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TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine1986

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

2011

Inside Dilemmaforteenstars

SwindonTown’sworstseason

SwindonTown’sworstseason

CarltonCole’sTwittertrouble

CarltonCole’sTwittertrouble

Crawley-unpopularchampions

Crawley-unpopularchampions

RelegationbattleinBirmingham

RelegationbattleinBirmingham

BARCELONA: BEST IN THE WORLD? IN THE WORLD? IN THE WORLD?

£2.95 June2011 Issue292

Noonecan matchusfor passing...

hype...

andfalling over

AroundtheworldRacisminBrazilBosniabannedbyFIFA

AroundtheworldRacisminBrazilBosniabannedbyFIFA

Germandemocracyunderthreat

Germandemocracyunderthreat

ForeignownersforSpanishclubs

ForeignownersforSpanishclubs

China’sfootballboom

China’sfootballboom

1986

2011

25thAnniversarySpecial

Fromfanstocustomers–the changingmatchdayexperience

11/05/2011 18:25

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TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine1986

2011

Inside FootballLeaguereview

FootballLeaguereview

Swanseabackatthetop

Swanseabackatthetop

WholikestheEuropaLeague?

WholikestheEuropaLeague?

TheFAatwarwithFIFA

TheFAatwarwithFIFA

AnIrishmaninLibya

AnIrishmaninLibya

HAS BLATTER

HAS BLATTER RUINED FOOTBALL?

RUINED FOOTBALL?

No,itwill takeatleastanothertakeatleastanother

No,itwill takeatleastanother fouryears fouryears

AroundtheworldGoodtimesforPorto

Italian fancampaign SeasonrestartsinJapan

Serbia:Arkan’sclubindecline

Latvianfootballonthebrink

Argentinarefereeingcontroversy wsc293_cover.indd 1

£2.95 July2011 Issue293

£2.95 July2011July2011July Issue293

1986

2011

25thAnniversarySpecial

Thechangingfaceofclubownership fromIpswichbrewerstoRussianoligarchs

08/06/2011 18:21

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine1986

1

2011

Inside Over-pricedEnglishtalent

Players’ superinjunctions

HowforeigntourshavechangedHowforeigntourshavechanged

Howforeigntourshavechanged

Whathappenedtoawayends?

Football’s onlineabusers

THE NEW MOURINHO?

Failtowinthe ChampionsLeague,fall outwithAbramovich,

takeabigpay-off

AroundtheworldMexicowintheGoldCup again

Palestine takeonAfghanistan

NewhopeforIndianfootball?

GranadaontheriseinSpain

CorruptioninSouthKorea

AderbydayinRio wsc294_cover.indd 1

£2.95 August2011 Issue294

1986

2011

25thAnniversarySpecial

Howthegamehaschanged,from

Howthegamehaschanged,from parkfootballtothetacticalrevolution parkfootballtothetacticalrevolution

06/07/2011 18:30

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

TRANSFER MADNESS!TRARANMADNDNDNDNESS!S!MADNDN

1986

2011

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

INSIDE Football and the riots

Joey Barton’s long goodbye

Life in League One for

Sheffield Wed and Notts County

Sheffield Wed and Notts County

Footballers’ Desert Island Discs

Footballers’ Desert Island Discs

Media-savvy managers

1986

2011

Let’sall moveto Manchester

TheHalfDecentFootballMagazine

INSIDE Stars from the lower divisions

Stars from the lower divisions

Should clubs compensate fans?

Should clubs compensate fans?

Footballers love computer games

Footballers love computer games

Gateshead aiming for the League

Gateshead aiming for the League

When crowd abuse goes too far When crowd abuse goes too far

When crowd abuse goes too far

Hartlepool’s lost rivals

TEVEZ CONTROVERSY

Iwon’tplaywith peoplewhoareonly hereforthemoney

£16million forPhilJones?

£20million forJordan Henderson?

£20million forStewart Downing? £20million£20million forStewartforStewart Downing?

wsc295_cover2.indd 1

£3.50 September 2011 Issue295

INSIDE The Carlos Tevez saga

Women’s World Cup

Wimbledon are back

Uruguay win Copa

Bundesliga scandal

Champions League in decline?

Fulham return to Europe

Pat Rice’s glasses

1986

2011

25th Anniversary Special

Football writing: broadsheets,

tabloids and player biographies tabloids and player biographies

27/07/2011 19:14

ARSENAL’S NEW DIRECTION

AROUND THE WORLD

South Africa’s World Cup hangover

South Africa’s World Cup hangover

Shamrock Rovers in Europe

What next for Asian football?

Mundialito: the tournament

England turned down

Slavia Prague in crisis

£2.95 October 2011 Issue296

31/08/2011 18:27

wsc296_cover.indd 1

AROUND THE WORLD

Joe Cole is a hit in France

Spanish players’ strike action

Premier League still big in Japan

Footballers and booze in Brazil

Lebanon’s World Cup target wsc297_cover.indd 1

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Order online wsc.co.uk Editorial critical masses The ungrateful moaning directed at the game’s most successful managers only discredits the grumbling fans

“I

January, a sect ion of their support responded as they do whenever the team loses or draws with someone other than Barcelona, by going on air to suggest their 70-year-old manager has lost his way.

very much support Arsenal. But to be honest, Wenger needs to coach another team now and Arsenal needs another coach.” So said Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, after Arsenal’s third successive defeat, 2-1 at home to Manchester United in late January.

Ferguson’s critics have at least stopped short of barracking him at home games. While Wenger has expressed his distaste for clubs that buy success, it looks like he was wrong to believe he could construct another successful team around bargain signings from abroad. He is now paying for his perceived obstinacy

Kagame, who was given an Arsenal banner signed by the team to mark his 50th birthday in 2007, is not the only internationally renowned f igure disturbed by the team’s relatively poor form. The game was broadcast by Fox TV, making it the f irst Premier League f ixture to be covered l ive on terrestrial television in the USA. One of the studio pundits was Piers Morgan, the former editor of the Daily Mirror who now has a talkshow on CNN. A self-described “massive Gooner”, Morgan raged at his team’s failings during the match and concluded by saying he had “had it” with Wenger, who had apparently made the “worst ever substitution” when he took off Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for Andrei Arshavin, who defended badly for United’s winner.

he current seven-year stretch without a trophy by having to chase fourth place – which will probably involve f inishing behind Spurs for the f irst time in 17 years – but it is unclear whether Arsenal’s enigmatic American owner would have funded a spending spree even if Wenger requested it.

During Wenger’s t ime, Arsenal fans have become accustomed to seeing their team win the majority of their games while picking up trophies regularly. As one of the Big Four, they acquired a sizeable number of new fol lowers who wanted to support a successful team. The current seven-year stretch without a trowas not the package the glory hunters signed up for

On one level there is little point in complaining about Piers Morgan. The greater fault lies with those who think he is worth employing. But, for once, he serves a useful function. Firstly, in demonstrating that no good ever comes from newspapers or broadcasters giving a platform to a celebrity fan, whose insights are invariably on a par with a drunk yelling at the pub TV screen. These fairly crucial limitations are overlooked, however, because they can get the attention of players and managers. In the past few months, Morgan has engineered toe-curlingly inane “arguments” on Twitter with Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney, who wouldn’t bother with him if he was just another loud bore in an expensive seat. Such people have been making themselves heard at the Emirates lately, of course. Choruses of “you don’t know what you’re doing” rained down on Wenger as his team slipped to defeat in the match against United.

phy was not the package the glory-hunters signed up for, while some long-term fans seem to have forgotten they used to have barren spells like most other clubs. As Ferguson said in defending Arséne Wenger recently: “Supporters are less easy to please than they were 20 years ago. It’s a cynical world.” One in which Piers Morgan can thrive.

Read Editorials from the WSC archive wsc.co.uk/editorials

The second purpose served by Morgan’s rant is that it highl ights once again the absurd sense of entitlement that af f l icts some followers of the most successful clubs. Managers at all levels of football are judged increasingly by their latest result, with every new defeat declared to be the f inal straw by fuming contributors to post-match phone-ins. Many club owners respond to demands for instant solutions, with managers’ average tenure across the four divisions down to 18 months at the end of 201011, and under one year in the Championship. Given twice as much time to prove their capabilities, most managers would be deemed to be a success if they won promotion or kept their team in the upper levels of a division. They would not be expected to win the double twice or qualify for Europe every season while f inishing no lower than fourth in the Premier League. That is what Wenger has done in his 16 seasons at Arsenal.

The Arsenal boss’s record is bettered only by Sir Alex Ferguson, who has been in charge at Old Trafford nine years longer. Yet when United lost two league matches in a row in early

Arsène Wenger makes an unpopular substitution

5