First things first...to anyone who has ended up at this page via Google (or any other well respected search engine, we're not picky here) by searching "Blog from the bedroom" expecting to find either a little bit of blue describing heinous sexual deviance or some sort of marriage/couples therapy...I'm sorry to disappoint you but neither of your pervy satisfactions will be fulfilled on this page, the title of this blog has simply come about because I happen to be in my bedroom whilst I type this. For some reason I find the writing of each of these posts ends up a little bit like mental diarrhea, where I start with a point in mind and then amble on to whatever conclusion I have formed at the bottom of the page, however titles seem to be a step too far and the pressure to think of something witty and eye-catching unfortunately evades me...but since you're here why not hang around, maybe you might learn something.
The true purpose of this entry is of course deadline day, that most beautiful of days when usually sane sports journalists turn into bubbling messes trying ever so hard to break the big story of the day, and in the process reporting some absolute rubbish from sources such as 'my mate Dean'...lets put this into perspective, if Joe Public rang up Sky News claiming they'd just seen Muammar Gaddafi landing at Battersea Heliport, those fine ladies and gents at Sky News would not immediately fire up the 'Breaking News' bar to report he was about to sign for Chelsea. But this is football we are talking about, and transfer deadline day like so many other aspects of the beautiful game, makes normal people turn a little bit funny.
The rise of Twitter has made today even more special than usual. No longer does someone have to text or email someone in the media world to air their sightings, now with a clever use of a hashtag they can publicise it themselves to the entire world. Sky Sports News do love quoting a bit of Twitter and for some reason they also deem it a respectable source of information...despite some of the ridiculous rumours that have emerged today.
Sky Sports News themselves have made the day even more ridiculous, and have spent the day making all of their reporters appear completely inept. I does make me chuckle every time shouty shouty Jim White starts screaming into my front room about the latest "breaking news" only to cut to a guy looking cold, surrounded by ominous looking youth (the ranks of which seem to swell each time they cut to said reporter...and why do they always feel the need to be on the phone telling people they're on the telly) who looks stunned by the "news" spewing from Jim Whites at the same decibel level as a Boeing taking off, and then has to mumble some words along the lines of "we've not actually seen insert generic name here at insert generic club, usually Sunderland, Spurs or Man City but we've heard rumours that they are on their way to the stadium". Just what kind of transport do these players use too? Allegedly Asamoah Gyan handed a written transfer request to Steve Bruce in Sunderland, but still managed to train with the Ghana squad preparing to play Swaziland in Accra.
Managers don't help, particularly Harry Redknapp who loves nothing more than rolling up to the cameras and spout some generic sh*t about top, top players before signing someone completely different. The other kiss of death is a manager categorically saying a player is not for sale...they're basically just adding another cheeky few mil to the asking price, but essentially the deal has already been done.
Basically, we're all grabbing at straws until the player is officially announced...but that won't stop the circus come next deadline day, and for that I am thankful.
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Taking the gamble
Football and gambling go hand in hand, you can bet on almost any aspect of a game, corners, fouls, bookings, red cards, goals, score, scorers etc. etc. Some of these are fairly hard to predict, and this is reflected in the odds, obviously you can make an educated guess based on simplistic variables and previous performance, but is it possible to become successful and make real money from the favourite of every casual gambler...the spreadbet.
The general payback for a spreadbet depends on the amount of results you gamble on, and to many hardcore gamblers they are not worth even thinking about since the odds are so long for a reason or so short that the payback isn't attractive enough. But is there a way to predict multiple results to win more often than not? I'm not suggesting that there is a way to predict every result in every game, after all that's what we love about football, the unpredictability, every team has an off day, every now and then the form book goes out the window, but are there key factors which could help swing the odds slightly back in your favour?
Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski broach the subject in their book "Why England Lose", they come to the conclusion that one of the key factors to a teams success is their wage bill. This makes sense, the more a team can afford to pay their players the better players they will inevitable attract (as shown by Wesley Sneijder humongous wage packet). Take the Premier League last season as an example, the top 4 in order were Man. United, Chelsea, Man. City and Arsenal, no prizes if you can guess which 4 teams had the top wage bill in the league...the trend down the league follows a similar pattern, however outside of the top 4 and Liverpool most teams are in a couple of wage bands making the waters slightly muddier the further down you go.
So what else can we use? Obviously the quality of the players in the squad in important, so a team with more international players should do better, but what about the quality of the international team? No disrespect to San Marino, but I wouldn't fancy watching 11 of them turning out for Carlisle every week (we've been to non-league once in my lifetime, I don't want to go back there). How much does form come into it? Study upon study has been carried out with regard to sports psychology and how to get the best out of your players, but at the end of the day if a team are in a winning habit they will inevitable feel invincible...should we take this a step further and consider recent performance against top half/bottom half teams, some teams tend to perform better against better opposition.
I think I've proved my point, spreadbets are a fools errand, however, I intend to find the winning formula, it may not be this season, but this time next year Rodders...
...I'll keep you posted
The general payback for a spreadbet depends on the amount of results you gamble on, and to many hardcore gamblers they are not worth even thinking about since the odds are so long for a reason or so short that the payback isn't attractive enough. But is there a way to predict multiple results to win more often than not? I'm not suggesting that there is a way to predict every result in every game, after all that's what we love about football, the unpredictability, every team has an off day, every now and then the form book goes out the window, but are there key factors which could help swing the odds slightly back in your favour?
Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski broach the subject in their book "Why England Lose", they come to the conclusion that one of the key factors to a teams success is their wage bill. This makes sense, the more a team can afford to pay their players the better players they will inevitable attract (as shown by Wesley Sneijder humongous wage packet). Take the Premier League last season as an example, the top 4 in order were Man. United, Chelsea, Man. City and Arsenal, no prizes if you can guess which 4 teams had the top wage bill in the league...the trend down the league follows a similar pattern, however outside of the top 4 and Liverpool most teams are in a couple of wage bands making the waters slightly muddier the further down you go.
So what else can we use? Obviously the quality of the players in the squad in important, so a team with more international players should do better, but what about the quality of the international team? No disrespect to San Marino, but I wouldn't fancy watching 11 of them turning out for Carlisle every week (we've been to non-league once in my lifetime, I don't want to go back there). How much does form come into it? Study upon study has been carried out with regard to sports psychology and how to get the best out of your players, but at the end of the day if a team are in a winning habit they will inevitable feel invincible...should we take this a step further and consider recent performance against top half/bottom half teams, some teams tend to perform better against better opposition.
I think I've proved my point, spreadbets are a fools errand, however, I intend to find the winning formula, it may not be this season, but this time next year Rodders...
...I'll keep you posted
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Arsenal
I've never really been a massive fan of Arsenal, everyone has teams other than those they support who they like to do well, Wimbledon back in the 'Crazy Gang' days is a prime example, and people have those teams they actively dislike, for me this team for many years has been Arsenal.
It was mostly due to the fans, not just those that were interviewed on TV giving their "opinions", but also a handful of fans I knew personally (not all of you though), the thing that annoyed me the most is the arrogance and the belief that they know best about football which manifests itself in a self-righteous attitude and the fickle nature. This dislike was then compounded by the players who themselves were no stranger to arrogance, Robert Pires and Thierry Henry were the two main culprits of a team and squad who strutted about the pitch like the opponents should be grateful to share the pitch with them let alone play against them.
But do you know what, I actually found myself sitting down to watch Arsenal vs Liverpool yesterday lunchtime wanting Arsenal to come away with the result. I don't know exactly when my opinion changed, but looking at the team sheet I didn't see one player that I didn't like, and looking at the bench I was even excited about the prospect of seeing some of the youngsters like Ryo Miyaichi.
It occurs to me that the reason I've changed my mind is the exact reason that most Arsenal fans, the fact that Arsene, through necessity or not, is giving young players a chance and in the time when players are changing teams for obscene amounts of money Arsenal continue to be a competitive team playing an attractive brand of football. I think the selling of Fabregas will provide funds with which the squad can be strengthened, but I can't see Arsenal buying a finished product, purely because whenever Wenger has tried in the past he has got it wrong (and I fear Gervinho may be another example). Whilst Arsenal along with Chelsea have long been used as the example of "foreign players ruining England's chances" they have now begun to move towards a little more home-grown talent. In a few weeks we could conceivable see a midfield trio of Wilshere, Ramsey and Frimpong with Walcott playing wide and Jenkinson at the back...all very much home-grown.
I'm also a sucker for what has been describes as an "agricultural" player, and Frimpong produced just such a performance that I enjoy watching against Liverpool, despite being only 19, he put himself about and made some great tackle and also showed a willingness to stride forward with the ball from deep positions...even though he got himself sent off I think that it was not a bad start to the season for him.
The fans are still the one thing that will prevent Arsenal from being a team I would like to see win the league, again this was shown yesterday...with a squad depleted by injury, suspension and transfers and a first team with and average age of somewhere close to four they did play well against an experienced Premier League team who are fancied this season to do well, sure the result wasn't great, but the performance wasn't bad...so why oh why did the "fans" boo them of the pitch? I've got no time for fans who boo their team off the pitch, especially after the second game of the season, it helps no-one and show just how little your average Arsenal fan knows about football (again, sorry to the people I know who aren't what I'm describing, you know I don't mean you)...someone needs to either ban them from going to the ground, give them an education in football or just put them down, I'm easy either way.
It was mostly due to the fans, not just those that were interviewed on TV giving their "opinions", but also a handful of fans I knew personally (not all of you though), the thing that annoyed me the most is the arrogance and the belief that they know best about football which manifests itself in a self-righteous attitude and the fickle nature. This dislike was then compounded by the players who themselves were no stranger to arrogance, Robert Pires and Thierry Henry were the two main culprits of a team and squad who strutted about the pitch like the opponents should be grateful to share the pitch with them let alone play against them.
But do you know what, I actually found myself sitting down to watch Arsenal vs Liverpool yesterday lunchtime wanting Arsenal to come away with the result. I don't know exactly when my opinion changed, but looking at the team sheet I didn't see one player that I didn't like, and looking at the bench I was even excited about the prospect of seeing some of the youngsters like Ryo Miyaichi.
It occurs to me that the reason I've changed my mind is the exact reason that most Arsenal fans, the fact that Arsene, through necessity or not, is giving young players a chance and in the time when players are changing teams for obscene amounts of money Arsenal continue to be a competitive team playing an attractive brand of football. I think the selling of Fabregas will provide funds with which the squad can be strengthened, but I can't see Arsenal buying a finished product, purely because whenever Wenger has tried in the past he has got it wrong (and I fear Gervinho may be another example). Whilst Arsenal along with Chelsea have long been used as the example of "foreign players ruining England's chances" they have now begun to move towards a little more home-grown talent. In a few weeks we could conceivable see a midfield trio of Wilshere, Ramsey and Frimpong with Walcott playing wide and Jenkinson at the back...all very much home-grown.
I'm also a sucker for what has been describes as an "agricultural" player, and Frimpong produced just such a performance that I enjoy watching against Liverpool, despite being only 19, he put himself about and made some great tackle and also showed a willingness to stride forward with the ball from deep positions...even though he got himself sent off I think that it was not a bad start to the season for him.
The fans are still the one thing that will prevent Arsenal from being a team I would like to see win the league, again this was shown yesterday...with a squad depleted by injury, suspension and transfers and a first team with and average age of somewhere close to four they did play well against an experienced Premier League team who are fancied this season to do well, sure the result wasn't great, but the performance wasn't bad...so why oh why did the "fans" boo them of the pitch? I've got no time for fans who boo their team off the pitch, especially after the second game of the season, it helps no-one and show just how little your average Arsenal fan knows about football (again, sorry to the people I know who aren't what I'm describing, you know I don't mean you)...someone needs to either ban them from going to the ground, give them an education in football or just put them down, I'm easy either way.
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Joey Barton: Discuss
Amongst all the excitement of the first week of the Premier League one man again made the headlines for the wrong reasons...Joey Barton was again vilified in the sports pages of the majority of the Sunday papers along with a little bit of a roasting on MOTD, but was it his fault this time?
First things first, I have absolutely no knowledge of Joey Barton the person, the only things I do know are the well publicised "incidents" which he has been involved in, all of which are of his own making and in all honesty I do think he should have been more harshly dealt with on all occasions...but as much of an idiot as these incidents have shown the man may be, why is it the media and the general public are so quick to blame?
Lets take a look at Saturday's game against Arsenal and take the two incidents involving Barton back to base principals, that is to say lets treat the situations as purely hypothetical;
Scenario A: Player A slides into a rather robust challenge with Player B, Player A ends up on the floor at the feet of Player B, Player B takes exception at the tackle by Player A (important note at this point, the ref who is mere yards away from the incident and didn't feel the tackle was a foul). Player B purposely stamps on Player A's leg.
Scenario B: Player C makes a run into the box and hangs out a leg in the direction of the defender as he begins to fall to the ground trying to win a penalty. Player A takes exception to this and hauls Player C to his feet by his shirt. Inevitable a fracas ensues, pushing, shoving and grabbing. Player C then flings out a hand ans slaps Player A in the face, Player A hits the floor like Mike Tyson has just unleashed hell on his face.
In both of the scenarios above the vast majority of the footballing community would be siding with Player A, especially in Scenario A. Whilst most would feel that Player A has overreacted slightly by hauling Player C to his feet they'd probably be willing to excuse him on the basis that it was in the heat of the game and that Player C had dived and whilst again most people would be embarrassed by Player A's reaction to a fairly feminine slap across the chops, they would understand him going down. It does happen on a fairly regular basis in the modern game.
So can someone please explain to me why as soon as Player A is replaced with Joey Barton everyone suddenly blames him. Its a simple as this, the guy is forever being judged on his prior acts of idiocy, but is it fair? How many times has he done anything that bad on a football pitch? Compare that to Roy Keane's assault of Alf Inge Haaland, Eric Cantona's flying kick or Marco Materazzi in general, these guy's were/are all hero's amongst their fans, especially for their villainy.
Don't get me wrong, the things that Joey Barton has done off the pitch in the past are inexcusable...but is this really just cause to constantly be on a witch-hunt against the man for what he does on the pitch? If Scott Parker was involved in Scenario B, wouldn't he just be applauded for being committed?
At the end of the day, I'm not defending the man, I'm just making a point...
First things first, I have absolutely no knowledge of Joey Barton the person, the only things I do know are the well publicised "incidents" which he has been involved in, all of which are of his own making and in all honesty I do think he should have been more harshly dealt with on all occasions...but as much of an idiot as these incidents have shown the man may be, why is it the media and the general public are so quick to blame?
Lets take a look at Saturday's game against Arsenal and take the two incidents involving Barton back to base principals, that is to say lets treat the situations as purely hypothetical;
Scenario A: Player A slides into a rather robust challenge with Player B, Player A ends up on the floor at the feet of Player B, Player B takes exception at the tackle by Player A (important note at this point, the ref who is mere yards away from the incident and didn't feel the tackle was a foul). Player B purposely stamps on Player A's leg.
Scenario B: Player C makes a run into the box and hangs out a leg in the direction of the defender as he begins to fall to the ground trying to win a penalty. Player A takes exception to this and hauls Player C to his feet by his shirt. Inevitable a fracas ensues, pushing, shoving and grabbing. Player C then flings out a hand ans slaps Player A in the face, Player A hits the floor like Mike Tyson has just unleashed hell on his face.
In both of the scenarios above the vast majority of the footballing community would be siding with Player A, especially in Scenario A. Whilst most would feel that Player A has overreacted slightly by hauling Player C to his feet they'd probably be willing to excuse him on the basis that it was in the heat of the game and that Player C had dived and whilst again most people would be embarrassed by Player A's reaction to a fairly feminine slap across the chops, they would understand him going down. It does happen on a fairly regular basis in the modern game.
So can someone please explain to me why as soon as Player A is replaced with Joey Barton everyone suddenly blames him. Its a simple as this, the guy is forever being judged on his prior acts of idiocy, but is it fair? How many times has he done anything that bad on a football pitch? Compare that to Roy Keane's assault of Alf Inge Haaland, Eric Cantona's flying kick or Marco Materazzi in general, these guy's were/are all hero's amongst their fans, especially for their villainy.
Don't get me wrong, the things that Joey Barton has done off the pitch in the past are inexcusable...but is this really just cause to constantly be on a witch-hunt against the man for what he does on the pitch? If Scott Parker was involved in Scenario B, wouldn't he just be applauded for being committed?
At the end of the day, I'm not defending the man, I'm just making a point...
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Fantasy Football - Selections Dilema
I don't know if its just me, but I'm definitely struggling to select my all conquering squad more than usual. It seems to me that the Premier League are purposely trying to make this difficult for me, what kind of organisation doesn't give you the funds to go with a front three of RVP, Rooney and Tevez without having the rest of the squad as the Norwich reserves.
My main problem is that I'm so indecisive...I find myself trying to second guess what the best managers in the country are thinking, will Chris Smalling be deployed as a full back like he was on Sunday? Will Charlie Adam get a run out in the new look Liverpool midfield? Is Fernando Torres ever going to score again? And just how bad is big fat Franks throat infection?
I've trawled the usual websites, all giving tips on who to pick and who to steer clear of, unsurprisingly most of these are the same generic players that everyone will pick. This just doesn't cut it for me though, I'm looking for that new player who no-one else will pick, a couple of years ago I started with Jaime O'Hara in my team, last year I had Charlie Adam...this year though I'm drawing a blank. A large part of me wants to back Scott Sinclair and the 6.8% of the population who have chosen him, but with two of Swansea's first four few games coming against Man City and Arsenal, I think I'll give him a couple of weeks to bed in. Similarly Adel Taarabt (picked by almost 17%), I think he could almost certainly be a relatively cheap way to rack up the points, but as I look at my squad tonight (inevitably it will have changed before Saturday) I find no surprises, no dark horses, just 11 solid, top class players with a bench that would quite frankly struggle to get into the Stockport County team.
Maybe I'll have another look before I go to bed...
My main problem is that I'm so indecisive...I find myself trying to second guess what the best managers in the country are thinking, will Chris Smalling be deployed as a full back like he was on Sunday? Will Charlie Adam get a run out in the new look Liverpool midfield? Is Fernando Torres ever going to score again? And just how bad is big fat Franks throat infection?
I've trawled the usual websites, all giving tips on who to pick and who to steer clear of, unsurprisingly most of these are the same generic players that everyone will pick. This just doesn't cut it for me though, I'm looking for that new player who no-one else will pick, a couple of years ago I started with Jaime O'Hara in my team, last year I had Charlie Adam...this year though I'm drawing a blank. A large part of me wants to back Scott Sinclair and the 6.8% of the population who have chosen him, but with two of Swansea's first four few games coming against Man City and Arsenal, I think I'll give him a couple of weeks to bed in. Similarly Adel Taarabt (picked by almost 17%), I think he could almost certainly be a relatively cheap way to rack up the points, but as I look at my squad tonight (inevitably it will have changed before Saturday) I find no surprises, no dark horses, just 11 solid, top class players with a bench that would quite frankly struggle to get into the Stockport County team.
Maybe I'll have another look before I go to bed...
Sunday, 7 August 2011
The First Weekend
I was like a giddy schoolboy all of Friday, sat at my desk at work constantly checking various websites for any inkling into the all important team selection for the first game of the season, Saturday morning was even worse, with a trip to the newsagent under my belt and having already trawled through the sports section to make the all important selections for my betting slip and there were still four hours until kick off...
Fast forward to 15:45 and all the excitement and the optimism for the season ahead had well and truly vanished and instead I was languishing in self pity wondering how things could have fallen apart so quickly. Half time in the first game of the season and we're losing 3-0 at home to a side expected to struggle this season, this was not good. Already dark thoughts were gathering in my mind, cursing the lack of activity in the transfer market, stubbornness of the manager's tactics, I was already starting to worry about what the season ahead holds. By 16:50 the result hadn't changed, but my outlook had. Its only the first game of the season, even champions lose a game every now and then, we always struggle against the "lesser" teams in the league, and at the end of the day its a marathon not a sprint...come next May I'll be celebrating promotion.
The big game of the weekend though was the traditional curtain raiser, usually the community shield is a nothing game, but today's was actually an entertaining. We also learnt a few things about the two teams;
Fast forward to 15:45 and all the excitement and the optimism for the season ahead had well and truly vanished and instead I was languishing in self pity wondering how things could have fallen apart so quickly. Half time in the first game of the season and we're losing 3-0 at home to a side expected to struggle this season, this was not good. Already dark thoughts were gathering in my mind, cursing the lack of activity in the transfer market, stubbornness of the manager's tactics, I was already starting to worry about what the season ahead holds. By 16:50 the result hadn't changed, but my outlook had. Its only the first game of the season, even champions lose a game every now and then, we always struggle against the "lesser" teams in the league, and at the end of the day its a marathon not a sprint...come next May I'll be celebrating promotion.
The big game of the weekend though was the traditional curtain raiser, usually the community shield is a nothing game, but today's was actually an entertaining. We also learnt a few things about the two teams;
- Despite the money, Citeh are still not good enough to challenge United quite yet.
- David De Gea is not a natural replacement for Van Der Saar just yet, given a couple of years the boy could be something special, but looked a little nervy...and I think even my Nan could have got down quicker to stop Edin Dzeko's shot (and she's had two knee replacements).
- United have got some serious young talent, in the second half with Jones, Smalling, Anderson, Young, Cleverley, Nani, Rooney and Welbeck giving Citeh the run around the future looks bright for the Red Devils. Whilst they might not form the core of the team this season, in a couple of the years this lot are going to be good.
- Super Mario is still mental but not as stupid as people might think...having been lumped by Vidic in the first half he bounced up to square up to his assailant before realizing Nemanja wasn't the man to be starting a ruck with.
- Everyone who's put Kun Aguero in their fantasy team is going to have to wait a little bit longer to see how that's going to work out.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Amazing player names
In a recent edition of the free magazine Sport there was a piece about the best names in sport. Amongst the list was the brilliantly named Bongo Christ, the former Congo striker.
This got me thinking, how many other amazingly named players have there been that the world should know about, I'm going to avoid the obvious ones, like a certain German who has a name that sounds like a ladies special area;
This got me thinking, how many other amazingly named players have there been that the world should know about, I'm going to avoid the obvious ones, like a certain German who has a name that sounds like a ladies special area;
- Norman Conquest - Hats off to Mr and Mrs Conquest for this one...born in 1916 Norman was an Australian goalkeeper who spent his entire career down under. Shame really, could have made a killing if he'd played for Hastings.
- Have-A-Look Dube - no word of a lie, Zimbabwean Have-A-Look played for Njube Sundowns.
- Danger Fourpence - move over Austin 'Danger' Powers, Mr.Fourpence has danger as his first name. Danger currently plies his trade in Zimbabwe for Kiglon Bird FC, apparently he's saving up to be able to turn on a sixpence.
- Johnny Moustache - Former Seychelles striker, sounds more like a mafioso than a footballer. A little piece of me hopes he played each game sporting a different comedy 'tache.
- Anthony Philip David Terry Frank Donald Stanley Gerry Gordon Stephen James Oatway - otherwise known as Charlie Oatway, the combative midfielder who retired in 2007. Charlie was given his epic name by his parents who were huge QPR fans and could think of no better way to show their affection than to name their son after the entire 1973 first team...makes Emile Tyson Heskey glad his dad liked boxing. Now, should I lodge an appeal now to call my first born Adam Frank Danny Lubo Matthew JP Tom Paul Andrew Craig Francois...
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