AlbionRoad.com - A fan's guide to football clubs

The British economy barely crawled out of recession in the last quarter of 2009 after an eighteen month economic downturn and football was starting to feel the pressure as more clubs ran into trouble.   However, it must be emphasised that the real threat is not to top clubs who have reliable benefactors or generate large amounts of income.  It is clubs on the fringe of the Premiership and lower down the leagues who are in difficulty.

The Premiership model remains strong with television revenue and considerable revenue from other sources including gate money.   However, it must be emphasised that both the Sky money and fans in the ground are important elements in the equation.  Clubs like Portsmouth that have one but not the other, and lack a reliable benefactor, are likely to find themselves in trouble.

Manchester United has been the focus of considerable attention in the past month as the Glazers successfully launched their £500m bond issue against the background of protests from fans.   A large banner held up by them outside Old Trafford ironically proclaimed, ‘Glazer: forever in your debt’.   Some fans have taken to wearing the gold and green scarves of the predecessor club, Newton Heath, and these scarves are hot items on the streets of Manchester.

So here we are, just over half-way through the campaign, and things are spicing up nicely. With the Manchester derby suddenly taking on some meaning and the top four's inconsistency maintaining a wide-open fixture schedule every week. With intriguing races developing for the title, Champions League berths, european places and the relegation spaces, this season is a real treat for the neutral. For those of us emotionally involved, it's traumatic and euphoric in equal doses.

Match of the Week: Aston Villa v Arsenal

It's a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object this Wednesday night as top of the table Arsenal, the league's highest scorers visit Martin O Neill's Aston Villa, who hold the league's joint best defensive record.

However, you would be mistaken for thinking that this will be a match of attack versus defense. Villa needed to show all of their attacking prowess in order to see off a plucky Blackburn team in their Carling Cup semi-final second leg, advancing to Wembley after winning a 10 goal thriller 6-4 this past Wednesday.

With a cup final appearance assured Martin O Neill's team are free to concentrate on the league, and their pursuit of a hotly contested fourth place, which brings with it a possible Champions League jackpot.

For more than a decade everyone except the most blinkered Manchester United fan has known than Gary Neville is a complete cock. Until recently though you couldn’t really say that much because he had won countless trophies and innumerable England caps. Now however, ravaged by age and injury, he is not only a cock, but also a really slow, rubbish footballer.

Which is why I’m sure I’m not alone in taking great pleasure from this week’s events at the City of Manchester stadium, where former United player Carlos Tevez demolished his previous employers, singling out Mr Neville for particular goading. After scoring from the penalty spot to put City 2 – 1 ahead, Tevez gestured for Neville to keep his mouth shut after the United bench-warmer had claimed in the press that he wasn’t worth the £25million City had paid for him. Neville, who was trotting up and down the touchline desperately praying he could grow proper facial hair, responded by giving Tevez the finger, and could rightly face an FA charge for bringing the game into disrepute.

No unfortunately not some mythical tournament where we send Cheryl Cole country-to-country to mud wrestle their own elected WAG representatives to the death (well, at least to ‘the naked’) but the age old debate between two polar enemies; the beautiful game and winning ugly.

Before the 2006 World Cup, England manager Sven Goran Eriksson took a lot of stick in the press for publicly rebutting accusations of his team’s attritional qualifying performances by saying that winning was all that matters. To date I still can’t get my head round why that was, because surely that’s exactly what you want to be hearing from someone in his position? True champions always find a way to win, and if that crucial deciding goal happens to involve a so-called ‘uncultured’ long ball, or a scrambled set-piece, then so be it. This confusion around the nature of winning itself seems to stem from another related misunderstanding; the actual job of the manager, especially at international level. It goes without saying that no coach, however inspired, can absolutely guarantee victory. The game is full of so many variables that even with the greatest set of players on the planet, nothing is ever certain. What a manager can do though is build the confidence in the team to maintain a consistent level of performance that is at the top of that group of players’ ability range, because let’s face it, apart from maybe ten or so guys around the world, most top flight professional footballers are essentially the same standard.

It’s been mighty cold these past few weeks in my city of Washington, DC. I can’t remember a spell of weather this cold this long the entire nine years I’ve lived here. Although it’s relative and if I was from somewhere up in Canada this might be as well be Palm Springs!

But all this cold and all this snow has put a damper on my soccer-playing and a review for Soccer Pro I’ve been meaning to write for the Nike Tiempo Legend III FG has become very difficult. Seeing as how I wasn’t going to get an actual game in anytime soon I decided to go out for a kickaround with my trusted Albion Road cohort Chris Ketcham to get a feel for these shoes. Still pretty cold and some snow on the ground but we pressed on.

I’ve been an adidas man for as long as I can remember. The Copa Mundial has been my shoe of choice for many, many years. But something happened with the most recent pair I picked up. They just don’t fit right towards the heel and often left me walking very gingerly afterwards. So I felt like it might be time to try out something different and give Nike a chance.