Gerrard: Not a risk?

BACK in the summer I wrote that Steven Gerrard taking on the Rangers job was daft in the extreme, noting that he was on a hiding to nothing and was risking his future managerial career. It looks as if I was wrong.

Instead of Celtic leaving Rangers and everybody else in their dust, a look at the table shows the Bhoys in a barely believable sixth place, with Rangers a point ahead of them in second, trailing surprise leaders Hearts by five points.

Okay it’s still early days and the normal order of things can and probably will be restored, but I have to say Gerrard and his number two, Gary McAllister, are doing a pretty good job up to now, having played a ridiculous 18 games in 80 days across Scotland and eastern Europe with just one defeat. (Against Celtic.)

Number of the week (1)

This one’s 180 — passes made by Jorginho for Chelsea at West Ham last Sunday, establishing a new Premier League record. Mightily impressive barring the fact that 99 per cent of the passes went sideways and provided very little threat to the Hammers’ defence in what was ultimately a stale 0-0 draw.

Team of the week

Marcus Betinelli, Fulham; Issa Diop, West Ham; Ben Mee, Burnley; Jaamal Lascelles, Newcastle; Danny Rose, Spurs; Erik Lamela, Spurs; James Maddison, Leicester; Diego Jota, Wolves; ‹lkay Gündoğan, Citeh; Raul Jiminez, Wolves; Aaron Lennon, Burnley. Manager: Nuno Espirito Santo, Wolves.

Shurely shome mishtake! (sic)

They must have been on a really good bender the night before the jury met to decide Fifa’s Puskas Award for goal of the year, otherwise how else to explain their selection of Mo Salah’s strike against Everton as the best goal scored in the whole of 2017-18? I sat down t’other day and watched all 10 nominees and clearly the other nine were all superior to the Liverpool winger’s. I also, from memory alone, concluded that it wasn’t even close to being the best goal Salah scored last season, let alone the best goal in the world.

I know these things are subjective, but in a category that included wonderful overhead kicks in big European ties from Ronaldo and Bale, a stunning World Cup strike from Benjamin Pavard, and a quite ridiculous scorpion kick from a young Aussie, the winning choice was bizarre in the extreme.

Actually in all seriousness you can disregard the bit about the jury going on a bender because this award is decided by fans on an online poll. These polls are notoriously dodgy, as Sky can attest every time the Arsenal fans jam the lines whenever they do a poll. There’s a reason why the BBC stopped using this method to decide their

goal of the season and it’s writ large here.

Tweet of the week

Congrats @MoSalah on your seventh-best goal from last season winning goal of the year. James Milner

Quote of the week

“Harvey Elliot [Fulham] is so young he doesn’t remember when Manchester United had a decent team.” Considering United won the league a mere five years ago in Fergie’s last season and young Master Elliot, who made his first-class debut for the Cottagers on Tuesday night, is 15 years old that’s a bit harsh, but I understand the sentiment.

On the box

Premier League — Today: 2.30pm West Ham v United; 5pm Arsenal v Watford, Everton v Fulham, Huddersfield v Spurs, Citeh v Brighton, Newcastle v Leicester, Wolves v Southampton; 7.30pm Chelsea v Liverpool. Tomorrow: 6pm Cardiff v Burnley. Monday: 10pm Bournemouth v Palace. Friday: 10pm Brighton v West Ham. Champions League — Tuesday: 7.55pm Hoffenheim v Citeh; 10pm United v Valencia. Wednesday: 10pm Spurs v Barcelona, Napoli v Liverpool. Europa League — Thursday: 7.55pm Qarabag v Arsenal, Salzburg v Celtic; 10pm Chelsea v MOL Vidi (who?).

Game of the week: Chelsea v Liverpool. With Chelsea having lost their 100 per cent winning record in last week’s tame draw with West Ham they will be looking to earn maximum points against the only team left with that record. As I alluded to above I’m not entirely convinced by Chelsea’s midfield thus far, especially with N’Golo Kante now playing as an attacking midfield player. I think Klopp’s team have the personnel to take advantage of this and given the potency of Liverpool’s top three, as opposed to Chelsea’s lack of a goal-scoring target man, I reckon all three points are there for the taking. Unless Eden Hazard is on fire, in which case disregard what I’ve written.

Formula One

Russian Grand Prix — tomorrow: 2.10pm. Lewis Hamilton now has a precious 40point lead over Sebastian Vettel but he won’t be taking anything for granted, given that by and large the Ferrari has been the superior car this season and Mercedes are largely profiting from the Italian team’s driver errors.

Numbers of the week (2-3)

Compare: 1,199 — Tiger Woods’ World Golf Ranking in December 2017; 13 — his rank after winning the Tour Championship at Atlanta two weeks ago. Like him or loathe him there can be no doubt that Woods is Golf’s X factor, as can be seen by the enormous galleries that follow him on the course plus the massively enhanced US TV ratings when he plays. Ultimately, whatever opinion you may have of him, his very presence is good for a game that hankers after relevance in our sporting world.

And finally

Last week I asked you to connect Gillingham FC with the President of Liberia. The Liberian president is, of course, none other than former world player of the year George Weah, formerly of Monaco, Paris Saint Germain, AC Milan, Chelsea (on loan), Citeh and Marseille. While on loan at Stamford Bridge he scored once against Gillingham in the FA Cup which Chelsea went on to win that year. After Chelsea failed to offer him a contract, newly promoted Citeh signed him and once again the Gills were exposed to his predatory instincts — this time in the League Cup, where he scored three times over the two legs of the tie.

This week: what connects Manchester, New York, Melbourne, Yokohama, Montevideo and Girona?

It’s been great seeing former Karflıyaka residents Gary and Bev Richardson over the past week; they’ve never changed and are as personable and helpful as ever. See you next year, guys.

Final word on karaoke: there was a near-namesake of mine on the mike last week and the main difference between him and me was that Stephen “Ref” Walker is a seriously good singer with all the moves, while I can’t knock out a tune for toffee and have all the natural grace of a rhino performing Bolero on Streatham Ice Rink. (That might actually be an insult to rhinos.)