The Week in Review: 14th-20th April 2008

Monday 14th April 2008. We learned that Stoke would win the Championship, West Brom would finish second, the play-off places would be made up by Watford, Wolves, Bristol City and Hull City, Leicester would join Scunthorpe and Colchester in League One, and the Canaries would finish 14th. We also realised that by reminiscing over previous glories you can forget a certain disappointing derby defeat.

Tuesday 15th April 2008. We uncovered five ways things could be worse for City supporters, and what I was doing on the day of the Hillsborough Disaster.

Wednesday 16th April 2008. Fabio Capello believes Wayne Rooney could be England captain one day. I can’t see it somehow. We also remembered a proper England kit.

Thursday 17th April 2008. Thursday was a very busy day. We learned that the Anfield boardroom contains at least one complete moron, that The Football League was 120 years old, we came to the staggering conclusion that at the weekend we’d either be very happy, relatively content or pretty worried, and it was also revealed that 47% of readers think Leicester are screwed.

Friday 18th April 2008. On Friday we had a look at Sepp Blatter’s “6+5 plan”, and marvelled at the serious journalist and presenter that is Ian Wright. Oh and I got a bit drunk on Pure Welsh IPA, which was very pleasant.

Saturday 19th April 2008. We discovered that 64% of people rightly predicted a Canary defeat to West Brom (which was helped somewhat by a couple of hundred clicks from Baggies fans), and we also confirmed we all thought – that the QPR game is going to be somewhat important.

Sunday 20th April 2008. On Sunday it was revealed that, actually, West Brom are going to win the league ahead of Stoke, that Palace will make the play-offs ahead of Wolves and that we’ll finish 16th. Leicester are still in the do-do though. We also took a look at the lessons we have learned this weekend, and I got a little bit annoyed with Martin Jacques of the Guardian.

What we have Learned this weekend: 19th/20th April 2008

Jason Shackell is the new Gary Doherty. For months we have read on message boards (and on some blogs…but not here) that Ginger Pele was useless and Shacks was the real star, and now the worm would seem to have turned. In the last few days I’ve seen rather a lot of messages putting the boot into Shackell. Something he seems to have forgotten how to do.

Dion won’t be retiring quietly. In an ideal world we’d be safe by the time we play QPR next weekend, but as it stands now it promises to be a pretty nervous 90 minutes on Saturday.

We just can’t beat the Tractor Boys. This time it was the under 17s turn to get turned over.

Robert Earnshaw won’t be at Pride Park next season. Mr. Loyalty himself has been in the press all week talking about next season and his future, with Cardiff the latest team to be linked with the former Canary striker. And for the record, yes I’d take him back.

The BBC guilty of “cultural apartheid”? Don’t make me laugh…

I’ve read some absolute tosh in my time (to be fair I’ve written a fair amount as well), but this from Martin Jacques in the Guardian takes the biscuit. The BBC is guilty of cultural apartheid? Erm, no Martin, Wrighty has just “quit” a job that doesn’t exist anymore for another job, and decided to have a pop.

Wright was always made to look and feel as if he was the odd one out, never taken too seriously, his judgments discounted, his views made fun of, his relationship with his step-son Shaun Wright-Phillips the object of regular hilarity. It was demeaning; you could see Wright squirming, unsure of how to deal with it. As a viewer I found it embarrassing and distasteful. It was a grown man’s version of picking on someone in the school playground.

I try and keep this blog as “family friendly” as I can, but I’m struggling not to swear here. Right. I like Ian Wright, I do. But as a pundit he was absolutely bloody useless.

He marketed himself as the “jester”, and when presenting England games usually came across to me as being unprofessional at best, and xenophobic at worst. He can hardly turn around now and say “why won’t you take me seriously?”. It’s the footballing equivalent of Abi Titmuss deciding to run for parliament and then complaining that the papers just wanted to write about her boobs.

If he looked as though he was “squirming” and “unsure how to deal with it”, it was probably because he didn’t know what he was doing.

If I could be so bold, the reason his relationship with Shaun Wright-Phillips was the object of regular hilarity is probably down to his inability to have any sort of focus of impartiality. He was like the stereotypical Dad stood on the sidelines on a Sunday morning, saying over and over again “my boy’s better than him, my boy’s better than him”.

Wright didn’t make these points. How could he? It would have appeared like sour grapes. And contrary to what most whites think, it is demeaning for blacks to admit that they are the victims of racism, that they are regarded as inferior because of the colour of their skin. Wright explained it in terms of dress and style. In his case, we might take these as shorthand for colour.

Oh dear. More patronising drivel. Is it possible that he didn’t mention race as it has nothing to do with it?

As far as I’m aware what he was saying was that the BBC are out of touch, which they are. That’s the debate that needs to be had here. Why aren’t there more black pundits in high-profile jobs? I don’t know, but if I was to hazard a guess it would probably be because proportionally there are a lot more retired white footballers than there are black ones.

But still, it got your readership up for a few days so well played.

Championship Predictions: 20th April 2008

Ok this is getting silly now. There’s only two weeks left in the season so you’d think it would get easier to sort out the mess that is the Coca-Cola Championship, but it’s still all over the place.

Here’s where I am today:

1. West Brom (83pts).
2. Stoke (81pts).
3. Hull (75pts).
4. Bristol City (75pts).
5. Watford (73pts).
6. Crystal Palace (71pts).
7. Wolves (70pts).
8. Ipswich (69pts).
9. Charlton (65pts).
10. Plymouth (64pts).
11. Sheff Utd (64pts).
12. Cardiff (64pts).
13. Burnley (62pts).
14. QPR (58pts).
15. Preston (56pts).
16. Norwich (55pts).
17. Blackpool (54pts).
18. Coventry (54pts).
19. Sheff Wed (53pts).
20. Barnsley (53pts).
21. Southampton (52pts).
22. Leicester (52pts).
23. Scunthorpe (45pts).
24. Colchester (37pts).

I’ve still got Leicester in deep trouble, but it’s all based on the massive assumptions that we beat QPR next week. If we lose that one…well, we’ll think about that when we have to.