Interview
Our sports chiefs are insincere: Enver Baig
“Mr Ijaz Butt is the poorest, weakest and most clueless PCB chairman in the history of Pakistan cricket. He has only survived due to his strong political connections”
By Khalid Hussain
Enver Baig is a seasoned politician and formerly a senior PPP leader who was close to slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. But Pakistan’s sports community knows him more as a staunch critic of the country’s sports officialdom.

Seniors versus the PCB
By Dr Nauman Niaz
The crisis isn’t going to fix itself, so denying its existence can only make things worse — much worse. That reality must start with Mr. Ijaz Butt, the beleaguered chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, though in a whirl of self-denial, he has tried proving himself as one of the major success stories of the Asif Ali Zardari government; his acknowledgement of ‘pseudo’ success has actually been the crisis itself. Instead of guiding his organisation to face reality, he has created false paradigms in an environment filled with failures, uncertainty, nepotism and brazen incompetence. He had to believe, that he couldn’t do it, and he still tried to deny the presence of problems on his shoulders, shifting the blames and acutely criticizing people trying to interrupt his ridiculous dictatorship.

Come rain or riots, let the games begin
By Zain Qureshi
London has had a difficult week, with mass civil disorder blighting a large section of the northern part of the city. This prompted concerns that, in the midst of street violence and police clashes, Premier League matches in London should perhaps be delayed. The statement is anathema for ardent football followers, already deprived as we have been for almost 10 weeks. The Copa America and Women’s World Cup were not everything it could have been; it could not and did not suffice for the lack of top quality football competition we all want to view.

In the managerial hot-seat?
By Nabeel Hashmi
English Premier League (EPL) has never been the same since the arrival of Roman Abramovic and with Sheikh Mansoor now being at the helm of Manchester City, the battle for top honours has only gotten fierce.
With more money and power evolve more expectations, which can make a manager’s life nothing less than hell. Chelsea have already sacked a number of top managers in the form of Jose Mourinho, Luis Felipe Scolari, Avram Grant and Claudio Ranieri. In the blue half of Manchester, Sven Goran Errikson and Mark Hughes have already been fired.

 

 

Interview
Our sports chiefs are insincere: Enver Baig
“Mr Ijaz Butt is the poorest, weakest and most clueless PCB chairman in the history of Pakistan cricket. He has only survived due to his strong political connections”
By Khalid Hussain

Enver Baig is a seasoned politician and formerly a senior PPP leader who was close to slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. But Pakistan’s sports community knows him more as a staunch critic of the country’s sports officialdom.

As a part of the Senate’s Standing Committee on sports for several years, Baig never minced any words while launching explosive attacks on top Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) officials, whom he rejects as insincere and even corrupt. He launched similar attacks on hockey chiefs and squash bosses. For years, one of his missions was to get Pakistan sports out of the clutches of bad administrators.

In an interview with ‘The News on Sunday’, Baig speaks about the reasons why he spearheaded a crusade against national sports officials and whether he managed to extract any success from it. Following are the excerpts of the interview.

TNS: Was it your choice to be a part of the senate’s standing committee on sports?

EB: It was by default, I actually wanted Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Labour & Manpower.

TNS: When did you first become a part of the committee?

EB: When the opposition decided to be part of the standing committees in 2004.

TNS: At first, what were the main problems that you identified in our sports?

EB: Deteriorating conditions of sports especially in cricket, hockey and squash. There was a time when Pakistan was at the top in these sports but over the years we have really suffered a major decline which is really alarming.

TNS: You became a huge critic of our sports officials including former and present PCB chairmen, PHF presidents etc. What are the reasons for it?

EB: They were not sincere to the game and almost all of them were clueless about game knowledge. They were only interested in overseas trips and they never took their jobs seriously.

TNS: Do you think that the senate’s sports committee has achieved much success over the years?

EB: Yes and no. The committee was successful in showing the door to Mr Rameez Raja and Mr Sheharyar Khan (PCB chairman) in cricket and Brig (retd) Musarratullah Khan (PHF secretary), Mr Tariq Kirmani (PHF President), and Mr Zafarullah Jamali (PHF President) in hockey.

The committee failed in squash primarily because it’s headed by the Air Chief (Pakistan Air Force). The senate sub committee headed by me had recommended to the government that squash should be led by a strong administrator supported by former champions Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan and should be brought out of the clutches of the Air Force as they have more important national duties than to run the game. We also many efforts to get rid of former PCB chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf who played havoc with the funds of PCB as he was a crony of General Pervez Musharraf. Last but not the least, Mr Ijaz Butt, the poorest, weakest and the most clueless PCB chairman in the history of Pakistan cricket, has to date survived due to his strong political connections.

TNS: Do you feel frustrated for being unable to get much changes implemented in our sports set-up?

EB: The mafia is too well entrenched specially in cricket. Our parliamentary process is yet to be developed to a stage where they can be held responsible.

TNS: What steps do you think the authorities need to take to bring about progress in Pakistan sports?

EB: Getting rid of nepotism, corruption, favoritism and appointing right person for the right job to ensure meritocracy instead of kleptocracy. More importantly what has the government and sports bodies done to bring international sports events to Pakistan? The attack on Sri Lanka’s cricket team took place almost three years ago but the case is still in the cold storage. Has the PCB done anything? The Board has a team of legal advisors and heavy fees are being doled out, the sports administrator are only interested as I said in playing away tournaments with a plea that due to security reasons no foreign team is visiting Pakistan, so it’s a paid holiday for the officials and they are having a whale of a time.

TNS: What sort of people do you think should be brought in to run Pakistan sports?

EB: Experts and professionals should be running our sports. They must be screened and cleared by standing committees of the Parliament. Just look at the recent PCB decision on Shahid Khan Afridi its look like we have a bunch of jokers running the Board. The current PCB Chairman reminds me of American comedian Danny Kay.

TNS: You have been outspoken on the issue of match-fixing. How big a problem is it for Pakistan sports?

EB: This is the major problem basically in cricket. I have said on several occasions before, and I say it once again, that only if PCB would have implemented Justice Qayyum’s report in 2001, Pakistan cricket would have been in total control. Today there is no accountability, so much so it’s alleged that PCB officials are also involved in this menace.

TNS: Do you think that our government should take responsibility for the downfall of Pakistan sports?

EB: Yes, since all the top slots are directly appointed by the government. As a nation we have not recognised the constructive role that sports can play in nation-building and building the characters of the individuals to overcome national problems like corruption, violence, extremism and terrorism. It is most shocking and painful to know that the government has not allocated even a single penny in the current budget 2011-2012 for development of sports and that reveals our priorities.

 

khalidhraj@gmail.com

 

Seniors versus the PCB
By Dr Nauman Niaz

The crisis isn’t going to fix itself, so denying its existence can only make things worse — much worse. That reality must start with Mr. Ijaz Butt, the beleaguered chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, though in a whirl of self-denial, he has tried proving himself as one of the major success stories of the Asif Ali Zardari government; his acknowledgement of ‘pseudo’ success has actually been the crisis itself. Instead of guiding his organisation to face reality, he has created false paradigms in an environment filled with failures, uncertainty, nepotism and brazen incompetence. He had to believe, that he couldn’t do it, and he still tried to deny the presence of problems on his shoulders, shifting the blames and acutely criticizing people trying to interrupt his ridiculous dictatorship.

If the Pakistan team lost, Butt’s and his sycophants reacted blaming the problems on the senior players and the obtusely evaluated ‘player-power’. Instead of clattering and quivering, they were needed to get above the fray and recognize that the critiques had legitimate questions about what was happening. First, Butt had to acknowledge the cause(s) of the crisis, only then he could face reality together by owning the problem and looking realistically at the decisions he was evoking. However, he didn’t stress the importance of being adaptive to new realities in a crisis-he failed to adapt because he got stuck in a comfortable mindset with his version of reality.

The balance between the senior players and the PCB top-tier management, even the team managers was lost, and Butt still thought he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders? He didn’t realize that the whole world around him was collapsing because of the inept people he had collected during his tenure. The players weren’t handled intelligibly as the PCB made wrong judgments and everything started to tumble but the responsibility of the destruction wasn’t shared? Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Akhtar’s dope cases were inherited, their susceptibility to such frivolities weren’t really looked into, whilst Asif was allowed to return to international cricket, Akhtar was mostly condemned and eccentrically he was left on the fringes of international cricket; Younis Khan elevated as captain was resisted whilst he tried to share power, Butt’s cardinal tool Yawar Saeed made it personal and a crisis set in; Shoaib Malik was replaced when he was maturing and striving for success narrative; he was seen suspiciously, castigated and chastised, fined and banned and then picked again before being left out humiliatingly; due to his political clout he made a major comeback but was left sulking at the base line of the tennis courts supporting his internationally renowned wife, Sania Mirza. Younis Khan was victimized and eight most resourceful months of his career were winched whilst Mohammad Yousuf was coerced into a forced retirement.

Abdul Razzaq was rejected, Shahid Afridi was toyed with and such was the ignominy that Misbah-ul-Haq was thrown out with charges of petty politicking and ‘bad’ influence before being installed as country’s Test captain? Afridi, once the blue-eyed boy, was openly alleged to have deliberately lost the last two One-day Internationals in the West Indies, and the charges were leveled against him by the chairman of the PCB? A court case was avoided, a compromise was reached between Afridi and the board and still the free floating anxieties weren’t overstated, the critiques had fears of failure going through their minds?

Afridi removed, Misbah supported meant that it was an untimely step-back, the board taking a deep breath and failing to recognize that they were in the situational crisis, not the first time. With Razzaq alleging the board for conspiring against the senior players, in itself delineated that the warning signs were on the horizon. Butt was required to infer that he couldn’t get through a crisis by trampling the impediments whimsically that’s what he did, the people inside his organization and in his personal circle were more than willing to ‘misguide’ him, not willing to open up to them.

I firmly believe, Butt failed in the early stages of a crises, it was easy to mistake the first symptoms that appeared for the real problems. He tried fixing the symptoms before the root cause was determined. Like the weeds in his backyard, the player versus administration crises had roots with long tentacles that were buried deep behind the mask of wrong information sifted to him by his sycophants.

On the contrary, majority of the senior players overestimated their indispensability resulting in a mirage formed between the widening space between them and the administrators; instead of waiting for their turn to come to them, they tried reaching it, losing their own feet and ending up rusted in the downtrodden and unattended corners.

Players like Yousuf, Younis, Malik, Akhtar, Afridi and Razzaq didnít really interpret that the difference that made the difference was to know that it’s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. Rank upstarts, not adequately nurtured, half-cooked grooming and overestimation often saw them cutting a sorry figure; they needed to understand that their cricketing expertise wasn’t even half of what Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Saeed Anwar, Inzamam-u-Haq or even Aamir Sohail were referred and related to? The lot now abysmally left squandered helplessly needed to understand that nearly all successful people had in common an extraordinarily ability to bond with others, the ability to connect with and develop rapport with people from a variety of backgrounds and beliefs. Sure, there’s the occasional made genius who invents something that changes the world. But if the genius spends all his time in a lonely warren, he will succeed on one level but fail on many others. The great successes Imran Khan, Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Wasim Akram et al all had the ability to form bonds that united them to millions of others; they weren’t alone. The greatest success wasn’t on the stage of the world. It was in the deepest recesses of their own hearts. Deep down, everyone needed to form lasting, loving bonds wit others. Without that, any success, any excellence, was hollow indeed.

Butt and company failed too. Lost too deep in their own selves, they didn’t really realize the needs of the team, their main product and frustratingly inept, they didn’t comprehend that it was the mind that maketh good or ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor; Nonetheless, Butt decided to abandon achieving a consensus, instead he took a wrong route to pursue acquisition with a small team of tamed sycophants like Mohsin Khan and Subhan Ahmad. The writing had to be on the wall?

 

naumanniaz@hotmail.com

 

Come rain or riots, let the games begin
By Zain Qureshi

London has had a difficult week, with mass civil disorder blighting a large section of the northern part of the city. This prompted concerns that, in the midst of street violence and police clashes, Premier League matches in London should perhaps be delayed. The statement is anathema for ardent football followers, already deprived as we have been for almost 10 weeks. The Copa America and Women’s World Cup were not everything it could have been; it could not and did not suffice for the lack of top quality football competition we all want to view.

As if to further whet the appetite of famished football fans, a taste of what English football can offer this season was served up when the two Manchester clubs met last Sunday for the Community Shield bout between the winner of the Premier League and the winner of the FA Cup. The typically emotionally charged derby gave a first look to the new signings on both sides, and we all had the opportunity to learn a few lessons from this match.

City’s best performance of the day came from David Silva. The Spaniard floated around the pitch with an air of calm confidence, and his passing was effortlessly beautiful. One of his best passes on the day was accurately sprayed forward when surrounded by three red shirts. Easily the most creatively gifted players in the City ranks, Silva’s form and fitness this season will be crucial to the club’s pursuit of silverware. At the other end of the performance spectrum was the City back line.

The newcomer here is Clichy, who appears to have packed and brought along with him all his defensive frailties. For so long reliant on his pace to recover from the very frequent defensive errors he commits, Clichy contributed to the confusion that led to United’s winning goal. Rather than commit in any way or form to clearing or trapping Rooney’s penalty box clearance, or even to shield it from the onrushing Nani, Clichy let the ball bounce before suddenly jerking his head and realising that Nani was about to overtake him. At that stage, it could only be hoped that Vincent Kompany, who had for a large part of the game remained steady at the back, would react quickly. He did not, and City lost the match. Even in Europe, Clichy has been manhandled by opposition players who had pace of their own to exploit the Frenchman’s weaknesses, and he could be the chink in City’s defensive armour as they mount an offense for more trophies this year. Clichy will require the help of a leader in the back line, and Kompany will need a return to his form of last season if City are to have any hope of not conceding cheap goals like they did here. Even for United’s first goal, it was a clear case of miscommunication in the defensive ranks, as they held the line, allowing Smalling an open touch into goal without the slightest pressure.

For United, this win will provide tremendous confidence, given the nature of the side turned out by Sir Alex Ferguson. Ashley Young looked comfortable on the left wing, combining with Rooney and Nani regularly. A shot deflected off target and a free kick assist for United’s first goal show that the winger will settle in just fine at Old Trafford. The second half entry of Tom Cleverley, Phil Jones and Jonny Evans did no harm at all, as United comfortably held City at length and played through midfield. The next generation of Sir Alex’s side were blooded in this match, and they were all but one up to the mark.

That one was David de Gea. The young Spaniard will prove a good replacement for Van der Sar in the long run, but there is work to be done here. De Gea showed a lack of leadership in the penalty box when Silva swung his free kick in for the first goal. De Gea took a step out but did not commit to the ball, allowing Lescott to glance it home. The second goal was even worse from a goalkeeping standpoint, as Dzeko’s drive, while cleanly struck, was easily within De Gea’s reach. Slow reactions to shots from distance were a blemish on an otherwise stellar term last season for the Spaniard, who conceded more goals from distance than any other goalkeeper in the Spanish League.

While City have spent the big bucks to bring in Aguero, Clichy, and perhaps soon, Nasri to the soon to be renamed City of Manchester Stadium, United have invested less money in younger talent. In doing so, City have gone from a position of wanting to desperately hold onto last season’s talisman Carlos Tevez, to one where they cannot quite figure out how to offload him. With the huge sum splashed on Aguero, there will be less room on the pitch for all the strikers currently plying their trade at the club, namely Dzeko, Tevez, Balotelli and Adebayor. It will be a tough task for Roberto Mancini to handle a dressing room full of such capable players being forced to warm the bench.

As for United, Phil Jones, Ashley Young and David De Gea are all young, yet proven talents, and will provide adequate replacement in key areas of the pitch. The arrival of Young is a double edged sword though, when considering the possible effects this may have on Nani. The Portuguese was instrumental in United’s play when regular right winger Valencia was out with injury, but spent more time on the bench when the Colombian returned to the pitch. Young’s arrival means positions on both flanks will go to the traditional wingers, leaving Nani to play behind Rooney and Hernandez down the centre. Given Rooneyís knack of dropping deep, this could be both boon and bane for Nani. United do still need a player with the ability to draw the whole team into the game, and should Sneijder sign, he will be United’s marquee signing of the season to complete a new title winning side.

 

zainhq@gmail.com

Pakistan created history last Wednesday when they became the first winners of the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Under-16 Championship after beating arch-rivals India 2-1 in the final at the Dashrath Rangasala Stadium in Kathmandu (Nepal).

In the event, which was recently inserted into the fold of the SAFF competitions, Pakistani youngsters showed enormous potential by winning all their four matches they played in the ten-day tournament in which Nepal ended third after edging out Bangladesh 2-1 in their play-off for the third place while Maldives finished fifth followed by Sri Lanka at rock bottom.

Pakistan scored 11 goals in their four matches and conceded just a single one against India in the final. Faisalabad-born striker Mohammad Bilal emerged as the leading scorer of the tournament with four goals while Nowshera-born striker Mansoor Khan also performed exceptionally well. Overall Mansoor scored three goals but his two strikes came against India, one in the final and the other ñ a golden goal ñ that he scored against the Indians in the group stage. Pakistan goalkeeper Usman Khan also did a commendable job as he conceded only a single goal in the tournament in which SAFF other two associations Bhutan and Afghanistan did not field their teams.

Pakistan head coach Sajjad Mehmood and assistant coach Hasan Baloch deserve accolades for their team’s glorious triumph. The result is a clear indication that Pakistan is brimming with talent. The youth development programme has finally started showing positive results. Most of the players who featured in the SAFF event are product of the AID-27 coaches who are working in their respective regions. The AFC gives Pakistan 200,000 dollars annually for running the youth development programme. But PFF will have to look into the coaching pool and those coaches who are unable to perform at grassroots level should be replaced with good professionals.

PFF former Director Youth Development and Grassroots Siddique Shaikh, who recently resigned from his post, played a key role in the formation of the team which lifted the title in Nepal. Now, ask him and he will tell you how he had formed the team and what the PFF should do in developing the same batch.

“We had retained around 14 to 15 boys in the Under-16 team from the squad which had featured in the AFC Under-14 festival of football in Iran last year while the remaining lot of the 22-man squad had been picked as a result of trials. Had we not stuck with those boys who had already got international exposure we would not have been able to win the title,” Shaikh, also a UEFA A coach, told ‘The News on Sunday’.

“PFF should continue with the same brigade and if possible they should retain all of them, along with the current coaching panel, for the next monthís AFC Under-16 Championship qualifiers to be held in Kuwait. That event is bigger than the regional one which Pakistan won in Nepal but I hope that our boys will be able to offer tough resistance against their rivals in that tournament too,” he said.

“We have got the fruit of our working at grassroots level but now this Under-16 core batch should be given enough international exposure and when they will kiss 19 years of age or little over it, most of them will have been able to become part of the national team,” Shaikh said.

In the AFC Under-16 Championship qualifiers to be held Kuwait from September 12 to 22, Pakistan have been placed in Group B with Yemen, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Maldives, Kuwait and Afghanistan. Two teams from the group will make it to the tournament proper which will be conducted next year.

The performance of the colts in Nepal will certainly put more pressure on the PFF which has been badly flopped to enhance the standard of their national senior team. They should think if we are able to beat India twice at youth level why our senior team is not good enough to beat Indian senior team?

Juniors are almost of equal standard at this age-group in the world as we may find colts here in Lyari who can match even the top colt produced by Brazil. But due to various reasons we are unable to mould them while leading footballing nations transform them into world class players.

So instead of just celebrating the Nepal triumph, PFF should capitalize on it. It should not send the players who performed in Nepal to their homes but should rather manage to impart regular training to them under the supervision of good coaches even after the Kuwait event to be held next month.

During Pakistani coach Shehzad Anwar’s visit to Brazil recently, the Brazilian Sports Ministry had offered Pakistan that if they want to train their junior lot on Brazil’s soil they would be given full assistance. The PFF has the option now to think about it and send the champions of the SAFF Under-16 tournament to Brazil for training. An interaction with the youth of Brazil will instill more confidence and change the outlook of the Pakistani colts towards the game.

“The Under-16 is a very important batch and in the next four to five years these players could be transformed into perfection and I would say that extra effort is required to train these boys under the most qualified and senior coaches to prepare them for the national duty,” Pakistan senior team coach Tariq Lutfi told TNS.

Youth batches serve as feeders for the national team but the filtering of the juniors into the senior squad should be systematic and not abrupt in order to safeguard the interests of the seniors as well. The PFF should think hard that their policy to kick out the senior players from the senior team at once will have disastrous consequences and they will see in near future when they will field their team in the SAFF Championships in India at the end of this year if they kept ignoring all home-based senior players who are still able to serve the country.

The PFF officials these days say that because youth is their future therefore they are giving more chances to them and no home-grown senior player will visit England to play a two-match series against India next month. As I said earlier, no doubt youth is your future but you cannot expel at once all the seniors from the team who have sacrificed their whole lives to serve the country. On the one hand, you are expelling all your home-based seniors to give chance to maximum youngsters while on the other hand you are inviting certain foreign-based players for the England tour who are also seniors like the home-based seniors. Is that the right thing to do?

 

73.alam@gmail.com

In the managerial hot-seat?
By Nabeel Hashmi

English Premier League (EPL) has never been the same since the arrival of Roman Abramovic and with Sheikh Mansoor now being at the helm of Manchester City, the battle for top honours has only gotten fierce.

With more money and power evolve more expectations, which can make a manager’s life nothing less than hell. Chelsea have already sacked a number of top managers in the form of Jose Mourinho, Luis Felipe Scolari, Avram Grant and Claudio Ranieri. In the blue half of Manchester, Sven Goran Errikson and Mark Hughes have already been fired.

EPL is said to be one of the most competitive leagues in the world and this case can only get any stronger with the acquisitions made by the Premiership clubs.

The mega-money riches have put drastic pressure on the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool, while Manchester United too have come under pressure despite winning a record 19th Premier League title. United have been forced to sign winger Ashley Young, goalkeeper David de Gea and defender Phil Jones for a combined fee of more than £50m.

Liverpool have signed Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing, Charlie Adam, Doni and Jose Enrique to add to their mighty January coups of Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez while Sunderland have roped in some talented players and Tottenham Hotspur have shown their potential through their Champions League heroics. Chelsea and Manchester City have spent too and they along with rest of the other clubs will surely snap up some more players before the transfer window closes.

The coming season will provide a ruthless fight between the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham Spurs in the domestic competitions, while the likes of Fulham, Sunderland, Stoke City and Everton will be looking to sneak in the dog-fight.

The mentality of the club owners has changed a lot over the years — the big guns want to vie on all four fronts that is the Champions League, EPL, FA Cup and Carling Cup, while the onus also remains to finish at least in the top four. However, that result, as witnessed in the past, can not provide any job security.

Even small clubs do not seek a mid-table finish or survival from the relegation battle as their aim too has changed. They now want finish their campaign in Europa Legaue and Champions League places.

Chelsea have signed FC Porto’s 33-year-old Europa League winning coach Andre Villas-boas for a record £13.5m in their quest for a right man to lead them to CL glory. But Villas-Boas could get sacked as early as in his first season at the Stamford Bridge. He will not find it easy to run a star-studded side of Chelsea with the additional input of the Russian owner, who off late has run out of patience because of lack of silverware in the Blues cabinet for the past few seasons.

Villas-Boas is not the only big name manager who finds a sword hanging over his head because this is the case with Manchester City’s Roberto Mancini, who has already seen his star-studded side lose the FA Community Shield 3-2 to fierce rivals Man United despite leading 2-0 at the half-time.

The Italian might have pleased the owner last season with a CL place finish and the FA Cup triumph, but with more than £200m being spent on big name signings in the past two years, he is severely under-pressure to produce an EPL title.

Sheikh Mansoor had fulfilled Mancini’s wishes by providing him the funds to sign Edin Dzeko, Mario Balotelli, James Milner, David Silva, Yahya Toure, Adam Johnson and Alexander Kolarov and this year too, City have broken the bank to sign Argentine hot-shot Sergio Aguero for a club-record fee of £38m from Atletico Madrid, while Arsenal’s Gael Clichy and Stefan Savic have been brought in to add more steel in the defence.

After such a mad spending spree, the ball is in Mancini’s court and he cannot afford to commit neither a fault nor a double fault.

Many people would defer from this prediction but one has to be bold in saying that Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger well might turn out to be the biggest casualty of the season, as his position continues to get worse at the Emirates stadium.

He has failed to deliver a single trophy in last six seasons and his policy of blooding youngsters and not splashing the cash in the transfer market has forced not only fans but even the major stake-holders to voice their displeasure.

Wenger’s position could not have been as fragile as this, as he has been left fighting on two fronts. On one hand he is under-pressure to sign some big names to re-assure the fans that Arsenal remain serious title contenders. On the other hand, he faces a battle to keep hold of star players Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri, which looks a lost cause. The players have clearly been displeased by the lack of transfer activity. Gael Clichy has already left, while Andre Arshavin, Emmanuel Eboue and Nicklas Bendtner are being linked away from the club.

Even, the signings of Ivory Coast forward Gervinho from Lille, who could turn out to be the new Thierry Henry, and Oxlade-Chamberlain from Southampton has not pleased the supporters. The fans have not even booked their tickets with the same enthusiasm.

The French manager turned Arsenal into a force to reckon with and guided them to three EPL titles, four FA Cup triumphs, same number of Community Shield wins and to semifinal and the final of the CL but that all has been partially forgotten in this fast-paced world.

It’s high time for Wenger to go against his policy to save his fading legacy otherwise it will not be long when he will only become a piece of history at Arsenal. Meanwhile, both Villas-Boas and Mancini needs to deliver quickly else they will likely receive a knock-out blow that will leave a stain on their impressive CVs.

 

nabeel_h88@hotmail.com


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