Things took a real twisted turn and while I probably wrote this much later than all the pundits, this talk will go on and on until Capello or O'Neill takes over at England helm. Still, even if you consider Capello coaching England, how will the fans react to the stable yet often boring strategy? Real did not like his style, how about England? The expectations are too high compared to other teams and let's just say, even Sven could not better expectations, even if he did better than any other since Sir Bobby. So two years back, they chose McClaren over all else, one who is a decent coach but not versatile enough in tactics when they have Allardyce and Scolari were shortlisted. It could not have been more obvious where the problems lie. Scolari fear the media, FA prefers McClaren.
So now, both have something on their plate, FA have to find a new man, and the media has the easy job of hounding for news again. The cycle goes on, until someone breaks it, and realistically, FA won't take Mourinho even if he wants to. Have they choose someone with his bullish character? I think that Manchester might be a more possible destination. Not by rumor or anything, but just by conjecture. Perhaps Sir Alex can finally retire. Maybe one more trophy can convince him, but probably before Mourinho takes up another offer. Of course, Mourinho may not take it, but it is a challenge to him, even if he is special.
As for Everton, I finally saw us slaughter an opponent, in Premiere League, against a team outside the bottom three until after the game. Still, one thing I think I need to put straight before any other side stories gets into Everton's way. We need more firepower. Cahill came back and scored. Arteta gets injured and we are pretty much in trouble. Yakubu needs decent delivery, and I still think he's overpriced. I like Yakubu, just not his price tag we paid. Hibbert needs more distribution to make him complete, ignoring the fact I like scoring non-strikers, so ignore the scoring for now. So we need more midfielders who achors midfield and scores. The current strategy is ok, and a more compact midfield to push the opposition to the side would benefit us against most offence other than Mr Samba. Anyway, I'm not expecting yearly Champions League calibre. Safe money safe future. That's all I want from Everton... A future most English fans probably could not envision for England, but a Singaporean can take for Singapore.
Singapore actually got into the third round of the World Cup qualifiers! That is a better sign than I thought. Unlike the English media, the air of arrogance that surrounded the ASEAN Cup winning or its predecessor equivalent does not seem to be there. It is a nice sight to see even though I did not have enough data to foresee this. Of course, it is easy to fall now with big guns now, but who can blame a coach who did so much with only players in local leagues? I guess hard work pays off and I can only hope the local papers does not start its arrogance act again. I pretty much stopped following local sports reports. One, the reports are not from the agency, which also mean I read the same report before they print it. Two, the reports are often Liverpool, Man United biased. No explanation needed. Three, England biased, which overhypes England players. They are good players, but if the Greeks can win the last Euro, one can see that hype spells for nothing without result. Like many said, let the game do the talking. I can have my conjectures, but I will take it as a right or wrong view after the result is out, unlike many reports I see.
