right then lads and lasses. the challenge is on. find the journo tosser of the tournament. my nomination goes to oliver holt who must have spent all week thinking up te bile in yesterday's times. other noteworthy w...r??

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2000

Answers

How about this effort from form Chelsea and Stoke city wino Alan Hudson printed in last Fridays Stoke-on-Trent "Sentinel".

********** With Euro 2000 just a day away the latest newspaper outburst from England boss Kevin Keegan has shown, once again, how irresponsible and ignorant he is. Like so many other managers, he thinks our football fans are just people who pay money to let off steam on a Saturday afternoon, but he could not be more wrong. He calls the players who failed to come up with the goods against minnows Malta part of his Dream Team. More like his Daydream team, because I can see England coming home from the tournament early and Keegan enduring a media backlash almost as bad as that which Graham Taylor and Glenn Hoddle suffered. As you read this column I will be laid horizontal after what will hopefully be my last piece of surgery. This is the real world and not the one both Hoddle and Keegan live in. I could do their job standing on my head, although that would prove to be very difficult at the moment. [note how he fails here to mention that he has never managed a football club of any standing in his entire life]

I would begin by taking all the gladiators out of the English midfield and look for a player of genuine talent who could actually create an opening for the strikers. [note again how he fails to mention who he would pick, simply criticises Keegan's selctions]

Once again defences will be tight in the European Championships, as teams go into the group stages trying to avoid defeat. That is when you need one moment of craft and when a player of the imagination and creation of Paul Gascoigne would come into his own. Unfortunately, Gazza's foolishness has left him on the sidelines. With England on their way home from the Low Countries early, my team to lift the trophy is France. They possess the right kind of players in their engine room to win a major tournament and proved their value two years ago when they won the World cup in their own backyard. Look at Dennis Wise, Nicky Barmby and Paul Ince and compare them to Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Zinedine Zidane and you will understand why I think we will be trailing behind our Gallic friends over the next couple of weeks. Up front France have the talent of Nicolas Anelka and Thierry Henry, while Keegan does not know who his best striker is at the moment. If it was left to me I would partner Kevin Phillips with Michael Owen or Robbie Fowler. Forget Alan Shearer. I see the England captain is spouting off again about wanting to be judged on what he does in the Championships. It's funny, isn't it, how he selects himself these days?

*************

I'm not printing any more of this garbage. Yet the man gets paid for writing this column every week. This man who, despite being able to do a better job than Keegan, is forced to earn a dollar writing crap for a regional evening tabloid. Tosser of the Tournament without a doubt.

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2000

URGH. Agree. What a p...k!! Also, Alex Fergie's comments in today's Times were appalling.

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2000

Is that the same Alex Ferguson who encourages his players to develop life threatening injuries before England games before we are treated to Lazarus-like recoveries as soon as the next heath game come along? I'm sure he pointed out how hard it is for players to familiarize themselves with each other given their limited opportunities to play together...

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2000

Softie,

Yes, the very same Alex F. Thinks Shearer has lost hsi mobility and pace and movement and has to play a very one dimensional game. He says that the fact that he puts away most of his chances is pretty much irrelevant because his slowness and expansive turning circle mean that he hardly gets any chances. Damned Owen and Heskey with faint praise. Thought Fowler was the DBs.

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2000

That'll be how come he twatted 2 past his vaunted outfit then, eh?

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2000

Or Martin Keown saying that Becks, Scholes and Owen are the ones who make you think England can win a game.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

John Barnes. Can't he keep his gob shut? Constantly interupting YBR and TD-lessO. It's not even as if he had anything useful to say.

But at least he had a B&W tie on!

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

Screach - he wasn't borrowing your thin leather one with the piano keys on it was he?

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

Ah - so that's where it went. Thanks Booby.

-- Anonymous, June 12, 2000

Holt is at it again. Shearer admitted he was past it by retiring. Shearer's international career is just an ego trip for him. He is past it, is a donkey, Keegan is terrified of booking him. This Holt character just doesn't like Shearer. He can have his opinions but they are so predicated by his dislike of Shearer, the man, that they are just not good enough for the Times chief sportswriter. Anyone agree?

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Oliver who? Who does he play for? Done much for England has he, other than lower morale? Shame the press will only have corporate seats within gobbing distance next season.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

LOL, Softie.

I remember the interview he did with Big Al about two years ago where he decided he disliked Shearer. Hasn't said a single good thing about him since. At the same time, the great Henry Winter of Telegraph fame did an interview and ended up becoming a friend almost (he's met Big Al's mam and dad etc) and he really likes Shearer and does his best to bring out the best of him. Last week, when Holt said that Shearer was shit, Winter was saying that it was Big Al's persistance that got us the goal scoring corners.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Oliver Holt was promoted from Motor Racing correspondent straight to main sports correspondent, and shows a complete lack of depth and knowledge in football reporting. End of story really.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2000

Mark Lawrenson for today's Mirror.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

CHRIST, HOLT'S AT IT AGAIN. "..if he does not drop the old pal's act with Shearer..though, it will count for nothing".

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

It's actually getting quite sad for a broad sheet to carry on this personal diatribe. yet again he fails to suggest an alternative, although 'an England team with Shearer as its focus will never win this championship'. Probably not, but neither would it with Owen, Cole, Heskey, Fowler or Phillips, although Holt says categorically that any of them would be better. Unfortunately the facts speak differently. And to suggest that the team just plays around Shearer is ridiculous. It was Shearer's contributions to the team that kept him on the pitch on Monday, whilst Owen was substituted for being completely and utterly ineffectual. As was Heskey when he came on

But of course Mr Holt knows better than most managers and indeed professional footballers, who still stick by Shearer. And Holt's reply to that is to imply Shearer holds this strange power over people that supposedly manage him, forcing them against their own better judgement to keep picking him. Just because Holt is blind to his attributes as a player, doesn't mean that those who really know what they're talking about are wrong. I don't suppose he's stopped for a second to think, to try and understand why the professionals have a different opinion to him. He just arrogantly assumes he's right, and Bobby Robson, Keegan, even Dalglish as well as many other managers and top players are all sadly misguided and wrong. Well Mr motor racing correspondent, what qualifictions have you got to make us think we should listen to you?

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

I bet he used to rabbit on about Nigel Mansell being one of "The Greats" as well...

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Words fail me - but I'm suree Softie will have plenty....;-)

From the Ronnie

KEVIN Keegan has been accused of tactical naivety - by one of his former Newcastle United lieutenants.

Mark Lawrenson was Keegan's defensive coach at Newcastle - and he could hardly be more scathing of his old boss after England threw away a two-goal lead in the opening match with Portugal.

Says Lawrenson: "There is a culprit. His name is Kevin Keegan.

"No international side worth its weight should ever throw away a two- goal lead as England did.

"This was a performance in which England's naivety was matched only by their tactical confusion.

"For example at one stage in the second half it seemed that England had four defenders queuing up to mark one striker.

"At half-time, with the score at 2-2, Keegan could have had an important influence on the game if he had changed his side's tactical attitude."

Keegan brought the former Liverpool stalwart to St James's Park to tighten up the United defence although there was never any visible improvement.

But Lawrenson even points the finger at Keegan on this score, adding: "In the short time I was at Newcastle I probably only worked with the defence two or three times on simple coaching methods.

"And what tells the real story is that when Kenny Dalglish replaced Keegan the first thing he tried to do was buy some quality defenders."

But Keegan, accused of turning England into Newcastle United-style failures, reacted angrily today.

Keegan defended his Newcastle record when he insisted: "My time with Newcastle was a magnificent success. Ask all the Geordie folk. We played marvellously attacking football to go from near relegation to the Second Division to runners-up in the Premier League.

"If I was a failure because I didn't win the big trophy then 19 Premiership managers are a failure every season.

"I know winner takes all but I'm proud of my Newcastle record."

Referring to England's current precarious plight, Keegan added: "We took part in a glorious match and lost but on another day it could have been so different.

"I pick the team, I decide how we play, so the buck stops with me. I accept that. We didn't defend well as a team but, contrary to opinion, I don't want us to lose our discipline.

The players lost their heads and went for a third goal.

"I'm a realist. I won't slash my wrists. We can still win the group, never mind qualify, if we win our two games and the other results go well.

"We were set up to do something very special in Eindhoven but couldn't see it through. We're licking our wounds but where I originally thought there was too long between the Portugal and Germany games it'll now work to our advantage."

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

We really shouldn't over-react to buffoons who have achieved nothing in their present positions, and whose opinions in truth mean less than zero, but who by chance have been provided a nationwide audience for their ill-considered verbal excrement.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2000

Mellor in today's Evening Standard; It's time to find jobs for the boys

by David Mellor. Kevin Keegan likes a gamble. That much is obvious from his decision to press on after England had gone two up on Monday. He should have closed things down, as the Norwegians, using players even less talented than England's, so successfully did against superior opponents the following evening.

So let him gamble on youth tomorrow. Give Gareth Barry a chance at left-back, or left wing-back if Keegan ditches his predictable 4-4-2 formation. And give Steven Gerrard, if he recovers from a groin injury, the opportunity of using his athleticism to offer England's hard-pressed defence the protection Paul Ince at his age and stage no longer can.

And for heaven's sake drop Alan Shearer, and let Michael Owen, operating ahead of Paul Scholes and Nick Barmby, really run at the Germans, with Heskey in reserve to pile on the pressure with his pace at some point in the second half.

This is the weakest German team for a generation. What a shame the same is true of England, whose limited prospects are blunted even further by Keegan's limitations as a strategist. And by the way, that has been my view all along, when I argued here against Keegan's appointment.

Some of the red tops, on the other hand, who are now blackening his character, were then blackening his boots with a lot of stuff about "the nation's choice" and "England Expects".

On Monday night, the Press Association did a 'Shearer Watch', and depressing reading it makes. His only strike on target was a feeble header into the goalkeeper's arms in the first minute. More devastatingly, in the period immediately after Portugal went ahead from the 60th to the 78th minute, Shearer did nothing at all worthy of comment. No strike, no pass, no nothing. He didn't even touch the ball.

It was also rather sad watching ITV on Monday night. Two of the old England managers they've lined up, Bobby Robson and Terry Venables, could undoubtedly have done a better job than Keegan, and would do if appointed this minute.

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

Co*k!!

-- Anonymous, June 16, 2000

Berti Voghts

-- Anonymous, June 17, 2000

It has to be David Pleat. The man is an incomplete @rsehole.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2000