Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Joke 002

The Wonderful Husband

Several men are in the locker room of a golf club. A mobile phone on
a bench rings and a man engages the free speaker function and
begins to talk.
Everyone else in the room stops to listen.

MAN: 'Hello'

WOMAN: 'Honey, 🐝it's me... R u at the club?'

MAN: 'Yes'

WOMAN: 'I'm at the City Centre mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It's only $1,000
Is it OK if I buy it?'

MAN: 'Sure, go ahead if you really like it.'

WOMAN: 'I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new 2013 Models.
I saw one ,I really liked.'

MAN: 'How much?'

WOMAN: '$98,000'

MAN: 'OK, but for that price make sure it comes with all the options.'

WOMAN: 'Great! Oh, and one more thing, the house 🏡I wanted last year is back on the market.
They're asking for $980,000/-.'

MAN: 'well, then go ahead and make an offer of $900,000. They will
probably take it. If not, go the extra 50 thousand if you think it's really a pretty good price.'

WOMAN: 'OK.  I'll see you later!
I love you so much!  You’re so generous!'

MAN: “You’re worth it.  'Bye!'

The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are staring at him in astonishment, with mouths wide open

The wonderful husband turns and asks: "Anybody know whose phone this is?"

Monday, August 25, 2014

转载 - 教养

http://jalong.blogspot.com/2014/08/blog-post_25.html

教养

名家传达为人父母者,如何塑造自己认为最适当的儿女模式,金玉良言让你我读得受用之极,且让令伯抄下来与大家分享:

【家庭教育方式很重要】              
★宠出来的孩子――危险
★捧出来的孩子――霸道
★惯出来的孩子――任性
★娇出来的孩子――脆弱
★打出来的孩子――逆反
★骂出来的孩子――胡涂
★逼出来的孩子――出格
★磨出来的孩子――坚强
★苦出来的孩子――懂事
★教出来的孩子――传统
★闯出来的孩子――勇敢
★搏出来的孩子――成功
★表扬出的孩子――自信
★溺爱出的孩子――依赖
★哄出来的孩子――虚伪
★纵容出的孩子――傲慢

指责中长大的孩子,将来容易怨天尤人。
敌意中长大的孩子,将来容易好斗逞强。
恐惧中长大的孩子,将来容易畏首畏尾。
怜悯中长大的孩子,将来容易自怨自艾。
嘲讽中长大的孩子,将来容易消极退缩。
嫉妒中长大的孩子,将来容易钩心斗角。
羞辱中长大的孩子,将来容易心怀内疚。
容忍中长大的孩子,将来必能极富耐性。

『孩子是父母的镜子,父母是孩子的榜样』--------  当父母的要小心了!


Friday, August 22, 2014

Fun 140803 @ China


Balotelli: A Bold Move, Or Virtual Insanity?

http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/08/balotelli-a-bold-move-or-virtual-insanity/

By Paul Tomkins.
Wow, I genuinely didn’t see this coming. The first word I associate with Mario Balotelli is bargepole. As in, don’t go near him with one.
That said, £16m for his talent is a steal. But why are AC Milan letting him go quite so cheaply? Once penalties are excluded he has a very good goalscoring record there in a poor team (with penalties it’s an excellent record, but Steven Gerrard still takes Liverpool’s spot-kicks). Why do people keep offloading him? Why always him?
Obviously he may now be starting to grow up; but frankly, he needs to.
Balotelli-Milan
Why always him?
Lots of people on Twitter telling me Balo is like Sturridge was, but I don’t recall Sturridge fighting with managers on the training ground and apparently getting sent off on purpose, let alone pulling crazy stunts away from the game. Sturridge left City by his choice, did very well on loan at Bolton, so was only a failure at Chelsea in that he couldn’t get into the team despite a good run of form. He was 22. Balo has been sold by Inter, City and now, it seems, AC Milan. He’s 24. Yes, there are similarities, but by contrast, the Italian has a far longer rap sheet.
Other people have told me he’s like Suarez, but Suarez is the epitome of a player who gives his all out on the pitch. It’s easier to carry a madmen if he’s carrying his own weight, and more.
The Balotelli from Euro 2012 – big, strong, skilful, determined – was worth £50m. The one who played his final season at City looked barely worth 50p. A good behaviour clause seems essential, because he’s someone who, it seems, can piss everyone off; even if, like Suarez, he’s an easy target for sections of the media who, on occasions, overstate his shortcomings.
Brendan Rodgers and Dr Steve Peters have their work cut out, but he’s worth the risk at that price, assuming that the whole squad doesn’t become toxic. I think managers can show favouritism, and it not lead to unrest, if it’s given to a star like Suarez. I don’t think you can indulge those who are not trying, unless they can stroll around a pitch and still score a hat-trick.
Craig Bellamy – a gobshite of an opponent if ever there was one –was twice worth the risk, but once he took a golf club to a team-mate in 2007 he had to be let go, not least because he wasn’t delivering much on the pitch. A club can carry disputes between two players, but it can’t carry disputes between two factions. As long as Rodgers can manage to keep everyone happy, then why not go for Balotelli? The question is, can he keep everyone happy? And will splits appear?
Rather than Sturridge, Balotelli reminds me of Stan Collymore – the lack of effort behind the scenes (missing training) and the examples of sulking on the pitch, in between moments of magic; a great player who had amazing spells when the world was at his feet, but who ultimately found himself offloaded by every manager after a year or two. Suarez was trouble, but he never got sent off, worked harder than the mere water carriers and never upset his own team-mates or manager in training. This is a different player entirely. Suarez was emotional, rather than moody.
The reverse is that while Balotelli runs the risk of red cards, and could possibly ruin Sturridge’s mojo, he’s not one bite away from a two-year ban. He may cause lots of small problems, but Suarez was starting to represent one big one.
So I’m half excited, half terrified. At £30m, which Balotelli should be worth at his age and with his talent, I’d say it was a 50-50 bet. At £16m it’s perhaps 70-30 in his favour, if you want to be generous, but there’s always the risk of a violently upset apple-cart. Squad harmony is probably worth £100m a season, in that talent, without unity, will not bring success.
Either way, strap in, boys and girls: the ride is gonna be bumpy, but it should be fun.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

鄭梅嬌‧惡霸是被縱容出來的 - 转载

2014-08-12 09:53
惡霸的張揚,是良善的消減;惡霸,往往也是旁人造就的,因為越多人容忍,惡霸就肆無忌憚,繼續作惡變本加厲。
家中有個孩子是小惡霸,一向喜愛欺負兄弟姐妹,若沒有人阻止,任其多次作惡,久了食髓知味就習以為常。
在社會如是,惡霸的練就,馴良的大多數難辭其咎。寬容自是美德,甚至可能感化人心,但過度的寬容卻也造就更多“得寸進尺”的人。
我的經驗是,小惡霸作惡時,大人會覺得那是小事,仿佛大人若計較了就是太小氣;親戚朋友會礙於不要讓對方難堪,於是大家就忍,忍久了,人人坐視不理無人管,惡霸沒有踢過鐵板,於是就越惡霸。
莫說做惡霸是甚麼理由、甚麼原因,惡霸或是天性,或是有可憐的原因,但就是惡霸!
惡霸帶來的後果,不是造就更多惡霸以暴制暴,就是生產更多被欺壓者,兩者皆悲。寬容是美德但惡霸應該被對付、嚇阻,更好的結果是讓他知錯反省。
近來,也不知是幸,還是不幸,網絡的無遠弗屆,有時讓惡霸無所遁形,惡行公諸於眾,好讓大眾一窺惡霸的惡形惡狀,有大快人心之感。
不要用100個理由來解釋欺人或打人的原因,無論是籐條孫還是火爆姐,不理智而失控的行徑必須被阻止。
平時,遇惡霸我們也不能拿他怎麼樣,不想正面交鋒就是走避,可是現在有個地方可以公論,也算是舒坦人心,它們的受落,揭示了人人除惡的願望,人心嚮望良善的本質。
雖然網絡時有不幸,成為人們說謊、誹謗或抹黑的溫床,但也能揭發都市底層的醜陋,端看人們如何運用;霸惡被上鏡,舉世滔滔來評說,更是警醒其他惡霸“候選人”,要放肆,且慢。
想做惡霸?小心鏡頭對準你,千萬雙眼睛看著你,七嘴八舌盯住你,總有一天,總有個機會,多行不義必自斃。(星洲日報/筆下真情‧作者:鄭梅嬌‧《星洲日報》首席記者)


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匪徒新招 20140819 - 转载

路上撒錢誘下車‧匪徒新招偷車上財物

  • (圖:互聯網)
警方今午在面子書發佈文告,指稱最近有歹徒在路上撒錢,引誘駕駛人士下車後,伺機偷走車上的手提袋等財物。
警方指出,歹徒通常是一對男女,女嫌犯敲打司機位的車鏡引起司機的注意後,指向後輪方向,示意有錢掉在地上。
當司機下車查看時,男嫌犯便從一旁閃出,快速上車偷走車上的財物。
為免成為受害者,警方勸告公眾若發現被陌生人跟蹤,切記勿立刻上車,反之走向安全的地方;上車前應四處張望,確保四周環境安全,並且勿將轎車泊在僻靜的地方。
(星洲日報)

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

笑笑 - 第一话


http://jalong.blogspot.com/2014/08/blog-post_20.html


性骚扰
妈妈对女儿说:如果有人对你性骚扰,摸上面就说‘不要’,摸下面就说‘停’。
隔天,女儿被性骚扰了,哭着回来向妈妈说,妈妈听完女儿的话后很生气的说:你有拒绝那个人吗?
女儿用很无辜的眼神看着妈妈点点头说:那个人上下一起摸,所以我说‘不要….停’!

错别字
一名中年妇女到医院看病,正巧碰到这样一位‘赤脚医生’。中年妇女自述拇指发炎,医生看了看患者的拇指,决定拍张X光片,于是顺手写了一张检查单,对患者说道:去放射科。
这名妇女看了看检查单,愕了一下,没敢多问就转身走了。
第二天,这名妇女带着儿子来到医院放射科,要求拍张母子合影的照片。放射科医生非常奇怪,于是告诉患者,医院不是照相馆。
但这妇女坚持说是医生让他们来的,并拿出检查单。放射科医生打开一看,只见上面写着『母子照相』!
                                                                                                                                            
 牙痛
公园有一对恋人正在甜蜜,女孩撒娇说:老公,我牙痛~~!男孩于是吻了女孩一口问:还疼吗?女孩说不痛了!一会儿女孩又撒娇的说:老公,我脖子痛!男孩又吻了吻女孩儿的脖子,又问这回还疼吗?女孩很开心的说:不痛了!
旁边一老太太站着看了半天,忍不住上前问小伙子说:小伙子你真神了,你能治痔疮不?




Tuesday, August 19, 2014

文言漫谈 1

台灣交換學生的大陸青年回大陸後寫下這一段話:
中華文化悠遠5000年,保存最完整的不是在大陸,而是在台灣,很多文化的斷層在文字簡化上卻有具體的表徵:
漢字簡化後:
亲  親卻不見,
爱  愛而無心,
产  產卻不生,
厂  厰內空空,
面  麵內無麥,
运  運卻無車,
导  導而無道,
儿  兒卻無首,
飞  飛卻單翼,
云  有雲無雨,
开  開関無門,
乡  鄉裡無郎。
可巧而又巧的是:
魔仍是魔,
鬼還是鬼,
偷還是偷,
騙還是騙,
貪還是貪,
毒還是毒,
黑還是黑,
賭還是賭,
賊仍是賊!
每個繁體字都有其意思,缺少了,意思也有偏差。作引起學習文字的興趣,也是很好的題材。

Monday, August 18, 2014

Liverpool 2 - 1 Southampton

http://www.espnfc.com/club/liverpool/364/blog/post/1990232/david-usher-liverpool-werent-at-their-best-on-sunday-but-still-beat-southampton

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Joke 001

LAUGHTER THE BEST MEDICINE
(1) DON'T LOOK AT NAKED LADY
Boy 1: Why do you run from a naked lady?
Boy 2: Because my mum said that if I look at a naked lady, I'll turn into stone. A part of me is getting hard already!
(2) NAMES OF WIVES
A man had 4 wives, and he called his...
4th wife..... baby doll
3rd wife.....china doll
2nd wife.....barbie doll
1st wife..... panadol !
(3) HOW INDIA GOT ITS NAME
This is how India got its name.....
The king was having sex with his mistress while thinking a name of his country and his mistress ask him "is it In Dear?"...
(4) RESEARCH FINDING
Research shows men are fatter than women because every-night men get fresh
milk & 2 big papayas, while women only get 1 banana, 2 peanuts & 1tea-spoon of starch!
(5) ARAB MAN
An arab was being interviewed at a US checkpoint.
'Your name pls.'?
"Abdul Aziz "
"Sex? "
"Six times a week!! "
"No, no, I mean male or female! "
"Doesn't matters, sometimes even camel !"
(6) SERVICE
Sex is like a restaurant.
Sometimes you get full satisfactory service, and sometimes you have to be
satisfied with self-service"
(7) HAPPY MAN
What makes a happy man?
Daughter on the cover of cosmo.
Son on the cover of sports illustrated.
Mistress on the cover of playboy
and .. Wife on the cover of "missing persons"
(8) SWIMSUIT
Why was the 2-piece swimsuit invented?
To separate the HAIRY section from the DAIRY section.
(9) GOOD AMBITION
Teacher: What do you want to become?
Little Johnny: Doctor !!
Teacher: Why?
Little Johnny: Because it is the only profession where you can tell a woman to take off her clothes and ask her husband to pay for it.
(10) DENTIST
Woman complaining to dentist: "It's so painful, I'll rather have a baby than have a tooth removed."
Dentist: "Make up your mind soon, I'll adjust the chair accordingly."
(11) VIRGIN
Old lady, 85, a virgin, about to die. wanted her tombstone to read : BORN
A VIRGIN, LIVED A VIRGIN, DIED A VIRGIN.
The engraver shortened it to: " RETURNED UNOPENED "
(12) OLD MAN AND YOUNG GIRL
75 yr old man got married to a 15 year girl.
On their first night both were crying. Why ?
Because she didn't know anything, and he had forgotten everything.

Monday, August 4, 2014

妙言 1

警員:喝酒了,醉駕知道不?司機:沒。員警:怎麼有酒味?司機:喝了杯啤酒。員警:啤酒也是酒。司機:請問蝸牛是牛嗎?員警:不是。司機:請問醬油是油嗎?員警:不是。司機:請問姑娘是娘嗎?員警:不是。司機:啤酒是酒嗎?員警:不是。司機:這不就對啦?!
外國人學中文,確實難理解:蝸牛不是牛,醬油不是油,姑娘不是娘……曾讀到一篇長微博,給初學中文的外國人講中文詞典差異:胸口摸得著的尺寸叫胸圍,胸口摸不到的尺寸叫胸襟;眼睛看得到的地方叫視線,眼睛看不到的地方叫視野;鼻子聞得到的味道叫氣味,鼻子聞不到的味道叫氣息;背後摸得到的硬度叫脊椎,背後摸不到的硬度叫脊樑;腦子裹測的出的東西叫智商,測不出的東西叫智慧;胸膛聽得到的聲音叫心跳,胸膛聽不著的聲音叫心情;泡的到的女人叫女友,泡不到的女人叫女神;林志玲演三級片叫情色電影,蒼井空演三級片叫色情電影;骨子里透得出的叫風騷,骨子里透不出的叫悶騷;路上走出來的印痕叫足印,路上走不出來的印痕叫足跡……

载自江迅‧雷人的“暫時性失控”2014-08-03 10:38

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By Paul Tomkins - How Chelsea Ruined Football

http://tomkinstimes.com/2014/08/how-chelsea-ruined-football/

Posted on August 3rd, 2014
Posted by by Paul Tomkins

First of all, let me state that, beyond the tense rivalries of recent years, I harbour no grudge with Chelsea Football Club per se. Let me be clear: I am fully aware that it could just as easily have been Liverpool FC that Roman Abramovich purchased in 2003, and then, like any fan, I’d have enjoyed the decade of undoubted success that would have followed.
Back in 2003, neither Liverpool nor Chelsea were geared towards great success. Both clubs were outside the top three (4th and 5th) and well off the pace, managed by good but not exceptional bosses. Neither club was getting close to the £30m Manchester United had already spent on a single player; at the time, Chelsea and Liverpool could spend around £15m tops. That’s how much the Russian oligarch changed things.
Abramovich-Yacht
The good ship Abramovich
In going through the Premier League’s entire transfer history, with inflation applied, it struck me just how massive Chelsea’s investment was a decade ago, and how, in real terms, it dwarfs even Man City’s outlay.
On top of studying the way the game changed with Abramovich’s money, this article will also look at the immediate boost that a sharp rise in spending can give a club.
But first of all, look at how the Premier League’s ‘big six’ were spending in the decade before things went all Roman. Man City were a very sleepy giant at the time, having recent spent several years away from the top flight, but they still had the 2nd-highest inflated net spend (out of the big six) in 2002/03, and the highest net spend (of the six) a decade earlier, when the new format was introduced.
Otherwise, in today’s money, all six clubs are within a maximum of +£100m and -£30m net spend over that eleven season period. United have a couple of spikes, and Liverpool hit the highest overall spend of that period in 1999/00. As well as spending, United and Arsenal each have a season of £25m profit. All in all, nothing too dramatic.
of-Spend-in-Seasons-GRAPH-pre2003
How Chelsea Ruined Football: Transfer Spend
Unlike wage bills, which are commitments over a number of seasons, any given club’s transfer spending wildly fluctuates from one year to the next. Some years a club will spend £100m, the next year they’ll spend £1m; but they don’t become 100 times worse. However, much of what we’ve been doing for five years now with the Transfer Price Index is showing that, like wages, transfer spending can be used to measure expectations. It doesn’t mean a team will perform exactly to the model, or that any given big signing will succeed, but overall, things average out and, most of the time, the cream rises to the top.
Big transfer spends tend to lead to positive outcomes for two reasons. First, they are part of the stockpiling of players, so that the manager has greater choice and an increased number of insurance policies to cover injuries, fatigue and loss of form; and second, a summer of high-investment can add impetus to an impending season. (First, because there’s more talent, and second, the psychological boost it can give to players and fans alike.)
A high turnover can of course be counterproductive, as Spurs discovered last year, although that was still a low net spend; they lost their best player and failed to replace the impact he could make with over half a dozen signings. (But they still have those players, and there’s nothing to say that two or three of them, at least, can’t come good. Maybe they all will, or maybe none will. But the law of averages suggests that some of those players with good pedigree, such as Érik Lamela, can succeed.)
But as I’ve argued for a few years now, net spend falls down because it relies on a starting point: i.e. net spend since …. And we can all pick and choose arbitrary starting (and ending) points that suit our argument. What if you pick a year to start measuring net spend after one club has just had seen its biggest ever outlay? It will have all those resources, and they’ll be excluded from your calculations.
Net spend is a better measurement than gross spend, which is very misleading, but even net spending doesn’t tell the true story. (For an example of the misleading nature of gross spending, look at Southampton: they’ve bought a couple of players, Tadic and Pellé, who have cost around £20m in total. Yet they’ve sold five players for almost £100m.)
Using our TPI inflation model, we look at the cost of talent that makes it onto the pitch. The cost of the team, and the squad, once inflation is applied, is where all that spending (and selling) led to. They key to making judgements is what each club has at its disposal in any given season, not what it paid (or made) on players no longer at the club.
Case Study
Something struck me in the preparation for this piece. How much did Alex Ferguson spend on central midfielders in 26 years at Manchester United? When including players who ended up playing in the position beyond one-off matches (such as Alan Smith and Phil Jones), in today’s money it’s almost £400m for 20 players, or an average of £18m each. And yet how many were really successful?
I’d say … two. Most neutrals would say that Roy Keane and Paul Ince made a big difference at Old Trafford. But we don’t judge Alex Ferguson on his transfer record with central midfielders. Keane and Ince were fairly faultless signings, even if there were fallings out later in their time at United. Michael Carrick was clearly a very good buy, if not quite exceptional (and certainly not cheap in today’s money).
United’s story of central midfielders shows how “mega buys” like the undeniably talented Juan Sebastian Veron can fail; and yet two of the three most expensive central midfield purchases (in 2014 money) – Carrick and Keane – proved successful.
However, expand it out, and only three of the top eight (with time admittedly on Phil Jones’ side and reversion to centre-back likely) can be labelled good buys. Anderson, at £31m CTPP, was a disaster, and that’s being generous with his original transfer price (with reports that it was a lot more than the £18m we went with). Hargreaves, at £29m TPI, was a logical purchase that didn’t work out due to injury. And anyone who mocks Liverpool’s spending on Jordan Henderson needs to be aware that Kleberson cost roughly the same in today’s money, while Djemba Djemba’s fee is now £10m.
There are two points I’m making here. First: that individual big-fee transfers come with zero guarantees; and second: that spending needs to be assessed in terms of dealing with a collection of resources, and not as one-offs. So if we were to judge Ferguson on the arbitrary concept of buying central midfielders he’d look a bad manager, and we know that’s not the case. The context is that he inherited Bryan Robson. He helped blood Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt, plus David Beckham, who also had spells in the position. And some of his signings were unlucky with injury; it’s not all about good or bad judgement.
Ferguson often didn’t desperately need to buy central midfielders, and in some seasons he didn’t desperately need to buy anyone.  If your team is complete, you don’t need to invest in it. Building a team usually costs more – in terms of transfer window outlay – than maintaining a team. So if you limit yourself to analysing net or gross spending from a certain point in time you may be comparing one club’s team building with another’s ticking over.
Spike
Having said that, success seems to spike shortly after high investment, but not always immediately; sometimes it’s a season later.
Going back to that earlier graph, the two biggest spikes are United in 1998/99 and Liverpool in 1999/00. United immediately experienced a much-improved season; indeed, the best in their history. It took Liverpool a bit longer, but in 2001 they became the first English club to win three different cup competitions in the same season; a season in which their net spend was very low, but where the players bought a year earlier, such as Hyypia, Henchoz, Westerveld and Hamann, were vital. Both clubs invested heavily and ended up winning trebles soon after.
Unless expensive players are retiring or being sold on the cheap, a high net spend in one season will almost certainly increase the cost of the squad, and most likely, the cost of the £XI (which is the average cost of the team over 38 games with inflation applied).  That then increases their chances of success.
(Note: I’d like to further examine the spikes, or bounces, after high investment in a single season, but as with all the TPI stuff, there’s so much data and not enough time to do everything possible with it.)
Blackburn
The interesting example from the ‘90s is Blackburn, whose years before their premillennial relegation are added to the ‘big six’ graphs. They had a large net spend in 1992/93, which carried them to the title in 1995, by which time the spending had stopped. They then had two seasons of selling off their assets (mostly to Newcastle, in the form of Shearer and Batty), before Roy Hodgson arrived and oversaw a net spend almost 50% bigger than the one that led to the title. This is one of the few examples of a really high net spend (in comparison with other clubs in the era) leading, within months, to relegation. They remain the most expensive side relegated in the Premier League era. Clearly Hodgson needed to spend money, he just did so with a disastrous hit rate.
(Newcastle’s spending in the ‘90s was also fairly big, topping out at £74.5m in 1995/96, with two other seasons at +£50m, but unlike Liverpool, Man United and Blackburn, they never got close to the £100m mark.)
The earlier graph deals with the Premier League era’s first eleven seasons. Then came Chelsea. The graph below shows those same first eleven seasons, followed by the subsequent campaigns.
of-Spend-in-Seasons-GRAPH-WHOLE
That, above, is the skyscraper built with Abramovich’s money; a giant dwarfing the rest of the Premier League. Looking at that, you’d have to say that the miracle would have been Chelsea not winning the league at that time. Following that investment, Chelsea were fielding the costliest side in the English game.
The two biggest net spends in the Premier League era, in terms of the percentage of money spent in a single season, belong to Chelsea, from around a decade ago. The next two highest net spends belong to Manchester City, from four and five years ago. Following these immense outlays, Chelsea won two titles in two years; City two titles in three years.
In 2014 money, no team before 2003 had ever spent over £100m net in a single season. Then Chelsea spent over £340m TPI. If anyone still doesn’t think that this was the turning point in English football’s arms race, they’re in denial.
Exceeding £100m net (TPI) in a single season has now happened seven times, split between just two clubs: Chelsea and Manchester City. The closest Manchester United have come is the £94m of 2004/05, whereas Liverpool’s peak remains £93m in 1999/00. In relative terms, United’s biggest spending under Ferguson occurred in the late ‘80s, but our data (which is hard enough to collate and manage) is limited to the cut-off point of 1992, for practical reasons.
In 2003/04, Chelsea’s spending represented over forty percent of the top division’s total outlay. The year after, it was still seriously high, at 31.9%.
In 2009/10, Man City’s spending was 25.7% of the Premier League’s total outlay, and a year later, 28.3%.
To put it into context, in their biggest spending season on the way to the title, Blackburn topped out at just 15.4% of Premier League spending, albeit the only club to hit double figures in the rebranded league’s inaugural season. This is highlighted in the pie chart below.
spendingpies
Chelsea’s spending was clearly more extreme than City’s, and they also began from a higher starting point (they were already occasional qualifiers for the Champions League). By the time City were trying to join the party, Chelsea had an incredibly expensive side, so the Manchester club couldn’t change the landscape, merely add to it.
Chelsea had good players to sell between 2003 and 2005, as a result of overstocking, whereas just before the Sheikhs arrived, City were a mid-table club with precious few assets. What City proved was that, with fairly extreme investment, any club could leapfrog most of the competition.
Chelsea are now selling wisely, racking up big profits on what were signings at a good age: Juan Mata and David Luiz being prime examples. The stockpiling of youth/teen talent, before loaning out a couple of dozen promising players, is something I feel uneasy about, but at the same time it makes perfect sense under the rules.
This summer Chelsea have removed some high-value players (in TPI terms) from their squad, such as Frank Lampard and the aforementioned Luiz, but are adding players who cost £30m or more. Ditto Manchester United, who have released their most expensive TPI player (Rio Ferdinand), but are also adding at least two £30m players.
Accumulation
Whether you look at net or gross spending, either over a short or long period of time, the ultimate arbitrator is what talent a club can field at any given point: the aforementioned £XI.
£XIs
Last season, three clubs led the way. Even with £70m Rio Ferdinand only starting 12 league games (his value therefore not counted in over two-thirds of the games), United still fielded more expensive XIs, on average, than Chelsea and City, albeit by very small margins. Two of these clubs had proven foreign managers, while the other dragged an expensive side down to Everton’s level (as a foreign manager dragged Everton up). The Moyes months will always be a dark part of United’s history, and yet you have to think that Van Gaal could get much more out of last season’s squad, even before additions are made. Despite all the differing levels of spending, all three clubs have ended up with teams costing a similar amount.
The cost of the XIs fielded by Liverpool and Arsenal are roughly half that of the big three. There’s a reason Arsenal now come 4th most seasons: that’s where their spending places them (unlike in 1998, for example, when they had the costliest £XI, believe it or not.) Once cup games are added, the squad is never deep enough to mount a serious, lasting title challenge. Sometimes they start well and tail off, other times they start poorly and end well, but they almost always revert to the predictions of the model.
In fairness, Liverpool were a fraction more expensive, but even so, finishing 2nd was a miracle on that budget. Perhaps European games would have exposed a thinner squad, although Champions League participation makes it easier to assemble a bigger squad.
When teams are evenly matched in terms of resources, as with the three über-rich giants, or with Liverpool and Arsenal (with Spurs only a short way behind), it becomes more about management, and exceeding the sum of the squad’s parts (or in Moyes’ case, not being able to get it to function at even 75% of its basic level).
This is where Rodgers did so brilliantly last season. He had a bold approach that was outside the parameters of what most managers would attempt. Moyes’ fear and safety-first policy inhibited United, so it was no great achievement to finish above them. But it was certainly an achievement to take City down to the wire, and also to finish above Chelsea.
This transfer window isn’t over, but the model suggests Liverpool will still field, at best, the 4th-costliest £XI next season, and maybe even the 5th, with Arsenal’s investment in Sanchez (a £35m player) and Liverpool’s loss of Suarez (a £29m TPI asset). So Rodgers will have his work cut out.
Or perhaps, in adding a £20m centre-back and a £20m winger, as well as the £16m-23m attacking midfielder Lallana, Liverpool will be able to maintain its £XI level. Then it comes down to whether or not those players can match or exceed their value, and if Rodgers can juggle his resources across a different type of challenge.
Conclusion
It would be nice if FFP could help close the gap between the super-rich, the fairly rich and the poor. Chelsea and Man City built their successful sides before the rule changes were announced; indeed, it probably led to the new laws. Once those clubs gained billionaire benefactors, the rest had to try and compete; they couldn’t just roll over and give up.
I found it interesting when the Guardian’s David Conn recently noted that ticket prices have risen by over 1,000% since 1988, given that transfer prices have also risen by over 1,000% in that time. In order to compete at the top, clubs need the best players that money can buy. And a lot of that money comes from the fans. The rise in TV money, and the rise in ticket prices, simply pays for the rise in transfer fees and wages.
No-one wants to spend £50 to watch Liverpool, but if a club already lagging behind in the off-field stakes (compared with Chelsea and City’s mega-rich owners, Arsenal’s stadium size and ticket prices, and United’s marketing machine) was then to make its match tickets much cheaper than all its rivals, it would only fall further behind.
That’s the catch-22. Fans (rightly) don’t want to spend stupid amounts on tickets, but if they’re going to the game because they’re passionate die-hards, they also don’t want to see eleven journeymen on low wages because the turnover is so small. Liverpool need to find ways to make more money, and clubs make money through their fans.
It’d be lovely if our game was more like the German model, but it’s different over there because they never let it get out of hand in the first place. Once it is out of hand it’s harder to rein in; the proverbial bolted horse, and all that. Even then, Bayern seem to be growing stronger by feeding off their closest rivals. Tickets are much cheaper, but they all keep it cheap, therefore no-one has an unfair advantage.
Once Chelsea had all that extra money through non-footballing sources (i.e. Russian oil), it guaranteed that other clubs would have to either get their own sugar daddy (City), or find ways to make more money through merchandising and ticketing.
So fans pay ever more, and players take home increasingly obscene wages. But we also get pissed off when our club won’t pay that extra £20k-a-week or £1m to secure some star’s signature, disassociating ourselves from how that money needs to be found. In that sense, Chelsea have helped drive up (or at least accelerate the rise in) transfer fees and wages, and therefore, ticket prices too.
But as I said at the start, I wouldn’t be complaining if it was Liverpool that Abramovich had bought, because like all fans, I’m a short-sighted hypocrite who, first and foremost, wants what’s best for his team, rather than the greater good of the game. In that sense we’re probably all as dumb as each other.

Friday, August 1, 2014

By Matthew Norman: There's no justice in sport. Just ask Gerrard

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/players/steven-gerrard/11003397/Steven-Gerrards-slip-cost-Liverpool-the-Premier-League-hes-wrong-to-have-any-faith-in-lady-luck-making-amends.html

Steven Gerrard's slip cost Liverpool the Premier League – he's wrong to have any faith in lady luck making amends

The Liverpool captain thinks moments of bad luck even itself out over the course of a season. If only human existence was as fundamentally fair as that

Steven Gerrard - Steven Gerrard's slip cost Liverpool the Premier League – he's wrong to have any faith in lady luck making amends
Sport hurts: Steven Gerrard says his slip against Chelsea was something that could happen to anyone Photo: ACTION IMAGES
The new season of what continues ever more satirically to style itself “the best league in the world” begins on Aug 16, and before dusk settles on that opening Saturday there is every chance that a commentator will have given voice to one of the imbecilities of the trade.
Be it Jonathan Pearce, Alan Green or another refugee from the All Souls’ high table, somebody will seek to place in perspective a piece of rank observation: “What you have to remember is that these things balance out over the course of the season”.
Variants on this theme are heard across the sporting spectrum – they might be inspired by a net cord at Wimbledon or a fluked pot at the Crucible – and it is easy to appreciate why.
In spite of overwhelming evidence, we all want to believe that human existence is fundamentally fair.
Yet as Steven Gerrard’s brave if morose reflections on the catastrophe that befell him in April underline, nothing could be more misguided than any faith in the law of averages as an enforcer of cosmic justice.
It may dictate that instances of good and back luck will approximately even themselves out over time, but that is irrelevant. What matters is not the numbers, but the context.
A penalty kick wrongly awarded to a team winning 4-0 in the third round of the FA Cup is not precisely counterbalanced by a penalty mistakenly given in its favour with the scores tied in the dying moments of the final.
Even were it the case that on average every steeplechaser will do the splits once in a career, this would hardly have comforted Dick Francis or the Queen Mother after Devon Loch’s legs splayed with the Grand National winning post in sight, rather than in the first furlong of a selling plate at Haydock.
Speaking in New York during Liverpool’s pre-season tour, Gerrard said that “every single person on the planet slips at some point in their life”, and so they no doubt do.
But slipping while weeding the garden is one thing, doing so on the precipice of Beachy Head is another, and slipping to enable Chelsea’s Demba Ba to score the goal that cost Liverpool the Premier Leaguetitle another still.
Given a choice between the latter two, Gerrard might well have taken the Beachy Head option, however mightily he strives to make sense of the wholly senseless.
“Over the course of 38 games, a lot happens for you and against you,” he posited in New York, “and that determines whether you win the league or not.”
If only that were so. In this unique case, what determined the outcome of an unusually thrilling race in Manchester City’s favour was a pure and malevolent accident.
When John Terry slipped while running up to take what would have been the winning kick for Chelsea in the 2008 Champions League final penalty shoot-out eventually won by Manchester United, and hit a post, one assumed that he buckled under the stress.
With Stevie G, there was no hint of an overwrought subconscious toying malevolently with his footing.
A long, impressive and sporadically glorious club career came to be defined by a microsecond of random chance, and the cruelty of that cannot be exaggerated.
He speaks about the trauma, which plainly dwarfs the disappointment of his accident prone international swansong in Brazil, with a dignity that cannot disguise that the effects linger.
“When something like that happens, you have to face it up and be man enough to take it on the chin. Accept it happened. You can’t change it.”
The poignancy of his attempt to normalise the arbitrary freakishness with “something like that” is fearsome, but nothing like that ever happened before and nothing like it will probably never will again, and the Zen master known to his brother monks as Old Mellow would find it almost impossible to accept that.
“The league is going to be very, very tough but we know we are one of the sides that has got a genuine chance of winning it,” Gerrard went on. “I believe that.”
Good luck to him if he really does. If there were any justice, he would lead Liverpool to their first title since 1990 in the season about to begin.
As he knows better than most, of course, there isn’t.