Back In White

This blog has never really been interested in discussing relegation-threatened teams -- or pretty much anyone outside the top 5 for that matter -- but in Spurs' case its willing to make an exception. There are three deadline-day deals that catch my eye, and many that I could not care less about. One of those eye catching deals involves the aforementioned Tottenham Hotspurs, with the other two involving Arsenal and Chelsea.

Much has been written about Robbie Keane in recent months. I jumped on the bandwagon back in December, saying that he should never have moved to Liverpool in the first place. Rafa Benitez just does not play the kind of football that suits the unpredictable Keane. The ever-present Dirk Kuyt is proof of this.

That's not to say that Robbie was merely the innocent victim of 'round peg in a square hole' syndrome. Yes he was that, but he was also a terribly inept round peg during his at times comical stint in Merseyside. There were one too many games where you wouldn't actually know that Robbie Keane was on the football pitch until you saw him either mis-kicking the ball or being hauled off after 68 minutes with a surprisingly puzzled look on his face. I'm sure all those times he brushed shoulders with Dirk Kuyt as he made his way to the bench did little to help his rapidly decreasing confidence, and it showed in his performances.

Did he try too hard? Is he just not good enough for a big 4 club? Did he need more time? Who knows? All we do know is that he had his shot and he blew it. He dubs the whole fiasco a "mistake", and I think he's right. For me, going to Liverpool under Benitez will always be a mistake. I'm willing to go on record and say that Chelsea will still be United's biggest threat, even though they themselves are looking a bit rubbish. I'd even give Arsenal and Villa a decent chance of finishing ahead of Liverpool, so little confidence do I have in the Reds' title challenge.

But that's beside the point. Keane is back at his old club, which I think was the only place for him to go, even though I still don't think he'll do very well. He needs a target man alongside him, and Defoe is quite clearly not that man. I know he's out injured, but he won't be gone forever, and so ultimately Harry has just added more confusion to an already confused squad. And what's more, Keane is not a like for like replacement for Defoe. If anything Keane is more Modric than Defoe, so it will be interesting to see the dynamic of the Spurs team this Sunday in the North London Derby. They'll probably have to play another striker alongside Keane, so there could be goals aplenty in White Heart Lane, with another 4-4 a definitely possibility if Arsenal can sort out their creative problems.

One man who may or may not sort those out is Andrei Arshavin, but I'll leave that discussion for another post.

In other news, Queresma has signed for Chelsea in a 6 month loan deal. Dunphy would call him "Ronaldo Lite", and I'd have to agree. He is something along the lines of what Chelsea need, but to be honest I don't really rate him at all. Can't be any worse than Malouda I suppose though. Against all reason I do have some sneaky feeling that he might do OK, at least in the short-term. He has some of the attributes that make a player effective, but he also has a large amount that make a player an idiot. Which of these attributes will win out is anyones guess, but I'm prediciting a success story. Just don't ask me why.

Robin Good

Nothing much in the way of new insights can be gained from the Arsenal v Liverpool clash on Sunday. Liverpool won't win the league, and neither will Arsenal.

However, the game did produce two very good goals. Robbie Keane's first time strike following Agger's 'Hail Mary' was exceptional, especially given the fact that it was produced by a striker so short of confidence that his manager would rather bank on a pretty poor defensive midfielder finding the net than him (which is really just rubbing salt into a gaping wound). In most other games, Keane's goal would be easily the pick of the bunch. But not in this game.

Robin van Persie's goal was just riddled with class. Agger's punt required good movement from Keane, and a precise finish. However, Nasri's pinpoint pass required of van Persie exquisite close control, quick thinking, nimble footwork, and both his left and his right foot (the latter of which seems to have improved remarkebly, what with him scoring at least 3 very good goals with it this season...although maybe it has always been good, and I just never noticed[?]).

There really is no teaching what Van Persie did on Sunday. Many strikers could produce Keane's finish every once in a while, but very few could ever even think of doing what van Persie did, let alone do it. I don't want to sound like I'm going way over the top here, but this goal is honestly the greatest goal ever scored, and it was scored by the best player ever to grace a football field.

OK so neither of those stataments are even remotely true, but this is a special goal nonetheless, and van Persie is a special talent. He's not yet consistent enough to be considered one of the best around, but as I wrote before, he's getting there, and he's getting there quite quickly. Don't be surprised if he's snapped up by a club that actually plan on winning things come summer time*.


* Although given the latest rumours to surface regarding the transfer window, it seems as if Arsene Wenger may be dusting off the Arsenal FC wallet and going against every fibre of his being by making a big signing and thus aiming to win a trophy. Arshavin perhaps? Or Tevez? I'd be incredibly surprised if either of those go through, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction...although I'm not convinced they need Tevez. They do need a creative spark to fill the void left by Hleb though. As I've said in a previous post, he was the biggest loss during the summer, and his departure is the main reason for why Arsenal just aren't as aesthetically pleasing any more. Shooting and goalscoring and all that unimportant stuff may not have been his specialty, but by God he could dribble.

Uh Oh Lawro

You may or not be aware of this, but Mark Lawrenson actually said something of interest yesterday. Unfortunately for Lawro however, it landed him in some pretty hot water, so don't expect him to come out with anything of the sort again.

So what did he say and where did he say it? Well, he said it talking to Irish media of course. Isn't it great that we Irish have the gift of making football people be completely candid, and getting them to say whatever the hell they want to say? I think so. Being an analyst in England is like being a caged animal, or even a circus animal that performs the same tricks week in week out. However, the Irish media lets the animal out of the circus. It's as if people see Eamonn Dunphy and think "Well if he can get away with it then why can't I?" so they end up being refreshingly honest, albeit largely wrong (some things can't change).

In talking to Today FM, Lawrenson probably got a bit too excited about his latest scoop, forgot about the fact that people in England can still hear about things that happen in Ireland, and went beyond the call of duty, at least in the eyes of LFC. Here's what he had to say regarding a topic I wrote about not so long ago:

"Sorry to name drop but I had a drink with Steven Gerrard at a function on Saturday night, and we were talking about Robbie Keane...He was saying to me that they [Keane and Gerrard] share the same agent and he thinks something is going to happen with Robbie Keane in January...He thinks he's going to be moved on."

First of all, sorry to name drop? Yeah right! You just wanted to shout the fact that you had a drink with Gerrard from the roof tops, didn't you Mark? My guess is that Lawro just made the whole Robbie Keane thing up in order to let it be known that he had a drink with Stevie G. He couldn't just say "So I had a drink with Steven Gerrard" and leave it at that. After all, that would just come off as a pathetic attempt to name drop, which is clearly not what Lawro wanted to do [???]. Instead, Lawrenson decided to attach an interesting but fictional piece to his Gerrard encounter, just so he could let it be known that he is on drinking terms with Steven Gerrard, but without sounding like that's all he wanted people to know. Nice try, Mark.

Of course being reasonable people, we can only assume that Lawrenson wasn't just making this whole thing up, right? I mean if we were to find out that none of this was true, and that Steven Gerrard never said that he thinks Robbie is going to be moved on, then I don't think the BBC would have any choice but to sack Mark Lawrenson based on his penchant for downright lying, nor would the Sun have any choice but to hire him for that exact reason. After all, one man's Busted is another man's Led Zeppeilin, or something...

Well all of this happened yesterday, and it left the footballing world in quite a stir, while Robbie Keane was probably left crying into his laptop screen wondering how in the world he could be moved on while Dirk Kuyt gets to stay. I'd love to be at Liverpool's training ground today, that's for sure.

But alas, this isn't the end of the tale. Lawrenson has come out saying things again, only this time he has retracted the one interesting piece of information he has ever given us. Why, Mark, why!? Larwo now claims that all of what he said on Today Fm was his own opinion, failing to realise that we gave up paying attention to his opinion long ago, and would actually rather lies than it. Anyway, here's what he said today about what he had to say yesterday:

"I'm sorry if it caused any aggravation but it wasn't meant to. Steven Gerrard's name should never have come up in terms of Robbie Keane going in January. It wasn't Steven saying that it was me saying it.

"The only connection I was making between the two was that they have the same agent and I have had a hunch for a while that Keane could go.

"But that is my opinion and nothing whatsoever to do with any conversations I had with Steven Gerrard.

"I happened to mention I spoke to him on Saturday night but I didn't mean for that to come across in the way that it has been interpreted."

So he did just do it for the sake of name dropping! That's real classy, Mark. Real classy.

What I'm not clear about is that referring to Gerrard, Lawrenson clearly said yesterday that "He thinks he's [that is, Keane] going to be moved on". But now he's saying that it wasn't Steven Gerrard saying that, but rather that is his own opinion? Did Lawrenson even have a drink with Gerrard at all, or was he just having both a drink and a conversation with himself? Or perhaps he did have a drink with Gerrard, but then quoted himself in the third person.

And where does the agent fit into it? If Gerrard never said anything regarding Keane, then mentioning their mutual agent is utterly meaningless. Saying that he was just trying to make a connection between Gerrard and Keane becomes completely redundent, because we're well aware of a pretty strong connection already - they both play for Liverpool! The fact that they share the same agent means diddley squat if Gerrard didn't voice an opinion on the Keane situation, which Lawro is now saying he didn't.

Honestly, given that I have trouble believing that someone would just make this whole story up for Irish radio, I think Gerrard did say those things, but then Lawro realised that he really shouldn't be repeating them in public. Now he's just trying to cover his tracks, but there's really no way to do that unless he wants to brand himself as either a complete fool or a filthy liar. If I were Lawro, I'd play the "fool" card. I don't think people will have trouble buying into that.

Robbie Keane (I guess I'm not feeling imaginative today)

Rafa: Don't repeat this to anyone, but I'm planning on building this club around Dirk Kuyt
Robbie: Say what?

I'm seriously considering devoting my blog to the rigorous study of every single word written and spoken by Eamonn Dunphy. He's nothing if not controversial -- though some may argue that that's all he is, but I respectfully disagree -- and so it would be interesting to tackle the issues that Eamonn Dunphy sees fit for rants that more often than not break the law of non-contradiction. Example: Rant 1 - "Gerrard was found out tonight - a nothing player"; Rant 2 - "Gerrard is a top, top player."

This week in Eamonn's Daily Star column, he unabashedly declares that he'd rather have Robbie Keane in his side than Cristiano Ronaldo. Had he said this when Robbie was at the top of his game, well, it would still be absolute maddness. That's not to say I disagree mind you. I mean I would rather have Robbie Jackson on my team than Cristiano Ronaldo. But I don't argue that based on footballing reasons. I argue based on my unrivalled dislike of the Portuguese plonker. Dunphy on the other hand chose to go down the footballing route when trying to persuade his readers that Keane is better than Ronaldo, but at this point in time that's pretty much a lost cause.

He argues that Keane is a more intelligent footballer than Ronaldo, which I think is true. But then, who isn't a more intelligent footballer than Ronaldo? Put Stephen Hawking on a football pitch and I'm sure he'd have a much better footballing brain than Ronaldo. However, it wouldn't count for much in the grand scheme of things, and so it doesn't really count for Robbie, who might as well be sitting on a wheelchair for the 70 odd minutes that Rafa puts up with his headless chickenness.

Of course its not all Robbie's fault that he's doing so poorly. For starters, he's not a lone striker, and he never will be. Out of all the the qualities that make up a good lone striker, Robbie Keane possesses the following:

- none

He's slow, small, and weak. I don't think I need a fourth to show you that he's just not cut out to be a Didier Drogba type, or even a Fernando Torres type. And speaking of the overrated (yes, overrated) Torres, he is certainly not the kind of striking partner that Keane flourishes alongside. Keane needs a Niall Quinn, a Dimitar Berbatov, a Gary Doher...OK that's probably pushing it, but he needs someone who can nod the ball on, and someone with an intelligent football brain to link up with. In my opinion, Torres possesses neither of those qualities. There's a certain intelligence to his game alright, but not the kind that Keane can work efficiently with.

For me, the bottom line is that Keane and Torres will most likely never work. I may be proved wrong, but I just can't see them gelling. Can you? Robbie followed his heart by moving to Liverpool, but if he used his head he would have realised that his game just doesn't suit the "Liverpool way", and he would have either stayed at Tottenham or moved elsewhere. I certainly don't begrudge him joining the Reds, but if he finds himself struggling for form and out of favour, then at the end of the day he has nobody to blame but himself.