Murphy Watch - an occaisional piece from the Hill

There are few players that i feel more antipathy towards than Danny Murphy, even Fat Boy Hasselbaink did not depart the valley even though we all willed him to, until the end of the season. Murphy left us in the lurch, with a string of insults about the club and its fans, to play regularly. Well, "didn't he do well", down the Lane 22 appearances in two seasons and a fair numberof them were substitute appearances, so much for his wifes parting shots at Curbs, how she ever got a collumn in the times I'll never understand. But hey, Danny is getting on a bit and that kindly old dutch man has bought in a few new players, so competition could be getting a bit tough. So what does our Danny do, hedges his bets goes to one of the relegation candidates, 'cause he is bound to get a game at Fulham, down the old cottage, so here we are, Danny just missing out on a place in Moscow last week. He has firmly established his place at Fulham - on the bench and making tea. Danny Murphy - bought by Sanchez because he was collecting Irish names at the time (watch out for a bid for Andy Reid in January) has found Murphy's best position is making tea, having started him not once and only coming off the bench 4 times, albeit scoring 1. It could not have happened to a nicer chap. I wonder when Stevie G calls him, as he regularly used to mention, he talks about the splinters up his bum.

More from Murphy watch in January.

England, Wolves and the cursed Left back position

Poised to qualify for European Championships everyone seems to be getting nervous about playing on a plastic pitch on Wednesday. Well these are no longer the pitches of Oldham, Luton and QPR. Modern technology has given them a bounce and roll truer to grass, plus the players often practice on artificial. I am not sure what all the fuss is about. Not to mention when you earn up to £135,000 a week you should be capable of playing on straw bales. We maybe scared of Russian dirty tricks, but I am sure that they would have done that anyway, not cut the grass properly, left divots etc,. that's what football at international level is all about, certainly not going to be any Corinthian spirit shown anywhere around the globe. Mind you if we had been playing on grass, instead of undersoil heating they could drop a few pellets of Polonium-210 around to keep the frost away. Reminds me of when we were at school and had to make sandwiches for the visiting team in the U19 National Schools basket ball competition, the two pence piece slipped in between two slices of bread was well worth the expense.

I don't condone the booing of fat Frank, but what is all this rubbish about him being dropped from the England team. Surely nobody gets dropped from the national team, its not club football. The decent manager, always starts with a blank sheet of paper and puts in the players that he knows will be able to do the job on the day. Next thing you know fat Frank will, be doing a Carrragher and retire from International Football because the likes of Gareth Barry and Stevie G get in the team before him. Yes and ha ha to Carragher who would have had the chance to make an impression on Saturday, if he had not retired, instead Sol Campbell was wheeled on to the pitch for a reasonable 90 minutes.

According to Bobby Robson Andy Reid's ankle prevented him from training prior to the Germany game. A game in which he was man of the match. Lets hope that the Irish see sense and do not play him on Wednesday, given that they no longer are able to qualify. We need him against Wolves. having dropped a point against Barnsley we need to get at least one against Wolves, who have won 3 and lost 2 at home to give them 7th place. Once again we will be without Lloyd Sam, who assaulted Hull's Ashby with his body, when the guy was only trying to teach him how to kick. If Reid does not make it for Saturday then I'd line up:-

Weaver, Mills, Bhougerra, Sodje, Powell, Ambrose, ZZ, Semedo, Thomas, Iwelumo, Todorov.
Subs Elliot, Moutakill, Varney, Holland, McLeod

Otherwise Reid for Ambrose.

Powell again takes the left back berth. I can't say I am pleased to see this Charlton legend playing so many games, although the break must have re charged his batteries, but Pardew has little choice any way. Thatcher seems to have got a touch of the Gibbs and we are not talking Bee Gee's here. Not in the reserve team last night and no longer being mentioned in despatches. Cory has finally returned only to be injured in the reserves last night. Oh how Murray must laugh when he re reads his original quotes about Gibb in May 2006.

"We have been tracking Cory for some time and are delighted to have secured his signature.

"Obviously I was concerned that with the departure of Alan Curbishley we may have lost out on the player. However I believe we are about to embark on an exciting new era at Charlton and I am just pleased we were able to convince Cory that this was the club he should join.”

Bet he wished he did not have quite the powers of persuasion that he has.

Grant Basey is back from Terry Butchers Brentford. he apparently received a standing ovation from the crowd and the players at the end of his loan spell, as a left back if he stays fit he could get a game by default, before disappearing into the black hole of Charlton Left backs. Apparently, we have the third best defensive record on the Championship only Wolves and Leicester have conceded fewer goals than us and two other clubs are on the same tally - 10. Now, I don't know about you, but our defence has looked leakier than a collander, with only a couple of exceptions, so if we are one of the best (alongside Leicester and we have al seen how great they were at the Valley), with our attack we should soon be scoring shed loads of goals.

Roll on Saturday when we get back to proper football.

Footnote: According to the article on Reid, Bobby Robson is about to embark on chemotherapy fro cancerous growths on his lungs. Our best wishes for a successful recovery go out to this great old enthusiast for football.