Elbowed out the Cup, no great shakes

Published on January 30, 2012 by mod1 · No Comments

Few of us like a Monday morning, but The Fifth Official does, for it brings with it a chance for him to point the finger and laugh. Here he pulls out the pretty, the puzzling and the downright pig-ugly from a week brimming with potential victims.

Too Few Good Men

This weekend’s FA Cup ties may as well have been played out in the courtroom. When four clubs and the country’s Football Association are appealing for calm ahead of a bunch of fourth round FA Cup ties, like this were the 1960s and they were appealing to nuclear-capable countries not to press the big red button, you know something has gone seriously awry.

Chief focus of the ‘DON’T PANIC’ headlines was, of course, Anfield, as another unsavoury chapter was written into the history books of a once-distinguished football club as its fans booed a player who had the temerity to be racially abused and then report it. Such is the state of denial, I half envisage it all coming to a head in front of a judge with someone bellowing “You can’t handle the truth,” in King Kenny’s face a la Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

Liverpool are also trying to airbrush another grubby chapter out of their past it seems, as they put in a cheeky late night phone call to Manchester City to see if they’d be interested in swapping Andy Carroll for Carlos Tevez – the football equivalent of swapping a donkey for an ass – but apparently Liverpool were insisting City had to take Jordan Henderson as part of the deal, so it fell through.

No great shakes

Perhaps it would just be easier if the authorities in England decreed that no-one should shake the greasy palm of John Terry, to put an end to all these awkward, bumping into the ex-girlfriend type moments. After another week of handshake-gate, pre-match formalities were dispensed with, which is just as well, as Anton Ferdinand’s reason for not wanting to touch Terry is a little more serious than Wayne Bridge’s.

The newspapers had so many calm down tales to write they were salivating anyway, even before some nugget decided to send Ferdinand a bullet and a nasty letter in the post. When it turned out to be a pellet from an air gun, perhaps Fleet Street realised they should have taken their own advice. But the scare was enough for QPR to turn Loftus Road into Fort Knox and search every single supporter in case they were carrying a water pistol down their pants.

And then, after all that hype, the football started, and promptly reminded everyone how boring the FA Cup can be at times. An awful game was settled by a dodgy penalty and Chelsea’s fans also lowered their gutter-like reputation by aiming abuse at Terry’s accuser. Mr Chelsea got plenty of stick too, but the trouble is you get the feeling his twisted insides actually enjoy the condemnation of 20,000 fans who’d like nothing more than to tear his leg off and beat Andre Villas-Boas round the head with it.

Elbowed out of the Cup

Perhaps with the transfer window nearing its exciting climax, I’ll wager there are a few clubs with Tubbs on the radar. Matt Tubbs that is, of creepy Crawley fame. Tubby was at it again on Saturday, as his goal burst the Barmby Army’s bubble in Hull. To make it a good day all round for Sussex shocks, Brighton then strong armed Newcastle out, but there’s only one cup competition on their minds, and that’s taking place in Africa.

Elsewhere, Stevenage bagged a tie with Tottenham, to keep a thin streak of romance alive, while the clash between Chelsea and Birmingham will only be relished by any police officers who enjoy a bit of rough and tumble. Speaking of which, there was more than a slice of that at the Emirates involving Mr Arsenal, Robin van Persie.

With Aston Villa sitting pretty at 2-0 up at half time, they gave birth to a collapse of epic proportions – as if they were all auditioning for a role in the England cricket team’s middle order. Giddy on the Gunners’ unlikely comeback, in which he’d scored twice, RVP appeared to launch an elbow into Carlos Cuellar’s face. Well, elbow is probably too strong, ‘forearm nudge’ is probably more appropriate, but no less painful it seems. We await to see what interpretation the FA will come up with this week.

The Tees-Weary derby

Tony Mowbray has never come across as one of the sharpest tools in the box. “So where does this match fit in to Middlesbrough’s season Tony?” he was asked in his pre-match interview, with Boro on a decent run and sixth in the Championship. “Well… it’s the next match,” offered Tony, with that gummy expression a horse pulls whenever it finds something moderately amusing.

It was very much a Sunday TV cup tie in January, illuminated by Sunderland’s new wing wonder James McLean, a kid so raw and energetic, Steve Bruce saw fit to let him stew in the reserves when he could have helped save his job. Martin O’Neill has no such blinkers on, and has installed McLean as first in the queue to be his new ‘first on the teamsheet’ player.

The Irish lad plays like Boro’s own pot-noodle-raised Adam Johnson would if he was twice the chunk, and must already be worth £40 million if that other wing wizard (ahem) from the region, Stewart Downing went for £20m. But then, I wonder if McLean can do this and dupe a big club into some lavish and unnecessary spending?

Credit: http://soccernet.espn.go.com