Aston Villa: Football's best PR spinners?

Aston Villa must have one of the greatest bullsh...erm, public relations machines in the Premier League. Just a few days after only 21,541 turned out to see them humbled by QPR in the League Cup, striker John Carew has been wheeled out to praise the fans!

There is something disturbing about the system at Villa Park. It's understandable that boss Martin O'Neill has managed to make people believe he is better than he is - his media whoring has caused that - but that fans of such a traditional club fail to realise they have sold out to American gold is puzzling.

As for Carew and his words (presumably the words of the PR team, players don't actually say their own words these days - and that goes for any top-flight team), Villa appear to have turned into American wrestling of a while back, by using the logic "if we don't mention the past, it didn't happen!"



There is, of course, the chance Villa have decided to use the article on their official site to the fans who stayed away from the QPR game - perhaps even suggesting it was the fans fault the Championship side emerged victorious, and not the disinterest of the players or the tactical ineptitude of the manager.

Carew (well, it's in his name!) said: "There's nothing better than a packed Villa Park cheering us on. The players are going to need all the support they can get this season with Villa striving for success in a number of competitions."

So if that part of the article is intended as a dig at Villa fans, then I take my hat off and salute the Villa Spinners. And, incidentally, I would agree with them - real football fans don't pick and choose their games and it wouldn't happen with real (ie lower league) football clubs to such an extent.

There are still real fans left in the English Premier League, but a quick comparison of Villa's previous league attendance to the QPR debacle suggests they only account for around 50 per cent of those who attend matches - and it will be that hardcore who suffer the most when football explodes and dies.

Well done East Stirling - a real team!

With all the money floating around at the top of football, and the very really danger the game will (at the top-flight, at least) disappear up its own backside sooner than later, it's easy to forget there are real teams and real players trying to ply their trade at the lower levels.

East Stirlingshire, of the Scottish Third Division, are one great example. They huff and puff every week, but are usually on the wrong end of the result. Their players, who may not even be paid enough to buy a round of drinks, are not household names and they certainly don't earn millions of pounds a year in sponsorship.

But East Stirlingshire are no less a team than Manchester United. And Colin Cramb is no less a footballer than, for example, Cristiano Ronaldo. The fans who watch the team - there were 352 yesterday - are arguably far more "real" football fans than those who watch the so-called "big" teams.

Thankfully, those 352 fans (okay, perhaps a handful were watching the other team) were given a treat yesterday as East Stirling thwacked Elgin City 5-2. The fans deserved such a game, as did the players and everyone associated with the club.

And while few people who don't follow the Scottish Third Division will really care, the result did bring a smile to my lips - a smile that real football is still alive somewhere. Perhaps, once the top-flight is culled, real clubs, real players and real fans will be able to rise to the surface.

I certainly hope it happens - there is still too much good in the lower-tiers of the game for it all to implode when the "top" clubs go bang.

(For a little more on East Stirlingshire, who were once managed by no less a figure than Sir Alex Ferguson, take a look at the Wikipedia article. Which may or may not be 100 per cent accurate...!)

Man City aim to expand and expand

Manchester City's new owners reportedly want to buy the area around City of Manchester Stadium and turn it into a hotel and leisure complex. Oh, and increase the capacity of the stadium to somewhere near that of Old Trafford.

It doesn't come as any surprise - once the initial surprise of litlte Man City becoming the richest club on the planet wore off - but it's clearly not a good thing, if only because it suggests the new Middle Eastern owners are in it for the long run. That may have been a reason to celebrate in the past, but now it means they will probably be around for long enough to help inspire the death of football.

According to the Daily Mail, "It is understood that new City owner, Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al Nayhan, is ready to pay Manchester City Council the £50million it would take to buy the ground that was built for the 2002 Commonwealth Games and is leased to the club for £2m-a-year. Sheik Mansour wants eventually to expand the 47,000-capacity stadium and take it towards the capacity of 78,000 currently enjoyed by neighbours Manchester United."

Of course, £50million is no money to them at all. The owners earn more than that in interest each day (making some very basic assumptons there, but even if that figure is incorrect, it's close enough). But they clearly are not going to be content with slowly progression. Heck, they don't look like they will be content with progression at the pace of Chelsea - Man City's owners want it all, and they want it now!



But enough with Queen, even if Freddie Mercury remains one of the greatest showmen to ever grace this planet. Man City's apparent attempt to outdo every other club in England, and beyond, is a worry. There is no financial reason for them not to manage it, and there are enough mercenaries in the game who will move anywhere for enough cash to improve their reputation with each transfer window.

In an ideal world - which this clearly isn't - the other clubs would sit back and let City's owners have their moment in the limelight, rather than try and compete. But I can't help but feel there will be a domino effect. Fans want instant success in the modern game, so the likes of Chelsea and Manchester United will be forced to compete, or attempt to, with Man City. That can only end in tears as they haven't got deep enough pockets.

Can anything be done to stop the Man City effect destroying top-flight football across Europe? Perhaps not...

UEFA Cup rename? Nice try, but...

The UEFA Cup and the Carling Cup have a lot in common. None of the so-called "top teams" give two hoots about either competition, yet, if they wanted to, they could win either without breaking much of a sweat.

UEFA know this. They know the Champions League is the only marketable European club competition. Sure, the UEFA Cup may be good enough for the likes of Aston Villa, but such clubs do not have genuine worldwide appeal. Heck, they don't even have continent-wide appeal!

But European football's governing body - who may or may not clash with FIFA one day as the power-balance continues to shift - are as keen as ever to make cash out of any version of the game they can, whether it be the Champions League final, a UEFA Cup qualifier, or two bunches of kids playing with jumpers for goalposts down the local park.

So it should come as no surprise they have decided to make some changes to the tournament, changes which will come into effect next season. The most amusing, surely, is the name change. Let's have a drum roll, orchestra:

The UEFA Cup will be known as the...Uefa Europa League.

Wow. Just wow. And, given the state of the current global economy, I daren't think how much money they paid the marketing-men to come up with that name. UEFA Europa League? It sounds like what it is - a cheap and cheerful, budget, light, no-frills, Tesco Value version of the Champions League.

More material changes include switching the format to a 48 team, 12 groups of four stage with each team in each group playing each other home and away, and the top-24 and the eight third-placed Champions League group teams entering a knock-out stage. If that plan took more than 10 minutes to put together, I'd be amazed!

A statement on the Uefa website read: "The new name and logo will help underline the tournament's special character and unique sporting appeal. Uefa's ambition in making these changes is to rejuvenate the competition in the light of the new European football landscape, which has shifted significantly with the continued success of the Champions League, so that the Uefa Europa League can establish itself as a major competition."

Good luck with that!

Brighton beat the City, Villa are just sh*tty

Nobody really cares about the Carling Cup. I'm not going to blame this on foreign investment, or Sky, or Jimmy Hill as, in my view, it has always been English football's poor relation. So much so that it is the unwanted illegitimate son kept in the cupboard under the stairs and fed just bread a water.

But, even though it has always been a joke, it was still enjoyable to see Manchester City and Aston Villa dumped out of the tournament last night by lower-league opposition. And before anybody asks "Why Aston Villa?" I should explain that even if their owner, Randy Lerner, is a decent man with his heart in the right place, he is still a foreign investor (albeit one worth a piddly £600million or so!).

Of course there is a problem with one part of this equation. While Brighton and Hove Albion are a genuine lower-level club, QPR have more money than Villa - and more money than most of the Premier League clubs. Heck, don't they have a player on-loan from Real Madrid who set up the goal last night?

This is why the death of football is inevitable, in my opinion. Money is now rife throughout the game and there is a growing imbalance. Manchester City - not a true top-tier club (yet!) - can outspend every other club. QPR can outspend most, and if they were in the Premier League they probably would. Yet Villa aren't short of cash - although in relative terms they are in danger of joining other teams who are financially rag-and-bone men!

But, hey, at least he's not Doug Ellis and at least one of their directors posts on Villa fan forums. Hopefully that will make up for midtable existence until football goes "bang". And that's not a Villa thing, but something will happen to many teams; it happened in Scotland years ago. Clubs north of the border don't exist to compete or win, they exist to exist.

Sad, very sad.

Cesc Fabregas favourite to join Man City

I've been away for a few days and, following the ups-and-downs of the final week (or should that be day) of the transfer window, that was no bad thing. But some things don't change, and the talk is still of Manchester City and their Middle Eastern owners. Anybody would think there was nothing else going on in the sports entertainment world of football.

According to an article in today's Mirror, Arsenal's Cesc Fabregas is the 9/2 favourite to be the next player to join Man City. Liverpool's Fernando Torres and Barcelona's Lionel Messi are joint second-favourites at just 11/2. Disturbingly - for anyone who cares about football, that is - the odds are short.

So does this mean Man City will actually manage to sign such players? Possibly, but it's unlikely. While they humped Portsmouth 6-0 at the weekend, the did look decidedly ordinary during their loss against Chelsea. Of course, if they beat all but the so-called top-four, they will be doing well and will be in a good position to sign more top-names in January, and then even more in the summer.

But would any self-respecting player on the level of Fabregas, Torres or Messi really leave a top club in favour of a big money move, especially when it's obvious it would be a big money move? The answer, sadly, is probably yes.

Moyes and Pulis: Lower leagues to the top

Premier League new boy Tony Pulis has said Everton need more cash if they are to break into the top-four. Hmm...I'll forgive him because he's new, but not only is he stating the obvious, he is stating what now appears to be the extremely unlikely!

Everton owner Bill Kenwright has already told fans the club needs a billionaire owner to progress but, in reality, they look further from breaking into the top-four than they have for some time. The dominance of the top-four, combined with the massive investment at Manchester City, appears to have caused a lot of damage to Everton's chances of moving on up.

But back to Tony Pulis. The Stoke boss will be hoping his team can beat Everton on Sunday (Sep 14), but ahead of the game he has spoken about the amount of money involved in the modern game - and took a swipe at Man City new boy Robinho, by suggesting the player didn't know anything about his new club before his move from Real Madrid.

Pulis was quoted by SkySports.com as saying: "It is no secret that money talks in football - we have seen it recently at Manchester City with the signing of Robinho. Did Robinho know about Manchester City? I'm not sure Robinho did know much about Manchester City but the money was there and as we all know that money attracts players.

"David (Moyes) has done a fantastic job at Everton, last year they finished fifth and now he is looking at it to see if he can take them into the top four again. But to break into the top four you need more resources, and that's not having a go at (chairman) Bill Kenwright or anyone at Everton Football Club. David Moyes is being really, really ambitious from a personal point of view to take them on to that next step again, and there is nothing wrong with that at all."

Of course, those who read SkySports.com and think the Premier League is the only league worth bothering about in England may not be aware of the fact Moyes and Pulis have had success in the lower leagues, with Moyes once managing Preston North End and Pulis managing a variety of clubs including Gillingham.

Now their work with those two teams, even if Pulis did Gillingham under somewhat acrimonious circumstances, make the current cash injection and death of top-flight football all the more disgusting. Pulis and Moyes have both managed at the sharp-end of the game - how many other Premier League managers can claim such experience?

And how many will be able to in the future? Mega-money owners seemingly prefer to employ "top-name" former players than proven managers, so the rest have to work their way up through the leagues. If Stoke weren't promoted from the Championship, it's unlikely Pulis would ever have managed in the Premier League.

It's just another example of how the top-flight cartel is getting harder and harder to break.

Wenger ponders mega-money injection

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has made some good points - and some not so good points - in his latest rant about how the English game is changing, though it's hard to take the views of a man who apparently has issues utilising English players too seriously.

For while Wenger has slammed clubs where the manager has little say in what players are signed (such as Newcastle, apparently), the Gunners boss still takes the fact there is so much money in the game in a "positive way".

The somewhat dry Frenchman also seemed to take a swipe at Manchester City's signing of Robinho. He told The Sun: "What is worrying is that a player signs somewhere and then the next day he does not even know where he has signed. You cannot say that is a good trend.

“Football is not a supermarket. There is money in the game and I take it in a positive way. But the football bodies have to make sure money is ruled properly and used well for the ethic of the game.

"On the Continent, at least you are informed on what kind of players you buy. It looks like some are not even informed any more. It looks to be going a very worrying way. People who come from another country, they import the way people manage in their country. In England you had a tradition that was never questioned."

Another interesting comment Wenger made was in relation to the comments coming out of Man City about what players they are intending to buy, and for how much money, when the transfer window re-opens in January. Now, while I personally think the "tapping-up" rule is ridiculous it is there and some of the things coming from the Middle Eastern billionaires may go too far.

Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things and, as mentioned, it's hard to have sympathy for a man who doesn't seem to care for English footballers. The only good thing that may come out of that is by cutting down the chances of British players in the top-flight, the ones in the lower leagues will probably survive the implosion when the Premier League dies.

Zola at West Ham: Will it work?

I have to start by stressing I really hope Gianfranco Zola performs wonders at West Ham and has a long spell as manager of the Upton Park club. But...I have serious misgivings about whether he should have taken the job.

Former Chelsea star Zola has never managed a football club before - he was previously assistant manager of the Italy Under-21s - so to take a job as big as the one at West Ham has to be seen as a risk. "As big as the one at West Ham?" I heard you snigger! Yes, West Ham, a London club who have been in the Premier League for some time, have to be considered a big club in terms of a first job in management.

Zola himself said he couldn't turn the job down, and who can blame him? If a burger-flipper at McDonald's was offered to become a board member at Burger King, they wouldn't turn it down. While Zola's new job isn't quite such a huge leap, it is certainly a leap of sorts.

The former Italian international's aim appears to be to play attractive and attacking football. Hopefully that works, but recent history has shown teams concentrating on attacking and, in particular, attractive football are rarely the ones at the very top of the table (okay, Arsenal may be an exception, but they had the players for it).

Zola said: "It's my philosophy is to play offensive football if I can as I have always done that so we will try to play this style of football. What we do here is to make it enjoyable for the players and for the club,"

So can West Ham turn back the clock to the days when they "Won the World Cup," as their fans like to claim? Has anything really changed since Alan Curbishley and the club parted company last week? To be honest, no; the only real change is one for the worse.

The appointment of Zola may bring some cheer to the Upton Park faithful, and they are guaranteed some media coverage for a while, but that doesn't win leagues. In my book at least (a book I'll never write!), Alan Curbishely offered the Hammers a far better chance of success than a person whose managerial virginity remains intact.

And the men in suits upstairs are still the same people as last week...

Extra police drafted in at Newcastle

Newcastle fans are nothing if not passionate and, following Kevin Keegan's resignation, there appear to be fears that passion could turn into something more sinister on Saturday (Sep 13).

Extra police have been drafted in following reports there will be five demonstrations throughout the city before, during and after the Toon take on Hull City. Hopefully the protests will be incident free and the fans get their points across - they have every right to publicly ask questions of owner Mike Ashley and if more supporters were actually prepared to make a fuss, English top-flight football would not be in the mess it currently is.

A boycott of official club merchandise has already begun, and I honestly hope it is successful. Even ignoring the specific problems at Newcastle right now, clubs across the country have been taking fans for a financial ride for far too long. I would urge any fan of a top-flight club who is reading this to take a look at their club's online shop and try and justify every item stocked.

Many will have different views on what criteria would be used to "justify" the merchandise. For me, I try to keep the fact that football was meant to be a working-class game where the fans could cheer the lads on at the back of my mind when I look through the shops. Imagining how the early football fans would react to some of the items on offer is usually a good way to start.

Football moving away from its working class roots has arguably been the main factor in the death of the top flight game. The players generally have a working-class background but the reliance of the clubs on other socioeconomic groups (I think that's the PC term these days) has increased over the years. How they can expect hard-working fans on low incomes to afford two or three club kits for each of their children each year is beyond me.

(And yes, I know nobody is forcing the parents to buy the kits, but they are advertised in such a way - namely by being on television and in front of the crowds at every match - that parents will be under pressure to buy the replica strips).

Now, with the sort of investment Manchester City have just had, it's clear the game is as far away from its origins as it possibly can be. Is it even the same game it was in the 19th century? In the 1960? Heck, even the 1980s?

I honestly don't think it is. The version of football we have forced upon us by the top-flight clubs is all about big-money. It's not about sportsmanship or camaraderie, and hasn't been for some time.