Everything Else

Liverpool may be out of the Champions League, but I predict “A REAL PUSH” for the title next season.

Avery: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes the club will not win the title under Rafa Benitez because of his rotation system. (The Guardian)
Avery: good analysis by redknapp
Ronan: yeah saw that. negative for Redknapp. He wants Kevin Keegan in no doubt
Avery: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes Derby County will go down this year because they have an appalling defence. (Various)
Avery: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes he is dashingly good looking (News of the World)
Ronan:Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes there is a real danger of recession (Financial Times)
Ronan: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp says he is not convinced Osama Bin Laden will ever be brought to justice (Time)
Ronan: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp admits many men leave the toilet seat up (U Magazine)
Avery: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp believes that the UK could indeed incorporate aspects of Sharia Law into its “unwritten” constitution (Daily Mail).
Ronan:haha
Ronan: Former Liverpool player Jamie Redknapp has backed Barack Obama in the race for the Democratic Party’s US Presidential nomination (New York Times)

So RTE via the Examiner reports that Giovanni Trapattoni is the new Irish football manager. I think the above video says more about why this is good than anything else. Let’s hope his English is as bad as his German. I have ready.

When the sun shines, we’ll shine together
Told you I’ll be here forever
Said I’ll always be a friend
Took an oath I’ma stick it out till the end
Now that it’s raining more than ever
Know that we’ll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)
Under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh eh eh eh)

Via ILX 

Arsenal goalkeeper to Arsene Wenger: “I’m a person! With feelings!”

Well, once he gets sacked that is. According to RTE Radio 1, the bookies have stopped taking bets on Stanislaus’s exit and these guys are the early candidates to replace him.

“I’m David O’Leary, and I’m the 2-1 favourite! See this dejected confused face? You’ll be seeing plenty of this if I get the job!”

“I’m 6-1. Management would be a good break from whatever the hell I’ve been doing for the last few years”

“Ireland job LOL WTF”

Most likely candidate. Single handedly stopped all road deaths in Ireland and is brilliant with the media. Plus has tons of experience in jobs with 6 figure salaries where you don’t really have to do anything.

The future is really bright.

(Addendum: where are all these ginger managers coming from?)

I don’t know whether to love or hate Eamon Dunphy. But he has certainly carved out a niche for himself on RTE sports coverage. People talk about footballers who “do the ugly things”. Eamon Dunphy is a pundit who plays this role. He makes television ugly, and this ugliness sets the tone for Giles and Brady and whoever else is present.

And people seem to like ugliness on television, especially in sport. They mistake it for authenticity, when it’s just an occasional part of the same. They mistake it for passion. You can find this attitude in discussions of practically everything. People like to feel that TV or music or art that is ugly or dirty has resisted some unseen force of purity and politeness that steers us towards banality in the 00s.

But does this force exist? And if it we are more moral or streamlined nowadays, isn’t it a good thing? Should we be rude or say outrageous things just to subvert this force? I’m not so sure I like the road that that takes us down.

Nonetheless, I have to admit it can be captivating to watch somebody like Dunphy in action, as he drags people into the shit that he would have you believe he lives in on a daily basis. No post match analysis suits Ireland being dumped out of the Euro 2008 qualifiers last week more perfectly than Dunphy’s speech above.

In sport, people want to feel melodrama, it’s what good sport does to you. So after a damp squib of a performance, that craving isn’t satisfied. Enter Dunphy, with two long soliloquies, in which he practically plays the blues for the soccer watching public. He makes his anger everyone else’s, and everyone else’s his own.

Suddenly a lost qualifier is indicative of the shambles the country is in, the wasted Celtic Tiger, or the cruelty of getting fired from jobs after 15 weeks. And when you watch someone like Dunphy, you almost start to believe that old cliché, that negativity equals truth, or that there really are such things as the cold hard facts of life.