Hallelujah, the sport of the Gods returns tomorrow as the English Football League kicks off what is the most exciting of campaigns – a footy World Cup year.
It has been one hell of a tumultuous pre-season for 90minutesonline. Mercurial captain and editor, David “Hooligan” Moftakhar has gone AWOL, although rumours have surfaced that he was spotted shooting pool and prostitutes at one of Adriano’s infamous transsexual parties in Sao Paulo.
The exit door has seen more action than a Joey Barton piss-up with combative midfielder Tom Osborne’s career thought to be over after sustaining an imploded cruciate ligament and a ruptured testicle, while flash in the pan import Benjamino Cullen couldn’t resist the lure of the caretaker sweeper role at Spanish giants Extremadura.
Fortunately, club stalwart, Darren “Smuggler” Douglas manfully commanded the backline and was able to help the team fulfil its obligatory fixtures during the summer tour of Tajikistan. Record signing and master poacher Ian Shine weighed in sporadically, the brace against Dynamo Dushanbe being a performance of note.
As for me, I understand that there was a lot of speculation following the back end of last season, when my appearances became few and far between, not to mention my total absence over the summer. I would like to address those rumours and confess that yes, it is true, I have been in the Korean equivalent of The Priory (The Priory-Uh) dealing with my necrophilia addiction. I am glad to say that I am more or less rehabilitated and down to just one corpse a week.
The 90minutes boardroom has also been kept busy as the website was attacked by some World of Warcraft virus that congested the comment boxes, not to mention there was a failed takeover by a Middle Eastern Consortium who had ambitious plans to bring Martin Samuel in as chief feature writer. Unfortunately, it all fell through after the mysterious benefactor Osama Bin Loaded failed the Premier League’s ‘fit and proper persons test’.
The good news is that 90minutes is now out of administration and the transfer embargo has been lifted. The management has convinced me to sign a lucrative new deal with the site, citing the imminent arrival of a slew of new glamorous signings, who will report on football from all corners of the globe.
Diehard 90minutes fans may recall that I am an Aston Villa supporter. While I have a reservoir of respect from which I produce the bottles of belief that I have for the mighty Martin O’Neill, I must confess that I am approaching the season with some trepidation.
Once again, we have the smallest squad in the league. Martin Laursen was forced to retire and that was an enormous blow. It is no coincidence that our form slumped following his injury, with his leadership, organisational skills, awesome defensive qualities and his goal threat from set pieces making him one of our key players.
Club legend Gareth Barry followed the sky blue money when he departed for Man City. This may surprise some, but I don’t blame him nor hold any kind of ill feeling towards him. He gave us 11 years of good service, acted like a consummate professional following the breakdown of his move to Liverpool a year ago and we made a massive profit on him. From his perspective, he will quadruple his wages and be part of a very ambitious project to make Man City an all conquering force. He won precisely nothing in over a decade with us, so why shouldn’t he want to join a club who realistically have a crack at some silverware?
These are two huge losses that, coupled with the exits of squad players Zat Knight and Stuart Taylor, have left the squad pretty threadbare. With Brad Friedel being past his best, only two recognised central defenders at the club, a gaping hole in central midfield and our three main strikers featuring the inconsistent Gabriel Agbonlahor and the goal-shy Emile Heskey, I felt sure what positions O’Neill would seek to strengthen.
I was a little disconcerted therefore when we spunked £12m on Stewart Downing. Firstly he plays in a position that our star player Ashley Young performs in admirably.Of course, this set off alarm bells that Young was going to be sold, a rumour that O’Neill was quick to quell. Still, I would rather have bought a cheap backup for someone I don’t expect to be dropped and invested more heavily in the parts of the team that are vitally lacking. Secondly, he’s massively overrated; this is a winger who didn’t score a league goal last season. Thirdly, he’s bloody injured until December! I know Martin has a reputation for getting the most out of players, but I admit to being dubious about Downing.
Downing weighs 64 kilograms. His weight in gold as of today’s market price is £1,181,568. Would I rather have 10 solid gold replica Stewart Downing’s, or the real thing? Seems obvious doesn’t it. Personally, I think that the Saudi bloke who bought a solid gold penis enlarger got a better deal than Villa did, but then again, I am a deviant.
Our only other summer purchase is that of the promising young Leeds midfielder Fabian Delph, who by all accounts is quite some prospect, but surely he is more one for the future. We’ve been linked to some exciting names such as Miguel Veloso and Wesley Sneijder, but it’s more likely we’ll end up with the more predictably ordinary signings like Sol Campbell.
It doesn’t bode too well for Villa and with O’Neill confessing to being “punctured” following the rise of Man City as another gargantuan obstacle to breaking the big four cartel, the omens are ominous. I’ll cynically buck the usual pre-season bravado and optimim and predict a 10th place finish followed by a classic heroic England quarter final penalty defeat in South Africa. You’ll see!