thing as a ‘football man’ these days I think it’s Danny Murphy. A player whose play is quite cerebral in this hurly burly age, a player who has pedigree and performance, and a decent bloke whose contributions on the pitch are more important than they might first seem. He cares. I was quite upset to see some of the negativity posted about him on the internet last season; watch carefully and you can always see Murphy making himself available, cajoling colleagues, and mucking in in a number of midfield roles. No, he wasn’t well suited to Sanchez’s style – he wasn’t alone there – but his performances in the run in were obviously vital, particularly on that bright and beautiful day in Portsmouth when he saved our season and proved that Roy’s overall approach that day (“stay calm; the chance will come”) was the right one.

So yes, welcome back, Danny. His game isn’t about pace so losing it won’t hurt all that much, and as part of Roy’s passing game Murphy’s able to drop in seamlessly. I’d assume that his time on the pitch will decrease as this contract goes on, but that’s fine: he’s generally reliable out there and has his teammates respect.

Incidentally, Murphy seems a sort of throwback player, a player who would’ve worn a moustache in the early 80s and probably looked like John Wark or Mick Mills or one of those types. I’m tempted to… no, here it is:

See.  I took care to use colours from his beard in the new moustache too.

Anyway, this leads me to a brief aside:  Duncan Hamilton’s “Provided You Don’t Kiss Me: 20 years with Brian Clough”.   I’m reading it, and enjoying it, but my word is it badly written.  The book won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year, but it’s absolutely littered with really awful.. similes… clunky efforts at livening up prose, all sorts.   The story’s good enough to get away with this, but that’s sort of the point:  he didn’t need to do this; just tell us what happened!   I seem to be alone in my thinking this, but there we are.  Recommended(ish), but not on my list of top football books, which I’ll save for another day… but read John Foot’s “Calcio”.   Also, Jonathan Wilson, who wrote “Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football” has a new book out soon: a history of football tactics.   Should be a cracking read.  Wilson’s up on Lobanovsky, the Hungarian sides of yesteryear, all sorts.   Can’t wait for that.

Danny Murphy.  A useful player, Roy’s sort of player, and the nearest thing we’ve got to an old fashioned number 10.  Excellent (re)signing.

Catching up: Zoltan Gera

As you know, I’m very excited by the new Fulho-Hungary Alliance.  That History of Hungary book is quite a curiosity:  the cover is printed upside down, so, were I to try to read it on the tube, it would need to read it cover side down and inside words up.  I would appear to interested bystanders that I was reading upside down, a la President Bush.   I have not read the book yet but will accelerate it up the To Read pile now.  I doubt Zoltan’s in it.

Zoltan Gera.  The Official Confirmation.  Three years with an option for one more.   29 now, so 32 or 33 at the end of the deal…

West Brom fans discuss.  In short:

Rats.  Can’t believe he only went to Fulham
It’s the money
He wasn’t that good
He was
He wasn’t.  We have James Morrison who is better
He isn’t
Rats.  Can’t believe he only went to Fulham

etc.

This is very exciting to me.  West Brom have been carving Championship teams apart for some time now.  Gera’s been a big part of that.  Whoever Roy’s new centre-forward is will benefit from this.  Gera can also create, and is an all around attacking threat.   Supposedly a good man too, which helps.  BIG signing.

Kits, etc

Further to a link by White Noise on Saturday (it had been spammed because it had several links in it – sorry about that), here’s an interesting (to me) thing about kits.

The link is to the entire FA handbook, which doubtlessly covers all sorts of interesting nuggets in its 509 page entirity.

It’s interesting though.  I guess I just imagined that the teams turned up and played, using common sense to avoid kit mixups.  But no, it’s all submitted in advance.  Also, no more than 8 outings for an away kit.  That seems quite low, although thinking about it, how many other teams wear white?   We seemed to be wearing the red and black every week during The Great Escape.

The new shirt must be out now.  I shall wait to see the away one before buying anything, I think.

Catching up: Andranik

Right, catching up on what is, to most of you, very old news.  Let’s start with Andranik, the Iran midfielder picked up on a free.

Incidentally, I’ve seen him before: Iran v Angola, Leipzig, World Cup 2006.  We were there, baking in the German sunshine.

Anyway.  He looks quite good on YouTube (doesn’t everyone?) and the official site stressed that he’s in for defensive midfield cover.  That’s important because Leon Andreasen is plan A for that role and plan B was, until this signing, probably Danny Murphy or Moritz Volz, neither of whom are best in that role.

Before we get too excited, it’s instructive to look at what Bolton fans thought.  The consensus seems to be that there is no consensus, thoughts can be summed up as:

He showed some potential and scored a couple of goals that led some supporters to rate him very highly
He never really got a run of games to show if this potential could be anything tangible
But perhaps this is because he was never that good.  He had four managers at Bolton and none of them gave him a regular role
But he’s a worker with a good attitude and might do alright in the right circumstances

So… I’m guessing we’ve just signed a good squad player.

Clever from Roy, eh?  This is exactly how the wise modern manager has to think:  for every £4million spent on a Steve Davis, £0 can be spent on an Andranik.  And while that might be unfair to Steve Davis, it might not be (most likely scenario is that neither makes much impression at Fulham), and there probably isn’t £4million difference between the two.  If Andranik doesn’t work out you haven’t spent too much finding out.  Sam Allardyce made some bad signings but he had all this sort of thing worked out, getting more for less, finding freely (or cheaply) available talent; Roy seems to be thinking in the same way, which just underlines how lucky we are to have him.