Toxic Web v4.0

…in the best season for the F.A. Cup for a long time.

But don’t expect it to last.

As Barnsley were drawn against Cardiff and West Brom to face Portsmouth, the only top division side left in the cup, for the cup semi-finals, it’s been one of the best weekends in the F.A. Cup for many years.

It’s been a long time since the usual suspects didn’t make up the semi-finalists never mind the finalists, got to go back to West Ham v Fulham in ‘75 since ManUre, Woolwhich Wanderers, Tottenham, Liverpool, Chelsea and Everton haven’t been in the final and that’s been to the detriment of the cup over recent seasons especially.

It’s been on a downward spiral since the inception of the Premiership, the emphasis on the Champions League at a speed increased when ManUre pulled out of defending the trophy and ITV won the rights to show the games.

ITV helped start a real rot as they insisted on showing some of the worst games in the history of the cup. Always the same big teams, never any real shocks, all fronted by muppets. Like everything else it turned to crap when it was shown live and exclusive on ITV - Des Lynam god on the Beeb a dog on ITV.

This new tradition was carried on by the BBC when they regained the live rights. The games have been awful for the last few years, what ones can anyone think of as half decent. The Liverpool v West Ham final and Spurs blowing a 3-1 lead against Chelsea last year. And what have we done to deserve Mark “yeeeaaaaas” Bright. Listening to him struggle through a game is too much, he hardly ever finishes a word never mind a sentence, it’s almost like Norman Collier is back on prime time TV doing his act.

Even this year they got most of the games wrong, until the quarters when with three of the four games they had to luck out at least once. Well they did, especially with the Barnsley Chelsea game, an excellent cup tie with the right result. What a great night for Barsnley, some lower league teams do it once against a top division side in a cup run, to end up with two entries in the top 10 cup shocks and now to be one game away from the final is excellent.

Then on Sunday the amazing thought of Middlesbrough being second favourite for the cup only for them to be absolutely useless and be played off the park by Cardiff - who aren’t the only non-English side to win the cup the Woolwich Wanderers won it a couple of years back

So Pompy favourites, is it going to be ‘Arry’s year, is it karma for him deciding to talk to the BBC well he does do some funny post match interviews, just a shame we have to get other whining scumbags filling the air. It’s been good since we haven’t had to listen to Fergie’s purple nosed rants blaming everyone else for a loss, just a shame we have to suffer his “Si boss” sidekick unless of course when he said…

This is why the Taylors of the game are allowed to survive - Carlos Quieroz

…he was talking about Wayne Rooney who was rightly booked for this vicious two footed studs up lunge. Which is doubtful and makes the statement a particularly scummy thing to say and therefore in character with his surroundings.

Well why won’t it last? Well ITV get the rights back next season, thank you the F.A. your flagship cup was back on track and you’ve gone and buggered it up again, well done.

Oh and in the league yet again people are as befuddled as Alan Curbishley looks by West Ham falling off well Curbs teams, bar last season, always falter at this time of year and another 4-0 drubbing, their third in a week, was a good thing for Spurs to hand them. Man of the match well that has to go to Jermaine Jenas for getting injured against PSV and thus missing the game, one wonders if the pikeys changed their game plan when they found out he wouldn’t be giving them so much possession?

…after Saturday’s embarrassment.

Everything good I said about you after the Australia and French games that got England to the World Cup final, anything good I said about you after the victory over France in Paris two weeks back, which wasn’t as much as before because of the things that have happened in this 6 Nations - the Welsh and Italy games.

All gone with one of the worst performances ever, even worse than the South African drubbing in the WC - at least that was the eventual cup winners. This was England under Andy Robinson and it seemed like you were impersonating him with the befuddled look. And it does leave you thinking who really got the team to the WC final.

A truly awful display against a truly awful team, a team that did bugger all, official stats - Scotland line breaks none - says it all. This is a team who should be lucky to get zero points in the table and should be finishing with the wooden spoon yet again. They should lose to Italy again this year, if the Italians had a half decent half back pair it would be a stuffing.

Yeah you can’t be held accountable for everything that went on out on that pitch but they should have been prepared enough to know and combat what was coming, or wasn’t as was the case. No stupid penalties, because that’s the only chance they have of scoring and don’t keep dropping the ball. It wasn’t rocket science Brian.

But what really comes out of Saturday is the feeling Brian Ashton is another Svennis.

A decent club coach that doesn’t quite get the international game, everything seems to mirror the ex-England football manager. Some resemblance of a plan A but no one is sure what, certainly nothing beyond that, so when it goes tits up everyone is lost.

Half time mogadon session, both do/did something during the break that sees a team performing well, destroying the opposition, come out a totally different side devoid of any idea and ability to get into the game.

And then there’s the favouritism, Svennis had his players that would always start no matter what and it’s happening with Ashton’s set up. No matter what you think about the Cipriani debacle it just seemed an excuse to get Balshaw back in the side. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near the squad, OK he was a complete disaster against the Jocks, he wasn’t great either but his performances so far have been so atrocious there’s no excuse for him being involved.

There was a moment when Ashton decided to go beyond Svennis, when he brought that right Charlie on for Wilkinson, yes Jonny was having a dog of a game, not helped by his forwards mind but that substitution reeked of Graham Taylor bringing Gary Lineker off for Alan Smith.

The question now is, no matter what happens in the last game against Ireland, how long with Ashton’s rolling contract role for and when will Jake White take over? Funny he was linked with the Jock job before Saturday, could the losing the Calcutta Cup be England’s gain and Scotland’s loss in the long run?

All of this made worse by the usual BBC Jockland routine of taking over the broadcast so yet again you get the most one-eyed biased, parochial piece of garbage output from a studio filled with ex-Jock players. Obviously they decided ex captain David Sole being born in England was enough to give the broadcast some sort of balance.

But even going beyond that, just imagine if it was the other way round the whinging from up here, it was the fact the commentary was so abysmal. Now I’ve never played the game at international level like the two wittering away on the box, just against teams that destroyed us containing future internationals, but I can’t remember when the laws were changed so you can call a mark outside the twenty-two and when they got such a basic one wrong, it’s no wonder the rest of the game was so beyond them.