Its like that old saying, isn’t it – ‘if you wanna make an omelette you gotta break some eggs.’ Unfortunately for Aaron Ramsey, football is the omelette and the broken egg shell is his mangled right leg. The story was all too familiar for Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, who must be seriously close to serving up that omelette by now!

After Abou Diaby’s ankle was horrifically crunched by Sunderland’s Dan Smith in a Premier League match in 2006, Brazilian-born striker Eduardo went one better in 2008 with a broken left fibula and an open dislocation of his left ankle through Birmingham’s Martin Taylor’s high challenge.

‘Horrendous and unacceptable’ were the words Arsene Wenger used to label the tackle from Stoke defender Ryan Shawcross which fractured Ramsey’s tibia and fibula, leaving the Welshman’s leg dangling at a freak angle.

Continuing the every-two-year trend, last week was the 19-year-old’s turn. It’s an image no one likes to see in sport, particularly when the victim is a teenager with the promise of midfielder Ramsey. The players were visibly disturbed, Ramsey visibly in agony, and God knows what must have been going through Eduardo’s mind as he entered the pitch as a substitute soon after.

However, to name the tackle which inflicted the leg break ‘horrendous and unacceptable’ is way off the mark from Wenger and any notions of post-match frustration shining through on that were quashed when the Frenchman stood by his quotes later in the coming week.

Shawcross was late, but this is football – late tackles happen as often as a mistimed pass or a misplaced shot, it’s just a part of the game which has been cruel to the Gunners in the past few years.

If the tackle was ‘unacceptable’ then what would have been acceptable from Shawcross? To pull out when he realised he wasn’t going to get there and risk the wrath of Tony Pulis in the dressing room after? James Beattie certainly wouldn’t have hung around for that. The tackle was clumsy but ‘horrendous’ it was not.

Wenger’s follow up comments were tentative, though: “I admire a great technical tackle as much as a creative pass,” Wenger told skysports.com. But if he really admires a good tackle as much as a good pass, then surely he can accept that a bad tackle is as inevitable as a bad pass. It’s typical of Wenger to buck the trend with opinion on this issue, but the trend of horrific injuries to his players should now stop through divine right alone.

Tackling hard is always a risk but risks are what make sports great and the day going in hard is absent from football is the day the sport is no longer a man’s game.

Steve Bruce will make his first signing as Sunderland manager by luring England international, Darren Bent, to the Stadium of Light. Bent has been in and out of the Tottenham Hotspur side all season long and is not thought to be highly rated by Harry Redknapp. With the news emerging today that Spurs are looking to try and sign Jan Huntelaar from Real Madrid, it could mean that a deal for Bent has already been negotiated and it could be the first step in Sunderland taking a move forward with the backing of new owners.

Bruce has received a mixed reaction for his decision to manage Sunderland but his intent is clear and if Bent does go to Tyneside then it would be a very good move for the club. On too few occasions Bent has shown that he has all of the attributes needed in order to become one of the best strikers in the Premier League. He is technically very good and has a lot of pace, as well as being strong. However, as is so often the case with talented strikers they do not have the ability to consistently perform and this is the main reason why Bent has not been able to nail down a regular slot in the Tottenham first team. A move to Sunderland could inspire him as a person and player and ignite his career and his chances of international football. He has not been a permanent fixture in any of Fabio Capello’s squads and he will not be able to become one unless he is granted an extended run in a decent top-flight side.

He also appears good value at £10 million. This is staggering considering a couple of seasons ago this amount of money would be considered huge but it will be good business in the current economic climate if Sunderland could pull of a deal. In a summer where players are going to different clubs for world record breaking amounts of money, the Black Cats could well get themselves a decent little player, staying under the radar. Redknapp will want the money for ventures down in London as he has promised a harder push for European football next season. Spurs have already had an offer for Inter Milan’s, Sully Muntari, turned down and doubtless the manager will have a big list of names he would like to approach with a view to a possible transfer.

Both Steve Bruce and Harry Redknapp are wise enough to be able to see what is a good deal for both parties and it seems as though the transfer of Bent would suit each down to the ground. On the one hand Spurs would get a squad space and room to develop a better side and on the other Sunderland would get a striker hoping for a new chance and someone who does not appear to be bringing an ego along with him. It could be a deal that is included over the next few days and it is good to see some sensible trading as opposed to ridiculous speculation and sums of money exchanging hands.

Wigan Athletic are expecting to name Roberto Martinez as their new manager tomorrow. Martinez was allowed to speak to Wigan about becoming the new manager after a £2 million fee was agreed in compensation.

Martinez has been tipped as one of the most under rated and talented manages in the country but he will have a hard time in replacing Steve Bruce who has only just left for Sunderland. Under Bruce Wigan were stabilised into one of the most consistent and solid Premier League teams in the country so Martinez will have a lot of work to do.

Martinez built up his reputation in Wales as manager of Swansea City. He took the Swans into the Championship from League One and has been consistently sparring with the best sides in the country outside of the Premier League. Although becoming a top-flight manager is a totally different proposition, it is clear that Martinez has the flair you need to be at the top.

Wigan chairman, Dave Whelan, said: “Everything is almost agreed. The only reason it has not yet been signed is because I am in Majorca. I’m due back on Wednesday so the deal will be completed then.”

Wigan were very reluctant to let Bruce leave and this was obvious because of how well he had done at the club. However, the club has to be praised for going for a risky bet in Martinez and not offering the job to a more experienced former Premier League manager.

The point is that Martinez will have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for the job, the club, the players and the surrounding area. These are all virtues that Bruce displayed on a daily basis and they are all things that a new manager needs in order to come in and make an impact.

It could well turn out to be the best or the worst decision that Wigan have ever made but it is hoped it will be the best and all of the early signs are pointing that way. Although managing in the Championship is probably a lot easier than managing in the Premier League and coping with all the pressure, a lot of other Championship bosses have praised Martinez for his tactical thinking and awareness.

The Spaniard has the ability to be able to sum up a match very quickly and make sure that his side are doing all of the small things in order to turn a match around. Credit has to go to Wigan and their chairman for not sitting around but taking the initiative and having a gamble on someone who could turn out to be a great top-flight manager.

Martinez will be given the time and the space to establish himself and will have the entire summer to make all of the changes to the squad that he sees fit. Although he is a relatively small man he will also have to impose himself over the club as this is likely to be more difficult than it would be for another manager with better experience and a bigger reputation.

Now Steve Bruce may have been a pretty good footballer and could be a great bloke, but why oh why would Sunderland consider hiring him as their next manager? It’s not a wise idea. Especially considering it would cost them three million pounds in compensation to Bruce’s current club, Wigan. And to make matters even more puzzling, it’s believed that former Inter Milan boss Roberto Mancini would gladly take the job and it wouldn’t cost Sunderland a penny.

To me, this is a no brainer. I don’t see anything on Bruce’s resume that would make me consider him for a moment as a Premier League manager. He’s mediocre at very best and that’s exaggerating it. To me, hiring a mediocre manager will do nothing more for your club than….. let’s see… make them mediocre. And that’s exactly what Sunderland is now, so I don’t see how Bruce is going to improve them.

But, let’s not slag him off until we back it up with some numbers and facts. Well, this season it was probably regarded that Wigan were quite a bit better squad than Sunderland, but Bruce only managed to get an extra nine points out of them by leading them to a 12-9-17 record, which tied them for 11th place. And three of those extra nine points came against Sunderland. Yes, that’s correct, 12 wins out of 38 league games for a winning percentage of 34.4%.

How does that compare to the rest of Bruce’s managerial career? Well, it’s about par for course as his career winning percentage is 38.3. In fact, the only time he’s managed to hit 50 or higher was an 18-game stint with Crystal Palace, where he went a fine 61.1%. But 18 games is just a blip on the radar screen when we are looking at his career total of 478 games. When studying Bruce’s performance, without the Crystal Palace job, we see a trend forming and it’s not a good one.

Bruce’s first year as a full-time manager was back in 1998 with Sheffield United and he did reasonably well by winning 40% of his matches. But every year after that his winning percentage has gone down, not up. This tells me he’s not really improving as a manager with more experience, actually the opposite is true. Bruce hasn’t shown a lot of loyalty either as far as I’m concerned by taking on six different managers jobs in just over a decade. Sunderland would make seven.

On the other hand, let’s look at the 44-year-old Mancini. This fellow has been managing three years less than Bruce, but has won three consecutive Serie A titles (2006 to 2008), two Italian Cups (2001 and 2004) and two Super Cups (2005 and 2006) for Inter, making him the most successful Inter manager in the past 30 years. His league winning percentage was 61.7 in 227 games and his success rate in the Champions League was 52.9%. Granted, his first league title was handed to him after Inter ended up in second place and league winners Juventus were stripped of the title because of match fixing.

Mancini’s career got off to a rocky start with Fiorentina in 2001 as his winning percentage was only 22.2 in 27 games, but he at least compensated for that by winning the Italian Cup that year. He also won the cup during his stay at Lazio from 2002 to 2004.

The numbers just don’t add up for Bruce, not positively anyway, and I honestly can’t see why he’d be chosen to manage Sunderland if they’re trying to climb their way up the standings. But I’m afraid that’s the way football seems to work these days, especially in England. As soon as a manager is fired because of poor results, there are about five teams ready to hand him a long-term contract. In this case, Bruce would be leaving of his own accord. But it’s still the same scenario of a weak manager being hired by even an even weaker club.
If the guy wasn’t any good at any of his other clubs, why would you want him?

Perhaps Sunderland will come to their senses before getting Bruce to sign on the dotted line.

The shockwaves of the 2008-2009 season are being felt in some European leagues as the season ended in most nations on the weekend. Some major and minor moves have already been made, and if you don’t keep up with them now, you may not know who’s who when next season starts.

First of all, Celtic manager Gordon Strachan quit his job after the last game on Sunday as Celtic could only muster a draw at home to Hearts. This meant their quest for a fourth straight Scottish Premier league title was over and arch enemy and cross town rivals Rangers won the league. This move may prove that Strachan has some ulterior motives as it’s been rumoured he will take over at English Premier League team Sunderland as their manager Ricky Sbragia also quit after the last game, a 3-2 loss at home to Chelsea. But despite Sragbia appearing to be clueless by leaving his top league scorer Djibril Cisse on the bench again, Sunderland managed to stay up. And speaking of  Cisse, it’s no surprise that his contract won’t be renewed and he’ll be on the move soon.

Aberdeen manager Jimmy Calderwood also quit after guiding the SPL club to a Europa League spot next season.





Up in Newcastle, it appears that interim manager Alan Shearer may be ready to sign a four year deal to take over the just-relegated Geordies. The contract appears to be way too long for a team with Newcastle’s recent problems, especially for an unproven manager. Start off with a two-year deal and see how it goes. What’s the rush?

Aston Villa will also try to resign Gareth Barry, who has a year to go on his contract with the Birmingham club.

In Holland, Dutch giants Ajax Amsterdam grabbed manager Martin Jol from fifth-place German Bundesliga club SV Hamburg and signed him to a three-year contract.  Ajax manager Marco van Basten resigned after missing out on a Champions league spot.

In other Bundesliga news, Stuttgart striker Mario Gomez will sign with Bayern Munich in a deal that could make him the most expensive Bundesliga player ever. Both teams and Gomez said they have agreed to a deal that could be worth about €30m. If true, it would be the biggest in German league history. Werder Bremen just raked in some serious coin though as they sold Brazilian playmaker Diego to Juventus for €24.5m. Also, injured striker Vedad Ibisevic has extended his contract with Hoffenheim until 2013.

In France, where there’s still one game left in the season, former Brazilian midfielder Juninho will leave Olympique Lyon at the end of the season. He has won seven Ligue 1 titles with Lyon. The 34-year-old will be let go for free even though he had a year left on his contract. He is suspended for the last game so he’s already played his last match withn the team.

There’s also a game left in Italy, but AC Milan manager Carlo Ancelotti has said he will remain with the club if he’s asked to. It’s been widely rumoured that he’ll be heading over to Chelsea in England at the and of the season when interim manger Guus Hiddink leaves London and heads back to managing the Russian national team.

Inter Milan boss Jose Mourinho signed an extension to stay with the team until 2012 after guiding them to the title this year.

In Greece, Olympiakos has hired former Newcastle player Temuri Ketsbaia is their new manager.

And in Russia, former CSKA Moscow manager Valery Gazzayev has been appointed hired to lead Dynamo Kiev.

It’s not really hard to figure out why Middlesbrough, West Brom, and Newcastle are all going down to the Championship League next season and why Sunderland and Hull came perilously close to being relegated. Not one of those five teams managed to pull out a win on the last day of the season when their Premier League lives depended on it.

Hull lost to a second string Manchester United side at home 1-0 and I’m thinking if they can’t beat a weakened Manchester side that’s full of kids, at home, when they’re fighting for survival, then is there really any point of them being in the Premier League?

Newcastle was just as bad. They had a pretty decent first half against Aston Villa, but were down 1-0 at half time on an unlucky break when Gareth Barry’s shot bounced off of Damien Duff and behind keeper Steve Harper in the 38th minute. But Newcastle came out as flat as a pancake in the second half and with Hull losing, they only needed a draw to stay up.

They were so bad they didn’t even get a shot on net in the second half. Acting manager Alan Shearer didn’t bring Michael Owen on until the 67th minute and took off striker Mark Viduka for Shola Ameobi with 15 minutes to go. Not very bright I must say when you’re looking for a goal to stay up.

Middlesbrough was relegated after losing 2-1 at West Ham. The Londoners went up 1-0 through Carlton Cole in the 33rd minute only to have Gary O’Neil tie things up for Boro five minutes into the second half. However eight minutes after that, the inevitable happened and Junior Stanislas put woeful Middlesbrough out of their misery and officially sent them down.

West Brom managed to get a point at Blackburn as they played to a 0-0 draw. It was irrelevant though, as their fate was already sealed last weekend and they were the first team relegated and ended dead last in the league with a worse goal difference than Middlesbrough.

Sunderland had luck on their side as the other results meant they could lose and still stay up, and of course lose they did. Over 42,000 came to the Stadium of Light to see their heroes go down 3-2 to Chelsea. Kenwyne Jones scored for Sunderland in the 90th minute to make the score look respectable.

Again, Sunderland manager Ricky Sbragia disrespected the paying fans and the players by leaving the team’s top scorer Djibril Cisse on the bench, this time for the whole game. At least against Portsmouth last Monday he gave him a whole nine minutes of playing time.

It’s no wonder that world-class players like Cisse leave teams like Sunderland when they are heads and tails above everybody else on the team in skill, but are left on the bench to watch inferior players struggle. Sbragia quit his job after the game and it was the best move he’s made all season, believe me.

Liverpool beat Spurs 3-1 to end up in second place with 86 points. Chelsea end up in third with 83 and Arsenal, who beat Stoke 4-1, come in fourth with 72 points and grab the Champions League qualifying spot for next season. Everton won 2-0 at Fulham and grab a Europa League spot with 63 points, while Villa at 62 points also make Europa, as do Fulham, with 53 points.

Sunderland blew a chance to stay in the English Premier League today (May 18) as they lost 3-1 at Portsmouth after taking a 1-0 lead and generally outplaying their fellow bottom-six team.

Sunderland had enough chances to put this one away early, but couldn’t beat debuting Portsmouth keeper Asmir Begovic, who was filling in for the injured David James, until the 59th minute when striker Kenwyne Jones buried a perfect low cross from the right wing. It was Sunderland’s first away goal in over three months, since they scored against Newcastle on February 1st.

The lead didn’t last long though, as John Utaka tied things up about 90 seconds later after he fought off a defender and buried a shot into the low corner. The goal came with some controversy though as the referee’s whistle could clearly be heard just before Utaka placed the ball into the net.

Phil Bardsley then scored an own goal in the 68th minute to put the home side up 2-1 after Anton Ferdinand made a mess of things in his own end and completely missed a routine long ball. Utaka got hold of it and rounded the keeper, but the unfortunate Bardsley put it into his own net in an attempt to make up for Ferdinand’s gaffe.

Now I may be missing something here, or is it just me? But Sunderland needed a win today to guarantee themselves a spot in the top flight for next year and will lose millions of pounds if they are relegated to the Championship League. But manager Ricky Sbragia left his top scorer Djibril Cisse on the bench until the 80th minute.

He gave the French speedster a whole 10 minutes to rescue the game for his woeful side and perhaps rescue the season as well. I just don’t understand for the life of me how you can go into a game as important as this one and leave your top scorer stewing on the bench. I also don’t understand how the hell managers like him get jobs in football in the first place, let alone keep them.

Cisse came close to leveling the score a couple of minutes after he came on, but Sunderland’s fate was sealed, at least on this night as Armand Traore slammed home the heartbreaker in the 88th minute.

Sunderland isn’t dead and buried yet, but they play Chelsea in the season finale on Sunday at home. However, if luck is on their side, they could get thumped in that game and still stay up if Hull loses to Manchester United and Newcastle get beat at Aston Villa.

Now, it doesn’t matter to me who goes down and who stays in the Premier, but I still can’t believe that managers like Sbragia are getting away with sitting top scorers on the bench during must-win games. They need to be held accountable for their actions and suffer repercussions from fans and upper management for their nonsensical decisions during football games. A move like that could literally cost your club a lot more than just money in the long run.