Beckham, Hull, Premier League

Hi, I felt like doing this again, that feeling will probably only last this evening but I'll try and keep her regular :)

We awoke to the sad news that Sir David of Beckham will miss the World Cup after rupturing his Achilles while playing for AC Milan last night. Regular readers of this blog (pah, as if!) will know I'm a big Becks fan, a fan of Becks the man and the footballer, so I'm really disappointed for him, but his personal setback is unlikely to give Fabio Capello sleepless nights. I would have definitely taken him to the World Cup, as Capello would have done, but you can't deny that his presence would have been predominantly in a team spirit/experience capacity. He would have been a useful sub to bring on when you're 2-1 up in a quarter final, keep the ball, keep a cool head, but even the biggest Beckham fans would struggle to argue that at 2-1 down he would be the best 'last throw of the dice' to nick a goal. I'm sure that Capello would look to the pacy and unpredictable likes of Walcott or Joe Cole to come up with a goal ahead of Becks. My pal and fellow blogger http://tomwoods34.blogspot.com/ makes some good points regarding Beckham's last few years of football, his decision to go to the footballing graveyard that is the MLS at a relatively young age will be haunting him today. If at that stage Becks had turned his back on England, then he would have picked up a very decent pension and sun tan out in Los Angeles, but his damn professionalism, patriot heart and hard work meant that he wanted to play for his country until the day he hangs his boots up. Eat your heart out Carragher and Scholes. The odd MLS schedule meant that he needed to get some decent playing time in Europe to impress the new Don at the England helm, and it's clear that all this extra training, traveling and games have caught up with him. It's a real shame that we may well never see Beckham back in the famous shirt, but I for one won't be putting any money on that just yet. Time and time again he has proved that he really is the comeback king; France 98' red card, Fergie boot incident, Freekick vs Greece, Pen vs Argies, England captain retirement, Real Madrid exile, McClaren recall, USA experiment, AC Milan, the man has had a quite remarkable career. Beckham in 2014 WC squad anyone?

Hull have today parted company with their marmite of a manager (skin colour pun well and truly intended) Phil Brown. I understand his placement on 'gardening leave' is purely from a financial stand point and he really his gone for good. He's given that club some magical moments, games at Wembley, Arsenal and Tottenham spring to mind. But what most neutrals (and Arsenal fans) will take from Brown's fleeting spell in the Premier League were the really quite mad and surreal moments. Who can forget the half time team talk at Man City last season, quite possibly the moment where Hull's season fell apart. All I heard after that from ex-pro pundits was 'I would have been embarrassed and angry if a manager had done that to me,' and you can hardly argue that it was a success. Since that day, Hull have won a pathetic 6 Premier League games out of 40-odd, and only survived because a feeble Newcastle side were remarkably even worse than themselves. A 1-0 home defeat to Man Utd C team on the last day of the season was celebrated like it was promotion all over again, and the KC was treated to an outstanding rendition of a Beach Boys classic, lead by Phil Orange and his sexy goatee. My fellow Gooners will remember the poor defeat to Hull in the league, but savour the memory of the FA Cup quarter final last spring where we extracted some sweet but controversial revenge. We went behind to a Barmby goal early on and had to wait for a good old offside Gallas header to set Brown off into a shit fit in what was his most memorable night. After the game our injured captain came onto the pitch to celebrate with his teammates (this bare in mind all happened at the Emirates, where Brown got off telling the press that Cesc had no right to be on the pitch - HIS pitch - I'll never know) and these scenes were apparently followed by a bit of scuffle and then some outlandish accusations that Cesc had spat at the Hull assitant coach. I know that he has a spiky side to him (that we all love for the record) but these were some quite ridiculous claims. I suppose we'll never know what really happened in that tunnel but after some FA investigations they basically told Brown to jog on. Much like his employers have today. I can't say I'll miss him too much but he deserves some credit for getting Hull into the league they're in today, and some responsibility for leading them to a probable relegation.

Finally, what a superb season of football we're being treated to in the Premier League eh? A tight 3 horse race for the title, 4 very good sides fighting it out for the elusive Champions League place that's up for grabs, an unpredictable bottom half and relegation zone, and you get the feeling there is plenty more to come. Arsenal's run in does seem to be the easiest out of the 3 sides vying for the trophy, I'll be hoping for a 0-0 when the 2 sides meet in a month or so, and hopefully Liverpool (who still have to play both Chelsea and Man Utd) can find some form to do us a favour. I've got a feeling the North London derby in April is going to be massive this year, it's always a big game but normally at least 1 of the teams has nothing to play for by this stage of the season. Spurs are in 4th place at the moment so are going to be desperate to beat us for more than just the obvious reasons. How would they feel if they got beat, missed out on 4th by a point and we won the league by a point? Exactly. Our toughest home game will be against Man City and all the Adebayor shaped sub plots that will come with it. They just showed their no mugs in the 4-2 win at Stamford Bridge and like Spurs have plenty to play for yet. Come on boys! Take her easy.