Premier League Wish List For 2013

Here we are it’s a new year and a new start, you know the drill by now. So to crown the start of a new year I’ve compiled my slightly tongue in cheek wish list for the Premier League. Basically it’s a chance for me to have a bit of a rant.

The issue of ‘contact’ when it comes to diving. Now UEFA made a rod for their own backs on this one when they didn’t punish Eduardo a few years ago for diving when they said that there was contact. Now the contact in this case wasn’t enough to knock over a one legged smurf but because there was contact they effectively said he had every right to go down. Now at the back end of last year we have Gareth Bale hitting the floor with alarming regularity. And once again Bale defended himself with the ‘C’ word….. Contact. He went down because he wanted to win a penalty; if that very slight contact had happened on the half way line I’m sure he would have magically found a way to stay on his feet. In an ideal world I would like the force in the contact to be taken into account when giving a foul, was there enough contact to knock the player over? Also retrospective action against players who have dived would help. Neither of these will happen but we can all dream.

I would like just once for Harry Redknapp to take the blame for something. The media’s darling ‘Arry has developed a knack of taking the credit for everything that goes well at a club but blaming everything but himself when things go pear-shaped. So please just once ‘Arry when you get smashed out of sight in a game you should win or play a hand in bankrupting yet another club just hold your hands up…. Please.

It would be nice to also have an end to the constant hyping up of young players purely because they are English. Just because a young English player appears in a clubs 1^st team does not mean he will go on to become the new (Insert legendary players name here) Recent victims of this have been Jordan Henderson and Adam Johnson. Young players could turn out to be anything, but for God’s sake can’t they be allowed to just be decent players?

Another one aimed at pundits and the media here…  Just because a player doesn’t run around like a headless chicken doesn’t mean he doesn’t care or is lazy. Adel Taarabt and Dimitar Berbatov always take a kicking for this. Now let’s break this down shall we. Berbatov has more talent in one foot than most players have in their entire bodies, he can do things with a ball not many other players in the league can even think of. If he was running around doing nothing but chasing would he be as effective? Of course not. So just appreciate talented player at the top of his game.

I think the world of football would be a better place if at least a couple of these things came to pass, and if not at least I feel better for having that little rant. See you soon.