England coach thanks Croatian for his inspiring team talk
When he isn’t belittling the opposition, Slaven Bilic likes to rock out with his band Rawbau. In the video, he’s the guy playing the guitar who looks like Slaven Bilic.
With the exception of the ongoing witch hunt of Premiership clubs who have poached young talent from elsewhere, it’s been a relatively quiet week in football so far. Hence, much prominence has been given to Slaven Bilic’s daily attempts to destabilise the England camp ahead of Wednesday night’s World Cup qualifier with Croatia.
So far, he has highlighted team’s lack of ‘Englishness’ (not exactly a criticism when you consider the team’s recent form), claimed to have figured out a super secret way to ensure victory (he won’t tell us what it is) and he has berated John Terry for speaking out
Croatia boss wants Premier League job now that his stock is falling
Slaven Bilic’s agent Rudi Vata has claimed that the prospect of managing nouveau-riche Portsmouth “would excite” the former Everton defender:
“Slaven is open to offers and there is interest from Portsmouth. There are different clubs who want him but he is very interested.
“Portsmouth have tried to get in touch, but there is no concrete offer at this stage. But the idea of working with and building the club would excite him.”
The Croatia boss was linked with numerous Premier League posts last year but
The players who go down quicker than Danielle Lloyd at a Manchester Utd Christmas party
Morten Gamst Pedersen - who we hear has taken his phone off the hook and barricaded himself into his house in an attempt to stop the ridicule - threw his hat into the ring for worst dive of the century against Arsenal on Saturday. But who has been responsible for the most unsporting pratfalls in football history? The Spoiler’sRichard Gilzene considers the top ten divers in the history of the beautiful game…
Didier Drogba
Jose Mourinho aside, Jens Lehmann’s is the most galling departure from the Premiership in recent years, if only for the massive entertainment void he left behind. Pitted against another big character in Didier Drogba during his acrobatic pomp, it made sense the pair would team up midway through a tense London derby clash in the 06/07 season, to resurrect the spirit of a 1920s slapstick vaudeville act.
There’s just thirteen days to go before the window is opened
In the summer everyone was expecting Xabi Alonso to move to Juventus only for coach Claudio Ranieri to eventually decide that he was too slow. The Daily Telegraph today claim that Ranieri is planning another Anfield raid, with underused duo Daniel Agger and Ryan Babel, who have eight league starts between them this season, top of his wishlist. The former Chelsea coach is poised to offer £19 million to persuade Rafael Benitez to part with his favourite substitutes. Here are today’s other major rumours:
Slaven Bilic to Sunderland
Former West Ham and Everton defender Super Slav has been backed down from 12/1 to 6/4 favourite for the Sunderland job but don’t be fooled into wasting money backing him because The Times say he is still not a leading contender.
Move over Slaven Bilic, there’s a new rocker in town
Due to his strong command of the right wing and personable nature, Gareth Ainsworth earned himself cult status during spells at Lincoln City, Wimbledon and most recently, QPR. Now that the Lancashire-born legend has been demoted from the managerial position at Loftus Road, he’ll have more time to rock out with band Dog Chewed The Handle. As you can see by their cover of The Animals’ ‘We’ve gotta get out of this place’ at a Middlesex pub, they’re not half bad.
See more Dog Chewed the Handle clips after the jump…
After Slaven Bilic, Brian Laudrup and Roberto Donadoni pulled out of the race to manage West Ham, it was all down to ex-Chelsea free kick specialist Gianfranco Zola to take the reigns. The Italian is expected to be unveiled at a press conference today, and many Hammers fans are delighted by the prospect of exciting attacking football.
Yet there are some concerns that Zola’s lack of experience as a manager will hit him hard when he mixes it up with the big boys, and also that he’s far too small to break up fights between Matthew Upson and Craig Bellamy.
So what do you think? On the scale of players who try their hand at management, will he be closer to Mark Hughes, or the defensively disappointing Ossie Ardiles?
Alan Curbishley has stolen Kevin Keegan’s thunder and won the sack race by walking out of West Ham after getting fed-up with players being sold over his head, most notably George McCartney on deadline day.
Reports claim that Curbishley believes the club’s board have been undermining him and that he has only been keeping the manager’s seat in the dugout warm until Croatia boss Slaven Bilic is available.
The former Charlton boss failed to win over a vocal section of the West Ham support but a poll held on the forum of West Ham fansite Knees Up Mother Brown in the last 24 hours saw Curbishley garner a 87% approval rating.
Sam Allardyce is 4/1 favourite with Sky Bet to take over, while Bilic is close behind at 5/1.
Having successfully avoided a quarter-final clash with Germany, the most successful side in Euro history, the Turks now face in-form Croatia. Unfortunately, this looks to be the end of the road for the Eurasians, as the Croats, powered by Slaven Bilic’s powerful rocket sauce, will make the semis. Oh well, at least they got to make Petr Cech look like a clown before bowing out. Why Croatia will win
* Croatia have never lost to Turkey.
* Turkey have faced Croatia once before at the European Championships, in 1996, and Croatia triumphed 1-0.
* Croatia have won all three games so far at the European Championships.
* Turkey have never led a match with Croatia, on the two times they drew they have come from behind.
* Turkey may have excelled against Switzerland and Czech Republic but they have won just four of their last eight.
* Croatia have lost just one of their 17 competitive games since losing to Brazil at the World Cup - a 2-0 loss in Macedonia after they’d already secured Euro 2008 qualification.
But it might go to penalties…
* Two of the three previous Croatia/Turkey clashes have
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