Interview: Coventry City’s Jay Tabb

From a season that has delivered very little for Coventry City, one bright spark has certainly emerged. Midfield maestro Jay Tabb is one of just a few Sky Blues players who can feel that they have given their all this campaign. Tiresome displays week in, week out have won the fans over and the diminutive 24 year-old is an early front runner for the fans player of the season.

I caught up with Tabb as he reflects on his career as well as what the Championship has to offer.

Q. Jay, How do you think this season has gone for Coventry?
A. The season has been a bit of a disappointment on the whole, we’ve had some really good games but we’ve been too inconsistent.

Q. Did you think that Iain Dowie had achieved all he could with the Sky Blues?
A. No, I think that had he been given more time then he would have turned it around and got the best out of us again. He was a really good manager, but these decisions have to be made.

Q. Are you pleased with the appointment of new boss Chris Coleman?
A. Yes I am. He’s a big name manager who is definitely going to move the club forward, he’s still a young manager but has already done a lot in his career.

Q. How do you rate the Championship compared with League One, where you played at Brentford?
A. The standard is higher and the expectation to do well is more too. League one was good but the Championship is definitely a step up.

Q. Where is your favourite away Championship ground?
A. I’d say West Broms ground, The Hawthorns. That’s a lovely stadium.

Q. How do you rate Coventry’s home ground, the Ricoh Arena?
A. The Ricoh is a great ground to play in when it’s full and we’re playing well, but when things aren’t going so well and it’s half empty it can be a bit of a lonely place!

Q. Who do you rate as the best Championship player?
A. That’s a tough one as there are a lot of top players in the Championship. I’d say Filipe Teixeira from West Brom, he has been class when we have played them.

Q. Who is the best player you have ever played against?
A. That would probably be Anderson when we played Man United this season.

Q. Having played against, and beaten, both Manchester United and Blackburn this season, do you think that you could cope with the step up to the Premiership?
A. I’d like to think that one day I could play in the Premiership, but at the moment I still have a lot to learn and there are more areas of my game that I can develop in the Championship.

Q. And finally, which three Championship sides do you think will go up this season?
A. I think the three sides that will go up are Bristol City, West Brom and Crystal Palace.

Many thanks and best wishes to Jay for sparing a few minutes to answer the questions.

Luis Figo landing on his R’s?

You can’t fault QPR for trying. Unfortunately though, it seems that Internazionale winger Luis Figo has played down speculation that he is negotiating a move to English Championship club Queens Park Rangers.

The 35-year-old, who is under contract with Serie A leaders Inter until June, has been linked with a move to Loftus Road but has dismissed the reports. The former Portugal captain has been reported as saying: “My future in England? At this time there are no negotiations with Queens Park Rangers despite what the newspapers say.”

I can’t see money being an issue here, QPR have more than enough of that after their recent take-over, but maybe the lure of Loftus Road isn’t quite what it could be. Saying that, if Figo isn’t offered a new deal at the San Siro this summer, then perhaps London could suddenly become much more appealing for the ex Galactico.

Watch this space.

Don Hutchinson (Leeds v Coventry, 2005)

Every now and again I will treat you to some of the greatest goals ever seen in The Championship. This one is a personal favourite as Don Hutchinson unleashes hell from 25 yeards out! Enjoy…

from www.youtube.com

Lower league talent is out there!

People often talk about the need for Premiership clubs to delve into the Championship in the hope of picking up a few gems. But something that I find can often get overlooked is the need for Championship teams to cast their nets down towards the lower divisions in search for gems of their own.

If this started to happen more often, then I believe that the English game would be in a much better position. If Championship clubs signed the best that Leagues One and Two had to offer, then Premiership sides will be surely alerted to the talented young players much more quickly. In turn, these players are effectively upwardly fast tracking the football league, perhaps on the way to International stardom? Ashley Young is a good example of a player who plyed his trade for Watford during his teenage years, was spotted by a number of top clubs, opted to play for Aston Villa and he is now knocking on Fabio Capello’s England door.

This practice would be much more effective than what we see week in week out in the Championship. Managers signing 30 something Premiership has-beens in order for a quick-fix, when in actual fact, all they are really doing is blocking the way for young English talent to emege.

From experience I can tell you that Coventry City signed 38-year-old Arjan De Zeeuw in the summer, and when fit, he was almost guaranteed a place in the starting 11. In doing so he was keeping youngsters such as England Under-19 International Ben Turner out of the team.

Fortunately, come January, it became evident that De Zeeuw couldn’t hack it any more. A wonderful pro he may have been, but his glory years are well and truly behind him.

So the Sky Blues popped over to Midland rivals Walsall to see what they had to offer, and signed two of their best young players; Danny Fox and Scott Dann. Fox at left back has been a revelation, his delivery is second-to-none and I really cannot fault him. As for Dann, he has absolutely shone - I am yet to see him shirk out of a challenge of even lose a contested header, seriously.

So the talent is definitely out there, and it’s not even a case of going out and finding it. I would imagine that most lower league clubs have a couple of ‘Fox’s’ or ‘Dann’s’ in their ranks, it’s just a case of the big boys taking the plunge and signing them!

Ricketts the saviour?

 

 

It has emerged that Southampton have offered a trial to ex England international Michael Ricketts in a bizarre attempt to boost their ailing attack. Are you as confused as me? The words ‘Ricketts’ and ‘goals’ havn’t been used together for years!

Perhaps this is just one last chance for Ricketts to regain a few ounces of dignity, after he became a free agent in January. His contract was cancelled by world football big guns Oldham Athletic.

The big striker famously made his England debut against Holland back in 2002, but I think it’s fair to say that he didn’t exactly kick on from that achievement.

He made his name at Bolton, and under the guidance of Sam Allardyce he actually looked a good player for a while. But his £3 million pound move to Middlesbrough proved to be his downfall. Four goals in 38 matches showed the football world that he wasn’t actually so great after all.

Since then Ricketts has spent time at Leeds, Stoke, Burnley, Cardiff, Preston, Oldham and Walsall.

Saints boss Nigel Pearson has said that ‘it never hurts to look at a player with his track record’. I would probably have to disagree with that statement on that basis that he is now 29 years old, which in football terms may not be that old. In fact some players are just reaching their peak at that age, for Ricketts though, i’m afriad his peak was a long time ago.

FA Cup joy for the underdogs

 

The FA Cup has reached the semi final stage and there are some notable absentees. Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have all been slayed, leaving the cup very much up for grabs.

So who does occupy the four coveted semi final spots? Well that would be Championship strugglers Barnsley, Championship high flyers West Bromich Albion, Championship play off hopefuls Cardiff City and Premiership mid table experts Portsmouth. Now i’m not sure if you noticed, but I actually said the word ‘Championship’ three times there, and the word ‘Premiership’ just the once. Weird, hey?

So has the gap between the top flight and the second tier closed? possibly even overlapped? Hard to say. Cup matches are invariably tough to call, as Barnsley have superbly proved. Reputations count for nothing as both Liverpool and Chelsea have found out.

Apart from anything else, it’s just refreshing to see Championship teams doing so well in the Cup. In the history of the competition, only eight teams who were playing outside of the top level of English football have lifted the trophy. The most recent of which being West Ham, who beat Arsenal in 1980.

Portsmouth are favourites to win, as you would expect, but that is not to say you should write the other three teams off. Both Cardiff and Barnsley have shown a great knack of getting the better of their Premiership cousins this season, while West Brom have amassed an impressive ten goals in their last two cup games. Baggies fans will also be keen to learn that the only team to have ever won the FA Cup and promotion to the top flight in the same season was, yep, West Brom way back in 1931. Perhaps it is fate?

I would like to think that the Championship has gained a lot of respect out of this seasons cup, and rightly so. For too long now this league has been seen as a place for Premiership has beens to pick up one last pay packet. That opinion is wrong and nothing would please me more than to see a Championship team lift the cup in May.

Out of their League?

Why does the media still fail to acknowledge the job that Gary Johnson has done at Bristol City this season?

True, The Robins have exceeded everyone’s expectations this season – including their own, but they don’t sit on top of the Championship for no reason. From what I’ve seen, they’ve played some decent football and the recent addition of Dele Adebola can surely only been seen as a positive.

They don’t have a squad of big names. I mean, players such as Bradley Orr and Jamie McCombe barely register on the football Richter scale (no offense intended), but they possess great talent and an enviable team spirit. Then when you add the fact that their manager has his head firmly screwed on, it is no wonder Bristol are flying high.

So why is it Paul Merson has decided that if teams like Stoke and Bristol City went up to the top flight, they would ‘ruin the Premiership’? Now I don’t mind Paul Merson, but please Paul, try and explain how these two honest, hardworking sides would ‘ruin’ a league riddled with over paid pretty boys with ego’s bigger than Jade Goody’s rear end?

Personally, I think that the Premiership needs teams like Bristol City and Stoke. It might just give the place a dose of realism! They may well appear unfashionable, but just because they don’t boast players who would much rather pose for ‘Hello’ magazine than get stuck in to bulky six foot defenders on a cold November night, does not mean they can’t hold their own.

I am wondering if what Merson was actually trying to say, in a less than articulate manner, is that the Premiership doesn’t need another Derby County. If that were the case, then I would have to agree. But Derby are an odd one, they got promoted more by luck than judgment, they won the play off final just one year into a three year plan that had been set by the Rams board! But still, Derby will view this season as a learning curve and will return to the Championship with a wealth of experience and a shed load of cash.

Teams like Bristol City would provide a breath of fresh air to the top flight and if they can hold on to Johnson, then I see no reason for them not to emulate the success of teams such as Portsmouth and Reading.

Championship Player of the Year

West Brom’s Kevin Phillips has just claimed the award for the best player in the English Championship at the Football League Awards in London. Am i the only one left scratching my head at this one? There is no denying that the 34 year old is a good player, his 32 goals in just 53 games for the Baggies proves this, but the best in the division? i’m not sure.

I have got five names that i personally believe are better than Phillips, i’m not saying that these five are necessarily the top players in the league, just that they offer more to a side than Phillips would, in my opinion, of course.

In no particular order; Zoltan Gera, Michael Mifsud, Ryan Shawcross, Liam Lawrence and Wes Hoolahan.

Let’s start with Zoltan Gera, Phillip’s West Brom team mate and a Hungarian international. He has perfect balance, quick feet and can tie defenders in knots with his dribbling ability. He is also an unerringly accurate passer and crosser of the ball, but best of all, he gets goals. The Baggies have been lucky to hold on to Gera and i would imagine that even the most ardent West Brom fan would be foolish to expect him to stay at the Hawthorns beyond this current season if they don’t gain promotion.

So how about Michael Mifsud? Perhaps my Sky Blue tinted glasses have persuaded me to list him among the divisions elite, but what i like about Mifsud is his ability to produce on the big stage. Two goals at Old Trafford in the Carling Cup, two goals at Ewood Park against Blackburn in the FA Cup, both occasions that Mifsud has shown his class. You could argue that Mifsud possesses similar attributes to Kevin Phillips, pace and goals, but Mifsud has age on his side and this is why I would rather have the pint sized Malteaser in my side. 

As for Ryan Shawcross, well he has shown maturity beyond his years this season. Stoke City have unearthed a real gem and had it not been for Tony Pulis’ transfer guile he may well be playing out this campaign in the Manchester United reserve team. Shawcross has shown superb leadership skills and his knack for getting goals in crucial games has meant that he has become firm fans favourite at the Brittania Stadium. At just 20 years of age and with Stoke flying high in the Championship, Shawcross may well be gracing a Premiership ground near you very soon.

Liam Lawrence is another Stokie, and the the former Sunderland player is actually statistically the best player in the division, according to the Actim Index  (Kevin Phillips is sixth). He is a goal scoring midfielder by trade who operates just as well on either flank as he does through the middle. Lawrence already has 13 goals to his name this season and is really starting to show his true potential. He would easily slot in to any Championship side, and to be honest, most Championship sides would welcome the Irish international in to their ranks.

This leaves me with Blackpool’s Wes Hoolahan, maybe an odd choice as he is hardly a household name, but seriously this boy oozes class. At 25 years of age he is certainly at reaching his prime, just take a look at this. The tricky winger has delighted crowds wherever he has played and his performances for The Seasiders has alerted many of the so called ‘bigger boys’ but as yet, Blackpool have managed to hold on to their star man.

So there we go, five names that for me offer more than what Kevin Phillips would to any Championship team. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that Phillips is a bad player but his best days are behind him. I would love to know who decides who the best player in the league is and what it is based on.