Here’s my New Year wish list for 2014:
(*Read my blogs and play my Premier League and Football League goal-prediction game for FREE at www.goaldengoals.co.uk now.)
1. Of all my New Year wishes I’d love to see the three Saints, Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana and Jay Rodriguez play for England in next year’s World Cup Finals. To have these Southampton English boys wearing the Three Lions shirt in Brazil next June would be fantastic indeed.
2. To have less diving in English football would be a bit of a result. I’m not picking on one player in particular but there have been far too many instances this season. It’s become far too widespread and it’s not just the foreign players doing it either.
3. I’d like to see more technology used in football where it doesn’t interfere with the game. It’s taken a long time to get goal-line technology but I’d like to see it used for free-kicks right on the edge of the box. In the time it takes to get the wall sorted out the official in the stand could see whether or not the foul was committed inside or outside of the area allowing the referee to award a penalty or free-kick. The more decisions we get right the better the game will be.
4. This is a wish that I don’t think will ever come true but wouldn’t it be nice if owners and chairmen gave their managers a bit more time to actually manage their football clubs and build a team. It seems they have one poor spell of form and it’s “See you later”.
5. It would be wonderful to see my old club Southampton finish their Premier League campaign higher than the position I tipped them at the start of the season, which was ninth. That’s where they are at the half-way stage, so not a bad prediction so far.
6. There are so many different characters refereeing our games but I do want to see a bit of consistency from them. I watched Stoke’s Glenn Whelan get sent off for a little kick in the back of Newcastle’s Yohan Cabaye whilst Wayne Rooney does the same against Hull’s Tom Huddlestone and gets nothing. Is it a case of reputations and refs not wanting to send players off at big clubs? Yes, consistency would be great but, sadly, this wish may take a long, long time to come true.
7. I would like to see the back of the stupid rule of booking a player just for taking his shirt off after scoring. It was probably brought in to stop political slogans being shown on their T-shirts underneath. But why not just book those players displaying a slogan and allow others to celebrate. If a rule is there banning political slogans no-one would do it. It’s the greatest feeling in the world to celebrate a goal so if they want to let off a bit of steam by showing off their pecs let them do it.
And here are my personal wishes for my Soccer Saturday team-mates at Sky:
8. I want Charlie Nicholas to get rid of his earring. He’s got to realise that he’s in his fifties now and he’s not a pirate.
9. Paul Merson must take elocution lessons so I don’t have to keep helping him with his pronunciations each and every weekend. Mind you, if he did that and never said anything wrong we would not have a funny section of all the times he’s talking about the foreign players.
10. I would love to hear Thommo (Phil Thompson) predict something other than an 1-0 Everton win. They are above Liverpool now and he’s got to start giving them a little bit of credit.
11. My New Year wish for Kammy (Chris Kamara) is for him to spot everything going on in a game behind him.
12. And our host Jeff Stelling should stop sitting on those three cushions to try and make himself look tall. He should let everyone know that he is actually a midget!
Happy New Year to you all!
*Play Matt’s goal-prediction game for free now by logging on to www.goaldengoals.co.uk and win £200 in January.
This photograph was provided by Goalden Goals.
