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Top 12 awful South Americans
After reading your updated Top 10 South Americans article, I decided to see if I could come up __with an equivalent “bottom 10 South Americans”. Turns out I couldn’t quite narrow it down to 10, so here is a Top 12 awful South Americans.
12. Anderson – What is sad about Anderson is that, at some point in the future, someone will look at his record, see he played nearly 200 games for United, won multiple honours and assume that he was a great player. But he wasn’t. He was just a useless, overpaid lump who would not go away.
11. Juan Sebastien Veron – Probably not quite as woefully awful as some of the others on this list, Veron is however in a league of his own when it comes to unfulfilled expectations, overinflated transfer fees and, whatever Sir Alex might say, generally being a massive let down. Twice.
10. Mario Jardel – whereas Veron was a massive let down, big Mario was just massive. He lasted a year at Bolton, didn’t score, and disappointed headline writers everywhere by not being in the slightest bit super.
9. Mauro Boselli – they say it’s the hope that kills. Wigan fans probably had quite a lot of hope at the start of the 2010-11 season, having just signed an Argentina international striker for a club record fee. It didn’t go well. He made his debut in the opening day 4-0 home defeat to Blackpool, and, somehow, went downhill from there.
8. Javier Margas – West Ham certainly know a thing or two about gambling on an obscure South American, but in this case I decided to include Margas purely for this quote by the ever reliable Harry Redknapp, who went to see him at his hotel one day: “he opened the window, grabbed his passport, jumped out and legged it. He went straight to the airport, flew home to Chile and never played for West Ham again.”
7. Paulinho – I remember watching Paulinho’s debut for Spurs – an uneventful and laboured 1-0 victory against a newly promoted Palace, managed by Ian Holloway. Paulinho was awarded man of the match, seemingly by virtue of making some tidy sideways passes, and no one else looking remotely worthy of such an accolade. Sadly this was as good as it got for the Brazilian, discovering over the next 2 years that you don’t get quite as much time on the ball as you do in Brazil. His crowning achievement though was the terms of his transfer out of WHL. Daniel Levy, a man who could sell a glass of water to a drowning man, selling him at a £8m loss to China.
6. Federico Fazio – a handful of appearances littered __with own goals, red cards, rash challenges and painfully slow movements, it’s hard to reconcile Spurs’ current best-in-the-league defence with the fact that Fazio is still technically a Spurs player. A genuinely awful, lumbering defender, selling him for any fee at all would probably be Daniel Levy’s best ever achievement.
5. Gilberto – Whilst Gilberto of the Silva variety was a worthy inclusion in your top 10, there was a similarly named Brazilian who tried to crack the other side of North London. Signed by Juande Ramos, Gilberto will be remembered for 2 things during his time at Spurs: being substituted at half time in exactly half his appearances and being so sh*t that he would make Andre Santos look good.
4. Alfonso Alves – Touch, vision and power. These were just three skills that Alfonso didn’t possess. So said Jonny Nic back in the day. The irony was that Boro knew how pick up a bargain from South America with Juninho, Emerson and, um, Hamilton Ricard all having lit up the Riverside with their bargainous samba skills. Sadly Alfonso was more Ed Balls than Natalie Lowe when it came to samba skills (yes I watch Strictly).
3. Kleberson – with a gap in their midfield created by the departure of Veron to Chelsea, 2003 was supposed to be the year that United bought Ronaldinho. Instead, they got Kleberson. And David Bellion. And Eric Djemba Djemba. To their credit, they all did a good job of upholding the standards set by their Argentinian predecessor.
2. Roque Junior – Apparently there are lies, damn lies and statistics. And then there is Roque Junior, for whom 7 games, 1 red card and 25 goals conceded sum it up quite nicely.
1. Everyone Louis van Gaal signed for Man U – If I was being generous I would say Man U have had mixed fortunes when shopping in South America. Sir Alex signed some duds but they were tempered somewhat by the likes of Heinze, Tevez and Valencia. The list of LVG’s South American imports however reads Di Maria, Falcao, Rojo and Romero. It’s almost a textbook collection of bad transfers, encompassing the overpriced, overpaid, disinterested, incompetent and unnecessary.
GM, Spurs
Other South American thoughts
If you rank Aguero above Suarez in this list, surely that then means you rank Aguero above Suarez during the latters PL era? If this is truly your belief, you are simply just wrong. It’s ok to have favourites, but to say that Aguero was better than Suarez during his PL era is just factually incorrect. Suarez always has been, and always will be the superior player – despite his deplorable nature. He is the best No. 9 currently playing football.
Best Regards,
Conor Murphy
Stoneyhill Farm
Stadium violence
In response to Ben MFC, Manchester
I am no expert on policing in stadiums and admit that we have our fair share of idiots who ruin it for 95% of West Ham fans who just want to watch the game and get behind our team.
There have been a few teething problems with the stewarding in the stadium but that is to be expected. We have increased our capacity by over 20,000 so therefore having to use more than the experienced stewards we had previously.
I think the most common theme (and prepare to shoot me down if people disagree) is the increased media focus on us with the move to the London stadium. It does seem that the media (mainly the Daily Fail) are hellbent on reporting anything mildly negative that happens with the club at the moment. There does still seem to be still a bit of a chip on the shoulder of most about us winning the bid for the stadium and the favourable deal we received.
Crowd trouble, offensive chanting etc happens everywhere across football, It is a sorry state of affairs but sadly it is the truth. The media’s take on the crowd trouble between West Ham and Chelsea seemed to be solely focused on blaming West Ham. Especially Martin Samuel who wrote a whole article about the crowd trouble and failed to mention Chelsea fans at all. Despite the whole thing being prompted by a Chelsea fan entering the segregated area to goad West Ham supporters. (Not that I am excusing the behaviour of those ‘fans’ who retaliated but a balanced view should be reported)
Birmingham and Aston Villa’s derby game resulted in double the arrests that occurred at the London stadium that evening but this wasn’t anywhere near as widely reported, this along with the criminal damage at the Manchester Derby should have all been highlighted in equal terms but that wouldn’t fit with the apparent narrative which seems to be developing.
Fan violence is an absolute abomination of our sport and there is no place for it in our game, but don’t believe that just because there have been more reports of it in the papers since our move to the London stadium that is wasn’t happening before this season.
Ross (Cresswell for England) Jenkins
The West Ham view
Re: Ben, MCFC’s mail on the violence at the London Stadium, as a West Ham season ticket holder, happy to update on what’s changed.
The long and short of it? We’ve moved to a bigger stadium, one that we’ve moved to in very questionable circumstances (and not in a good way), and as a result, the eyes of the media are very much on the club.
From someone who’s been at the games, I can assure you that the talk of ‘violence’ and a ‘return to the dark days of the 70s’ is very much lazy reporting from a media keen to keep bad news running for as long as possible.
Where there are football rivalries, there will always (sadly) be idiots fighting/throwing things etc.., but the furore over this is for the most part focused on West Ham having a new stadium (the circumstances in which it was procured/rented is another story, and again, not something most decent West Ham fans are happy about).
The club needs to ban offenders, it needs to improve security and policing, and it needs to look at how best to separate home and away fans, and the clubs response to this has been encouraging (http://www.whufc.com/News/Articles/2016/October/27-October/West-Ham-United-and-London-Stadium-to-pursue-bans), but unsurprisingly, this wasn’t reported as widely as the relatively small scale trouble at the Chelsea game.
As a club, we have a bad reputation in regards to hooliganism, but this seems pretty unfair when you look at the facts – http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/football-arrest-figures-2015-manchester-united-top-premier-league-table-for-fans-arrested-leeds-a6750091.html
Where I do take issue is this underlying theme that the reduction in season ticket prices has created an influx of poor/working class ‘thugs’ who are causing trouble at the games.
Not only is this untrue, but it’s offensive. Reduced season ticket prices can only be a good thing, and to assume that there is a link only helps to feed the lazy stereotypical media reporting towards the club. Fans continuously face being priced out of watching football (especially in the top flight), so to try and draw a link between this on a case that is relatively flimsy is lazy and counterproductive.
We’re not all thugs and hooligans at West Ham; and neither are people with less money. It’s just a lot easier for the media to label us all as that.
I hope Ben and other fans will visit the new stadium and see that the vast majority of West Ham fans aren’t the stereotypical thugs that they’ve been painted as (I’ll even get him a pint at the ridiculous prices charged at the ground, but that’s another letter/rant for another day…)
James, WHUFC, London
More on Palace
I doubt I will be afforded a right to reply again to an email about Alan bloody Pardew, but hey, you never know, apologies to any bored mailboxers if this does get in!
This season has seen an attempted change in the style of football that Crystal Palace play. Pardew, probably propelled by his own ego, wants to play more attractive football. He desperately wants to leave a legacy at Palace, I am under no illusion that this is has nothing to do with any love he may have for the club, more the love for himself. This also manifested itself in the almost complete focus on the FA Cup last season, to the detriment of any sort of league form. But, I enjoyed that run to the Final immensely. I enjoyed standing at Wembley when the full time whistle went after we beat Watford in the semi and seeing fans that had waited so long for that type of success in tears. I enjoyed jumping around and hugging strangers. These, to me, are the joys of the game and what most of us are going to the matches hoping to achieve. The fact that was down to a pineapple eating egotist is neither here nor there for me. Neither is the fact we finished 15th rather than 10th. That is probably why I am willing to forgive last season, rightly or wrongly.
So the focus now is on turning us from a reactive, counter attacking team in to one that controls more of the game and dictates the attacking pace a lot more. This attempted change in style is in reaction to that terrible form of last season. But last season we didn’t have the players to do this. Last season our problem was scoring goals, this season we have scored something like the 5th most in the league. What has happened is that we have lost the solidarity that we had in defence. Players such as Ward and Kelly at full back are becoming a lot more exposed and our midfield is struggling for balance. Joe Ledley is a good back up but shouldn’t be first choice midfield destroyer/defensive shield, the same can be said for Flamini going on current involvement. This lack of organisation has also shown itself in our goals conceded from set pieces, a previous strength now apparently a weakness.
My argument isn’t that Pardew should not be held accountable. My argument is that there are enough mitigating factors there not to call for the managers head at this stage in the season and the team’s development. He did spend a fortune but this transfer window was arguably one of our best ever, signing Benteke, Townsend, Tomkins, Mandanda and Remy. We also managed to sell at pretty much top price the likes of Bolasie and Gayle. There aren’t excuses there any more, these are largely his players now and he is attempting to play his style of football. It just seems so counter-productive to now look for another manager who will then start the whole thing again. I think the patience afforded to Pardew so far has been correct and a high turnover of managers only leads down one road so can we judge with a wider view rather than based on the dislike of a certain personality.
Ant, CPFC
FFP
A quick question for any mailbox boffins…
Does having a player train with the reserves/kids have any bearing on FFP? By not being classified as part of the first team squad would this mean that any wages, sell on value be accounted for differently and therefore bypass some of the restrictions involved? I’m just thinking in the case of Schweinsteiger whether these things are done rather deliberately as part of some creative accounting rather than a solely playing squad decision.
Also, did anyone else notice Firmino’s Ross Geller impression at the weekend? Someone left the whitening gel on too long.~
Ant, CPFC
Shark jumping
I must take objection to Matt Stead’s assertion that football only jumped the shark when Hal Robson-Kanu was linked to Premier League Champions Leicester City (to give them their full title) this summer. I think Mr Stead may be forgetting that following the 2002 World Cup, the hottest free agent in world football was one Mr Gary Breen, recently released by Coventry City.
To this day, I still remember that Gary was linked very heavily to Inter Milan following the 2002 World Cup, in which he was pretty immense to be fair to him, to the point it we had contract details being leaked in the press. This was an Inter Milan side with Toldo, Zannetti, Crespo, Cannavaro, Recoba and Vieri to name but a few. Seriously, go have a look at that squad – utterly ridiculous.
Alas, it didn’t work out and Gary ended up at West Ham and was promptly relegated, a fate that might not befall Robson-Kanu unless he gets sent out on loan to Hull.
Conrad Wiacek, MUFC
Football birthdays
With my birthday being August 12th, I may have just uncovered a potential non existent rival to MSN or BBC, all sharing my birthday are the attacking trio of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, Mario Balotelli and Djibril Cissé, imagine that strike force in its prime.
Tom Cleverley and Danny Graham also share my birthday but we won’t mention them.
Mike Clewer, CFC
In reply to Plamen, I thought I was set to be Chelsea’s next big thing, with both Gianfranco Zola and Hernan Crespo born on my birthday.
But alas, I also had Alberto Moreno and Dejan Lovren.
Or at least, that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
Harry CFC
I share mine with Michael “best pundit in the world” Owen and Jakub Blaszczykowski on the 14th December.
But they’re wee nippers as I’m coming up to my 40th
Fat Man Scouse, EFC
In response to Plamen’s mail on footballer’s birthdays.
For managers, it seems, a good day to be born is the 26th January.
José Mourinho, Bill Nicholson and Brendan Rodgers.
Champions Leagues, UEFA Cups, domestic doubles, Football League Championship play-offs 2011/11: between them, they’ve won a fair amount.
If anyone’s interested, my birthday-sakes are Meryl Streep, Cindi Lauper, Dan Brown and Mr. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Freddie Prinze Jr
Steve Towells
I share a birthday with both Diego Maradona and Stern John. Not sure what to do wit that really.
Luke, London