Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

Well today has been a truly sad day in not just the world of football, but for I suspect quite a lot of people across Britain as well. The news that Gary Speed was found dead this morning after apparently committing suicide. What I shall do now before getting into more details about today is look back best I can on the career of what was probably the first footballer I ever knew by name.

To say that he had an excellent playing career would be a massive understatement. He played 840 career games, scoring a total of 134 goals. He also is the second highest appearance maker in the Premier League with 535, only beaten by David James. Before Sheffield United were relegated back to the Championship he shared with Ryan Giggs the distinction of scoring at least one goal in every season since the Premier Leagues inauguration. He played in two League Cup finals once with Leeds and once with Bolton, losing both times. His crowning moment however was when he won the First Divison Championship with Leeds, in the final season before the Premier League replaced Division One as the top league in English football. Along with this he secured 85 caps for his country Wales, the second highest amount behind only Neville Southall.

He was one of those players who was able to adapt to any situation, as I seem to remember him being in a more defensive role for both Bolton and Sheffield United but was still able to get amongst the goals. I wouldn't say he was the complete midfielder but he wasn't far off it. Every time I have watched him play, you could see the passion, the drive to try and get everything that was possible out of the game. Always one of the first names on any teamsheet, he rarely failed in giving it his all. So as a player, he was never the greatest, but nearly always the most important for any team he played for. The Model Professional.

By last year he had made the transition into management and got the Wales job last December. He was doing quite a brilliant job with the only defeat Wales having recently was against England and that was a game they should've easily drawn. Their World Cup qualifying group looked promising as well.

As a man he seemed like a very nice person who gave advice to many young players going through the system at many different clubs and player like Robbie Savage and Craig Bellamy have previously praised him for his kindness at the beggining of their international careers. He was one of those people was in the spotlight, but wasn't if you see what I mean. He wouldn't be the first person you would think of first thing in the morning or when discussing football matters but if you saw him on TV, you'd know what his name was. Or if he came up in a random conversation, you would know who he was.

To say that his death is tragic is again a masssive piece of understatement. My shock at this news was probably confounded by the fact that just yesterday, I was watching Football Focus and he was on the show. He seemed happy all show, was having a laugh about the old days with his former Leeds teammate Gary Mcallister, expressing his pleasure at how well his national side was doing and how confident he was about World Cup qualification. Dan Walker, the presenter said on his twitter page today how he recorded the focus forum afterwards with Speed and said how he was talking about his family, golf and football with no sign at all of what was going to happen. Emotion has been shown by all comers, with many of my freinds and followers on twitter expressing their sadness at his passing. Shay Given was in tears before the Swansea vs Aston Villa match began and Craig Bellamy withdrew from the Liverpool squad to face Manchester City.

On a quick side note, it's quite sad in a way that it takes an event like this to realise that football doesn't matter. Not really. 

I suppose the question over the coming days, will be as Robbie Savage, one of Gary's closest freinds said on twitter: Why? From the outside Gary Speed seemed to have it all. A close family with a wife and two sons. A clean bill of health, a healthy managerial career and respect from many quarters in football.

Those answers will probably start to unravel over the next few days. But for now lets remember Gary Speed as the great footballer and great man. I just hope after todays outpouring of sympathy and tribute, that he knew how much people liked and respected him.

RIP

1969-2011

 

Super Sunday (More than just Football)

Hello all again. This blog is now being read in Russia! Perhaps my hope that this will be read by millions will come true! Anyway down to business.



There's only one game in the Premier League today and that's Chelsea vs. Liverpool. Always a huge game in each teams seasons, this is undoubtly too close to call. Chelsea play too much of a high line in defence and that suits the game of Suarez and Bellamy who must surely start up front together. However there is the threat of the Chelsea attack which could consist of Drogba, Malouda, Sturridge Lampard and many others that can break a defence down any day of the week. Both midfield are pretty even too with pace, creativity and power in both.

You'll have noticed that I didn't mention Fernando Torres. Now of course as a Liverpool fan myself, I hope he has a nightmare today. I've been saying to my freinds all week if Torres plays Liverpool are perfectly safe as long as the ball is right in front of the target! However with my unbias head on, you can't help but feeling that if he has a great game today it might finally be the spark he needs to get into a run of consistent form (which is not absoloutly rubbish). Of course also it'll be sods law if Torres scores a hat-trick against Liverpool today!

However, for Chelsea they will have to be wary of Luis Suarez. If he turns up there will be problems in the Chelsea defence adding to the fact that Andre Villas Boas still isn't 100% sure on the make up of his back four. I was surprised to see that Suarez has only scored four goals this season, because it feels like he's done so much more. Nobody can deny, despite the recent racism allegations, that as a footballer he is a class act and on form he can beat a team on his own.

So I shall say a 1-0 win for Liverpool and I'm comforted by the fact that Kenny Dalglish has never lost a game as Liverpool manager against Chelsea (8 wins and 3 draws to be precise).



Also happening on this Super Sunday is the start of the World Tour Tennis Finals at the O2 Arena in London, with Roger Federer playing as I type. He, as always is ones of the favourites, along with Murray and Nadal, but it's difficult to look beyond Novak Djokovic, with his amount of losses in 2011 in singles is quite staggering and I predict he shall beat Nadal in the final next Sunday.



The final part of Super Sunday (Well early Monday morning in the UK) is WWE Survivor Series in Madison Square Garden in New York, where Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson returns to team with his Wrestlemania 28 opponent John Cena against the Miz and R-Truth. The Cena-Rock match at 'Mania is being promoted hugely in the US and this match shall have many eyes glued to their screen to see if they both can co-exist. We must not forget that there is real-life animosity between these two and you must wonder whether this will play a factor in the success or not of this match. Furthermore CM Punk goes in to the garden to attempt to win the WWE title from Alberto Del Rio. Lets just say that nearly everybody who is anybody wants him to win this match and have his chance at the top of the company.

So sit back relax and enjoy Super Sunday. The results shall be fascinating and may be talked about for a very long time.

So until next time the Outsider is out!

Time for the Lions to Roar

Hello and welcome to my first blog post it what seems like an age!

Preparations for England's game against Spain have been overshadowed by the John Terry racism row and the row over whether they could wear poppies (shame on you FIFA!) This is the only time I shall mention these incidents in this post as I shall now be focusing on the game itself.

Now many newspapers reports I have seen this week are panicking at the fact that Fabio Capello is going to use more of his youthful and inexperienced squad members against the best international team in the world, European and World Champions Spain.

Now while at first this sounds like a horrifying prospect I have to disagree with the papers negativity. This is indeed the perfect opportunity to see if the youngsters are up to the challenge.

Now let's us face reality. If all goes with the script tomorrow Spain will comfortably beat England. There squad is clearly superior (You can tell that from the fact that they can leave players like Fabregas on the bench and not have any problems) and form wise there are on an incredible roll. This means that England have nothing to lose and all to gain.

This refers to the youngsters who would get the confidence boosts of their careers if they could upset the odds and beat Spain. The seniors of the side like Terry Lampard Barry and others are known to have choked in international tournaments and really cannot be relied on for England to have a successful Euro 2012.

The youngsters like Phil Jones and Chris Smalling need the experience from somewhere not just for next summer but the upcoming World Cup in 2014 in Brazil. By then the likes of Gerrard Ferdinand Lampard and co will have gone and it'll be up to a new era to steer England to success. Now is the time for Capello to see who is and who is not up to the task.

It shall give England a small chance of winning Euro 2012 because now still 7 months away from the tournament Capello shall probably know what the majority of his squad will be barring injuries.

So hopefully tomorrow will go well. I shall predict a 3-1 victory for Spain but all I really want to see is a good quality performance by England. If they can do that with a young team then maybe some belief shall be installed back into us all again.

Thanks for reading and until next time The Outsider is out!