Scott Murray's Blog, page 226

Football Weekly Extra: the end of Fergie time

On today's emotionally charged Football Weekly Extra, James Richardson has Barry Glendenning, Jacob Steinberg, Scott Murray and special mystery guest Kevin Kilbane in the pod, and we're talking about you-know-who after he you-know-what-ed. Will football ever be the same again? Is David Moyes the most underwhelming choice to take over? Have you seen how much there is on about SAF on our website?

Having wiped away the tears, we then move on to the business at the top and bottom of the Premier League, where Tottenham look to be up to their old tricks of making life hard for themselves as they try to clinch fourth spot, while Wigan, who this weekend take on Manchester City in the FA Cup final, look like they might just have run out of anti-relegation potion.

If that's not enough to keep you going, there's also a chat with CNN's Pedro Pinto about the fun and games of the Portuguese league, and plenty about the play-offs. And Kevin Kilbane used to play the game, so we're a bit more informed about everything than usual.

Jimbo's paper review will be with you on Friday morning, and – whisper it quietly – it looks like Barney Ronay and Amy Lawrence will be joining us on Monday.

(And if you've been having trouble downloading the pod recently, we are investigating. You might be best getting the app or heading to our page on SoundCloud if you're having troubles with iTunes).

James RichardsonBen GreenBarry GlendenningScott MurrayJacob Steinberg

Football transfer rumours: Wayne Rooney to Chelsea, PSG or Bayern?

Today's chitter-chatter cites exceptional circumstances

It's another one of those mornings. The ones where you awake to suddenly remember what happened. That no, it wasn't all a dream, the events of the day before really did occur, and now nothing will ever be the same again.

You know the kind: you finally told her you love her; you lost patience and smacked him in the mouth; you've made off with the contents of the till and you're stuck in some godforsaken motel a couple of hours outside Phoenix, Arizona; you were cleaning the Higgs boson collider, you were only trying to help, and now you're being chased around by a supermassive black hole, if only you'd learned the lesson of the first time and just let the damn thing gather dust.

Fergie's done one, as well, of course, which means the particles would have probably been acting in an erratic fashion anyway. Everything's started moving around independently of everything else, bereft of moorings. It's chaos. It's like we're living in a rogue state two hours after the latest coup. It's like a county council meeting with two new Ukip members acting up at the back. If nothing else, Fergie at least brought order. The Mill misses Fergie. The Mill is suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

David Moyes is going to be the new boss of Manchester United for at least 44 days, and while everything stays the same, everything changes. He'll give Phil Neville a place on his coaching team, as well as Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, and he'll take Leighton Baines with him from Goodison.

But the very first thing Moyes will do, unless he's going to drain a bottle of Bells and set fire to Fergie's desk in the car park, is get rid of Wayne Rooney. He's got no beef with his former Everton charge, despite having once taken him to court, but business is business. And after telling the young man that he only got all of the healthy follicles on the top of his head by cheating, he'll pack him off to Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain or Bayern Munich.

His place in the Manchester United side as creator supreme will be taken by returning hero Cristiano Ronaldo. Sounds great, but never go back, is our advice. Unless the covering defender's committed himself.

Everton need a new manager too and are looking for a man capable of filling Moyesy's shoes, which were approximately 50 sizes smaller than Ferguson's the last time everyone got their feet measured. Roberto Martínez heads the chase, although Michael Laudrup, Neil Lennon, Vitor Pereira of Porto, Martin O'Neill, Mark Hughes and Gus Poyet are also in the frame.

As indeed is the aforementioned Phil Neville, which suggests that even old theatrical warhorses like Bill Kenwright get starstruck by what they see on TV, and if brother Gary had managed to go the whole hog and work a song-and-dance routine or two into his circling-defenders-and-making-them-go-back-and-forth-a-bit Sky Sports act, Phil would also be in the running to replace the Queen, the pope, and Ant & Dec.

In other news, Daniel Agger will turn down a move to Barcelona but Pepe Reina might go; Costel Pantilimon wants away from Manchester City; and Arsenal are planning a bid for QPR striker Loïc Rémy. All of which would usually get much more prominence, but how jaded would we have to become not to cite exceptional circumstances? Our brevity shows we still care.

Wayne RooneyManchester UnitedEvertonDavid MoyesSir Alex FergusonScott Murray
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Chelsea v Tottenham Hotspur – as it happened | Scott Murray

Minute-by-minute report: Spurs came back twice to deny Chelsea victory in an end-to-end battle which keeps both team's Champions League hopes alive. Scott Murray was watching

Scott Murray

Alex Ferguson retires as manager of Manchester United – as it happened

Sir Alex Ferguson has confirmed he is stepping down after nearly 27 years at Old Trafford. Here's how an historic day panned out.

Jacob SteinbergScott MurrayBarry Glendenning

Premier League: 10 talking points from this weekend's action | Guardian writers

Everton could be so much more, Carroll's qualities do not suit poke and prod football and how will Hull and Cardiff fare?

Carroll's folk-star qualities do not translate

Roy Hodgson's assistant Ray Lewington was in the stands at Upton Park on Saturday. The assumption was he was there to cast a selectorial eye over Andy Carroll, who has been drawing some quietly favourable notices at West Ham: fully fit now and playing to his strictly linear strengths in a Sam Allardyce team who are sensibly, but not overly direct in their approach. On Saturday the ball tended to arrive in the region of Carroll's forehead from the wide midfield areas rather than via the cul-de-sac football of the punted ball from the full-back or the goalkeeping hoof.

Carroll was judged man of the match by many present and looked the most likely source of a goal. There is some uncredited finesse to Carroll's game at times but he is still, for all his good qualities, in a parallel universe when it comes to the requirements of an international attacker. This is not to belittle him. He is simply playing a different game, our own indigenous, permissively folk-football version of how to go about scoring and creating goals. Away from these shores his strengths are often untranslatable. Two occasions stuck in the mind: first his attempt to control a dinked pass having found a sudden pocket of space "between the lines": the ball struck Carroll's shin and careered away to a Newcastle midfielder.

Then in the second half, with the ball hanging in the air above Fabricio Coloccini, Carroll came steaming across the Newcastle back-line and launched himself from 10 feet away, hurtling across and above Coloccini to meet the ball with a thud of his mighty forehead. The net result: huge applause from three sides of the ground as the ball raced out for a throw-in 30 yards away. A-plus for effort, not to mention gymnastic awareness. But this is simply not what is required in the mannered tactical poke and prod of international football.

For now at least Carroll should be prized for his strengths, left to graze on his indigenous pastures where he will continue to look an excellent Premier League striker. Picking him for England, though, is a bit like asking a bricklayer to do dentistry. Both are highly skilled, but the job at hand requires a discreet and entirely separate brand of small-scale precision. Barney Ronay

Manchester United deserved nothing and got nothing

Sir Alex Ferguson said Howard Webb gave United nothing all afternoon in their defeat to Chelsea and even went so far as to complain that Chelsea kept surrounding the referee and attempting to influence his decisions. Poor old Roy Keane and pals, evidently forgotten already. What Ferguson did not do, to his credit, was attempt to suggest United should have had a free-kick when Ramires dispossessed Wayne Rooney in the build-up to the goal. Webb got that one right, the tackle was clean. United even won the ball back in their own half and should have prevented it ever reaching Juan Mata but gave it away again almost immediately. As Ferguson admitted, United did not play well enough to deserve anything. Paul Wilson

Everton could be so much more if they were proactive

Everton are now almost certain to finish above Liverpool in the top division for the second season in a row, the first time they've pulled off this particular trick since 1937. This no doubt gives some of the Goodison faithful that long-awaited opportunity to dust off a chant of "We all agree/Lawton is better than Nieuwenhuys/Où sont les neiges d'antan?", but others may question the exact relevance of the stat to the modern world.

After all, while a little more bragging rights are always welcome, it's not been much of a bar for Everton to clear: rather like their counterparts of the 1930s, this Liverpool team are nothing to write home about. It's also worth noting that Everton's 1937 vintage went on to win the title two years later, something the cream of 2013 won't be doing any time soon.

For a side with Champions League pretentions, the modern Toffeemen are strangely toothless up front, a reactive side rather than a bunch of go-getters, which is maybe why a campaign that promised so much will end up delivering nothing.

To illustrate the point, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham have all scored twice at Anfield this season. Everton's draw there is no worse than City or Chelsea's result, and it gave them a point more than Spurs managed, but the lack of cutting edge has cost them over the long haul: Everton have lost fewer games than anybody bar United and City, and it wouldn't have taken too many draws turned into wins to nudge them up past their more free-scoring rivals and into third.

It might be too much to ask of David Moyes to unearth the new Tommy Lawton – and anyway, as Sylvain Distin will attest, he'd not get many decisions these days – but Everton desperately need some extra firepower (and perhaps a more proactive attitude) if they're to best their red rivals for a third year in a row and, surely more importantly, make it back into the Champions League. Scott Murray

Spurs need Bale more than ever at Chelsea

André Villas-Boas gets annoyed, understandably, when the one-man team stuff is levelled at Tottenham. "Those questions are extremely unfair," the manager said. "The team has to produce for our players to enjoy this moment of brilliance." But it did not stop anyone from thinking that if the club are to qualify for the Champions League, Gareth Bale has to deliver in the big game at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday. Tottenham have been undermined by the lack of goals from their centre-forwards while the hamstrings of Mousa Dembélé and Aaron Lennon appear to be feeling the strain. Bale did the business against Southampton on Saturday and in a match that Tottenham need to win, he must surely find something extra once again. David Hytner

Wigan's huge win may cost them the Cup

Victory came at a huge cost for Wigan. Chasing back in his attempts to stop Billy Jones shooting, Jean Beausejour injured his hamstring and is set to miss the league games with Swansea and Arsenal as well as the FA Cup final. Only Shaun Maloney has set up more goals for them than the Chilean and, with Maynor Figueroa already ruled out for the season, manager Roberto Martínez does not have an obvious option at left wing-back for the next three games. The midfielder Roger Espinoza ended up operating out of position at The Hawthorns and may have to stand in at Wembley. Richard Jolly

The Merseyside derby needed a professional irritant

Luis Suárez has been mentioned once or twice on these blogs before, so let's not go over old ground, nobody will budge an inch. But look what happens when there's no grit in the oyster. Has there been a more flaccid Merseyside derby in recent memory? What the game could have done with a professional irritant like Suárez, or perhaps a Kevin Sheedy flicking Vs at the Kop before giving the Kemlyn Road some as well. (Just imagine the pious handwringing if he pulled that stunt today.) Suárez was deservedly missing this time, for acting the fully stocked toolbox against Chelsea, but his absence informs the bigger picture: the foam-mouthed Disgrace Brigade, thinking of The Kids, seriously want this exceptional talent drummed out of English football. Which is a valid viewpoint, unquestionably, but here's what the Premier League will be left with if they get their way: a shell containing no pearl. Scott Murray

Norwich may need Lambert's influence again

There was no real needle in the sporadic booing of Paul Lambert at Carrow Road on Saturday, which is just as well, since the Canaries may yet need their former manager to do them a favour. Aston Villa's showdown with Wigan on the final day has long been billed as do-or-die for both those clubs but Villa's recent surge means it could be of more significance to Norwich, whose desperate bluntness in front of goal does not offer much hope of them saving themselves against WBA or Manchester City. Paul Doyle

Why is Arsène Wenger so reluctant to unleash the Ox?

Arsenal are winning games but are doing so by such slender margins that their supporters have been driven to distraction – any old distraction, really, rather than watching the 89 minutes and 40 seconds of listless keep-ball after Theo Walcott's goal at Loftus Road on Saturday, for example.

Another frustrated viewer is Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who has started only two of the last 15 league games. His emergence from the bench usually adds more than a little zip to Arsenal's play but, as on Saturday, the 19-year-old's cameo appearances have usually been limited to five, or sometimes 10 minutes.

Having enjoyed an impressive first season at the Emirates in 2011-12 and then being selected by Roy Hodgson for Euro 2012 with England, Oxlade-Chamberlain had been expected to make even more of an impact in this campaign. Four goals in 36 appearances suggest he has not, but only 17 of those have been starts. No wonder the England Under-21 manager, Stuart Pearce, feels he could use the services of Oxlade-Chamberlain at this summer's European Championship in Israel. This is one player who probably shouldn't be too tired from his season's exertions. Paul Chronnell

Swansea's wait for a penalty goes on

A tale of two penalties that were not in Man City's 0-0 draw with Swansea. And how Swansea didn't get one – what would have been their first league spot-kick in 35 league games – was astonishing. Michu touched the ball past Matija Nastasic and was brought crashing to the ground but, somehow, referee Mike Jones did not see it. Everyone else did. City also claimed a penalty when Edin Dzeko tumbled over the outstretched leg of Chico Flores. Dzeko was looking for it, though, and Jones, this time, probably ruled correctly. So a 50% success rate for him. Not quite good enough, really. Russell Kempson

Can Hull and Cardiff avoid Reading's fate?

Promotion to the Premier League is said to be worth £100m-plus but both the clubs already going up from the Championship, are in a stick or twist situation. Champions Cardiff and the runners-up, Hull, both need substantial reinforcement if they are to be competitive at the higher level, but both have also flirted with financial ruin recently enough to talk of "prudent" spending, rather than pushing the boat out. Will their supporters be happy with the approach favoured by Reading, who went up, spent next to nothing to safeguard their future and were relegated or will they expect the owners to "have a go", in the knowledge that the parachute payments should avert penury? Malky Mackay and Steve Bruce both talk of careful expenditure, but will be aware that too much thrift will leave them like Brian McDermott. Sacked. Joe Lovejoy

Premier LeagueBarney RonayPaul WilsonScott MurrayDavid HytnerRichard JollyPaul DoyleRussell KempsonJoe Lovejoy
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QPR v Arsenal – as it happened | Scott Murray

Minute-by-minute report: Theo Walcott scored the fastest Premier League goal of the season to give Arsenal a slender victory. Scott Murray was watching

Scott Murray

Championship final day – as it happened | Scott Murray

Hull drew and went up, Watford lost, Peterborough went down and Leicester snuck into the play-offs

Scott Murray

The Fiver | Hot managerial chat | Scott Murray

Click here to have the Fiver sent to your inbox every weekday at 5pm, or if your usual copy has stopped arriving

LONDON CALLING

On the subject of hot managerial chat, it's been Chelsea this, Chelsea that, and Chelsea the other for the best part of the week. Most of this has been, needless to say, down to José Mourinho, who is chipping off from the Bernabéu before Real Madrid send him skittering down La Castellana on the business portion of his pantaloons, because he's not actually done particularly well there when you factor in all the noise he's made, has he? Mourinho now wants to manage where the people still love him, which everyone has assumed is Chelsea, though the Fiver is hoping he's about to send a curveball whistling past everyone's lugs and pop up again at Uniao de Leiria.

But some of that hot chat has been down to Rafa Benítez, too, who is suddenly one game away from becoming only the third manager, behind Giovanni O'Trapattoni and Udo Lattek, to win a European trophy at three different clubs. Should Chelsea prevail at the upcoming Big Vase final against Benfica, they'll become the one and only English club to have lifted all three major European titles, though Rafa in fairness will just be thinking about the embellishments on his own CV, his reputation restored to the extent that he might still be in with a shout of a top European gig at clubs such as PSG, Real Madrid and possibly even Chelsea if Mourinho takes the Uniao de Leiria job like we reckon.

So with all this going on, it's rather nice that the week is ending with a snippet of managerial news emanating from elsewhere. Up north, Arsène Wenger has announced that he would quite like to stay at Arsenal for the foreseeable future – and despite famously suffering from severe myopia, it appears he's peering all the way past the end of his contract next year. "I want to stay if I do well and if I consider or the club considers that I do well," he said this morning, before chucking a further egg into the pudding with a thinly disguised transfer pledge. "We have gone through a period that was very sensitive, we are coming out of it now, in a much stronger position financially. I believe the club is in a very strong position for the future."

This is bad news for younger Arsenal fans who have only been sentient since the advent of Twitter, for none of them will have seen Wenger lead the club to a trophy in their self-absorbed lives, and have been carping accordingly. But older and wiser Gooners will recall Wenger's many earlier triumphs – three league titles and four FA Cups – as well as the time he invented water and broccoli and introduced them to the squad in 1996, giving several players the bends. So most folk will be pleased to hear the 63-year-old's announcement. Certainly the Fiver, for one, hopes Wenger stays on for many more seasons – if only so we can witness the inevitable hilarious touchline brouhaha with his bitter rival Mourinho, Arsenal having drawn big-spending Uniao de Leiria in 2016-17 Big Cup, naturally.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE THIS WEEKEND

Saturday: follow the final day of the Championship with our clockwatch from midday BST, then a Premier League version from 3pm, QPR v Arsenal at 5.30pm and also Dortmund v Bayern at the same time. Sunday: it's Merseyside derby day, with MBM updates from 1.30pm, followed at 4pm by Manchester United v Chelsea.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"We teach basic expressions but also have demonstrations with er0tic paraphernalia so they can learn the names, how to use them and propose them" – nominative determinism's Igor Fuchs, a volunteer with Brazil's Association of Pr0stitutes, reveals 300 ladies of the night have signed up for English classes to welcome football fans ahead of next year's World Cup.

FIVER LETTERS

"For a man with a reputation for original analysis and insight, is Gary Neville not going to come up with a catchier name for his hotel? I can see that while the £13.3m Old Trafford Supporters Club hotel has its clientele identified, surely (Ferg's) Fledglings Lodge or Red Nev Suites would be more memorable? Maybe Fiver readers could suggest something better?" – Joe Hynes.

"As well as being Towel Day (yesterday's Fiver letters), 25 May is also the 65th birthday of Klaus Meine, lead singer of Berlin Wall-averse rockers, Scorpions. I also don't like conforming to stereotypes either but I'd happily wager a few Euros that the fans of Bayern and Dortmund celebrate this footballing power shift with a few bars of 'Wind of Change' (while holding lighters)" – Marc Sinfield.

"Laudable as it is that Fifa will give referees the power to halt games if there is r@cist chanting (yesterday's Bits and Bobs), I can't help worrying that supporters of the Fiver's STOP FOOTBALL campaign will get the wrong idea" – Phil Russell.

• Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. Also, if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. Today's winner of our prizeless letter o' the day prize is: Marc Sinfield.

JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES

We keep trying to point out the utter futility of advertising an online dating service "for interesting people" in the Fiver to the naive folk who run Guardian Soulmates, but they still aren't having any of it. So here you go – sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly romantics who would never dream of going out with you.

BITS AND BOBS

After Chelsea and Benfica were each allocated a pathetic 9,800 seats for Big Vase final at the Amsterdam ArenA [37% of the gate, the rest packed off to sponsors, official partners and Uefa's good old 'football family' – Fiver Ed], the inevitable online bunfight has begun, with tickets already going for £2,400.

Wigan boss Roberto Martínez is scratching his head at news that former Barnsley, Portsmouth and Wigan defender Arjan de Zeeuw has joined the Dutch dibble. "It was a surprise because he had many walks of life while he was a player," said Martínez. "He was studying forensic medicine when he was here and then for a period he was a teacher. But a policeman? No."

Fifa will have entirely cleaned up its act by 2015, with Sepp Blatter saying the reform of the organisation hit by repeated scandals, bribery claims and lengthy bans of their members, will be all done in two years. "This will be the last term of reform," announced Sepp, reaching for a brush and the edge of the carpet.

Dvd O'Lry has been awarded £3.34m in compensation after his 2011 sacking from Al Ahli FC. "I hope my case provides reassurance to all managers and coaches working all over the world," he trousered.

Lord Ferg is looking to add "one or two bodies" to his Manchester United squad this summer. "Tweak is the right word," he said, after being asked to find a shorter way of saying "to make a minor adjustment".

And five years after announcing his retirement in 2008, Republic O'Ireland full-back Stephen Carr has announced his retirement again. "I am going on 37 and now is the time to bow out," he creaked.

GUARDIAN MASTERCLASSES

There are still places available for the next of Big Paper/Website's 'How to be a football journalist' masterclasses on 18 May. If you're interested, you can sign up here.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

A double fill of AC Jimbo in Football Weekly Very Extra, plus his European papers round-up.

STILL WANT MORE?

"Blah, blah, blah. I don't particularly like talking about football." David Hytner catches Benoît Assou-Ekotto on typically fine form in Big Paper's big interview.

"Oh no. Oh no, please. Are we really going to do this again?" Barney Ronay is on whine form as he wonders why anyone would think a José Mourinho return would be a good thing.

"What a terrible article." There's some Below The Line gold in this pretty damn fine Joy of Six on sides dismantled too soon.

And the Fiver is out of rhyme form so will have to just tell you that there are 10 things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend.

SIGN UP TO THE FIVER

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ENJOY THE LONG WEEKEND. SEE YOU TUESDAYScott Murray
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Football transfer rumours: Jürgen Klopp to Manchester United? | Scott Murray

Today's chat will be in and out, you won't notice a thing

When the legendary Manchester United manager Matt Busby hung up his trilby in 1969, names put forward by the press as his successor included Jock Stein, Don Revie and Bill Shankly. Hard to believe these days, of course, but those were the rumours of the time. Not quite so hard to believe nowadays is that, with United quietly making discreet plans for life after Sir Alex Ferguson, the modern press pack have yet to link the post to Neil Lennon, Brian McDermott or Brendan Rodgers. How times change, eh. Instead, it seems the man in the frame is Jürgen Klopp of Borussia Dortmund, providing he can retain his soup-of-the-day temperature for the next 17 years until Fergie finally decides to do one.

Klopp's task will be even harder than it sounds, for Dortmund are doomed to lose all of their players this summer to the big boys, egads, the sorry state of modern football. Mario Götze is already halfway out of the door, while Robert Lewandowski is now a target for Chelsea, for it seems the incoming José Mourinho has been personally wooing the Pole using the quaint old-fashioned SMS text message protocol. Unless we've been misreading all that, "I want to manage where I am loved," guff, in which case Lewandowski's off to either Porto or Internazionale.

Real Madrid, meanwhile, are having a wee clearout now José's leaving the building. They've already opened all the windows, and are considering hoicking Gonzalo Higuaín out of one. Representatives of Tottenham, Manchester City and Arsenal are all down at street level, holding out a sheet.

They're also thinking about getting shot of Cristiano Ronaldo, in what could be a highly amusing summer of hot-faced panic at the Bernabéu. Ronaldo will head back to Manchester United, with either Nani or Javier Hernández heading the other way, along with £65m. Marouane Fellaini will also be making the same trip to Madrid, so that's another Everton revival nipped in the bud.

But if United don't sell Hernández to Real, they might bundle him off to Madrid neighbours Atlético, as a sweetener in a deal for young the English right-back Elliot Kebbie and the striker Radamel Falcao, who "could be as good as Alan Shearer", according to his fellow Colombian Faustino Asprilla, the contents of his skull seemingly yet to settle after all those somersaults.

So, then, a lot of exciting names featured in today's Mill. Shivers must be going up and down the spines of fans of Manchester United and Real Madrid! Meanwhile Arsenal are preparing a £10m bid for Lyon's Max Gonalons, a defensive midfielder who, it is said, is quite consistent.

Scott Murray
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Barcelona v Bayern Munich – as it happened | Scott Murray

Minute-by-minute report: Bayern reached Wembley - as we always knew they would - with a defenestration of Barcelona. Scott Murray was watching

Scott Murray