Jamie Vardy's Having a Party

He’s done it! Jamie Vardy has finally completed his journey from non-league to Premier League legend by successfully scoring 11 games on the bounce to beat the previous record of 10 set by Ruud Van Nistelrooy. Jamie Vardy was well and truly having a party last Saturday and everybody was invited!

~ To be fair I say his journey is complete but I’m still praying for him to have a successful international career and win England the Euro’s, or even better the World Cup ~

Apparently well over 26,000 people tweeted the Leicester strikers name the exact minute after the goal, me included in that. I was sat in the pub talking to a mate only to look round at the exact moment Vardy slipped the ball past De Gea and the pub f*cking erupted! cheers, hugs and then of course the chant started “Jamie Vardy’s having a party, he’s bringing vodka and some Charlie!” It was brilliant to see.

The career that this lad has had is enough to make any semi-professional or amatuer player think they still have a chance of making it to the big leagues. He is even setting up his own academy to give non-league players a chance to be spotted by professional clubs, even if it turns out no players he finds are good enough for that step up it has to be said that he is still doing an amazing thing for English football.

I hope this kid is remembered for everything he has done in his career once he’s retired in the same way that Van Nistelrooy was. I was speaking with an older team mate of mine in the pub, he spoke of how great Ruud was as a player, that he was undefendable in many games he played for Man United and that he is still one of (if not the) best strikers the Premier League has ever seen.

Now I’m not going to say that Vardy will be revered in the same way Van Nistelrooy was but I’d like to think that it's not just Leicester fans that remember him in 30 years time. That he was a great player who didn’t play for one of the top four clubs, like Kevin Phillips or Matt Le Tissier or Emile Heskey (...or maybe not Heskey)

~ For people who will inevitably call me stupid for relating Vardy to Le Tissier, I’m saying I want Vardy to be remembered like Matt not that he is just as good of a player ~

Speaking of Matt Le Tissier and Kevin Phillips though got me thinking of great English players who were never given a proper shot at the England national team. It’s shocking that a player of Le Tiss’ quality only had 8 caps for England, what’s even more shocking is when you compare that to Carlton Cole’s 7…

I understand that at that point there was the likes of Ian Wright, Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham, Les Ferdinand, etc. But to leave out a man who more or less single handedly kept Southampton in the Premier League year on year is baffling.

~ I’ve gone away and re-read this and I feel I’m being a little harsh, there was so much quality at that time that if you dropped any of them you’d be making the wrong decision in someone’s eyes ~

I asked at the pub with England’s current strikers, would you play Wayne Rooney? A resounding ‘NO’ was the answer. Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy are in the form of their lives scoring a combined 22 goals so far this season in the Premier League. Whereas Wayne Rooney has scored 2 goals all season and doesn’t look to be a scratch on his former ‘England saviour’ role. Should it matter that he is England captain?

Should England’s team be based around form and not names? If this was the case then surely lads like Vardy, Barkley, Butland and even uncapped Scott Dann should be the first names on the team sheet.

~ Included Dann because I rate him very highly and also he is statistically one of the Premier Leagues top performing defender ~

I’m sure there are as many different opinions of the England team as there are hairs on Steve McClaren’s head but I still wouldn’t mind hearing what you guys think, please feel free to comment below or tweet me @ThePenaltyKing1. What would your England team be? Would you go for players in form or would you go for the ‘world class’ players and pray that they show their class on the day?

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Cheers for reading.

Money, Money, Money

Been a long while since I last posted on here but something came up in the news which blew my mind. Manchester City are prepared to offer Messi £800,000 a week to come play in the Premier League for them...this for me begs multiple questions that everyone must be thinking.

First question that springs to my mind is “what the fuck?” (less of a question more of a statement admittedly.) Next question for me would be is he worth it? Short answer no, better answer is God no! If you could guarantee that Messi would win you the FA Cup, League Cup, Premier League and Champions League every season then for me it would still be questionable whether it’d be worth it. I’m not saying Messi isn’t that good, what I’m saying is no one is that good.

After doing a small amount of research apparently you get £15mil for winning the Champions League (personally I thought it’d be higher) and £25mil for winning the Prem. Those two put together would just cover Messi’s yearly wage bill of £40 million. Sadly though I don’t think Messi would bring immediate success to Man City. He’d be more than adequate cover/replacement for, the seemingly always injured David Silva and would be an instant hit in their attack. but sadly he would have little to no affect on their defensive frailties.

~ Side note: I’m not implying he would replace Silva but he’d constantly be doing the job that Silva would do if he was fit ~

Is anyone really worth that kind of money on a weekly basis? Honestly I’d have to say no, for that kind of money I’d want to sign a player who is so good he just renders the game completely pointless because he’s just too good to play against. People would say Messi is that kind of player but not every Messi shot goes in, not every Messi touch is perfect, not every Messi pass is pinpoint accurate. For £800,000 a week I would want a player so good he could win the Champions League with a local 5-a-side team, a player so good that he can play a 80 yard pass to himself and finish it on the volley, a player so good that there is no comparison to past legends such as Pele, Maradona or David Hirst, he is just the best ever.

Then there’s financial fair play to take into consideration. If my calculations are correct (which it’s probably not, I’m not a mathematician) Man city would be paying just under £3.3mil a week in wages if they signed Messi. This means they would need to sell out their stadium every week charging as a minimum £54.91 per ticket...if every game was at home. Sadly due to away games City would have to double the price of the home tickets just to make up the loss they’d get from playing away. Is £109.82 worth it for 1 football match? And Manchester City selling out their stadium week in week out would be an almost impossible task. You can 100% guarantee the stadium would be rammed for a Manchester derby or a Champions league fixture against a European powerhouse...but a Tuesday night fixture against Bournemouth isn’t exactly gonna be pulling in huge crowds (no offense to Bournemouth). What about international breaks as well? And during the summer when they’re not playing? Ticket prices could potentially become even higher.

I personally think that the Premier League is lacking so much quality compared to other leagues. I don’t want to get too much into it but in my opinion the team that finishes 1st in the Premier League this season would probably finish 4th in the Bundesliga or 5th in La Liga. The only way we can lure in true quality is by throwing silly money at them. Apparently the highest paid player in the Prem is Wayne Rooney on £260,000. If someone asked should Messi be paid over 3 times as much as Rooney I’d have to agree, but £260,000?! For that?! A actually would never had said he was worth that much a week, some may disagree but that’s my honest opinion.

My next question would be should a player ever be paid more than the manager? I remember when Fergie kicked off because Rooney was on more than him which I’m sure everyone would agree with. He was the boss, the gaffer, the fucking manager! If anyone reading this right now earns more than their manager then you can officially call yourself “The Wayne Rooney of (insert company name here)”. Football clubs are now more of a company, in any other company the managers and bosses get the big pay cheques and the staff they manage get a lower wage as they have less responsibility. It’s always been the case so why now do players get so much power?

In my opinion all it would take is one angry outburst or a manager to contradict Messi and he would most likely turn and say he wants captaincy, that he wants a say in all transfers, that he wants a stand named after him (it’ll probably happen at some point) and what will City do? Knowing how much football teams like to protect their assets they’ll probably give him everything he wants. They did the same thing when Yaya Toure wanted to leave...they forgot your birthday Yaya get over it you’re fucking 32 years old!

But anyway I’m sick of ranting about a possible scenario that in all honesty probably won’t even happen. And even if it does who cares it’s the only Britain’s favorite sport that’s being tarnished…

I would like to know what you guy’s think though. Is Messi worth £800,000 a week? Is any player worth that much? Should players be granted so much power? Is David Hirst the greatest player to ever have played in the Premier League? Feel free to Tweet me @ThePenaltyKing1 and don’t forget to like my Facebook page below.

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Cheers for reading.