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The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Mick Harper
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Arsenal 2 West Ham 0

Am I going to have to re-think my Arteta animus now we're in the top four? I agree that when allowed to do so the lads can play fancy-Dan football but so they should at those prices. They still hoof it when they shouldn't (and maybe a little bit vice versa) and they still don't know what to do with it once they have fancy-danned themselves to the edge of the box. But this, I am beginning to think, is what differentiates the good from the great. So, I'll have to give a quick masterclass. ('Please, Mick.')

The default is you've got the ball in the top third, you've got plenty of players to play with, but so have the defence, arrayed in a come and get us if you think you're hard enough formation. The merely good teams switch it around from side to side before 'putting it into the centre'. Not necessarily an old-fashioned up-go-the-heads cross but not to anyone specific either. The statistics don't lie: this results in a goal once every dozen, two dozen times.

The great teams eschew this. They play it around too but then a) dribble it into the centre or b) wallpass it into the centre or c) thread it through to somebody newly arrived in the centre. Statistics don't lie: this fails most of the time too but proportionately less and enough to win the silverware.

What I don't understand is: why is this not practised endlessly on the training ground? It doesn't seem to me inordinately difficult. Not for players at those prices.
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Grant



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Was that what Clough and Taylor’s success at Derby and Forest was all about? “If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds He’d have put grass up there”
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Mick Harper
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Good point. He/they had a success which cannot be be explained by the usual -- money, golden generation, exploitation of loopholes. Nor, for all the talk, does it seem they were 'good managers'. Not like, say, Matt Busby or Don Revie. So what did they do? They took unpromising players and turned them into internationals. "And chubby-chappy John Robertson crosses to the unknown Garry Birtles..." This is what Bill Bellichick, with a similarly unique managerial record, does at the New England Patriots.

But this doesn't solve the problem since (a) everyone is trying to find and improve unknowns and (b) a team of internationals doesn't necessarily win you the European Cup. We must think on't.
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Mick Harper
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Second Test

I write this before settling down to the highlights (so it may appear in a different form later). I understand that sometimes it is necessary to go into a test with four seamers. But this is the first one I can recall that demanded five. Plus two spinners of course, Root and Malan. Buttler, I believe, bowled leggies for his school Under-13's but can he get down the other end in time?
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Mick Harper
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They're at 105-1. Or 1-105 as the Australians call it. If Leach can't be trusted, what's Besse doing on the tour at all? It wasn't so long ago that we we were operating two spinners. We were able to do that because both Stokes and Ali were all-rounders. That hasn't changed so in an ideal world I'd open with Ali. This was a disaster last time but only because Moheen sulked at having to throw his wicket away, at the top of the order. If he knew he was only in the side because of his opening, he'd get stuck in all right. I'm assuming though that both he and Rashid have given up red ball tests and no-one has thought to get them to change their minds.

I don't understand why Bairstow doesn't open, he can hardly do worse than any we've got at the moment and he'd be a great improvement in the field. Of course they won't listen to me and open with bowlers told to get the shine off. Oh no, much better to be 19 for 3 and lose three batsmen instead. Don't they understand Broad will miss the swinging ball (or get out of the way) not nick it?

Or 3 for 19 as the Australians call it. Perhaps we might adopt the practice and see if the shine wears off on us.
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Mick Harper
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One doesn't like to sum a nation's character up from such a small sample but for two Australians to get out in the nineties shows Greg Norman was not an isolated case of bottling. I doubt if this generation would have been much good to us at Anzac Cove or Vimy Ridge but, one never knows, they may turn out to be good at poetry or something like that. Let us not write them off prematurely.
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Mick Harper
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Justice Cocklecarrot here

A fouls B outside the box, they get a bit tangled up and both end up in the box whereupon A falls over inadvertently bringing down B. Pen or no pen? Not as simple as it might seem. Although neither the first nor the second incident warrant a pen in themselves, it is fair to say that the second would not have have happened were it not for the first so is a consequence of crime a crime? Yes, says English law, which for instance convicts someone of murder if someone dies during a robbery even if there was no intent, save to commit robbery.

When it happened on Sunday the ref gave a pen, VAR agreed, both commentators agreed and the panel agreed. But that was because they thought the bringing down was a pen in itself which was laughable and nobody would have thought it a foul if it had just happened between two players scuffing about. They might even have blamed B. But, Justice Cocklecarrot asks (it's me by the way, he's just a borrowed nom de plume): "Did they intuitively understand English law or are they just a bunch of dimblebies?"
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Mick Harper
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An even weirder case for the judge last night. Onrushing attacker, defender's leg stuck out, trips attacker, it's a pen says everyone. But the leg was stuck out because the defender had shifted the other way and had been fooled by the attacker changing direction. The leg in question had not moved, not one inch, it was rooted to the spot. Can a limb that has not moved be capable, in law, of committing an offence?
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Mick Harper
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The Ashes

I know what you're thinking. We were rubbish. Not necessarily. I was brought up listening to Ashes tests on my tranny. (You may know it by its modern name, wireless.) Always the same story. Australia (or it may be England) bat first and score 395. England (or it may be Australia) score 478. Australia (or it may be England) have scored 204 - 4 when time runs out and the match is drawn. When was the last time that happened?

It can't because for some reason that no-one can identify every batsman now, in the post-tranny era, plays and misses with indecent regularity. It appears to be a lottery whether he is out first ball or scores a double century. Here's the weird thing though. When an English batsman does it I say, "Get a grip, you jizzock." When an Australian does it, with roughly the same frequency, I say, "Wow, they're human after all." Similarly, their bowlers are always demons brought up on vegemite, ours are prancing twats who need a green seamer at Headingly just to get the ball off the straight and narrow.

I'm just saying we could have won the Ashes, statistically speaking.
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Mick Harper
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Arsenal 1 Man City 2

I suppose 'tis the season for eating small amounts of humble pie so I should record that Arteta has been taking my advice. They have been practising playing in and around the box (1-0 to the Arsenal) though they were also playing Xhaka who was doing the same (1-1). I was prepared to censure our centre half for scuffing up the penalty spot (we don't do that sort of thing at Arsenal) but was informed he actually got his yellow card for running towards the referee (everybody does that, all the time, everywhere). But either way, red card, 2-1 City.

We were as good as/better than they were for most of the time which is news. The fact than neither team has a decent striker on its books is not news. We shall watch and wait for the winter transfer season but, and this is new news, I don't think the world has many decent strikers on its books. An AE matter that demands explanation.
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Mick Harper
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Watford 0 Spurs 1

Well, did you spot it? Our old friend 'the spectator in the crowd taken ill' betting scam. It was in the 86th minute when it was nil-nil. Game stopped. Result after ninety minutes: a draw. Strewth, it's not as if it's difficult. Not with the entire nation watching it on Match of the Day but only one person in that nation actually 'watching'. Then he rang me.
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Mick Harper
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Mick Harper wrote:
We shall watch and wait for the winter transfer season but, and this is new news, I don't think the world has many decent strikers on its books.

Well, it does look as though Romelu Lukaku might be available but you're not allowed to play for three clubs in one year. Or you used not to but that was before you could bung UEFA for anything. Not many people know it but only the very biggest clubs can afford the bungs necessary not to get hauled up before the Financial Fair Play Committee. Honestly, where's it going to end?

With Lukaku leading the line at the Emirates, that's where. Especially as I just read somebody's offering twenty million for Aubameyang. Lucky they hadn't heard we were going to offer twenty million to anybody who would take over his contract. Not that Lukaku will fit in with our style of play either but we like to splash the cash just to show we're still contenders. Otherwise top strikers' agents won't return our calls.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Romelu should head for Real Madrid in exchange for Bale, that way they can both star for their national teams whilst continuing to earn millions for solitary training away from the rest of their club squads.

A spell on loan to Tottenham might be an alternative for Romelu, he could then give some advice to Kane who hasn't got the hang of sitting on his arse, he is trying to do it on the pitch. This would at least improve England's chances at the World Cup.
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Mick Harper
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When Mr Southgate wants your opinion, Wiley, he will ask for it.
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Mick Harper
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It's easy criticising England for going seventy-one balls without scoring but it takes the run out off the table. When wickets are clattering from other causes, that is not a strategy to be rejected out of hand.
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