Congratulations to Man Chest Hair United on winning yet another premier league title. No hard feelings but I think they deserved the title after all premier league is all about consistency which ManU have reflected quite well. As the fan count stands, this may take ManU fan percentage to 99.94 from 99.92, a hugh jump of 2 basis points. Liverpool though have shown a big jump from being also rans to a genuine title contenders this time around though I feel their style of football is more suited to UCL than BPL but Benitez still have lot of results and performance to boast of this season. Russians were no doubt were unlucky in UCL Semis second leg but that has lot to do with their phsycology and negative football in the first leg and one club I would support other than English one will only be Barca with their attacking and flowing football. Everyone including gooners have criticized Le Prof for his team selection and transfer dealings. What they dont understand is the kind of debt Arsenal are under. With hugh interest payments on debt, Wengers dealings in transfer along with sound management have made Arsenal the most financially sound football club in England. Though I will cover the financial positions of the top4 in more detail in the subsequent posts, one thing is for sure that next year is going to be an epic year. Its the the last under Fergie. Can they survive without them??? Who will be the next Chelsea coach(with Hiddinck almost confirming of leaving) ????
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Statistics at Play
With lot of stress laid on instincts and experience by pundits on regular talk shows, there can be no denying of the facts and figures. Though not a fan myself of pure statistics they nevertheless provide interesting trends and provide proof for a team’s performance on the pitch. With less than 4 matches to play per team, I feel this is the apt time to reflect upon the season and see if we can infer some predictions for the last month ahead.
Starting with the home league, Manchester United has been the strongest team back at their home ground, P17 W15 L1 D1. In Away table Chelsea has been the strongest with P17 W12 D2 L3. However going deeper interesting figures are thrown up. Like, Arsenal & Chelsea have been defensively the strongest in Home matches conceding only 11 goals apiece. Even with Adebayo & CescPistol injured for considerable spells, Arsenal’s attacking prowess in Away games has no match with them having scored max 34 goals among top 4(which gooners may think to be a sign for Champions League success against ManU). Chelsea’s 3 place even with only 9 home wins and 56 total goals scored can easily be explained by number of clean sheets the likes of Terry and Cech have been able to maintain. Pensioners have 21 till now compared to 13 of Gunners quite rightly highlighting Arsenal’s defensive vows and untimely exit from title race. Studying half-time league threw up even more intriguing results. The T45 version of football (god forbid such thing ever happens) will lead to Chelsea at top, ManU at second and shockingly Fulham & ManCity 3rd & 4th respectively. Scousers are 5th and Arsenal 6th underlining lots of late goal messiahs at work at Anfield, Ashburton Grove and Old Trafford. What can be treated as their consistency of sorts, Toons and WBA remain the bottom in shorter version also.
While 2 Arsenal players figure in Assist table (RVP 2nd with 10 and Fab 4th with 9) none of the gunners have been able to break into top 10 of overall goal scorers so far even with 60 goals scored overall, highlighting the complete break from TH14’s era with both midfield and strikers sharing the goal scoring duty and thankfully removing dependence on a single player. On the other hand for ManU – 48%, Liverpool – 40% & Chelsea – 49% of the goals have been scored just by top two.
Whatever may be made of the competitiveness of the premier league the underlying fact remains the same, i.e. top 4 remains top 4. Consider the matches played between top 4 and rest of the 16. Top 4 have lost just 8 match in the whole campaign so far against bottom 16 ( remove Arsenal from that and rest 3 have lost only a single match apiece). Plenty to boast about. However those who think supremacy of top 4 reconsider again. Among the four, ManU drew only 4 times against bottom 16, Liverpool & Arsenal 9 times and Chelsea 7 times. Clearly ManU’s better performance against rest of BPL teams is the reason for their top league standing, thus highlighting the fact that what needed to win the premier prize is consistency and not the flashes of excellence.
2007 in retrospect
As the year 2007 rolls before our eyes, this must be the best time to introspect about what was promised, what we gained and what was lost this year. The year 2007 was a mixed bag with new techies for nerds,lot of political and warmongering, debacles and resurgence in sports.Nature was a bit friendly this time around (still a day to go). As you sit in comfort in front of your screens sipping coffee and
enjoying New Year lets have 2007 in retrospect. This is not any best or worst list but is just the remainder of why will remember this year (or probably try to forget it).
Year when Apple became Microsoft (OS Wars):
This year saw the launch of much anticipated Apple iPhone with the aim of changing the way people use there phones and communicate. Replacing off all cumbersome
buttons with a beautiful touchscreen and providing all host of other features made this a most successful product of the year and this was confirmed as Apple sold approx. 5 million iPhones by year end. Apple also introduced latest of its series of macs with launch of feature rich Leopard. On the other hand Microsoft carried on with its scrappy and buggy Vista OS and released its sp1. On Linux front newer versions of OS were launched and conversion rate from Windows and Macs substantially increased. However the thing this year will be remembered for will be that Apple started adopting policies which made it assume the role of Microsoft. From DRM controversy to
ringtones on iPhone to 3rd Party Apps and similar other anti-customer policies made lots of Addle devouts think again who were supported by iWoz. With growing sales of its iPod, iPhone and Macs there is also a growing resentment against Apple and Steve Jobs must do a serious thinking here.
Bush fire..Iraq..Iran and counting:After “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, Bush this time around tried to turn Americans towards Iran. However due to American elections next year, lack of World support and findings of last NIE his support is all time low. Bush’s position further weakened on
international front due to his stand on issues like Iran sanctions,emissions and also due to exit of his right hand man Tony Blair. He is at present not only troubled by internal problems like elections, medicare etc but problems in Pakistan, Middle East and growing clout of Russia also are a major cause of concern.
Europe loses its E: Probably this was the biggest Sports news of the year as Mighty England were ousted from the Euro2008 Cup to be held in Austria-Switzerland next year. With a loss to Russia in Moscow and
poor performance in qualifying this was imminent. Even with all the big players like Lampard, Gerrard, Cole & Beckham this was quite embarrassing besides costing a fortune to FA. FA in the end made a face-saving attempt by replacing Steve McLaren with Fabio Capello. English football is rotten to roots as we see in every major
competitions and until work on building a sound base, team spirit and controlling player egos is done it will be difficult seeing England qualifying even for next World cup.
Even 123 gets difficult: Probably this was the most embarrassing event for India. As India was about to enter Official league of Nuclear states, on the verge of getting perennial fuel supply, technology and
investment, the party was spoiled be CPI who claim to be the only true communist party in the World. They are neither communists, are a bunch of zealots instead of a party and are neither Indian taking orders from China. Not only have they stagnated West Bengal, they also prevent ruling INC from introducing any sound measures. And as
Nandigram boiled what they did was not less than Gujarat Carnage. There opposition to government policies, interrupting functioning and making Taslima Nasreen leave WB towards the year end always kept them in News but all for wrong reasons.
Global warming heats up the Big League: This was the year when Environment and Global finally became important issues on International Stage. With a Nobel being given for this cause & various doomsday projections people have began to realize the severity of the problem. International Conferences & Bali Meet also highlighted the importance of the issue. This year also saw the efforts to reduce the cost of generation of solar electricity and first such commercial panels were also introduced. There success depends on availability, public motivation and government policies.But this has become clear that global warming is the most important problem facing mankind. Though many issues remain unattended like
responsibility of developed nations, adherence to emission standards etc.
T20 bang on: Probably the only big and good news for India this year was T20 World Cup win in South Africa. Though started 3-4 years back as an experiment in county cricket, people had its first experience and they loved it. This World Cup in stark difference to earlier held World Cup was a big success. Not only matches were less time consuming making it highly audience friendly but the overall length of tournament was also decreased from original edition. Definitely T20 is here to stay and seriously questions the relevance of 50 over cricket.
Some more additions can also be made like
+ Ferrari-McLaren Dispute
+ Bhutto Assassination
+ Year of Rehabs
+ Resurgence under Wenger
+ 2 girls 1 cup 
If you feel something more should also be added then surely fire me a mail
at jatiesch@gmail.com or leave a comment. Wishing you and your family Seasons greetings and a Happy New Year.
This has been a pretty long hiatus for me which was because of my system being down, me going home etc… So this post is not about any specific issue but gives a glimpse of happenings around the same time. Most important of all…Arsenal are still at top on league table despite ManU closing in. But young guns are showing real class and they do not seem faltering in near future…Stupid India-Aus cricket series continues which I just cant understand why is taking place without giving any rest to players after T20 WC….and the results are quite obvious with India down 1-4.
On political front major news was Congress mending ways with Left against the nuke deal giving up its 6 months long stand on the issue. As far as I am concerned this is one of the most backwards step taken by Indian Gov in recent years and will cause problems both nationally and internationally. On International front this will definetely lower India’s position on globle platform and nations wll be vary of formulating any proposals with India. Nuke deal was more important for India than opposite way and Americans will sure be frustrated and vary of Indians. On national front also this mending ways with left will furthur give air to those out of age self made idealists and they will step up protests also on other issues opposed to them. This will further weaken the government as left realizes that Congress will easily breakup on applying pressure. So only people happy are Leftists and those sitting in Beijing and Islamabad…
Sensex as usual is breaking records after records and continues to surge ahead on account of heavy foreign inflows..however market is very risky and far from stable. Lets see how far this Bull run continues….
Kerry Packer revisited…
With the advent of T20 on world stage and ICL aka Indian Cricket League promoted by Subhash Chandra’s Essel Group both international as well as domestic cricket are undergoing rapid transformation.
In mid 1970s people looked towards 50-50 format with contempt but eventually it became harbinger of the world cricket and test took the back stage. This was obvious as 50-50 format was accordant with the fast moving generation. Now since the world is much more different place than 70s change in cricketing format is much needed. People don’t have time for a single day forget about 5 day affair. So it is ostensible that in present scenario T20 is the right step for the cricketing world. Whatever the experts may say about the format, I am totally in favor of it. Look at any sport…soccer, football, baseball and you will find that all these are high intensity games with not only huge fan base but also short time duration.People just can’t afford to sit all day waiting for the result which they can easily get within couple of hours with other sports. This is the fundamental flaw with cricket in this fast moving world scenario and I feel that ICC is pragmatic in its approach of promoting the same at international level. Lots of critics have said about the end of bowlers and especially spinners in this form of cricket but the latest trends suggest just the opposite.
I not only feel that T20n world cup will be more successful than ICC Cricket world cup at West Indies, in years to come it will surpass 50-50 cricket in fan base. Any cricket board which does not pays heed to these considerations will eventually suffer at the hands of both fans as well as commercial enterprises to whom T20 is much more profitable venture. So brace up for the T20 world cup as it will not only be more important for future of world cricket it also appears to be much more interesting and well contested as compared to trite and boring World cup 2007.
Great Indian Presidential Drama
As the governments world over are busy with how to maintain their economies, improve trade, production and efficency, in India politicians are involved in a fight for who would be next Indian President..Everyday new candidates appear, new alignments are formed and at the end of the day there is still confusion on who should be the first citizen.
But is this thing so important that politicians elected for Parliament, parties involves have made this a prestige issue thereby neglecting graver problems facing the country. President of India is a nominal & ceremonial head and all his powers are in fact vested by Prime Minister and council of ministers..so should there be all this drama??In fact President of our country should be non political distinguished identity who is respected throughout India and World & who can represent India at world stage.APJ Abdul Kalam was best choice for this post and if he is to be replaced(due to party diff) then maybe we can have some other personality like Narayanmurthy (Infosys Founder)…there is no scarcity of such people in India..
What we don’t want are these altercations, spending of public money on futile debates over candidates whose name half of country don’t even know and world is not even aware of them..and have been nominated just because of vote bank politics, interests etc.In place of all this drama our leaders should focus their attension on the problems faced by country like Allocation of SEZ, Disinvestment, Maintaining GDP, Improving trade….
We can only pray that this drama soon ends….
End to ARSENAL Misery??
As an ardent Gunner…when will be there an end to the current slack of asrsenal form….one of the most successful teams in Premier League…Infact arsenal is among the few teams that has never been relegated to II Divison once being promoted to I Divison(Even Chelshits and Liverfools have been relegated)
Arsenal is known for there game play, perfectionism but i think this is taking toll…The desire to score ‘A Perfect Goal’ that Arsene Wenger has filled in Gunners is leading to losses against minnows like sheffield utd….
Also is the atitude of Arsenal Owners who provide paltry 20 million for signings when window opens in summers. Compare this to amount spend by Ambrowich, ManU, this will seam to be miniscule…. ok Arsenal dont need big signings and we know Wenger is intelligent enough to know what club need..but still we need some signins. In my opinion we must go for -
1) Agood center forward who without caring for perfect ball can put ball in net…our midfields provide enough passes but we can convert none in absence of Henry and vanPersie…which also shows lack of bench strength..
2) Agood goalkeeper….lehmanns good but i think falters at some places…maybe we can use him in CL but for EPL we must either improve Alumina or seek another one…
