The last time I looked, Sky Bet odds make Chelsea 1/12  to lift the title for the fifth time in their history. I don’t know much about these things, but I guess this parsimonious price is a reflection not only of our lead, but also the fact that we’ve been the Premier League’s best team this season, unbeaten at home, top scorers away and with the best defensive record in the division. What more could you want from a team destined for flagship status in a few weeks time? Well, quite a lot it seems. By all accounts we are somewhat spent and staggering over the Premiership line, especially when compared to current title-winning rivals plying their trade at the Emirates and Old Trafford. And what a trade they now ply! True to the type of folklore coverage that will never cloak our club, Arsenal and ManU are back on form and playing ’the beautiful game’- a game for which they are renowned, ever since Herbert Chapman dominated and the Busby Babes delighted.    

 

Moreover, Arsenal, in the well-chosen words of Wenger,  “…can smell we can score goals. There is something happening. We have good mentality and good cohesion. They are ready to fight for each other.” So too United who, apparently, have finally been moulded into the shape LVG had had in mind all along, or at least since spending the best part of £215 million on its preparatory infrastructure. Worried? Perhaps we should be, as both these forces for good in the beautiful game still have to play Chelsea, THE major force for evil [intent-wise] and we know what Sky will do when promoting a contest between Good and Evil, don’t we? I know it has started to bother me, or at least it did until I read the following article by Tony Evans and found consolation in my total agreement with it…  

 

“The most nauseating words in football are “the beautiful game”. Like its equally appalling offspring “sexy football”, it completely misrepresents what is good about the sport. It is appropriate that Pelé popularised the phrase. The beautiful game exalts the cult of personality and downgrades teamwork and hard graft. It values goals and despises tackles, serving up a cheap, vacuous shade of competition. It likes flicks and juggling and thinks they provide “entertainment”; the sort of skills that can be cobbled together in jump-cut highlight reels that never show the viewer where the ball ends up.

 

The beautiful game is in thrall to the camera. Its apotheosis is Cristiano Ronaldo, bare-chested and preening, deliberately drawing every lens and sucking all the limelight away from his Champions League-winning team-mates while expressing the self-awareness of Derek Zoolander. Of course Ronaldo is a great player. Real Madrid are a splendid side. Lionel Messi is magnificent. So are Barcelona. Spain’s big two should be among the best. They have the ability to hoover up the most globe’s most talented players. But they are rancid institutions that are riven with ugly politics and awash with cash. They are among the most avaricious and cynical clubs in existence. By rights, they should be held up as the bad guys.

 

Instead, they draw fans like malign magnets. They have carved up Spain and are colonialising the rest of the world. They want to take over the planet. They are Costa and Starbucks; McDonald’s and Burger King; Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Their dream is to divorce support from locality and become the ultimate global “brands”. The big English clubs want the same. They are lagging, though. The Spanish giants are just so watchable. Real put nine goals past Granada yesterday. Ronaldo scored five. It is not because La Liga is weak but because they would rout Queens Park Rangers or Leicester City in the same manner. Celebrate the goals, the beauty. Who cares about the competition? It is entertainment, not sport.

 

A friend who is a child of the beautiful game dreams about his team winning 12-0. He believes that it would be better than winning a trophy; certainly more pleasurable than a plain, dull League Cup final. “It would be lovely,” he said. It would not be. It would be about as exciting as the fake, tired Latin commentators’ cry of “Goooooooooooooal”. There is no loveliness in a rout. There is a point it becomes bullying. When Liverpool beat Stromsgodset 11-0 in 1974, the Kop began to become restive after the sixth goal. The mood at Anfield changed. They began booing their own team and cheering the Norwegian side. The night may have its place in the record books but it was a joyless experience, as one-sided as the SAS on a grouse shoot.

 

Football once had a truer title. It was the People’s Game, played by co-workers, churchgoers and students. It valued teamwork, the creation of units greater than the sum of their parts. The emergence of the galactico era has changed this. The biggest ego, the biggest talent overshadows everything. At the Nou Camp it is Lionel Messi. Even brilliant players such as Alexis Sánchez become spear-carriers to the resident superstar, chewed up and spat out by the maelstrom of ego. It is even worse at the Bernabéu, as Gareth Bale will testify. The collections of individuals that Real and Barcelona have gathered make them unstoppable by all but a few sides, but how much are they teams?

 

They are harbingers of a dreadful future in which a handful of clubs compete among themselves in an incestuous and hateful cycle. It has even produced a perverted version of fandom - to praise Messi or Ronaldo is seen to be implicit criticism of the other. Any equivocation is shouted down by both sides. The projection of the club’s identity and ego on to these individuals have produced a new sort of icon.

If that is the beauty they are talking about, they can keep it. And as great as these Real and Barcelona teams are, I would be happy if neither club won another game.”

 

Tony Evans (The Times, April 6th, 2015)

 

Probably written by the self-confessed Liverpool fan currently at a low ebb, hitting out blindly against the last destructive pillagers of his team (Barca) and the next likely invaders to come up the Mersey (Real or the Arse, to plunder Sterling) the piece nevertheless hits home with great force, the one-two being a powerful straight jab in praise of the team ethic, followed by a knock-out punch delivered to the chin of the so-called ’beautiful game’. Granted, this double whammy could also have been directed at Chelsea, but I doubt it, and, even if it was, any inference looks like a haymaker failing to hit its intended target. For instance, can anyone criticise Jose when it comes to discarding teamwork in favour of the cult of personality? Awash with money, maybe, but did we not part with £50m of it (to Liverpool, no less) and since that excess have we, with a net profit on recent signings, self-evidently learnt our lesson?

 

No, this piece has targeted clubs, but Chelsea is not one of them, nor do we deserve to be, albeit that ’branding’ does leave us somewhat ‘branded’ in the truest sense of the word, if not unbowed. For, like gaining the lowest level Champions League qualification place, becoming the ultimate global brand is not something your average fan dreams about, it is merely a [trophy-less] necessity for survival on Planet Big Club - whereas the way you play the game when you get there is another matter entirely. Arsenal and United are back playing as only they can, something we are struggling to do, and even if we did summon the beast within to take us to the title, that is exactly how our game would be portrayed when compared to the beauty on show at the moment. I might be wrong, but I wouldn’t bet on it.       

 

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We played 'beautiful' football for getting on for 20 minutes against Stoke, I think we'll see more of it more often. I too could be wrong, but I sense a positive shift in the Blues.

 The collections of individuals that Real and Barcelona have gathered make them unstoppable by all but a few sides, but how much are they teams?

 

 

Am I the only person who thought that Barcelona at the peak of their powers (a few years ago under Pep) were beautiful not because they were a collection of individuals, but because they were a fantastic, cohesive,hive-minded unit? They were seemingly telepathic in their passing and the beauty of their ball movement was matched by the ferocity with which they won the ball back. I suppose people see things differently but I wouldn't really lump Barcelona and Madrid together.

 The collections of individuals that Real and Barcelona have gathered make them unstoppable by all but a few sides, but how much are they teams?

 

 

Am I the only person who thought that Barcelona at the peak of their powers (a few years ago under Pep) were beautiful not because they were a collection of individuals, but because they were a fantastic, cohesive,hive-minded unit? They were seemingly telepathic in their passing and the beauty of their ball movement was matched by the ferocity with which they won the ball back. I suppose people see things differently but I wouldn't really lump Barcelona and Madrid together.

 

I'd go along with that. Real Madrid have always been a collection of individuals but Barcelona have always been a team. Even now.

 

 

The last time I looked, Sky Bet odds make Chelsea 1/12  to lift the title for the fifth time in their history. I don’t know much about these things, but I guess this parsimonious price is a reflection not only of our lead, but also the fact that we’ve been the Premier League’s best team this season, unbeaten at home, top scorers away and with the best defensive record in the division. What more could you want from a team destined for flagship status in a few weeks time? Well, quite a lot it seems. By all accounts we are somewhat spent and staggering over the Premiership line, especially when compared to current title-winning rivals plying their trade at the Emirates and Old Trafford. And what a trade they now ply! True to the type of folklore coverage that will never cloak our club, Arsenal and ManU are back on form and playing ’the beautiful game’- a game for which they are renowned, ever since Herbert Chapman dominated and the Busby Babes delighted.    

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I can't help but agree with some of that. ManU and Arsenal do play more attractive football then us right now and we have faltered a little this season. Let's be honest here, we wouldn't be winning the league this season if it was based on our recent form compared to those two (Last 6 games, Arsenal are 18 points out of 18, ManU 15 and we are 14)

 

We were the best team, by far , at the start of the season and were playing perfect football. Better then those two are playing right now even.

 

EDIT: If it was down to the last 12 games we would be fourth. Behind even Liverpool.

Edited April 7, 201511 yr by Crem

As much as I don't particularly care for them I wouldn't lump Barcelona and Madrid together back then either but wouldn't be surprised to see their ethos to change in the future...

Am I the only person who thought that Barcelona at the peak of their powers (a few years ago under Pep) were beautiful not because they were a collection of individuals, but because they were a fantastic, cohesive,hive-minded unit? They were seemingly telepathic in their passing and the beauty of their ball movement was matched by the ferocity with which they won the ball back. I suppose people see things differently but I wouldn't really lump Barcelona and Madrid together.

 

No I agree with that too, it's one of many reasons why I will always consider Messi to be a better player than Ronaldo. In a way Sergio Busquets is the poster child for this style or spirit of playing football.

I used to love the way Ashley Cole kept Messi in his pocket, now that was beautiful to me....Sigh

http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2015/04/10/gary-neville-names-his-premier-league-team-of-the-season/

http://hereisthecity.com/en-gb/2015/04/10/gary-neville-names-his-premier-league-team-of-the-season/

Brilliant.

 

this piece has targeted clubs, but Chelsea is not one of them

I disagree.

 

Their dream is to divorce support from locality and become the ultimate global “brands”. The big English clubs want the same.

I think he has Chelsea firmly in his sights. Tony Evans is an old-school Scouser who pines for the days when we were sh*t as much as anyone.

You are right, though, about José being above criticism 'when it comes to discarding teamwork in favour of the cult of personality'.

IEDIT: If it was down to the last 12 games we would be fourth. Behind even Liverpool.

 

And if it was down to the first 12 games we'd be top, United 4th, Arsenal 8th and Liverpool 11th.

And if the lads keep it up, they'll break the record for longest time leading the league in a season. Add that to the record for most goals scored in a season, fewest goals conceded in a season and most points ever won in a season and I think that's a beautiful thing.

might not of won the title as often as they should have in the past decade but it's been done in spectacular fashion when won

Edited April 11, 201511 yr by Barry Bridges