Much better Premier League goals from defenders here…

Much better Premier League goals from defenders here…

If you have anything to add on any subject, mail us at theeditor@football365.com

More cracking goals from defenders…
Might be a bit late for this (I actually did some work this morning!) but was surprised John O’Shea vs. Arsenal wasn’t included.

Not sure if he was playing in midfield that day, but I think we can all agree he is a defender. Anyway, it had it all, big goal against a rival, great technique, AND he even looked surprised when it went in (despite being a player so skilful he once megged Figo). Great stuff.

So, in time honoured mailbox tradition, I hereby announce that, due to you having a different opinion to me, you are an idiot, I know you won’t print this because you’re all lily livered liberals, and I will never read this site again.
Jack (Will probably be back before this mail is even read to be honest) Manchester

…I tend not to write in about actual football much, since I assume that most contributors know a lot more than me. However, having checked the F365 league table in fantasy football this morning, it turns out I’m 23rd out of over 2,000 of you (in your face Kieran Nagar!). Seems, I’m actually an expert after all. All this time I’ve been paying attention to you all, and you are mostly trailing in the wake of my genius. Even actual journalists (87th Tom F-A? Pft).

So, with my new found confidence/hubris, I can categorically state that the best goal by a defender in the Premier League, was in fact Sol Campbell against Portsmouth in 2004. Reasons!

– He scored because he had to. All the other goals were acts of a hopeful punt, or joyous expression. Arsenal are 0-0 against Portsmouth, chances have gone begging. King Sol, scores because Arsenal needed to score. Watch the run he makes. It’s a grumpy and resentful run. It’s a run that says “I could do this every week, but I don’t want to, and I shouldn’t have to if the rest of you did your jobs properly”.

– He’s Sol Campbell.

I will take arguments from those placed 22nd higher. The rest of you can pipe down.
Jeremy Aves

…I see all of your goals from defenders, and I raise you one Maynor Figueroa

Enjoy.
Josh

…John Arne Riise’s thunderbolt for Liverpool against Manchester United was probably not the best goal by a defender, but it was all kinds of lovely. The new Scandinavian full-back(!?) begins with a massive run-up, to a rolled Shearer-esque free-kick. The ball is just hammered toward goal, and pings off the underside of the crossbar. Barthez doesn’t move from the spot, the ball passes him on the way back out before he even realises what happened. He then sprints off with ginger hair flopping about the place, only to whip the shirt over the head AND combine that with a knee slide. Revolutionary.
Tom, Taiwan

…A very fond memory. It wasn’t just the goal. It was the fact that (Lads, it’s…) Spurs beat Man Utd for once—the first time for years. That we came from behind. That we were leading after the best kind of goals against a team better than yours: satisfyingly rubbish goals, one from Steffen Iversen and an own goal from Scholes. That Man Utd spent the match kicking the offal out of David Ginola without punishment. That Steffen Freund booted Roy Keane and ran away, laughing. That underdogs with a rubbish team and key players missing showing a lot of fight against the Imperial Forces, for once.

Above all, it was that I was sitting directly behind this shot—the ball was so perfectly in my eyeline that for most of its trajectory it didn’t move in my vision: it just got bigger until it hit the net. I smiled all the way home.

Daisy

Man City not a million miles behind Chelsea
With City’s win last night they are now second place and eight points behind Chelsea. A few mailboxes back there was a mail about how often narratives are created based on results rather than how a team is playing. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking about the season-long narratives for Chelsea and City.

Accepted wisdom seems to be that Chelsea are head and shoulders above everyone else and that Conte has been the standout manager of the season, and that after a bright start City have lurched from one defensive crisis to another and that Pep has been found out. But on reflection, City may well have been just a couple of refereeing decisions away from making this a much closer run thing.

Firstly, if Andre Marriner had correctly awarded City a penalty last month for Kyle Walker’s blatant push on Raheem Sterling, and sent Kyle Walker off, I’m pretty sure City would have gone on to win the game. Gap down to 6 points. Secondly, and perhaps more contentiously, I think Anthony Taylor absolutely bottled sending off David Luiz for his professional foul on Sergio Aguero when Chelsea played City in December. Now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say City would have won, but even a draw would mean we’d be looking at a 3 point gap (taking into account the Tottenham result as well).

I know this really has an “if my aunty had balls…” feel to it. Plenty of other teams can point to poor refereeing decisions, missed chances (e.g. Costa’s missed penalty against Liverpool), etc, and that this evens itself out over the season, blah, blah. And I don’t begrudge Chelsea their lead – I do think they have been the better team, I think Conte has been the best manager, and at times City’s defending has been shambolic (Leicester away being perhaps the most egregious example). Rather, my point is that I think the two teams are probably closer than the table suggests and I don’t think it’s quite so easy to put Chelsea and City in the narrative boxes that have been created for them.

I would also say that in recent weeks, with perhaps the exception of the Liverpool game, Chelsea have looked a little off the boil to me, and at the same time City have been starting to find some more consistent form (with the obvious exception of Everton away). And City have some previous in chasing down an eight-point gap and with significantly fewer games remaining than 13. So maybe this season hasn’t run its course just yet.
gomez, MCFC

A few notes on gambling
I’m sure you’ll have even more responses to gambling and football, but I’d like to highlight two trends that my experience of the past few years.

1. Bookmakers limiting and blocking winners. Now, I have been through a whole host of bookmakers in my time and now only three out of the 12 I had will take a bet off me online, because I had the cheek to win. One bookmaker even limited to me to £5 max win after my £5 free bet turned into £1200.

Now I know why they do this, because they want to make money, but the fact that they advertise it like crazy and push it down your throat is one thing, but as soon as you win they don’t want to play…

2. The rise of the Twitter ‘tipster’.

These people play a big role in the continued push of gambling problems. These accounts that push big accumulators and inplay bets over Twitter are purely fueling addicts. They basically make 30% of everything you lose if you’ve signed up with a bookmaker through their links, so what they want you to do is bet often and lose.

So, to get you to follow their “tips”, they throw around a hat full of tips and everyone that wins is followed by a “BOOM” and the losers are ignored, and even deleted from the timeline. For a gambling addict, someone showing you a over 2.5 goals bet in the Chilean league can lure you in and make you bet more.

I’ve taken it upon myself to keep calling these guys out, picking up their bets and telling their followers why they are bad bets and how to bet properly. If you’re going to have a bet, keep stakes low, research and don’t bet all the time. These accounts encourage people to bet so often that it can even lead to addictions in itself.

I think both parts of this are to play. Yes, bookmakers are at fault, but these so called tipsters (that when people run through them usually have a 30%+ loss rate) are encouraging people to bet, bet badly and lose money.

These people need to be stamped out as the bookmakers themselves are untouchable.
James (London)

…I actually missed this piece the first time round so really pleased that the mailbox guided me back – a really impressive bit of writing.

I once saw a guy talk about how addiction is a misnomer. What we call addiction is actually bonding, where a person doesn’t or can’t or won’t bond to the people around them, they find something else. As John says, it can be a substance or the thrill (or illusion of thrill) of gambling. That’s what makes dealing with addiction so challenging, your instinct is to admonish the person, be harsh with them to shock them out of the habit. It won’t work, we have to accept that painful as it is you have to remain close to the person and let them know that you care for them, that you love them no matter what state they’re in. Even then, it might not be enough.

The scary thing for me is that we’ve raised a generation of people who are incredibly susceptible to this. They don’t need to really connect with people because they can talk in 140 character sentences through their phones, and each like or share or re-tweet gives them a dopamine rush that they will get addicted to. The gaming industry already exploits this with micro-transactions on mobile games that give the exact same dopamine hit. And how easily clash of clans at 14 becomes bet365 at 18.

Football’s addiction to the money from betting is another stride the industry is taking away from its supporters, once again looking at what makes the most money rather than what is in the best interests of the fans. Not sure what we can do about it but it’s definitely food for thought.

At the end of the day, we’re just smart apes, and apes are prone to throwing sh*t at each other. The exploitation isn’t surprising but it is disheartening to realise that we haven’t come that far at all.
Dave, MUFC, Manchester

On pious F365 and Sutton United
There have been a few occasions in recent times where mailbox contributors have called out F365 for being far too self-righteous on certain topics (Jamie Vardy’s racism row springs to mind here). Whether or not I personally agreed with your position (most of the time, I do), I have and will continue to support your right as an independent voice among Football journalists to call a spade a spade when the matter demands it, particularly when the Football establishment seem to ignore important issues or spout utter drivel from a position of ignorance (I’m looking at you, Merson and Thompson).

But, there is an unpleasant amount of sanctimony attached to the comment you have on Sutton United, simply because they have decided to take the money on offer by SunBet in an effort to secure the future of the club for the foreseeable future. I, like you, am not a fan of the amount of money which permeates every facet of the game now, but I also understand that any opportunity to benefit, be it from new owners or in the case of Sutton United, the reward for their endeavours in this season’s cup competition, is one that cannot be ignored and are moments to exploit, particularly where the smaller clubs are concerned.

Given the obscene amounts of money that is regularly handed over to the big clubs through TV deals and sponsorship, is it really necessary to have a go at Sutton for taking the chance to suckle from that particularly rich teat? They are acting no different t to that of any other club; they are attempting to benefit from increase media coverage while the chance is presented. It is not an ideal situation sure, but making snide remarks at the little guy’s expense seems rather beneath you. The sun is shining on Sutton. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to make it last, long after the cameras have disappeared?

We all need to get paid now and again.
James F, BCFC KRO

Praising Gylfi
I just wanted to point out that Gylfi Sigurðsson, who plays for arguably one of the top two worst premier league sides, has been directly involved in 16 goals this season (8 goals, 8 assists). That is just the goals he has been involved in directly. He has also had number of “half-assists” or whatever where he whips the ball in from a corner or a free-kick, someone gets a touch and another someone scores.

I’d also like to mention that his 8 goals and 8 assists is better than that of one Adam Lallana (7 and 7) which is frequently (and rightly so) praised on this site. While Lallana’s performance this season has been great he plays for a side that has already scored 54 league goals. Gylfi Sigurdsson plays for a side that has 31 league goals. That makes him directly involved in just over 51% of their goals. That is all.
Sig Einarsson

A random defence of Schteve’s Dutch accent
I just watched the BBC’s post-match interview with Guardiola, and I found myself getting annoyed with the interviewer. He spoke pretty quickly, with a reasonably thick, drawling accent that clearly made it hard for Guardiola – obviously listening to a foreign tongue – to understand. At the end of the interview the commentator asked “So it’s Chelsea’s title to lose?” which is a bit of a colloquialism, to which Guardiola replied “Sorry?”. Instead of rephrasing, the interviewer just moved his face closer and repeated it word for word, only louder, evoking the British tourist in a Spanish cafe asking for “chips and ketchup por favor”. It didn’t help, and Pep just answered with a sideways platitude about focusing on the next game.

It made me think about all the stick that Schteve McClaren got for answering with that Dutch accent, and how I’ve always had a bit of sympathy for him. Yes, he took it ridiculously too far, but changing/simplifying your language or softening your accent has always been something I’ve done to help a non-native speaker understand me more easily, and essentially that’s all Schteve was trying to do.

Surely that’s something that a professional interviewer should be taking into account when he does his job, and is a skill required to land the job in the first place?
Andrew RP