Frank Lampard isn't crap, he's just confused

He apparently thinks that his job is to get into the box and score goals. Rather than, say, tackling or passing or any of those other things that midfielders generally do.

Here's what Lampard had to say, commenting on England's likely 3-5-2 formation against Croatia, with Scott Parker and Michael Carrick alongside him in central midfield:

"If you play with two of those holding type players in there it would give me more freedom to get forward. If you play with one, there will be more responsibility to be involved in the midfield and maybe try to get a grip of the game rather than get in the box so often."

And from an article a few months ago:

"What I haven't got is as many goals, and that's something that bothers me because I think like a striker - if I haven't scored I'm not happy, however well I've played. I do need to get among the goals again."

Please, somebody sit Frankie down -- using small words, so he'll be sure to understand -- and explain to him that HE IS NOT A STRIKER.

Five things that are annoying me this week

1. The way Premiership broadcasting rights have been split up this year. I used to have a routine for Saturday mornings: Roll out of bed, make myself some tea, read the paper, watch the triple-header of Premiership games on Sportsnet, and yell obscenities at my TV. It was nice. This year, Sportsnet is still showing games on Saturday mornings, but Setanta now has the rights to the first-choice matches at 10 am. Which means that most weeks, if I want to watch United or Liverpool, I have to drag myself out to a pub somewhere.
   
   And that raises a whole host of other issues, like pub #1's breakfast being crap, pub #2's waitresses acting as if I'm wearing an invisibility cloak, and pub #3 being populated by an unnecessarily high percentage of creepy guys. Yes, I'm cranky. But some weeks I just don't want the hassle of changing out of my pajamas, you know?
   
   
2. My soccer league's playoff tournament this weekend. It isn't the tournament itself that's annoying me -- I'm looking forward to it, although I'll probably be dead by Monday after playing seven games in two days. It's the fact that I'm going to miss the Liverpool-Chelsea and Man United-Arsenal games.
   
   Not that they'd be on a TV channel I could watch anyway.
   
   
3. Frank Lampard. I finally got around to watching the England-Macedonia game and I still can't figure out why he hasn't been benched yet. David Beckham was dropped because he didn't do much apart from taking free kicks and sending in crosses, and important as that was, it wasn't enough to justify his keeping him in the starting XI when it was pulling the whole team out of shape. Now it seems like Lampard's got a similar problem with Lampard. He doesn't really tackle, his passing has been mediocre, and he's not even scoring those lucky deflected goals right now, which as far as I can tell was his main contribution in the past. So why not drop him -- at least until he gets his form back -- move Steven Gerrard into centre midfield and bring in a proper winger on the right?
   
   
4. My ongoing quest for turf shoes. I have small feet, so I usually end up with kids' boots rather than the adult version. But turf shoes in small sizes are virtually impossible to find here. And it's made more difficult by my slightly irrational dislike for Nikes, and my belief that soccer shoes are not meant to be gold, or blue, or -- god forbid -- pink.
   
   
5. This article about female athletes using sex to promote themselves and their sport. (Thanks to YNWA for linking me to it.) I don't have a problem with the premise that sex sells, per se. And it's not as if male athletes don't do it too. But female athletes being treated as pin-up girls does bother me, for a couple reasons. First, there's the assumption that their only value is in being attractive -- that however good they are at their sport doesn't really matter. Of course, being good-looking helps male athletes as well -- I doubt that David Beckham gets all those ad contracts just because of they way he can bend a football -- but they do have to have the skills to back it up. I can't think of a male equivalent to Anna Kournikova, for example.
   
   The other thing is the assumptions about just what makes them attractive. For the women, it's usually being skinny and pouty and dainty, whereas for the men, it's being strong and muscular, going out there and getting all sweaty and dirty. Why can't that be sexy for women as well?

Robot footballers!

I came across this link a couple days ago, and it amused me because, well, it's a tiny robot footballer. How can you not be amused by that?

And so I was poking around on Google for more information and found RoboCup.

RoboCup is an international joint project to promote AI, robotics, and other field. It is an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics by providing a standar problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined.... The ultimate goal of the RoboCup project is By 2050, develop a fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world champion team in soccer [sic].

And then, presumably, Jose Mourinho will try to buy the robots.

In other news that amused me today, Frank Lampard, who as far as I know is not a robot, is making a series of video diaries as a promo for something or other. And, ok, when I read "Frank Lampard video," I was expecting something...slightly different. I'm just saying.

And just to finish things off: drunk Liverpool players, doing what I will charitably describe as singing. Don't you just love the internets?

Shut up, Chelsea, part the umpteeth

Frank Lampard would like everyone to know that he's not bothered by all the abuse he gets from West Ham fans.

"I don't go back with anything to prove," Lampard said. "Far from it. I go back there as the runner-up world player of the year and with a championship medal. Coming from the area, I know what people are like. I think they made their mind up early about me being in the team because of my dad.

"I'm pretty stubborn ... and I know people there are stubborn and they didn't want to change their mind, and they still won't. I just go back there with the peace of mind of what I have achieved personally.

"I would like it if people could respect what I have done since I moved. Moving to Chelsea was the best thing I have ever done, so I have no problems going back there and holding my head up high."

"I always thought one day maybe it might tone down but I don't think it will. I think it might get worse but I think I'm a big enough man. When I first went back there four or five years ago I was nowhere near as big a player or person as I am now. I'm more than ready to take anything they throw at me.

"I do thrive on it. I'm so used to it now. I took that for a long time from West Ham fans during my playing days there, and that wasn't so nice. But when you are playing against them and taking it, it's much more of a drive and a motivation."

Not bothered at all. Not one little bit.


Meanwhile, Michael Essien was injured by a tackle from Nigel Reo-Coker in the West Ham game yesterday. AHAHA, KARMA. Um, sorry. Jose Mourinho, naturally, is not pleased. I have to say, though, that going by this picture, it looks like the tackle may have been late but it wasn't that high -- unlike Essien's challenge on Didi Hamann.


In related news, I am absurdly pleased to discover that this blog is the #2 hit if you google Jose Mourinho is a wanker.