Lee Bowyer - The article I shouldn't have written

Another, like Graeme Souness, who is set apart from the other inhabitants of The Empty room. But whereas Souness’ USP was being a world class footballer, Lee Bowyer’s uniqueness amongst his fellows here is the fact that he has no discernable positive features whatsoever. It can of course be argued that his career in its early stages at Leeds promised much, but that promise was not delivered upon, and therefore the only positive is in fact also a negative.

 

Champagne Charlie - Graeme Souness

Google has many, many uses. It can tell you how Jamie Oliver boils an egg, it can find you the latest starlet’s “accidently leaked” rudey nudey home videos. My third favourite thing about google is the autofill. Type in “scar” for example, and google suggests that you could be looking for “Scary maze game” “scarlett Johansson” or perhaps “scarborough”. It’s brilliantly diverse, I should think it is based on most popular searches or some-such widget. Quite what Scary maze game is, and how it’s been looked for than the wonderfully sculpted Scarlett, is beyond me. If you ignore the autofill suggestions, you put the blinkers on the internet, and you ignore the searching questions posed by your fellow man. Shame on you.

Transfer Deadline Day: Winners, Losers, Users and Abusers.

WINNER:
Joe Cole? He's got his favourite number on 26 his shirt again, and has made the short hop over the channel to France, joining league champions Lille on loan for the rest of the season. Poor old Joe Cole - one of our favourite players here at The Frustrated Footballer, despite his obvious skill. Joey's got what Liverpool aint this season - Champions League football. French football is on the up again. Not because of Joe Cole, well not entirely because of Joe Cole. On a perhaps more sour note, Lille had failed in bids for Chu Young-Park and Yossi Benayoun before landing Cole. Hopefully England's forgotten playmaker will find his feet in France, get a lot of games, and rediscover the form that made him one of the most exciting talents in english football - what? 10 YEARS AGO? MORE? Christ!

Reports that Joe Cole has been quoted saying that Lille are his boyhood club and "it's a dream come true" are as yet, unconfirmed.

Yaya Toure - The most offensive defensive midfielder.

Not offensive as in he’s rude, or inappropriate or anything like that. Offensive as in attacking, I’ve utilised the word more commonly used to describe Grid-Iron, in an attempt to make a catchy title. If you’ve read down to here and leave now, it was still worth it. I live for hits.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic / Samuel Eto'o + £45 million

The big one. The confusing one!

In the summer of 2009 Zlatan Ibrahimovic moved from Serie A Champions Internazionale of Milan to FC Barcelona. The fee, including a £20 million valuation of Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto’o was around £70 million. It was all done in Euros (They do that over there) but the exchange rate was 1=1.08 or something like that, so a rough figure in Pounds Stirling will suffice here.

Why Arsenal fans are wrong about Samir Nasri

Samir Nasri will be missed…

Many Arsenal fans are stating on twitter, or in the more traditional discussion forums such as the pub, that Samir Nasri only had 6 good months with them out of three years, and they’ll be selling at a profit – so good riddance. Add an unhealthy dose of abusive chanting at a Newcastle away game, and you’d start to think that Nasri was the worst player ever to have pulled on a red and white shirt.

Death, taxes... and hatred in football

Death, taxes, and hatred in football.

Nanana nanananana-nana Sami you’re a cunt, you’re a cunt, Sami you’re cunt!

Sergio Aguero is... Diego Maradona

“So Sergio! How are you lad? Tell us a little bit about who you’re going to be performing as tonight”

“Well, I’m keeping it in the family tonight Matthew.”

“Oh yes? You’re from the rural part of Argentina are you?”

“No, I’m from Quilmes. What’re you trying to say? I’m from Bueno Aires” Sergio Aguero stands up, sees that he’s even shorter, and jumps back on his stool.

Romelu Lukaku is..... Didier Drogba

"Tell us about the person you're going to be tonight Romelu."

"The person I'm going to be tonight Matthew, was originally born in Adijan, Cote d'Ivoire. He made his name in the French league, but was a relatively late bloomer. He moved to Chelsea in July 2004 for £24 million, after winning Player of the Year as a Marseille player. He's a bit of a battering ram, but he falls over quite a fair bit. His biggest claim to fame is that he's scored more goals than any other foreign player for Chelsea, and he was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influental people for his peacemaking efforts in his home country."

"Well Romelu, he's quite well known isn't he? Bit of a superstar isn't he? We're all guessing. Go on then, put us all out of our misery. Tell us who you're going to be tonight."

"Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be.... Didier Drobga!

"Didier Drogba!!! Well he's got the build hasn't he? Let's hope he can score some great goals without ever screaming at the camera whilst wearing flip-flops after a contentious European defeat. Tonight, playing live - Romelu Lukaku is... Didier Drogba!"

The Empty Room #4 - John Terry

England's Brave John Terry

The Empty room #3 - Duncan Ferguson

The Big Man – Duncan Ferguson

A few words of advice to any budding burglar. Stay the fuck away from Big Dunc’s house. The plush Merseyside residences of many a Liverpool and Everton star have been the target for the more scrupulous of the unscrupulous. Rich pickings are there to be had – you could even watch the player in action on one of their plasma screens, safe in the knowledge that it’ll be hours before they get back. There are of course, episodes where crime doesn’t pay. In fact, there are two well documented episodes where crime only results in a trip to casualty on the way to the cop shop.

Michael Owen / Antonio Nunez + £11M

An interesting one this… no, bear with me.

Michael Owen had been Livepool’s top goalscorer in every season since his debut in 1997-98, when he came on as a sub against Wimbledon and scared the living shit out of me and all fellow Dons present. People now see him warming the bench for Manchester United, and perhaps it’s fair enough to criticise him when he’s been quoted (On twitter) saying “Just to answer some of your tweets. Prefer playing less often in a top team than every game in a poor team. Been there a didn’t enjoy it” – great way to put noses out of joint – but come one, in the late nineties and early noughties HE WAS INCREDIBLE.

The Empty Room #2 - Vinnie Jones

Genius is not a word often used to describe Vinnie Jones. But what else can you call a man who has made a very fruitful career out of football and acting, despite have no appreciable talent for either? He’s got to have something up there, hasn’t he?

Jones built his game on intimidation, fear of violence, and actual violence. By his own admission he was not the most skilful or tactically minded of footballers, but he had physical and mental strength by the bucket-load. Every game he played, he walked the line between good physical contact sport and rule breaking. His 12 red cards proving that he didn’t always get the balance right. In fact, he’s probably very lucky not to have collected more.

Make-weights #1 Ashley Cole to Chelsea in exchange for £5 Million and William Gallas

This transfer, completed in the summer of 2006 involves two of the nice-guys of football, Ashley Cole, who had recently been embroiled in a tapping-up scandal the year before, and William Gallas – a player with such a toxic dressing room influence at Chelsea that he had allegedly threatened to score own goals if he was not given a move. So, you could look upon the deal as either win-win in terms of playing personnel, or lose-lose in terms of characters.

Ashley Cole famously nearly swerved his supercar into a tree when he first heard about Arsenal’s derisory 55 THOUSAND pounds a week improved contract offer, and had been at the centre of a tapping-up storm a year earlier, with Chelsea, Mourinho and Cole all fined by the Premier League.

The Empty Room #1 - Joey Barton

This Charming Man

There aren’t many footballers whose very mention polarises opinion as much as Joey Barton. Barton made his reputation at Manchester City, under the tutelage of manager Kevin Keegan, who brought him into the first team in the 2002-3 season. The following season, Barton established himself as a first team regular, playing 39 games and scoring one goal. He was voted fans’ Young Player of the Year in 2004. It was off the pitch that Barton really began to make a name for himself. The well documented incidents of ill-discipline including stubbing a cigar out in a youth player’s eye (To be fair, Jamie Tandy had been trying to set fire to Barton’s shirt) and then attacking a 15 year old fan in Thailand (To be fair, oh no – that’s inexcusable). Around this time, Joey Barton to his credit had a good hard look at himself. He’s been involved with Tony Adams’ Sporting Chance Clinic, and admitted that he’s an alcoholic. Heaven knows, he was miserable then. He resolved to turn himself around, and again started making the news in terms of being a footballer, rather than a thug. Sadly, it seems that Joey was having a hard time putting the behavioural tools learnt at the sporting Chance clinic into action. He believed that he was able to control himself, and in that regard he’s proven himself wrong time and time again.

The Dark Arts of FC Barcelona

The devil's best trick is to persuade you that he doesn't exist!

Baudelaire knew nothing of FC Barcelona, having breathed his last 32 years before the Catalan club was founded. But his words can be used to describe the victim complex that Les Cules have been trading on for years. Perhaps that’s a little unfair. No-one would deny that the region of Catalonia was victimised during the reign of Franco from 1936-1974. During those years the club really did symbolise the spirit of resistance, club president Josep Sunyol was executed by Francoist soldiers in 1936, and after the civil war the club was made to change its name into Castilian Spanish, the Catalan flag was removed from the crest and meanwhile Real Madrid romped to domestic and European success.

These days it’s Real Madrid playing catch-up. With Barcelona dominating on the pitch, flexing equal financial muscle and chasing and aggressive transfer policy, the romance has all but gone form the Catalan stronghold.