Let's all have a go at the 'keeper...

I realise I might be a lone voice in the wilderness here, but I'd just like to stick up for Robert Green if I may.

In the light of West Ham's 3-1 thumping at the hands of Bolton yesterday afternoon, I could easily jump on the bandwagon and take issue with the part he played in conceding all three goals. God knows everyone else has been over the last 24 hours or so, but I'm inclined to take a different view.

To begin with, I'm not defending Green just because I support West Ham. Far from it - The Hammers played pretty poorly yesterday and probably deserved to be punished accordingly. My main bone of contention is with the criticism he received from the Sky Sports commentary team covering the match and everyone else that followed suit thereafter.

So let's take all three goals in sequence and see what Robert Green supposedly did wrong.

Scenario 1:
Jlloyd Samuel crosses in from the left of the field towards Bolton's Kevin Davies on the edge of the West Ham penalty area. Green comes out to catch the ball, but in doing so spills it in front of Davies who pokes it into the vacant West Ham goal.

In Green's defence it wasn't easy to hold onto the ball once caught due to Davies and Hammers defender Ilunga standing right in front of him. Anyone that can catch the ball in mid-flight and not be distracted by the prospect of falling onto or colliding with two people in your immediate proximity is probably a better man than I am. Add to that the appallingly wet conditions that may well have affected Robert Green's grip on the ball and you see that it wasn't as easy as it looked.

Scenario 2:
Gretar Steinsson volleys the ball towards the West Ham goal from 20 yards out. Green dives to save it but could only block the ball which falls into the path of Gary Cahill who finishes off the move to make it 2-0 to Bolton.

It may not have occurred to any of the pundits sharpening their knives by this stage but when the ball is hit so hard on such a wet pitch, it's actually quite difficult to hold onto (let alone block) the ball when its flight and bounce are as lightning quick. I'd challenge any keeper to hold onto a ball from a shot like that in those conditions and would happily predict the same outcome occurring accordingly.

Scenario 3:
Matthew Taylor hits a direct free-kick from 40 yards out which screams into the far corner of the West Ham net.

Not much Green could do about this at all, to say nothing of the West Ham defensive wall. When seen from behind the goal, the ball clearly swerved massively en route to its destination. Some question Green's positioning here, but given the ferocity of the shot, he'd have been hard pushed to stop it wherever he was stationed.

Taking all that into consideration, if I had to pick one of those three where Green could have done better, perhaps I'd go for the first one as fundamentally it was more preventable than the others, but this is to deviate from my point. It'd be my guess that almost all those people criticising Robert Green in the media have never pulled on a pair of goalie gloves in their lives, let alone played in that position professionally.

It's all very easy to sit back in your favourite chair, watching the action from many miles away, harping on about the poor standard of goalkeeping when you've never even tried it yourself, but believe me, it ain't easy. Not that I've ever played at professional level, I admit, but I've certainly played between the sticks often enough over the last thirty years to know it's a thankless task that requires more skill than you'll ever get credit for.

So to all the journalists out there that picked out Robert Green as an easy target, go easy on the fella. Nobody's perfect and mistakes can happen, but that aside, just stick to criticising stuff you have some experience of or temper your argument with an element of balance.

Here endeth the lesson. :)

Premier League Kit Parade (Part 1)

This time last year, SPAOTP brought you pictures of some of the new shirts being released for public purchase by each of the Premier League clubs, and we asked you to tell us what you thought of them.

This year, we've back again for more of the same and we've got even more new designs to show you, so let's crack on and see what the twenty clubs of the Premier League will be wearing this season. In Part 1, we begin with...

Arsenal
...and the first thing you notice about their new home and away shirts is that they're strangely familiar - particularly the away one.

Nike have this time come up with another of those 'controversial' Arsenal home shirts where the sleeves aren't predominantly white as we're all used to seeing - a bit like the first one they produced for The Gunners back in 1994 - but that navy blue stripe resonates with their 2000-2002 kit as well.

As for the yellow change shirt, that can only bring back memories of one thing - the exciting climax to Arsenal's 1988/89 season in which they beat Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield to clinch the title.

It's the classic combination - yellow with navy blue sleeves, and it's bound to prove a big hit with the Arsenal fans, purely for nostalgia value alone. A good pair of shirts from Nike, we think, and a slight improvement on last season.

Aston Villa
Once again, we have a couple of offerings from Nike, but this time we're left with a slight feeling of disappointment.

Oh don't get us wrong - both the home and away shirts are nice and smart and no doubt well made, but they lack any sense of excitement or specific interest. Perhaps Nike went for the traditional look - something non-flashy and respectable?

Either way, the home shirt isn't vastly different from the one Villa wore last season, while the Summer Blue away shirt contrasts nicely with the previous white one. The thing is, we like Aston Villa's white away shirts so even that isn't scoring big points with us.

All in all then, a couple of safe shirts design-wise from Nike but if this were a school report we'd now be scribbling down the immortal phrase 'could do better...'

Blackburn Rovers
The first of six Umbro offerings here, and already there's one thing to note - the new Blackburn away shirt is already available to buy via their club website, but the home shirt isn't. You'll therefore have to make do with a picture of David Dunn wearing it for the time being.

So let's begin with that home shirt. Once again, the pendulum that is the eternal debate about whether the kit should have red trim swings back in the direction of 'No'. In many ways, that makes this shirt smarter and more refined - OK, we're tempted to say it's potentially less interesting to look at, but we think it's nicely styled, actually.

And then there's the away shirt. Now this is more like it... We're big fans of this one as it's that classic 'feature stripe' design that comes back in vogue every so often. This one's well executed with a white and royal blue stripe going down the middle on a navy blue background, but a technical point here - shouldn't an away shirt be coloured in such a way that it contrasts significantly with the home shirt? Discuss...

Bolton Wanderers
Now here's where we enter the realms of the surreal and the slightly comedic...

As you can see, Bolton's new shirts for home and away have what you might call a 'unique design element' - a strange dark-coloured thing that goes around the neck, over the shoulders and under the arms.

Seen from a distance and from certain angles, it looks like any player wearing one has got a rucksack strapped on his back. Suffice to say we fear for any replica shirt-wearing Bolton fan that has to catch a Tube train home from an away match in London this season.

While we're all in favour of creative design and a fresh approach, we think this is a step too far on the part of Reebok. We're also tempted to say that this is the sort of kit that you'll either love or hate, but to be honest it's more likely to just make you laugh more than anything. We'd like to be persuaded otherwise, though, so if you're a fan of Reebok's latest, leave us a comment and tell us why...

Chelsea
Somewhat typically from one of the 'Big Four', we have not two but three new shirts for the coming season, all of which are once again brought to us by Adidas.

Seen side by side in this manner, you'd first have to say there's an element of the 'template kit' about this (not that Adidas are any strangers to the art of designing template kits) but there is at least some difference in all three shirts as can be seen by (a) their colours, and (b) their collars.

Yes, it's another example of that 'let's keep it simple' mentality which you can't really knock but at the same time it doesn't really set the pulse racing either. We think the first point on the agenda when Chelsea met up with Adidas this summer was 'Get rid of that fluorescent yellow aberration from last season', and that they've duly done. It's been replaced with an old-fashioned (for Chelsea) warm yellow and blue edition which is much more pleasing on the eye, although it'll probably end up selling fewer units than the black one.

Still, all three look good to us and they're probably already flying out of the Chelsea club shop as we speak. So what are your thoughts on the new Chelsea shirts, or indeed any of the shirts mentioned above? Which would you be happy to keep as a memento for your future grandchildren and which would you happily set fire to in a frantic fit of pyromania?

Leave us a comment and tell us - we'd love to know your opinions. Meantime, look out for Part 2 heading your way shortly as it features Everton, Fulham, Hull, Liverpool and Man City...

The Final Curtain

Well that just about wraps it up for another Premier League season. Amazing to think how quickly time passes, isn't it? It seems like only yesterday the season was just beginning...

Anyway, congratulations to Manchester United, the new champions and to my mind the right ones given the standard of the opposition. Had Chelsea claimed the title today, I doubt it would have sat right with many fans of the Premier League. I say that only because Chelsea have barely been at the front of the title race all season and have limped along in third or fourth place for much of the time. Man United, for all their poor phases this season, have always been there or thereabouts like Arsenal were until they capitulated so dramatically when it mattered most.

That said, Chelsea did an amazing job pushing United all the way to the bitter end. Today's result has little or no significance to me today given the fact Alex Ferguson's men were such strong favourites to see off Wigan. Bolton earned a creditable draw, but it was all a fait accompli anyway. The FA in their wisdom elected to take the real Premier League trophy to the Man United match today (rather than the copy which went to Chelsea) and with some justification too. United proved again they have the pedigree to make a sustained challenge for the trophy over 38 games, so the title must be theirs.

At the other end of the table, an eventful afternoon saw Fulham and Bolton Wanderers keep their place in the Premier League at the expense of Birmingham City and Reading who are relegated to The Championship.

As I may have said before, I tend to feel that Fulham are perpetually one of those sides that seem to achieve little, perhaps flirt with relegation but ultimately retain their place every season and for that reason I wouldn't have batted an eyelid if they'd been relegated today. The thing is Roy Hodgson looks like a genuinely nice bloke who deserves great credit for all he's done thus far in his career. I want to see if he can turn Fulham around and make them more of a force to be reckoned with, and thanks to today's 1-0 win over Portsmouth, it looks like he'll get the chance to do so.

As for Reading, I have some sympathy with them. I think they've done pretty well since arriving in the Premier League and have played some exciting football at times, but they've gone steadily stale over the course of this season and as we all know, when the rot sets in the result can be fatal.

Birmingham have been brave in their approach this season, looking capable of putting up a decent fight with most of the teams in the bottom half of the table, but they too have seen their challenge run out of gas when they needed it most. Alex McLeish's arrival in November may have given the club a belief that better things were around the corner, but sadly it didn't quite turn out that way. Whether McLeish is still their manager by the time they return to the Premier League remains to be seen.

So that's it - the final curtain has fallen on the 2007/08 season, but fear not - we still have some things to discuss on this campaign before we can draw a line under this whole sorry affair, and we'll be tying up all those loose conversational ends over the coming week or so.

The Axeman Cometh...

It's come to this, then... While Manchester United and Chelsea fight over who should have the Premier League trophy for the coming year, four teams will fight just to survive in the top flight.

Derby County have already succumbed to the executioner's axe, which means two relegation places need to be filled, and by 5pm BST today either Bolton Wanderers, Birmingham City, Fulham or Reading will fill them.

The way things stand at the moment, Reading and Birmingham occupy those remaining places, but such is the closeness of all the teams involved that the axe could come down on almost anyone.

That said, there are a couple of things to note. Firstly Bolton are definitely in the best place at the moment, being that they're three places ahead of their nearest rivals, Fulham, and two places clear of the drop zone.

That means if Bolton get a draw away to Chelsea today, they'll be safe, no matter what the others do.

Then there's Birmingham. They're only one point behind Reading and Fulham and have a far better goal difference than the two of them. That gives us the situation that if Birmingham avoid defeat at home to Blackburn today and Reading and Fulham lose, Birmingham will stay up.

The fact of the matter, though, is that Birmingham look likely to go down today. Many of the possible permutations from today's results will see Alex McLeish's men demoted to the Championship, and if that's the case, it should be interesting seeing who takes the last place between Reading and Fulham.

All of which brings us to the handy Relegation Calculator that SPAOTP have designed for you. When all the important matches get underway today, you might want to know who's set to go down and who'll stay up, so why not use the chart below? It'll give you many of the outcome permutations just by cross-referencing who's doing what in each game involving Bolton, Fulham, Reading and Birmingham.

And before you check it out, we've left out all the permutations involving Bolton winning for the reasons mentioned above and yes, we know the writing's a bit small, but that's easily alleviated. Just click on the image to see a bigger, clearer version.



The best of British luck, then, to all the teams involved. Oh and by the way - who do you think will go down today? Leave us a comment and let us know!

If the Premier League were a popularity contest...

Consider this for a moment, if you will. If I were to ask a carefully chosen selection of football fans here in England who they'd like to see relegated from the Premier League (except for Derby who already are), what would be the most popular answer?

Chances are, you may well be wrong. According to an article in The Guardian on Friday, it's Bolton Wanderers, and I find that really quite staggering.

In the article, fanzines of all twenty Premier League sides were polled. They were asked four questions: 'Which club would you like to see relegated?' and 'Why?' (for footballing and non-footballing reasons), and 'Who will go down with Derby?' To my surprise, nine of the twenty responses to question 1 were 'Bolton', with Wigan and Sunderland taking three votes each, Fulham and Reading taking two each and Birmingham the remaining one.

It seems, from this harmless little straw poll, that Bolton have irked many a Premier League fan in recent times, but I was at a loss to know the reason why. It was probably rather intelligent of me, then, to read some of the answers to question 2. Here are a selection of some of them:

"Their philosophy of football is appalling and isn't exactly beneficial to the development of the sport as a spectacle."

"I hate the brand of football employed by Sam Allardyce and continued by Gary Megson."

"I don't like their brutish style of football, using the sharpened elbows of Kevin Davies to rough up opposing defences while El Hadji Diouf does his dying swan act all over the pitch."

"The most boring team in Premier League history. I left the Reebok early last week as I'd done my neck in looking for the ball in the sky."

...and so it goes on. Now forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just a little unfair? OK, so Bolton may not play the most scintillating style of football in the world, but then neither do a lot of other teams. That's what makes football the rich tapestry that it is - lots of teams all playing in different ways.

I'll be honest and say that I did watch a couple of their UEFA Cup games on TV earlier in the season and didn't feel enormously entertained as a result, but it didn't automatically lead me to wish them an exit from the top flight, nor did I assume that was what you got every time Bolton ran out onto the pitch to play their next match.

When I read this article, I was expecting West Ham to be the main focus of everyone's attention, given the shenanigans of last season with the Tevez / Mascherano affair and the fact that football fans tend to have very long memories. Apparently I was wrong.

And yes I know technically West Ham aren't in the frame to be relegated this season, but I still thought someone would want to tell the world they should be removed from the setup.

So please, give Bolton a break - that's all I say. They may not be everyone's cup of tea, but they're pretty harmless in the overall scheme of things and deserve the credit of representing England in European competition twice in the last few years... Unless you know better of course. Tell us if there's someone you'd like to see relegated this season and why!

Shirts for 2007/08: Bolton Wanderers (home)

Following on from the new Tottenham shirt we showed you recently, here's Bolton's offering for the new season as launched earlier this week:



I quite like this one, personally. A nice splash of red, a bit of navy blue and very little else. Smart and simple (perhaps bordering on too simple?) but quite nice with it.

Still, this isn't all about just me and my solitary thoughts... as ever, we're keen to know your opinion. Leave us a comment or if you're feeling really dangerous, cast your vote below. More kits coming soon...!

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VOTING HAS NOW CLOSED FOR THIS SHIRT
The final results were as follows:

Excellent: 25 (26%)
Good: 33 (34%)
OK: 19 (20%)
Poor: 8 (8%)
Terrible: 12 (12%)

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