Diamond Geezers, Episode 85: England’s Number Eight
With my bid for Mark Viduka looming, we welcome Leeds United to Nene Park for our League Cup Fourth Round clash. As against Sunderland, I’ll put out my reserve string for this one, though having said that, the only position I’m not sure about any more is up front. Sam Parkin takes over from Azar Karadas in the elbows department, but as for my other striker, it’s a race to the bottom between Javan and Paiva, neither of whom have impressed recently and are therefore making themselves extremely dispensable. The question is, who’s the starter and who’s the reserve? I decide to give them a half each, and due to my lean towards João, especially since he scored in his cameo appearance last time against the Black Cats, he gets the starting spot. Also, if I started Javan and then took him off, he’d probably stomp up to his room, slam the door, and turn his music up really loud. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
My reserves are ready and raring to go. I can only hope Leeds field their second string too.
They do make several changes, leaving out Keane, Harte, Bowyer, Ferdinand, Juninho (yes, that one) and Kewell, but it’s still a very good side — and the way we play leaves me with officially no idea what my best team is.
The first 20 minutes zips by with mostly Leeds in the commentary, but my defenders and goalkeeper entirely snuffing them out whenever they get too close to our penalty area. I’m a little concerned, but before long we find our way forward, and to good effect: Källström wins a free kick from Charlie Miller, Victory whips it towards the top bin, and Paul Robinson palms the ball over the bar. Victory then curls the corner into the box, over the top of Dixon but right into the onrushing Kostas Papoutsis, who heads home his first ever goal for the mighty Diamonds! It’s 1–0, and we seem buoyed by it, especially João Paiva — who collects a stray pass five minutes later and drives at the Leeds defence. He powers past Shane Cansdell-Sherriff and rounds Lúcio, pulls the ball back across goal, where Alex Farnerud has made a trademark run! He drives the ball low, past Robinson! GOAL DIAMONDS! It’s 2–0, Alex Farnerud scores his first of the season, and we are pulling away from Leeds here!
It’s half time, and I decide don’t want to change Javan for Paiva after all. The Portuguese is a nuisance up front, we’ve got a good lead, and I don’t want to risk it. He can stay on — and the second half starts with us firing a couple of shots over and wide from good positions. After that, though, Leeds find a foothold in the game. Harpal Singh and Kiegan Parker both rattle the woodwork, Radebe heads wide from a corner when he really should score, and then Michael Bridges takes down a long pass, turns inside the box, slips the ball into the path of Parker, and the Scot blasts a shot high past Chiotis to pull a goal back for Leeds! Or so they think: there’s a flag up on the far side, and after consulting his assistant, our beautiful referee Ron Hicks chalks the goal out for offside.
A stroke of luck, for sure, after Leeds have had an impressive spell of pressure — but the tide then turns back in our favour. João Paiva is causing havoc with his direct running and link-up play, and when he plays a one-two with Parkin and skips past the Whites’ back line, it seems like we must surely score a third — but an incredible last-ditch tackle from Cansdell-Sherriff nicks the ball behind before he can get his shot away. However, Mexès for some reason sends over the corner, Farnerud gathers it, and shoots low — Robinson saves — but De Boer is lurking! RONALD DE BOER! IT’S 3–0! Unbelievable scenes at Nene Park, as our second player of the day scores his first ever goal for the club, and what a time to do it: with less than 20 minutes to go, Ronald De Boer has put us three goals up against a shell-shocked Leeds United.
I make a couple of changes, and in truth, the rest of the game is all us — only heroics from Robinson keep the score down to 3–0. Farnerud in particular is like a tornado from central midfield, making darting runs and hitting the target four times by himself; Källström, Paiva and, bizarrely, Sousa are dribbling past Leeds players for fun, and eventually, my second string hear the final whistle blow, and collect yet another remarkable result. Rushden Reserves 3, Leeds United Reserves 0.
We’ll play Arsenal or Derby away in the Quarter Final of the League Cup in what will be a solid test for my second-choice players — but quite honestly, after that performance, who are my second choice players? Mexès and Papoutsis were excellent at the back, Farnerud and De Boer outstanding in midfield, Paiva brilliant up front; it’s a good problem to have, let’s put it that way. I’m going to keep faith with Karadas and Paiva as my strikers for the time being, that’s for sure. They are certainly my most dangerous forwards based on the last couple of games. Midfield is such a puzzle, but at least Mahouvé, Duff, Barker and Chiotis are reliable regulars.
All my transfer bids are rejected, so I go back with new offers for everyone on my list. I’m particularly interested in Mark Kerr, Frank Lampard, Djibril Cissé and Mark Viduka, while new offers for defenders Mario Yepes and Rotherham’s Guy Branston, who’s not a marquee name but is averaging 8.03 in Division One so far this season, are also knocked back. It’s frustrating, but I’ve got £25m in the bank, and I’m going to make at least one massive signing if it kills me. Excitingly, Kaká tells Sao Paulo he wants to leave the club to join us in an £18.5m deal — it would be unbelievable to have him here, but I’m not going that high. My £9m and I have already been turned away, and I’m not going to get much bolder than that.
There’s only a few days until our game against Wolves, so after making renewed bids for all my distant loves, I start to consider the team I’ll put out. These cup successes have given me obvious food for thought; I’d be mad not to consider making some of my cup players into first-team regulars. Chiotis obviously has GK sewn up, and the same goes for my two full-backs and Marcel at DMC, but after their excellence last time, Mexès and Papoutsis will continue at the heart of my defence. De Boer needs a sleep, so he has to come out, but I’m very happy with Farnerud’s all-round game against Leeds, so he stays put alongside the returning Hysén and Bubb. Up front, there’s now no doubt — as I said earlier, Karadas and Paiva will partner one another at Molineux, as they seem to be my strongest partnership so far this season. I would love to see Djibril Cissé trot out alongside the Black Stone, but for now, my Portuguese wonderkid has a chance to put everyone else in their place.
The first action of the game sees Chris Barker go over to take a corner from the right. He whips the ball in, left-footed, and João Paiva — with my words of support still ringing in his ears — rises above Wayne Brown and thumps home a header to give us an extremely early 1–0 lead!
The rest of the half is actually pretty dull, livened up only by our card-happy referee Uriah Rennie, who books Papoutsis, Mahouvé and Farnerud just to give himself something to do. On the stroke of half time, however, it all turns very sour. Rousell runs at our defence, takes on Papoutsis, who slides in to make the tackle — but takes out the man instead of the ball. Rennie, with a glint in his eye, brandishes a second yellow card for Papoutsis, then promptly blows the half-time whistle. We’re a goal up, but a man down, and I’ve got some serious managering to do.
Considering Farnerud’s booking and his 6 at half time, I decide to hook him for Jamie Carragher. He goes into the back four alongside Mexès, and Marcel moves into the centre of my midfield three with a run instruction taking him back into his familiar Destroyer role whenever Wolves have the ball. Hopefully, having most of my other shin-biters out there will stymie anything Wolves decide to come towards us with… as long as we don’t have anyone else sent off.
I have to say, it works perfectly: the whole second half goes by without Wolves managing another shot on target. We hit a few, via Karadas, Paiva and Mahouvé, but Liberopoulos beats them all away to keep the score down, and eventually, my plan to turn the game into a horrible swamp battle gives us an entirely warranted 1–0 victory. Uriah Rennie did his best to get one or two of my other players sent off in the second half, but the lads spread their fouling around the team beautifully to deny him the opportunity. Get stuffed, Uriah.
With a week until our next game, I head back into the transfer market. My £4.2m bid for Abgar Barsom is accepted, and his contract demands are reasonable. I didn’t realise that he’s 27, though — I thought he was a promising youth prospect. I offer him a deal, but through pensive eyes. I’m not totally sure I want him just yet. Considering his age and attributes, is he actually much better than 22-year-old Kim Källström? I’m not convinced.
At the same time, I meet the £10m release fee for Djibril Cissé and move to offer him a deal, where he says he would find it “very difficult” to leave Marseille. This is despite him also saying he was hoping to impress my visiting scouts. These f — king millennials mate, honestly. I send him some bits of paper over anyway, in the hope that he might come around. Then, a similar bid for Frank Lampard is accepted by Crystal Palace, and he wants far more reasonable terms. Now, I feel like £10m is a bit over the top for Frank, especially considering he hasn’t scored a goal for Palace in almost 50 games for them since joining from Chelsea… but on the other hand, he is Frank Lampard. If someone told you that you could get him from Chelsea for £10m — spread over six months, as well — as he was coming into his prime, you’d probably bite their hand off and slap them round the face with it. It’s a gamble, but I’d love to have him here. I send my offer over and try to stop my eye from twitching in its socket.
Cissé rejects me, so I go back to him with everything I have, just to see if there’s anything I can offer that he’ll accept. I also make a very low bid for Stoke’s Adam Hart, a young centre-back they’ve had since the start of the game after signing him from Atherstone United. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but he’s happy with £800 per week on Decent Young Player terms, everything’s agreed quickly, and he arrives for less than half a million beans. He’s not exactly the marquee signing we all wanted, but you’ve got to say, this was a pretty good deal. He’ll certainly give Chiellini a run for his money.
Sergey Nikiforenko rejects my trial offer and instead signs for none other than Djibril Cissé’s Marseille. In light of this renewed competition for places, I scramble back to my inbox to see if he’s considered my contract offer… and he hasn’t. But someone else has.
Consider this a statement, everyone else. The presses are on fire at the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph as news of our brand-new club record signing, funtime Frankie Lampard, breaks in the streets of Irthlingborough. He arrives as the missing piece of my midfield puzzle, or so I hope. If there was anyone for Jamie Davies to look up to as a mentor, it’s Frank — and he will go straight into the team for our upcoming away game against thieving bastard bloody Bolton Wanderers. I summarily cancel my bid for Abgar Barsom, who wasn’t going to be a striker in my team — my plan was to play him as an attacker from midfield, but with £10m spunked on Lampard, I feel like I’d rather have that £4.2m in the bank for more pressing targets. Cissé rejects my final offer and will stay at Marseille, for now at least. I’m almost glad there’s no chance of us coming up against them in Europe this season now that they’ve got Nikiforenko to partner him.
And so, to the Reebok Stadium we must go. Chugger thunders along the familiar tarmac of the M6 as I make a few small tweaks to my team. It’s pretty much the side that started against Wolves, with two big changes: Frank Lampard, our new number 29, comes into the heart of my midfield, and Jamie Carragher returns to central defence alongside Philippe Mexès who’s given a drop back to Sweeper if you love it so much run instruction in the hope it’ll keep him happy. I also tell Frank that he can hit shots from wherever he likes, since 16 for Long Shots is not something I intend to waste. Bolton have got waves of unhappiness all through their squad despite being 9th in the table, most interestingly between the centre-back pairing of our former favourite Fredrik Risp, who’s now one of their ‘star’ players, and Phil Babb, who has publicly noted that he dislikes his Swedish partner. Well, well, well. Trouble in paradise, Freddie?
Chiotis is clawing a Darren Huckerby drive out of the top corner in the third minute after a roaring start by the home side, but I’m happy to report that after that, Bolton start arguing amongst themselves and we take full advantage. Chris Barker sends a free-kick towards the postage stamp a few minutes later, which Thomas Sørensen tips over the bar, and then a Lampard through-pass is snuffed out by Risp just as Paiva is about to shoot.
The half trickles into the 33rd minute as Karadas is looking for Hysén on the edge of the box. He lobs sideways, Hysén collects, but Sylvain Legwinski takes out the Swede and awards us another free kick. Chris Barker stands over it, sets himself, and strikes at goal — Sørensen saves — but guess who’s following in? SUPER FRANK LAMPARD, after only training with Jamie Davies for two days, falls into the rebound and smashes a high shot past the flailing Sørensen for 1–0! On his debut! Would you even believe it!!
We reach half time a goal up, and neither of my strikers have been able to get into the game at all. It always seems to happen when we play against a back three; with an extra defender, our usual game plan of working the ball wide and getting crosses into the box never seems to work and they snuff everything out. As a result, I make a decision: we’ll start the second half the same and see how we get on until the hour. If we’re still not making any headway, I’ll pull everyone into that 4–1–2–2–1 formation and see if we can draw their centre-backs out of position.
60 minutes comes quickly after a maelstrom of Bolton chances — how they don’t score I’ll never know, but we definitely have Chiotis to thank, as usual, for keeping us in front. Eventually I make my changes; Papoutsis comes on for the once again disappointing Mexès, who only seems to play well one game out of four or five, and Källström is introduced for Karadas, who is struggling to win headers against Bolton’s massive back three. The ploy of drawing them out with my new formation works to an extent; we see more of the ball, but still struggle to create chances. Bolton have pegged us back, and Chiotis is working overtime to beat away shots from Huckerby, Zuma and Fan Zhiyi. I introduce Paulo Sousa for Bubb to sit in DMC alongside Mahouvé for the last 15 minutes, and it pays huge dividends: just minutes after coming on, the Portuguese glides through midfield with the ball to relieve the pressure on my creaking back line, and plays a defence-splitting pass through to the onrushing João Paiva — who’s clean through on goal! PAIVA! GOAL DIAMONDS! With 10 minutes to go, it’s 2–0 Diamonds, João Paiva the scorer, but what a ball from Paulo Sousa!
Bolton kick off and, in true Sam Allardyce fashion, immediately smash a long ball forward in the direction of Sibusiso Zuma. A thorn in our side all afternoon, Zuma goes on another sparkling run, skipping past Hysén, Sousa and finally Papoutsis before rounding Chiotis and laying the ball on a plate for Zhiyi, who can’t miss from a yard, and finally, Bolton have the goal they deserve to bring the game back to 2–1. I’m basically a puddle in my technical area as the final seconds tick by; I go ballistic when Sousa tries to nutmeg Peter Fear in the last minute and loses the ball, but Frank Lampard arrives and curls it into the side netting — and finally, thank goodness, the referee blows up for full time.
We’ve beaten Bolton 2–1 at their place, and it’s a fantastic result. Chiotis is the hero of the day, but man, what a start to life the white and blue (and yellow) for Frank Lampard, who’s surely already a favourite amongst the Rushden Ultras.
United lose at home to Crystal Palace, some other results go our way, and all of a sudden, second place in the Premier League looks reasonably secured for the time being. Fantastic stuff all round. I’m taking this bottle of vermouth to the bath to celebrate.
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