What do you mean who is it? It’s Jussi. Jaaskelainen. J-A-A-S-K-E-L-A-I-N-E-N.
Afternoon all. Hope you had a good, football free, weekend. Mine was OK. I decided not to go on a two day walk, as work would have frowned upon this seeing as how I was due back in this morning (facists) but did plonk myself in front of the TV for most of the weekend, and therefore watched most of the football that was on.
Goal line technology eh? Martin Atkinson was the ref who didn’t give QPR’s goal at T’Reebok a few weeks back the last time there was a big furore over whether a ball crossed the line, and he was involved yesterday. I like to think that these things even themselves out over the season, and yesterday’s non-goal goal proved that they do. Just not to us. Which is good. But it did happen to our new best friends, Spurs. Which makes me feel….ambivalent?
Diving eh? Ashley Young, a man who has been known for this kind of thing before he joined Stretford, fell over someone’s leg and was given a penalty yesterday. That it happened against Aston Villa is good for us, but a furore over ‘diving’ and ‘cheating’ hasn’t been since..errr…Mark Davies ‘dived’ and ‘cheated’ against Wolves. Except that he didn’t. Well, he did dive, but that was after contact. And ‘cheat’? Well, he did nothing that is against the rules so I don’t see how that can be. As for Young yesterday, he dived once contact was made and if a player is going to leave a leg there, then that’s their lookout. Don’t blame the players for doing anything to try and get an advantage, as Mavies and Young undoubtedly did. Change the laws. Pillioring players for doing something they are undoubtedly taught to do won’t make them change or stop others doing it.
As for how the other teams did over the weekend, I think it’s fair to say that we couldn’t have asked for anything better. QPR lost at West Brom, the last game that could be described as half way easy in their run in and, while they were doing that, Blackburn were giving up the ghost at Swansea. I know it is better to have the points rather than the games in hand, but if The Arse can beat Wigan tonight, that will put us in the fantastic position of having the easiest run in and our destiny well and truly in our own hands.
I’m not blind to the fact that to secure our destiny we actually need to score goals and win games, and where those goals come from is anyone’s guess. You can perm one from four and take your pick as to who OC will start with (OK, maybe one from three) but we really need a player who is N’Gog, SKD and Klasnic all in one. But they cost a lot of money and are playing in the Champions League.
As we are all aware, there are any number of players out of contract at the end of the season and the first one to be mentioned as leaving is our longest server. Jussi has been warming the bench since Christmas now and doesn’t look like he will be reclaiming his spot anytime soon, so it will come as no surprise that the name Sam Allardyce and his Bolton Wanderers reserves would be put up as potential suitors, especially if they fail to win promotion and Rob Green leaves (although why anyone in the Premier League would want Rob Green is anyone’s guess).
When the season ends I’ll be giving my view as to who should stay and go, depending on whether we have stayed or gone, and Jussi is a tricky one. There are fair to middling reports about Rob Lainton who I have never seen in action, so all I know of him is that he tries, and fails, to out do Stu Holden in the hair department. But if we are to reduce the age of the squad, then Jussi would be a prime candidate to get the old heave ho. Sentimentality is all well and good but I think we can all agree that the Jussi Jaaskelainen of the past two years hasn’t been the same as that of a few years back. If it saves us money, it may turn out to be a good deal all round.
Ok, that’s your lot for today. Hopefully The Arse will do us a favour tonight, but they will probably roll over just because we are Spurs’ new friends. They’re like that the French.