Safe standing? Really?
So we come to the end of the most extra-ordinary of seasons. I thought about waiting until Monday before writing - but with so little left to sort out, why wait?
So little? Not if you're a Manchester football fan. There's the engaging battle for 4th to be sorted out this weekend. Think about that - both Manchester clubs getting excited about the race for 4th place. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
LVG was talking this week about how it's 'unrealistic' of United fans to think that his team might be title challengers! Really? Why? That's surely the sole reason why this fading Dutch genius was brought into the club - to deliver the title? And why not after getting on for a spend of £300m?
United also announced record profits this last week. Do you know what - I'm beginning to think that we're entering a new era at Old Trafford, where simply qualifying for the C Lge is enough. United are 'new' Arsenal.
Get rid United
It was a pretty good weekend. Not because I particularly enjoyed the football - more because I couldn't stop laughing when I was watching The Saturday Club on beIN Sports. They ripped into me for my pre-season prediction of impending doom at Leicester following the appointment of Claudio Ranieri!
It's something I've addressed a number of times, so there's not much point in re-visiting it. The only consolation is that I wasn't alone. The great and the good from our business were a unified voice about Ranieri. We were ALL wrong. When you are, the best policy is to hold your hands up and admit it. I admit it - again!
What makes being wrong all the more pleasurable is that Leicester haven't just survived - they've flourished under Ranieri. I repeat - for me their title success (at least I was one of the first to be convinced by them!!!) is the greatest football story of all time.
Sir Kenny Dalglish'?
This isn't an easy one to write, for many reasons. If I'm honest, I've absolutely no idea where the next few hundred words are going to take me. I haven't thought about this piece or researched it very well, it's just going to be a whole lot of incoherent thoughts. So here goes. And stay with me, please.
I don't want to give the wrong impressions here. Hillsborough was never my fight, but I've always felt close to those battling for the long overdue result that they got yesterday (Monday).
Let me try and explain. I left Liverpool a couple of years before the disaster. The regular readers amongst you know I had four wonderful years in the City and made many good friends. My wife was born in Liverpool and grew up on The Wirral. We were with her parents the weekend after Hillsborough - I can't remember why - work, I think. Maybe it was just a family visit.
Obviously the mood, all over Merseyside, was sombre. You couldn't help be touched by it - nor the scenes of people snaking round Anfield, holding flowers which they were going to lay on the pitch, just wanting to be near their club and other like minded, stunned supporters.
Look. It's not my club so I had no right, but I was overcome by it all. I put on a suit, bought flowers myself and drove to Anfield. I wanted to do what everybody else was doing, but I felt somewhat of an interloper. I obviously knew people at the club, so when I slipped in a side gate and quietly worked my way onto The Kop no-one gave me a second glance. I put flowers down, drew breath, said a few words and cried. You couldn't help but cry. Everybody did.
Mediocre - my a**e.
'If I had been given 10 years to work with Everton by being mediocre I wouldn't accept that'.
They told me on my journalism course many years ago - never start a piece with a quote. And never start a sentence with 'and'. Too late!
I had to start with the quote because it leapt out at me in Monday morning's papers. I had to read it a couple of times to see if it had been taken out of context in anyway. Nope. It wasn't.
The headline in The Mirror read 'I can deliver glory. Moyes only brought TEN YEARS OF MEDIOCRITY'. Did he really?
Video evidence? No thanks.
Did Vardy dive? Was Jon Moss correct to penalise Wes Morgan for holding/pushing/impeding and give West Ham a pen? What was the difference between what Winston Reid did and what Vardy had done earlier? Should Leicester have had a pen when Ogbonna was brainlessly all over Huth shortly after? And was Andy Carroll right - was the award against him just to 'even things up'?
I've read everything as usual this morning (Monday). Henry Winter calls Moss a 'poor referee'. He argues that Moss had to be '100% certain' Vardy had dived in order to book him and subsequently send him off. He was Henry, or he wouldn't have got his yellow card out again. For me, it was a dive. Let's agree to disagree. Vardy has played on the edge like that all season. Good forwards can make penalties out of situations like that - get across the defender, tangle your legs up with his and go over. Vardy did parts one and two really well, but the swallow dive was embarrassing. It was a correct yellow. Few have considered his first booking perhaps wasn't.
It's over - isn't it
Other than the most ardent Leicester City fan - does anyone yet believe they're going to win the title? I haven't found anyone that does! Why?
Actually, I'm not sure I'd even find a Leicester fan that thinks they can win it if I went looking!
What a wonderfully exciting, yet equally frightening time this is for everyone connected with the club. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Ever since Leicester went top on their own, all they've done is extend their lead. They've kept on winning, passing every test, yet we still don't think they can win it. We're all still waiting for a slip. Why?
I kind of get it. It's almost certainly because they haven't been the course before. I'm constantly being told 'they don't know how to win it'. Ok, that's true. But do Spurs? No, of course not. They haven't done it since 1961 for goodness sake!