If you ignore it, it might go away

Ten days ago or so, a ‘sliding-door’ moment happened.

 If, say, the police shooting of a man who, it would appear, did not fire first, albeit one that was armed, had happened this Saturday rather than the fortnight before, things may have turned out differently. Would the large scale riots have occurred in the pouring rain, for example?

However, ‘what-if’ moments are all well and good for reflection in the long-term future. You can speculate on what would have happened if JFK hadn’t been assassinated all you like as the permutations have pretty much run their cause. But, in the here and now, it’s time to focus on the fall-out and something that has been bugging me in the (generic, catch-all term alert) media’s reaction to it all.

Reference some events that have happened over the last fortnight or so. Firstly, a clear example of the Executive butting its nose into the business of the Judiciary by stating its desire for tough sentencing on rioters (rightly or wrongly) which has duly occurred in a great number of cases.

On to civil liberties with David Cameron Tory MP raising the possibility of shutting down Twitter and/or Facebook when riots break out to stop people using the social networking site to orchestrate and organise disturbances. Furthermore, Tory MP Louise Mensch suggesting rather than the public being told that Twitter is down, the message would be that it is under ‘maintenance’.

Finally, Cameron has also put forward a proposal to evict families from their council homes and withhold their benefits of the families of rioters. This is draconian, unfair and effective double jeopardy as it punishes those who may not have been involved in the rioting and only leads to exacerbating the problem of poverty which, it is this blogger's view, was a leading cause of the problem in the first place.

Now, I’m not one to throw about the term “totalitarianism” for two reasons. One; it will never happen in this country as even in a state as passive politically as ours, the people will not stand for large scale repealing of their civil liberties and secondly it’s an insult to use the term when there are genuine, frightening regimes out there that do fit the totalitarian model of rule and it is ignorant to make a comparison between the two.

But on the other side of the scale, the good folk at the Daily Mail and other papers on the ‘Right’ are often the first to jump on a story with the tiniest shred of liberty-crushing potential and impose the woefully GCSE-esque “Orwell’s 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint” comparison.

This past fortnight, I make that examples of breaking the boundaries of checks and balances between the Executive and the Judiciary, suggested curtailing of civil liberties such as the freedom of speech, suggested deliberate lying to your electorate and denying citizens the elements of the welfare state to which they are entitled to.

These policies are most probably, as the New York Times points out, most likely a reaction to try to garner public support in the wake of the rioting but it smacks of double standards for the right-wing press to complain about how CCTV cameras are infringing people’s rights but these policies are not.

Let's not even get started how investigating the causes of the riots (not even a proper Inquiry?! Come off it) has been swept under the carpet by focussing on the punishments and re-establishing 'order'.

Five thoughts from Reading Vs Millwall

First games of the season are notoriously bad parameters for judging the outcome of the season to come, as Reading fans know all too well. 2005/06 saw us lose out curtain-raiser to Plymouth but we didn’t lose again until February and romped to the Championship title. Two years later, an impressive defensive display allowed us to hold champions Man United but come the end of the season, we were relegated. Last season, a defeat to relegation favourites Scunthorpe opened a season which ended with a play-off final.

With that in mind, here are some thoughts from this season’s opener against Millwall.

1.      Manset will be more than a handful this year

Mathieu Manset arrived at the Madejski last year on the back of a half-decent half-season at League Two Hereford United. Nicknamed ‘The Beast’, he looked to have the attributes to be a good striker at this level; he possessed strength, aerial threat, good hold up play and a deceptive turn of pace. However, what he appeared to lack was fitness, often not lasting 90 minutes.

However, he looked much more in shape today and with a pre-season behind him, he could prove to be our new secret weapon this year. His hold-up play was fantastic today and, as in evidence a few times last year, he has one hell of a shot on him. With Long, Hunt and Manset as striking options (for now), we appear to have three strikers who could easily each get into double figures this season, each of whom no defence would enjoy facing.

2.       McAnuff was the right choice as captain

Alright, there were not many other options for the role but Jobi McAnuff showed today why he was the man to replace Matt Mills as club captain. Whilst not being the vocal type, he leads by example. Not only was he a constant threat on the left-wing, he also showed his worth in a centre midfield role and was desperately unlucky to hit the post midway through the second half after beating two men with a clever shimmy.

Perhaps the best example of his ‘lead-by-example’ captaincy came in the closing moments of the game as he lost possession trying to set Andy Griffin free with a cross field ball but ran back fifty yards to close down the cross.

3.       We are a dangerous side

We may already know this but there is a caveat here. For the majority of the second half, we were quite awful with very little attacking threat and looking average defensively, being beaten by long balls for fun.

Despite looking so poor, we still managed to score twice, hit the post and hit the bar. On another day, we might have been able to say “we won when we didn’t play at our best”, the clichéd sign of quality teams. A little bit more luck and the opinions on this game would have been wildly different.

4.       Jimmy Kebe remains Jimmy Kebe

Wingers are rightly known as the most frustrating of players and Jimmy Kebe is perhaps the most frustrating of all wingers; stunning on his day, frustratingly wasteful other times. Today was more of the latter than the former. Continually, he would beat his man and put in a poor cross or not beat his man at all.

But, a winger is there to create goals and he did this once again, at last putting a dangerous cross in with the minutes ticking away that Manset headed home. That is why he is in the team, to create goalscoring chances and if he makes an assist or scores once a game, he is worth his weight in gold at this level.

5.       Leigertwood is our lynchpin

One of the reasons our season turned around after Christmas last season was the acquisition of Mikele Leigertwood on a loan deal to bolster our centre midfield. He did such a good job he was promptly signed up full time before the end of the season.

He showed today how important he is to the balance of our side as a ball winner and ball player. He plays more defensively than his centre midfield colleague Jem Karacan which allows the Turk to bomb up and down the pitch. Leigertwood’s ability to do the simple things well (win the ball and play it short) but also to play a accurate long pass is the reason why he is so important to Reading’s balance.

2011/12 nPower Championship preview

Clichés become clichés for a very good reason; the fact that they have a solid grounding in reality and truth. Usually anyway.

Thus, the cliché that the Championship (no marketing here) is the most hotly contested and difficult league to predict has an element of truth to it. However, certain patterns can be deduced.

For example, the last four winners of the league (QPR, Newcastle, Wolves and West Brom) all had a sense of predictability to their victories.

On the other hand, their respective fellow promotion winners were often just as much bolt from the blues as the winners were as predictable as death and taxation. Who could have guessed Norwich would storm to second place last year, Blackpool to complete a remarkable season in 2010 with a play-off victory or Stoke and Hull to gain promotion way back in 2008?

At the other end of the spectrum, relegation has more of a pattern to it with one ‘larger’ club usually accompanying the ‘smallest’ team in the league and a financial stricken side into League One. Cases in point, last season (Sheffield United, Scunthorpe and Preston, respectively), 2009-10 (Sheffield Wednesday, Peterborough and Plymouth) and 2007-08 (Leicester, Scunthorpe and Colchester).

All of which gives us only a few guidelines to predicting how this year’s league will turn out.

Favourites for promotion, and rightly so, are West Ham and Leicester (both 11/8 for promotion), the former for keeping the bones of a decent Championship side together after relegation and the latter for their  much documented spending spree. West Ham’s fate may rest on how the rest of the transfer window pans out and Leicester’s on how quick Sven Goran Eriksson can get his team to gel.

Elsewhere, other pre-season favourites include Birmingham (7/2), Nottingham Forest (4/1) and Reading (9/2) all of whom are strange choices to be such strong candidates for promotion. Birmingham are in the middle of a rebuilding programme with the added spectre of the Carson Yeung saga, Forest are also in transition but in Steve McClaren they have a drastically underrated manager in this country and Reading have arguably weakened over the Summer with the loss of Matt Mills and will be further hampered should Shane Long leave.

The real play-off challengers lay in the next batch of clubs such as Brighton, Middlesbrough, Southampton (all 9/2), Blackpool, Leeds (5/1) and Ipswich (11/2). The two South-coast clubs are riding high on promotion euphoria, a new ground (Brighton), outstanding managers and lots of financial investment and one of those two would be my choice to possibly sneak a top-two finish. Ipswich, meanwhile, have made astute purchases of veterans (Lee Bower, Ivar Ingimarsson, Michael Chopra and Nathan Ellington) and youngsters (David Stockdale and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas), Blackpool have kept together much of their squad (aside from the big names) and have an astute manager whilst Leeds will benefit from a season’s experience at this level.

At the other end of the spectrum, clubs looking over their shoulders is difficult to call. Perennial favourites for relegation Doncaster and Barnsley (15/8 and 19/10 respectively) could spring a few surprises with Doncaster’s intentions announced with today’s signing of one-time next-big-thing Giles Barnes and Barnsley investing in solid defence cover. Overall Coventry are favourites for the drop (7/4) and perhaps rightly so with just one addition (Joe Murphy) to the squad that capitulated after Christmas least season added to the loss of Marlon King, Kieron Westwood and Aron Gunnarsson over the Summer.

Elsewhere, Watford (13/5), Crystal Palace (9/4) and Peterborough (2/1) are the other teams predicted to struggle this year for financial reasons (Watford and Palace), rookie managers (Watford and Palace) and the curse of the smaller club (Peterborough). That said; don’t rule out two clubs that always seem to come out fighting when their backs are against the wall and a side that scored comfortably over 100 league goals last season.

Mid-table mediocrity is nothing to complain about and for some clubs consolidation may well be the target for the season including Cardiff, Burnley, Portsmouth, Millwall, Bristol City and Hull who are all too good to go down but probably lack the quality to mount a sustained promotion push. That said, a lot depends on who can string together a run of good results and gain confidence from that so no-one can be ruled out.

A final disclaimer, this will all be wrong in nine months time when Peterborough storm to promotion and West Ham get relegated on the final day as that is whole the Championship operates so this has been something of an exercise in futility. Like most predictions really.

Champions: West Ham
Promoted: Leicester

Play offs: Brighton, Southampton (winner), Birmingham, Leeds

Dark Horse: Ipswich

Underacheiver: Nottingham Forest

Relegated: Coventry, Crystal Palace and Peterborough (financially stricken club, ‘bigger’ team and ‘smallest’ club in the league pattern in operation)

Top scorer: Shane Long, if he stays at Reading or goes to Leicester and not to a Premier League club(10/1) if not, an injury-free Nicky Maynard (14/1)

Reading 2011/2012 season preview

Writing a season preview for Reading with so much dependant on what happens over the next 27 days seems a little bit pointless but nonetheless, here are some thoughts on the forthcoming campaign.

First things first, it is no understatement to say that the most important developments in the month of August for us will not be played out on the pitch but in the boardroom and at the negotiating table.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the targets for the season depend on whether Shane Long stays at the club or not. With the futures of other key players such as Adam Federici and Jimmy Kebe looking secure, Long is the last player with a question mark over his head. Should he leave the team looks an awful lot less threatening and a mid table finish will be the best to hope for. Should he stay, a play-off push is a reasonable target. He is that important. A front two of Long and Hunt/Manset is more appealing as Long’s ability to play 46 games a year masks the other strikers inability to do the same.

But here is the rub; the same thing was said at exactly the same point last year regarding Gylfi Sigurdsson and look how last season ended. Players stepped up, a new system was found and (relative) success followed.

Further mirror images of last pre-season? The lack of signings prior to the opening day of the season (Williams last year, Khumalo this), the lack of positive talk out of the club about possible signings (a tactic used every year by the club management to drive down a target’s price that both other clubs and our own fans have yet to work out) and the pessimism among the fan base.

However, what’s different this time around is not the lack of investment but the appearance of allowing the squad to stagnate and be weakened, particularly in central defence. The loss of Matt Mills would not be the end of the world if there was experience cover at centre back but this is currently not the case. If there were, there would be less concern about the paucity of our resources there and less anger about the sale of Mills not being reinvested.

Furthermore, despite the faith in Brian McDermott being well founded, it is not to be expected of a manager to dig out diamonds from his squad every season and if Long leaves, that will be needed again. Perhaps Manset with a pre-season behind him is the answer or a fully-fit Hunt but both of those are not entirely plausible right now. McDermott seems less pleased with the club’s monetary policy now 18 months into the job though that is a personal observation rather than anything concrete.

In theory, a staring XI of Federici; Griffin, Pearce, Khumalo, Harte; McAnuff, Karacan, Leigertwood, Kebe; Long, Hunt is competitive at this level with more than adequate cover in most positions with Andersen, McCarthy, Cummings, Robson-Kanu, Tabb, Gunnarsson, Howard, Manset and Church to name seven. However, once injuries and suspensions strike, the squad looks very inexperienced and slightly threadbare. It will take a lot of stepping up from the likes of Williams (Brett and Marcus), Antonio and Morrison as well remarkable progress from youngsters like Gage, Obita and Taylor to supplement the first team.

Beyond the issues of who will be playing for Reading come the start of September, the remainder of the transfer window is the acid test for the club’s ambition and targets. If Long was to be sold to a fellow Championship club (Leicester being an admirer), even for an exceptional price, this would smack of a club more than happy to plod along at this level and occasionally mount a play-off push. It could determine the medium-term future of the club as a whole. But is this a bad thing?

It’s quite a nihilistic view on football as success in sport is dictated by winning trophies and gaining promotions but is the prize worth the cost or is the journey better than the destination?

As unambitious as it seems, the Championship, for me, is the league to be in right now for the sheer unpredictability of every game. Yes, promotion is the end goal but it’s not the be all and end all as it was when we were promoted back in 2006. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt now keep giving me the entertainment we’ve had over the last four seasons at this level and it cannot be denied we have had entertainment.

But the fear is that we would drop back to the lower reaches of the table with relegation a distinct possibility in the near future. That is unlikely this season as there is enough quality in the squad (with or without Long) to comfortably survive but the lure of the club to future signings will be made or break this year and potentially in the next four weeks.

Overall, I predict us to finish in the top 12 but not to mount a serious push for the play-off places but as anyone that read this blog in February knows; I’m rubbish at predictions and this one could be null and void by the end of the month.

The news for you

Watching ITV News last night, I was struck by something. Not how ridiculous the ITV News studio looks or how a half-hour news programme could possibly have time to convey the whole story of every significant event that occurred on the day in question (this is why we still need online newspapers to succeed by the way).

No, I was struck by something else; the pure abstract nature of ‘news’ and how little what constitutes news directly affects the average person. For example, the political wrangling between the Democrats and Republicans in the American Senate over how best to combat the country’s debt. To the man on the street, this has nothing to do with him, why should he care or pay attention?

It probably contributes to the general apathy of people and their lack of engagement in the system. If there is not a direct impact on you, why should you care? It’s all about self-preservation and looking after one. Everything else is for others to worry about.

So, here is my solution. With every news broadcast, there should be a “how will this affect you” option, accessible through the yellow button on your remote. Here, each news story is dissected by experts for your benefit where they explain the impact the event has on you as an individual.

The US debt crisis? The US is the world’s biggest economy and, should it fail or fall back into recession, the rest of the world will suffer. This may lead to further economic problems in the UK which may affect your ability to find a new job, buy a new iPhone, go on three holidays a year and so on.

A child has gone missing in some provincial Northern town? No direct impact upon you, apart from a tug on the heartstrings, as you do not know this child. However, an indirect impact is that you will become more suspicious of strangers and not allow your child to play outside as they will be out of your sight which may lead to your child getting less exercise which may result in health problems for them and a fear of society for you.

The ongoing conflict in Libya? NATO’s involvement here means Britain has a vested interest in the outcome of the conflict as too much money has been put in to pull out now. Furthermore, the outcome will impact upon the oil industry in the region and just who gets that oil. Should the rebels win, you can bet your last petro-dollar that the NATO nations will have some Pro-Western oil contracts written up for Libyan oil. The benefits of these oil contracts will mean that petrol prices will not rise considerably giving you more money to spend on cars and vodka in the medium term at the price of short term monetary investment supporting the Libyans.

And so on with every news story. Perhaps it would not be cost effective but you could offset this by not doing the breakdowns into specific social groups rather than individuals but, you never know, it might get people interested in the news again.

Either that, or some kind of phone app is the solution. Angry Gaddafis or something.

Life (and cricket) is what you make of it

Perspective makes the world go round. Different interpretations of situations leads to different opinions and outcomes. More often than not, the two foremost opinions make the most sense.

Take the American debt crisis. The USA has a large spending deficit (some $13 trillion or so) which needs trimming. However, the perspectives of the Republicans and the Democrats lead to different preferred outcomes. The GOP wanted huge spending cuts which make sense as to fight a debt, you spend less. On the other hand, the Democrats wanted less drastic spending cuts as they reasoned that would leave a vacuum in the public sector that may well lead to further economic problems later down the line. Both sensible policies which were each watered down to a compromise.

Naturally, this leads me on to cricket and the latest Test between England and India at Trent Bridge.

The decision by MS Dhoni, the Indian captain, to reprieve Ian Bell after he was run out in bizarre fashion has been lauded by both newspapers and TV coverage; showcasing the unique sporting nature of cricket and the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ notion.

For the unaware of the event, Bell, having thought he had hit the final ball before the tea break for four, walked towards the pavilion, only to see Dhoni whip off the bails of the stumps, meaning Bell was run out. However, as was fairly clear, Bell leaving his crease had been a misunderstanding (although a somewhat ditzy moment for the batsman) and Dhoni withdrew his appeal for the wicket after the tea interval, leaving Bell to resume batting. As veteran Indian batsman Rahul Dravid put it “it didn’t feel right”.

The aftermath of the event clearly benefitted England with Bell going on to get a further twenty runs and provide the base to allow Eoin Morgan, Matt Prior, Tim Bresnan and Stuart Broad to meat out more batting punishment against the Indian bowlers to give England an unassailable lead and crush the Indian bodies and minds in the process. Finally, the resultant England victory means that they are more than likely to supplant India as the foremost Test-playing nation come the end of the series.

Here’s where the question of perspectives comes in. If the roles had been reversed with England calling back an Indian batsman and the decision contributing in large part to the loss of the Test and our place as No. 1 in the word, would the media have been so gushing in its praise of Andrew Strauss? Or would they deride him as weak and use the eternal comparison to the Australia of Steve Waugh (mental disintegration and all that) and whether they would have acted the same?

Shane Warne wrote this morning about the Australian-like attitude of this England team and the need to be mentally tough and demanding to command the No.1 spot in Test cricket for an extended period of time and the withdrawal of the appeal by Dhoni can be seen as a lack of this attitude in the Indian team which hastens their descent from the summit.

As Steve James put it in the Telegraph, the notional ‘Spirit of Cricket’ is just that, a notion and the aim of the game is to win. However, perspectives regarding the spirit of the game are seen differently by different sporting cultures and different media cultures (indeed, double standards) which dictate the unwritten conventions of the game. Where these conventions lie is a matter of debate and context surrounding the incident.

Perhaps if England had been the generous party and it had led to a crushing defeat, maybe the reaction would have been different.