Footblog

West Ham handing out season tickets to hooligans

"Everyone at the club is shocked and appalled at what happened and we will leave no stone unturned in identifying the perpetrators, rooting them out and then taking the proper action from both the police point of view and the club's." West Ham Chief executive Scott Duxbury

Really? Because the club appears to be knowingly handing out season tickets to known hooligans already. Such as the former Inner City Firm member Cass Pennant, who claims he has a season ticket in a state-the-bleeding-obvious piece in today's Guardian.

West Ham can hardly have failed to notice Pennant's past. Not only is he in the media every two minutes, but he's written or co-written no fewer than eight books glorifying his hooligan past (including the literary classic, Want Some Aggro?) and has a website that describes himself as a "author and hooliologist".

Pennant is, of course, one of these born-again hooligans, who publicly claims to have seen the light while at the same time profiting from poorly written accounts of cracking skulls from Southend to Sunderland.

Why should the glory hunting twats who ran on to the field for their moment in the spotlight be treated any more harshly than a convicted hooligan who's making plenty of cash on the back of past violence?  He's probably their role model.

Norwich and the smoking Gunn

Sacking your manager after a 7-1 opening day defeat at home is understandable; sacking your manager and pretending the result has practically nothing to do with it is utter cockwash.

"In isolation the game isn't really connected with what we've done," Norwich chief executive David McNally said of giving Gunn the bullet (fnar, fnar). "It was a bad day at the office for us, it was not a freak result it was a very poor performance and one that we all struggled to get over.

"But in isolation it was one game, we've taken the decision to change the manager based on seven months not one game."

Erm... bollocks. True, Gunn failed to save Norwich from relegation in the wake of good Roedering, but presumably the board wasn't pinning the blame for the drop on him, or else they wouldn't have given Gunn the job permanently in the close season.

Since then, the side has played nine pre-season friendlies, with a record of 7 wins, 2 draws and no defeats. Those pre-season victories included 6-0, 7-2 and 4-1 wins, while one of the draws was a credible result against a Man Utd XI. Then came the 7-1 home defeat in the League to Colchester, before Gunn's boys salvaged some pride with a 4-0 tonking of Yeovil in the Fizzy Pop Cup.

So the only game Gunn has lost since the board gave him the job permanently is the one they claim "isn't really connected with what we've done". 

If that's really the case, Gunn's got the best case for unfair dismissal since Avram Grant was given the chop for losing a penalty shoot-out.

How to win at Fantasy Premier League

In case you haven't seen Jose Mourinho's smug mug on one of the 876 Sky Sports adverts that have been running every evening this week, the Premiership season kicks off tomorrow. Time, then, to get the fantasy football team sorted.

For my money, the best fantasy football game around is Fantasy Premier League, not least because it doesn't take any of my money - it's absolutely free. Being gratis, the prizes are pathetic. If you just so happen to beat the other 1.4 million players you win a VIP trip to a Premiership game. Be still my beating heart.

Nevertheless, fantasy football is more about beating your mates than beating 1.397665 million people you've never met, so here are a few tips on how to succeed at Fantasy Premier League.

1. It's all about the defence

Don't throw your £100m budget away on over-priced strikers: defenders usually offer the best value for money. With 6 points for a clean sheet and 6 points for a goal, good defenders who go up for corners can pay dividends. Last year, only Nicolas Anelka (179) scored more points than the top five defenders (Vidic, Lescott, Carragher, Bosingwa and Hangeland) and yet top strikers usually cost at least two million more than the best defenders. Stock up on defenders from the big four, and you won't go far wrong.

2. Choose your captain carefully

Skippers score double points, so make sure you run a careful eye over the fixture list and review your choice of captain on a week-by-week basis. Look out for players playing twice in the same gameweek, as they can really rack up the points. Be wary of picking forwards as captains, as they're not guaranteed points, and big strikers (such as Torres) are often rested for games against lesser opposition. Goalkeepers and defenders that are likely to keep a clean sheet are a good choice.

3. Watch for emerging stars

Keep an eye out in the early weeks for cheap newly-promoted players, foreign signings or products of the youth team that suddenly burst on to the scene. Last season, for example, Geovanni from Hull and Zaki from Wigan fired out of the blocks, picking up huge amounts of points in the first few weeks and increasing their transfer value massively.

4. Don't be too loyal to your points scorers

Don't be afraid to drop the emerging stars once they've been found out. Both Geovanni and Zaki ran out of steam by Christmas last year, but many people left them in their team in the hope that their early-season form would return. Be more forgiving of established stars such as Lampard, Gerrard or Vidic if they have a couple of poor weeks - their form is much more likely to resume quickly.

5. Find out of position players

Scour the lists for forwards or attack-minded players that are listed as midfielders. Andrei Arsharvin, for instance, is listed as a midfielder, which means he'll score five points instead of four for every goal, plus get bonus points for clean sheets. Assists have also been increased to three points this season, so midfielders who cross the ball into the box (Milner, Ashley Young, Lennon) will be more valuable than before.

And to give you a glimpse of what you're up against, here's how my team - Setanta Ate My Cat - will start the season. That VIP trip to Hull vs Blackburn is all mine, mine I tell you.

Does Shearer really want the Newcastle job?

For a man who would supposedly "dearly love the chance to finish the job I started last season" (i.e. get Newcastle relegated down to League One), Alan Shearer's actions speak louder than words.

"My last conversation with Mike Ashley was on the Tuesday after we'd been relegated," Shearer told Football Focus at lunchtime. 

"I told him the players I wanted to keep, the players I thought had to be moved on, and the players I wanted to bring in. He said he wasn't going to put any more money into the club, and that is it as far as I'm aware."

You'd think a man who was gagging for the job might have bothered to pick up the phone sometime in the past three months, wouldn't you?

Shepherd's not fit to pay tribute to Sir Bobby Robson

Of all the genuinely heartfelt tributes paid to Sir Bobby Robson over the weekend, one really sticks in the throat. That of former Newcastle Chairman Freddy Shepherd.

"I worked every day with him for five years and that's when you see the character of a man," Shepherd said. "He was certainly the best manager I worked with."

Which is why he decided to undermine his manager by revealing he wouldn't be renewing his contract 30 days before sacking him, just three games into the season - arguably kickstarting a disastrous chain of events that led to the club being relegated last season. 

It doesn't necessarily take five years of day-to-day contact to work out the character of a man, Freddy. Some people's character is much easier to work out.