The Flog Awards 2010/11!

The 2010/11 campaign is drawing to a close so Flog is having its end of season awards edition. When you ask? Now I answer.


Best Player:
There’s much competition, obviously; Vidic, Van der Vaart, Bale, Nasri, Hernandez, Tevez, Kompany, Adam. All have had terrific seasons, but it’s hard to look beyond one name: Scott Parker. Without him, West Ham would already be down. With seven points.

Best Team:
Manchester United for winning the league, Chelsea for losing it, Tottenham for their Champions League campaign, Liverpool for their resurgence? There’s only one place you’d want a season ticket this year, and that’s Blackpool. Let’s hope they stay up, maybe then they’ll stop getting such patronising coverage from Match of the Day.

Best Manager:
Despite the previous, I’m not on the Ian Holloway bandwagon. Yes, he’s entertaining, but then so is David Pleat, and for all the wrong reasons, like a pissed Uncle at Christmas. Kenny Dalglish deserves a mention for the complete overhaul of squad mentality (and attacking options, it could be argued) at Liverpool after their awful early start, but nobody should underestimate what a wonderful job Owen Coyle has done at Bolton Wanderers. With mostly the same squad as his predecessor Gary Megson, he has made Bolton not just a functional and energetic side to play against, but a pleasure to watch. Plus, they scored the best team goal of the season in November against Blackpool.

Best individual performance:

There might be competition, but nothing comes close to Gareth Bale vs Inter Milan at White Hart Lane in November. Nothing. And in particular, Inter’s Brazilian right back Maicon, who was given a torrid time for 90 minutes against the Welshman, and despite not managing to get on the scoresheet that night, Bale did set up two of Spurs’ three goals with a mixture of intense pace, pinpoint crossing and effortless skill. You would think destroying the reigning European champions (twice) would have sent Bale’s psyche into the stratosphere, but he has kept his feet firmly on the ground since that night. Now he just needs to work on his interviews. Um...

Best Goal:


Kompany and Richards attempt to
make the worst human pyramid ever

Can you really look past Wayne Rooney in the Manchester derby? I mean, really? Since that goal, Rooney has slowly worked his way back to somewhere near his best, when early on in the season it looked like that may have been impossible, not least in a Manchester United shirt. The effort had certainly been there; in particular against West Brom when he turned his ankle nastily and had to walk off the field, only to return for the final minutes- barely able to walk- in order to secure the 3 points with 11 men on the pitch. That was a glimmer of his old self but this wonderful goal meant Rooney was back to doing what he does best: being fucking awesome.

Best Team Performance:

...perhaps of all time, in club football. Barcelona 5 - 0 Real Madrid. Because Real Madrid scored nil. And Barcelona scored five. Effortless, and even the Americans could see that.

The Rio Ferdinand Award for Outstanding Contribution to Twitterature:

@AaronLennonpsl and @thecurtisdavies, more commonly known as Tottenham's Aaron Lennon and Birmingham City's Curtis Davies, and their rather epic conversation about bats and eagles on 10th February this year. After Lennon tweeted about the BBC series Human Planet being on the shiny picture box we regular folk call a television, Davies exclaimed about the size of the bats featured in the show. Lennon's response: 'lol them bats were massive bruv that eagle is a joke as well'. The BBC will be happy to know that neither had seen the programme before but this particular episode apparently led Lennon to be 'on it' from that point on. Gripping.

Best Fans:

Wembley stadium is slowly growing into it's responsibilities in English football, in that it needs to be a big stage for the big games, and whether you agree or disagree with the FA Cup semi-finals being played there (I am in the second camp) it has to be said that Stoke City's fans took advantage of the stadium's acoustics better than any team to visit it so far. The only set of people in the world to ever make 'Why, why, why, Delilah' sound utterly, utterly terrifying, it was as rousing for the neutral as it must have been for the Stoke players, evidence being their 5-0 demolition of Bolton.

Best Agent:

Whoever represents Emmanuel Adebayor. After an indifferent season last time around, the Man City forward decided enough was enough at Eastlands and he wanted to move on. Well, who wants a lazy, big mouthed, inconsistent mercenary? Real Madrid, apparently. And in fairness to the big twat, he's done reasonably ok, even if it really does take something for Spanish people to consider you a bit lazy.

Best Story:

David Wheater's use of his own free time aside, and of course Sergio Ramos' best attempt to shot put the Copa del Rey trophy, how can Flog pass up the opportunity to once again refer everyone to one of football's best ever facepalms. Jermaine Pennant apparently forgetting he parked his Porsche somewhere near a Spanish train station during his time at Real Zaragoza and then swanning off to Stoke City is up there with the very best 'what the fudge' moments, and that's just in his own career. Pennant 'laughed off' claims that he forgot he owned the car altogether, which in his head made the whole thing less ridiculous. Not in Flog's head, it didn't.

Most Overblown Performance:

Wales 0-2 England. Finally deploying a 4-3-3 formation, Fabio Capello's Three Lions swept aside the team ranked 116 in the world and who were without their best player, Gareth Bale. Despite this, it was seen as a great footballing feat by England, and the relative success of the formation as well as those filling it- most notably Scott Parker, Jack Wilshire and Ashley Young- was greeted with the sense that it was a revolution. It wasn't. In fact, it was what every England selection seems to be: decided by the press and 6 months too late.

And finally...

The David James Award for Biggest Cock-Up:



In one moment, Koscielny and Szczesny become
Birmingham Citys most creative outfield players



Let's pretend Ashley Cole didn't take an air rifle into the Chelsea training ground and shoot someone without getting arrested for a moment and focus on an acual football cock-up on an actual football field. At 1-1 in the Carling Cup final and with Birmingham resorting to smashing it upfield, step up Laurent Koscielny and Wojciech Szczesny (two names that I had to look up for spelling, twice) and their Wembley howler to gift Birmingham City the trophy and earn this award. It's hard to choose what aspect most quaifies it for the award; the fact that it extended Arsenal's agonising six year wait for a trophy and in a game they were expected to win comfortably, or, Flog prefers, how the two players could have conceivably communicated in three different languages and avoid all the fuss. Incidentally, I don't know the Polish for 'just fucking hoof it!' Not only did it end any hopes of a quick-fix end to the trophy drought, it also paved the way for Arsenal getting dumped out of two competitions in the two weeks after their little mix-up, as well as seemingly destroying all confidence in Arsene Wenger's young side and their Premier League title assault. Ouch. You can share the award between your mantle pieces, lads.

So that's it for this year, other awards ceremonies offer drinks and nibbles at this stage but here at Flog we prefer all those present to go away to a dark room and think about what they've done over the last 365 days. In my case, it's pretty much harshly judge everyone and everything in football. I'm comfortable with that. Cheers!

Flog - Short memory, Rio?

Yesterday, one of football’s most outspoken idiots, Rio Ferdinand, took exception to one of football’s run-of-the-mill idiots, Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli, celebrating in front of the Manchester United fans as the final whistle was blown on the first FA Cup semi-final of the weekend. City, having won 1-0 and thus ending any chance of another United treble, were obviously ecstatic as any team would be after victory over your neighbours, particularly in a knock-out cup competition.



Anderson dives in for a cuddle

  I actually love Balotelli. I think he’s essential- stock, even- of any successful football side. Discussing a theory before the start of this season with a friend of mine that ‘every team needs ‘a bit of a crazy’’, we referred to recent examples (Roy Keane, Martin Keown, Wayne Rooney, Jens Lehmann, Didier Drogba et al) and concluded that a) we are football geniuses and b) it holds water. A predictable dressing room doesn’t necessarily mean a happy or indeed successful one.

Balotelli’s act of showing his badge to the United supporters isn’t inciting trouble. I’ve been to Wembley and any slight action a player performed on that pitch could only realistically be seen by about 2% of the crowd, and that’s of those who remained in the stadium until the final whistle. Ferdinand, perhaps a little tired after the birth of his daughter- and no doubt the setting up of her Twitter account all night- started shoving Balotelli, along with other United players who looked somewhat confused but thought it was better to join in berating the Italian than to just walk off the pitch, gracious in defeat.

Here is what Rio actually said regarding the incident, via Twitter (what else?):

‘If u score a goal+give a bit to opposing fans I kind of accept that but at the final whistle go to your own fans+enjoy it not opposing fans’.

Well Rio, here is my response: just because Gary Neville has retired, it doesn’t mean he never existed. You remember Gary, don’t you Rio? He was the one who was as gobby as you, spent as much time in the injury room as you for the last couple of years, and owned an equally poor choice of facial hair? And so you remember that time he went completely mental when United scored against Liverpool a few years back, prompting a tirade of fist pumping, badge kissing and vein-throbbing screams at the Liverpool away supporters? Oh that’s right, I forgot. When you SCORE, it’s allowed, but not at the end of a game. Right, demz the rulez.