Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF): EFF Christmas Message (24.12.2021)

Premier League 2015/2016 – My thoughts after ten rounds

There is now a new campaign and new matches. New stars and new clubs and promoted teams adding spice to the Premiership. The Premier League has now had ten rounds of the 38 rounds. It is an indication though still early, I will say that it shows how this might unfold. Though at a certain level shows how this campaign might be. There will be changes on the table and far from sure that those under the relegation mark. Three teams will go down to Championship. Who that might be is hard to see now, especially with how it has unfolded in recent seasons. Who wins the title isn’t easy choice either? Manchester clubs are on the top four together with West Ham. Tottenham and Crystal Palace, off the top three either Manchester club for the moment, though the strongest team right now is Manchester City.

Bournemouth is having its first ever season in the Premiership. It’s a small club with the smallest stadium in the league. But the stagnation of tactics is straining the team together with the collective damage of injuries in the team. Eddie Howe is a young and modern manager. What he already has done with club is amazing.

Watford is also a promoted team, but not new to the league, they have been here before. But the expensive and buying 13 players from coming up from the Championship has acutally worked together with getting a tactical manager in Quique Sanchez Flores. Igahlo and Deeney have showed the quality and that they are fit for the league!

Norwich went straight back after their last turn down into Championship. They have mostly the same team that went down in the last go-around. Alex Neil the Scot has done well in the club, though the recent results is frightening and looking as bad as under the last months under Chris Hughton.

Now I will take the clubs that is actually under the line at this time!

Aston Villa, one of the royalties that has been in a down-falling-spiral since the last two years of Paul Lambert’s tenure. The freshness Tim Sherwood brought saved the club for the third season in a row. Now they gone with only one victory all season, but before starting the season they lost Benteke, Delph and Weimann. Buying young talent, but not finish products. Then after 10 rounds firing Tim Sherwood! There is surely not being built squads anymore in the club, but quick fixing to save the place in the league! Will they make it this year? They might, but want be easy!

Newcastle has a new manager that has turned down the club three times, twice as Derby manager before fired there. Steve McClaren has surely a big boat to turn. Newcastle hasn’t been sparking in a long time. This is for the first season in a while there been bought players with great potential from the low-countries. One victory and 19^th Place and losing in the tenth match to Sunderland. Is surely not looking like an easy way out for the Tyne-side team!

The 18^th place team is Sunderland yet another team that has struggled in recent campaigns. They fire a manager in the beginning of the season, then saving the place, then running it into the ground in the second campaign of his reign! Paulo Di Canio, Gus Poyet and Dick Advocaat had all the same faith, though Advocaat resigned; it ended before Christmas in second campaign like with the two former managers. Sunderland needs a boast and gotten Sam Allardyce who has history of securing teams and playing safe. Yet another experienced manager, but the team lacks continuity and defensive structure that can builds into using the striking force of Defoe. Time will tell if they will save themselves yet another time.

The Surprise of the season and the giant fall of the league is CHELSEA. Losing five times already and the CHELSEA team need something new. Jose Mourinho has been on a strike and been more paranoid then certain dictators are against everybody else then himself. First the doctor Eva Carneiro was banished. Everybody has target Diego Costa! Every referee has been against CHELSEA!  Like this quotes after losing on Ethiad Stadium to Manchester City:

“A Ramires goal incorrectly ruled out for offside with Man City a goal ahead changed the complexion of this early-season Premier League fixture” (…)”We dominated after the interval and after Ramires’s goal was disallowed, Hazard drew a fine stop from Joe Hart. Two late City goals, from Vincent Kompany and Fernandinho, added some gloss to a final scoreline which did not accurately reflect the bigger picture.” (…)”The Chelsea pressure was mounting and the royal-blue momentum nearly paid off with 20 minutes to go. Hazard lead a rapid break and picked out Diego Costa approaching the left-hand side of the box. He carried the ball, cut inside before squaring for last year’s Player of the Year. Hazard dropped a shoulder and fired for goal, but met his match in Hart” (Chelsea, 2015).

I saw that match; the whole report was like hogwash from certain dictatorships and not a proper match-report. Then the last match kind of confirmed the troubles inside the club. With the cards which has unfolded this season with weak defense of Matic, Ivanovic and Terry. Hazard has been a shadow and only Willian has delivered in the midfield. Falaco came in as a third option, but is still not striking and Loic Remy doesn’t get the time to hit and Costa is just making a lot of fuzz, but not really hitting the goals in the box. Chelsea has issues with Jose Mourinho and his strives to be what he is – a winner and now constantly losing. And his last reaction to losing at a better playing West Ham. Has proven that the Drama of CHELSEA is far from over this campaign!

Stoke has been magnificent under Mark Hughes though this campaign haven’t been either fish or bird. They have not delivered back to back victories yet. They got Shaqiri to the team as they got Bojan last go around. They play more technical and less of Pulis 1-0 counter-strike football. But the results this campaign hasn’t been anything to talk about.

Swansea is in the middle of the league. Third campaign with Gary Monk! The team has evolved and gotten a new favorite in the team. He is Andrew Ayew they got as a bosman player before the campaign, he and Gomis has hit it off. They beat Manchester United in the third match in a row! If they play like that they can still end up over 10^th position! Swansea is steady building and proving that yet another campaign.

Everton with Roberto Martinez had a weak campaign after striving in his first as Everton manager. This season is supposed to pick it up. Still the matches I have seen, it’s too unstable. At this stage the defense that was the strong point of David Moyes is totally gone. The team is filled with young talent, but Gareth Barry is showing that he is starting to be to slow and makes more cards, then doing well. Joss Stones and Ross Barkley has skills and proves viability and not forget Lukaku is a force in him. Coleman and Naismith deserve more credit. Leighton Baines is the hero of the team, though too much injured for the moment. The team can be magical and play fantastic, but it’s not consistent which this club deserves!

West Bromwich has Tony Pulis. That means the dream result is 1-0 or 2-1. They won over Aston Villa and Rondon is scoring. Where did Saido Berahino go? Not Tottenham, but he is around in Birmingham right? Wonder when the fans of West Bromwich are going to be bored with the destructive defensive counterstriking teams of Pulis?

Liverpool has been strictly average after using a fortune in the summer and giving Brendan Rodgers another chance to succeed. FSG the owner’s lost their patience the result and getting a draw with Everton before a week of internationals. The players that the Transfer Committee got and structures of the club has given Rodgers a hard time with losing the best players two campaigns in a row. FSG has later gotten Jurgen Klopp as the savior of the club. Benteke, Clyne, Firmino and Origi haven’t done magic either this campaign. Sturridge has been injured. Coutinho and Allen hasn’t been stabile so it’s not all Rodgers, though he was a working scapegoat and now we can see if the German can get this Merseyside club firing!

Southampton is still up high even after losing Schneiderlin who was important in the last seasons also my favorite player in the team last year Clyne. Ronald Koeman is in the second campaign. With the losing of essential players they still have the capacity to get new ones to fills the slot, also show the quality of Fonte, Mane and Pelle one of them will surely be bought by Liverpool if they follow the procedure of their summer shoppings.. Southampton is still over mid-table and stay there. It wants be a team in one of the Champions League spots, but surely be close to get into the Euro League this year as well! If the 10 first matches is telling the truth of the quality of the team.

Crystal Palace first starting campaign with Alan Pardew he was a shadow of himself in the end of his tenure in Newcastle. He got back into the collaboration as a manager with Cabaye. Bolasie, Puncheon, Sako, Zaha, Chamakh, Jedinak, Wickham, Souare, Campell, Mutch, McArthur, Ledley and Bamford! Is all the mid-fielder and attackers that the EAGLES have this campaign and their attacking forces are amazing. Bolasie is truly a player I would have on any of my dream team! Hopefully Crystal Place will continue to play as amazing as they have done!

Tottenham has actually kept their manager Pochettino and Denis Levy must surely be drinking since he usually fires managers quickly. They have Adebayor, but only official striker is Harry Kane and he has scored in the last of the tenth match in this campaign. Eriksen has been not so visible this campaign. Lamela and Dele Ali can bring fire to the mid-field. Still feels the team is to unstable and still young. And wonder how long Levy can see the team as Euro-League team and with the team they have for now, they don’t have the last spark to get into the Champions League. Harry Redknapp will be somewhere smiling at the movement since he was fired…

Another Surprise then CHELSEA and their fall is the team of Leicester City. Pearson was fired in the summer and Tinkerman was hired. Claudio Ranieri. Who has on his CV the ability to lose as Greece manager to Faroe Islands that must be a special for any modern manager? But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a good coach and manager. He has had the ability to continue the striving team of Pearson and the striker Vardy is the top scorer for the moment with 10 in 10! Mahrez also has been sparkling together with Vardy. Leicester continues to be a shiny light in the Premiership!

Manchester United has not under Van Gaal been playing wonderful attacking football. They have used a tiny fortune on players. Angel Di Maria is still gone even if he was record buying. Is Luke Shaw still there? Martial has been great gamble and maybe saved a lot of points. De Gea staying has been a great thing for the club and a loss for Real Madrid. Because with Romero you could see he was weaker. Still not feeling that the club has an edge in the game or should I say trying to prove a stable attacking or defensive play. Wonder when they find their way and will be the Champions League team who wins more with a force, not “rare luck”.

Slaven Billic has taken over for Sam Allerdyce in West Ham before the start of the campaign. West Ham expects attacking fun play and Allerdyce isn’t that type, though Allerdyce is not like Pulis, still more stable defense play! Billic has proven to be fresh air and giving the players free speed. Kouyate, Obiang, Lanzini, Payet, Sakho, Moses, Valencia and Zarate is proving that this team can play wonderful football. Payet and Kouyate can play around with great defenses. West Ham has already won over Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal this campaign. They are in the top four and if they stay here it will be a giant surprise and guilt trip for many of the smaller clubs compared to the usual suspects. If they survive the hard December program will tell!

Arsene Wenger and Arsenal can be often in a great state and play Playstation football. They have been amazing and been played with more caution, even gotten a stable goalkeeper in Peter Cech. That even Mourinho wouldn’t want to sell before the campaign. The weakness is still in the defense, though Monreal, Bellerin and Coquelin has grown in their defensive rolls. I have faith that Arsenal can be a title chaser until the end, but hope that it doesn’t fall apart as it has done around Christmas and then picking up just in time to reach Champions League spot. Arsenal has a magnificent mid-field with Ozil, Sanchez, Ramsey. Carzola, Flamini, Wilshere, Rosicky and Arteta! So they should have enough good choices in the mid-field, at strikers it’s usually either Giroud or Walcott, and the Costa Rican Campell. Arsenal can bring it in, just not lose it.

Manchester City is leading the league for the moment after having a draw with their arch rival United in the last league match. The team has played well with the new mid-fielders like De Bruyne, Sterling and Delph. Delph has though not been pivotal at all, Sterling and De Bruyne has giving the team pace. Together with Silva and Navas has giving the edge to strikers of Bony and Aguero. It seems like a good thing by the club to keep Pellegini as the manager. Keeping the staff and adding to already solid team with Kompany, Zabaleta and Yaya Toure. City has enough if they are all firing to become the title winners this campaign. Though the stability and winning over “lesser-teams” away like losing to Stoke is not good enough if they want to achieve the title again, depending on how they keep it steady, if they are steady even without Aguero who might be the best striker in the league, then they have the ability to win it!

Well, what will really happen? Will Pardew get Crystal Palace into the top six this year? Will Mark Hughes get his mid-field firing? Swansea will continue to thriving as last season? Slaven Billic will he manage to keep West Ham winning over the Christmas season, because Allerdyce did not manage that! Allerdyce will he be able like his predecessors to save Sunderland yet another campaign? Has Steve McClaren the quality of the team and the mentality to save Newcastle? Aston Villa has been falling of grace long before Tim Sherwood entering the club; will the new man of the club have the capacity to save it?

Will Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich keep it up, even if Norwich is starting to look like they did in the last season in the Premier League when they had 7-8 matches without victories, remember last time they  they went down? What will happen to Southampton, mid table or actually able to crack into Europe again?

Has Klopp the aura to get the Liverpool club back into Europe or will that be a longer run? Will Pochettino get fired for not getting the club high enough this campaign? How long can Mourinho keep his calm and how long will Abramovich tolerate the negative campaign and results before firing him for the second time?

I could go and on. But there been an interesting start of the season and hope it will continue. The best of luck and hope you also will enjoy the Premier League as much as I do. Peace.

Reference:

Chelsea FC – ‘Match report: Manchester City 3 Chelsea 0’ (16.08.2015) link: http://www.chelseafc.com/news/latest-news/2015/08/match-report–manchester-city-v-chelsea-.html

 

Up for Grab: The true soul of Christmas version 2.1

It’s time to write about Christmas again, I know it’s early, but hey the Christmas products are dropping and Black Friday is arriving quicker than the wind. We all know what that means, we can see the chocolates with Marzipan and specialized packed foods for this part of the year. The sodas, beers, meat, horseradish, crab-legs and all the ho ho ho. Not to forget the Oranges and ginger-mixed cakes with spiced up sugar-glazing.

I’m just waiting for Itunes and the radios to play the Christmas tunes and mosh the sad songs of Mariah Carey and Bing Crosby. The strange faces on the billboards on the trams and also on the Clear Channel posters all around town like the Grinch stole the whole town!

I just wonder if our societies have forgot why we celebrate it. Because for some reasons it’s more important to have an Iphone under the tree, then crossing your lips for a prayer and celebrate a birth of Christ! Something is missing in that picture. Something is really missing in that picture. The gingerbread cakes wasn’t it in the Middle Earth, wait! Sorry, the Middle East, where Jesus Christ was born. Either wasn’t a birth made so we had to run to some Supermarket and buy the new mops or laptops made from a sweatshop of factory in the middle of China, which is more like Mordor, then jolly Christmas celebration place of work, who has seen BBC One’s ‘Apple’s broken promise’?

It’s like Scrooge is saving Christmas. Then do yourself a favor eat some more of the gingerbread and hope you’re not to bubbly after it. Still the earliness of Christmas products is coming right before Halloween or All Saints day. So before we celebrate the ones who has built our lands and men of faith of the past – we have to run down the shopping center’s and buy a few limited editions kitchen products that has to be made with either Danish design or Made in Taiwan. Nothing is Christmas as a kitchen machine making popcorn or spatula from Jamie Oliver.

We can all be a little goodie-good and grand hearted even long while before the Christmas preparation starts we have even said our prayers for the saints before we supposed to be sugarcoated and ginger-breaded up to our ears and eyes. Sure that a few of those Christmas tunes want make the day sweeter. Only make you wonder, how quick can ordinary days come back into effect?

The Companies sure want to earn on our nostalgia and good-heartedness towards our loved ones and friends. Because this is the crunch time of the year (Fourth Quarter!) If this sometimes doesn’t kick-off well then the business or shop are not settled to survive into 2016. But that isn’t an excuse to sell me Christmas cookies before November kissed the Calendar.

I am sure the CEO is not Home Alone or busy bodies trying to keeping up with Scrooge. Still their finding their ways of making ordinary products Christmassy, like I am waiting for the Christmas designed toilet paper for sale in my grocery store from Lambi and it will be limited edition.

I wonder why we have to release their special products before All Saints day and make Christmas time or Advent, where we supposed to celebrate the birth of Christ. Not waiting for yet another edition of chocolate in wrappings reminding of Santa’s Red Noosed Deer. Would you buy your summer barbeque special edition products in the middle of January? Still we accept to eat the special wrapped goods from before either versions of Christmas Carrol is on TV.

We can’t soon turn our beamy eyes on social media before every company between Hawaii and Kazakstan who has a Black Friday will jump upon you and wish you to be a part of their event, especially on Facebook! And your friends will invite you on it to hope that they will win a coupon or price for yet another piece of merchandize that either them or me need. But that’s what Christmas time is all about right?

We all have to feed these multi-national companies with our hard-earn monies to secure their parachute payments of their leaders when they resign. So we can be assured that they might only that their Santa Claus will be jolly all the way to bank for kidding ourselves with the wrapped mockery they have sold us since October. That most of doesn’t really want to have before the actual days of Advent. Unless we are the Gingerbread figure in the Shrek movies to be inspired to become Stallone’s Rambo and has his own franchise. Now that I said it, can I pitch a idea? It will be action packed while smashing down people in Ginger-city and kill the ones who try to steal the M&Ms that was supposed to be glazed on him with the working title “The Gingerman runs the mob”.

Instead we’re in the Christmas bonanza and will until new-years like the recent years. I am sure that very few are waiting for new Christmas-products. That as usual got nothing to do with the actual holiday that everybody supposed to wait for. Not anything about waiting or symbolic of the supposed Christmas. It’s like Christ himself is a side-character instead of the main act and coming with one-liners, when the actual plot maker does something stupid. So here we are in the middle of and also start-ups, the yearly prequel of the Advent that has set the real life Scrooges and Grinches into life. They push any kind of products instead of what we are really celebrating. Though the Scrooges do what they are born to do as well, earn money and sell us sweatshop products on Black Friday, instead of giving hope and joy that the day is supposed to celebrate. The Advent is the waiting for the long awaited day that we celebrate, though so many just celebrate the ability to open a present and gifts from friends and family. There is nothing wrong in that, though the day has more value than that. That is like a forgotten story and it wasn’t Scrooge, Coca-Cola-Santa or the Grinch alone that stole Christmas it was our culture, that now lives on the special-limited-edition products that is a part of that time or the year. Instead of actually celebrate what really is Christmas.

It is not that I myself enjoy a special kind of Christmas soda, because though who knows me, knows how much I enjoy it. The thing that I am trying to say: is that we should not be enticed and forget it in the run for products that is symbolic edition and gifts. So we may not forget the main issue of the Advent and Christmas. Because if we forget that then we need help and ask ourselves why we running between stores at the mall and being in rush. Instead of being we actually there for our loved ones and spend our time with them. We are instead using so much time going to these shops and standing in ques. We should use less time on that and spend it with the ones we care about. That is something that has more value than newly fresh pressed money or imported Grincy-Scroogy-Gumball-Dumbo-Dumbledore-Delux Drier that none in the family needed. Peace.

Winston Churchill – Christmas Message 1941

24. December 1941 – Washington DC, USA. 

I spend this anniversary and festival far from my country, far from my family, yet I cannot truthfully say that I feel far from home.  Whether it be the ties of blood on my mother’s side, or the friendships I have developed here over many years of active life, or the commanding sentiment of comradeship in the common cause of great peoples who speak the same language, who kneel at the same altars and, to a very large extent, pursue the same ideals, I cannot feel myself a stranger here in the centre and at the summit of the United States.  I feel a sense of unity and fraternal association which, added to the kindliness of your welcome,  convinces me that I have a right to sit at your fireside and share your Christmas joys.

This is a strange Christmas Eve.  Almost the whole world is locked in deadly struggle, and, with the most terrible weapons which science can devise, the nations advance upon each other.  Ill would it be for us this Christmastide if we were not sure that no greed for the land or wealth of any other people, no vulgar ambition, no morbid lust for material gain at the expense of others, had led us to the field.  Here, in the midst of war, raging and roaring over all the lands and seas, creeping nearer to our hearts and homes, here, amid all the tumult, we have tonight the peace of the spirit in each cottage home and in every generous heart.  Therefore we may cast aside for this night at least the cares and dangers which beset us, and make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm.  Here, then, for one night only, each home throughout the English-speaking world should be a brightly-lighted island of happiness and peace.

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter.  Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play.  Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world.

And so, in God’s mercy, a happy Christmas to you all.

Merry Christmas with the classic poem of “Wassail!”

“Wassail! wassail! Ye merry men, hail,
Who brightened the days of old;
What brave conceits, and humoursome feats,
Are sung of our fathers bold.
From morning chime, unto vesper time,
They revelled in careless glee,
And danced at night with spirits as light
As the notes of their minstrelsy”.

“Wassail! wassail! At the knight’s regale
‘Twas the signal for deep carouse,
Nor there alone, for the joyous tone
Shook many a priestly house;
The monks forgot their bachelor’s lot,
Surrounded by goodly cheer,
And raised the cup, in its brim full up,
To the utter contempt of care”.

“Wassail! wassail! cried the yoeman hale,
As he shouldered his quarter-staff,
And homeward rode where the spiced ale stood
Awaiting his hearty quaff;
The cot meanwhile lit up by the smile
Of a frank good-hearted mirth,
And free to all who might chance to call,
Was the happiest place on earth”.

Also found in Christmas In Art And Song: A Collection of Songs, Carols and Descriptive Poems, Relating To The Festival of Christmas (New York: The Arundel Printing and Publishing Co., 1879).

Artwork by John A. Hows from Christmas In Art And Song. New York: The Arundel Printing and Publishing Company, 1879.