Tuesday, 12 April 2011

WINTER FOOTBALL IS SNOW JOKE

TEMPERATURES are lower than a call-girl's knickers at a footballers' Christmas do and the snow is deeper than Roman Abramovich's pockets.

So what do we do? Play football. Genius.

No matter that some people can't get out of their front door. No matter that public transport is grinding to a halt. The show must go on – there's bills to pay and Sky Sports subscriptions to justify after all.

And if someone slips and cracks their head on an icy pavement, well, it doesnt matter – at least the pitch is alright.

For once in this country why don't we use a bit of common sense?

It might be tradition to freeze our bollocks off at the match but tradition in football bit the dust with fourth officials, technical areas and girls with pom-poms.

Why not have a bit of time off over Crimbo, forget about snood-clad millionaires and spend a bit of time with the family? It's not like match-going regulars spend time with their loved ones at the game any more is it? The prices have seen to that.

And who knows, a winter break might actually help our clubs and the international team to prosper.

Chelsea fans might have had a little chuckle at their boys drawing Copenhagen in the Champions League but perhaps the Danes were having a laugh, too.

Because their team will be putting its feet up for a well-deserved rest while the Stamford Bridge men roam the country fulfilling the ridiculous festive fixture list in England.

Off course London's big spenders should still have too much for Copenhagen, but who knows? Fresher legs is not be sniffed at as a leveller – ask England. Every time they flop in a major competition almost inevitably it's against footballers who aren't asked to play all year round.

Alex Ferguson has been pushing for a winter break for almost 30 years, and think what you like about whisky nose, he knows a thing or two about football.

We are the only country in Europe to play on through the coldest part of the year. Not only that, to keep the telly companies happy, eight or nine games are piled on to keep the mince-pie feasting audience away from James Bond films.

Players hardly train during this time, showing up between games for a little jog before they go home to their Twitter accounts. Inevitably, stars get tweaks, strains and pulls, but they'll play on to keep everyone happy and with the chase for glory in mind.

UEFA research shows that players in leagues without a winter break are FOUR times more likely to suffer a stress fracture or other injuries in April and May than those in, say, Germany and Spain.

So how can our boys be fit for anything in the summer other than sunning their skinny arses? The answer is they can't be. They're not. And that's just one of the reasons why England are shite when it matters.

Bring up a winter break and someone will inevitably wheel out the same old arguments of why to keep on plodding on through the icy wastes.

Top of the list – fixture congestion. Of course if the money-mad chairman behind the formation of the Premier League had stuck to their promise of a slimmed-down 18-club league we wouldn't have that problem.

As it is, if we're looking for pointless fixtures to get rid off, what about the Carling Cup? It's widely-regarded as a Mickey Mouse competition anyway, and plenty of clubs just use it as a glorified reserve-team fixture.

Scrub that from the calendar and there's a bit more room to manoeuvre.

Then maybe football fans and players can do what everyone else does on Boxing Day, eat a turkey sandwich and look for batteries.

It's got to better than skidding on motorways and risking frostbite any day of the week.
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ARSENE WENGER's brand of football may be the beautiful game in its purest form but pretty boys are never the hardknocks are they?

Yet again, Wenger's men bottled it when it mattered, bullied into submission by a Manchester United side that's more fight and passion than finesse and skill.

Perhaps Wenger should lead from the front in toughening up his fancy dans if he really wants that Premier League title.

Can you imagine the Frenchman kicking shit out of a punchbag at the Colney training ground or launching into a flying two-footer to pole-axe Samir Nasri?

Maybe he should. Arsenal might be able to do what they want with a ball but they need to grow a pair to floor the big boys.





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