39th game: common sense prevails once more

Four posts in one day again. I know, I’m sorry. I guess I just the sound of my own, erm, keyboard…

It is good news that the Football Association have rejected the Premier League’s initial plans to play a 39th game abroad.

Without the support of the FA (whose chairman Lord Triesman declared the idea unsustainable in its current form), Uefa or Fifa it’s kind of dead in the water. Shame.

There’s a good article on the BBC website entitled “Who is Richard Scudamore?”, that amongst other things features a list of Scudy-Doo* quotes. On occasion he actually does speak some sense, but my personal favourie quotes are this one, from February 2004:

We are by far the most redistributive league anywhere in Europe. In fact, the Football Association and the Premier League are called on to speak at seminars across the world as a shining example of redistribution.

Scudamore has undoubtedly done a lot of good for the Premier League. He has been at the helm while the biggest TV deal in football history was brokered for goodness sake, but I think it’s a bit much to say that the Premier League are world leaders in terms of redistribution.

In terms of actual numbers he’s probably right of course, but I’d love to see the proportionate statistics. I can’t think of any other country in the world that supports 92 full-time clubs (plus the handful of professional non-league clubs of course), so on a club by club basis I think those stats would be very interesting if anyone has them.

I just have real difficulty coming to terms with the knowledge that the team that finishes bottom in the Premier League this season will earn more than £30m while teams like Bournemouth are allowed to slip into administration. You can’t tell me football wealth is distributed fairly in this country.

*I’m ignoring the fact that I called him “Scudy-Doo” before the Sun did (the b*ggers).

100th post

This is the 100th post on the blog. Woohoo.

I fully appreciate that this little mini-landmark doesn’t and probably shouldn’t mean much to anyone other than myself, but as a tester statistics and facts are always going to be close to my heart so but I’m pretty chuffed none the less.

I don’t think I’ve done a bad job so far and I’m enjoying writing my little ramblings. Let me know if you are too.

Jarvis out, Doc to stay?

Ryan Jarvis has admitted that he doesn’t have a future at Norwich.

Gary Doherty has also confirmed that the club have opened preliminary discussions over a new contract.

One of these stories I’m quite happy about. The other one I’m not particularly fussed over. Can you guess which is which? I’ll give you a clue. Read this. Or this.

Simon Lappin

It looks like Simon Lappin has the right attitude about his loan spell at Motherwell.

I always felt a little bit of sympathy for Lappin. He appeared to become to Peter Grant what Andy Hughes was to Nigel Worthington.

Hopefully he’ll get his chance north of the border and give Glenn Roeder something else to think about for next season, as I think his style of play probably suits the way Team Roeder lines up these days - although I think he definitely needs to add a lot more physicality to his game.

It wouldn’t be right to mention Lappin and not show his free kick in the last minute at Luton last season, so here it is…