sport7 | NYB

Carlos Tevez Has the
Last Word

The screw up over the Tevez signing was by a chairman no longer at the club. The fans deserved better and the Premier League made the right choice. How would you feel if your club went down because of the complacency (or crookedness) of a dodgy idiot who made the wrong choice then sold out and pissed off to Majorca on his hols? West Ham fans had been trying to get rid of Brown for years!

The relegation battle was fought on the pitch and West Ham survived. Not to mention that they went to Old Trafford and beat the champions! And before you scour the internet for copies of the team sheet, United threw everything at the Hammers. Tevez and Co endured 14 shots alone in the first half and were superb. They never sat behind the ball and defended. They even attacked in the dying minutes when the obvious choice of most managers would have been to place his team along the goal line. In contrast, Sheffield Utd needed only a draw against lowly Wigan at home and failed. They failed their fans just like their Chairman is failing their reputation off the field right now. The worst team went down and that's the way it should be. Mr. McCabe needs to take it like a man and get on with it. As for Dave Wheelan at Wigan... he escaped the drop by a hair and should be spending his time trying to figure out how to get fans through the door. Maybe he should sign Tevez. Wigan, a rugby town, averaged 16,000 punters at home this year and are a Championship club at best. There are teams in the Championship with better support who play better football and if Wheelan wants the relegation battle to be decided off the pitch then his team are the natural choice to go down. They offer nothing to the top league but empty seats and weekly highlights of hot potato. Even their manager has dumped them after keeping them up!

At the end of the day the best man won and whether you like it or not that man is Eggert Magnusson. He bought the team, swallowed the fine dumped in his lap by his predecessor, stared at relegation while wondering what on earth he had done to be in such a mess and breathed a sigh of relief as the man at the centre of the controversy slithered his way through the Man U defence on Sunday to slide the ball past the giant pixie in goal. As for Sheffield Utd? They have great fans, a full house and I hope they go back up next year for another crack at the big time... at the expense of Wigan.

by Jimmy Cops, NewYorkBrits

So as the dust settles on Sunday's dramatic end to the Premiership season, Sheffield Utd are the ones who think they have been unjustly relegated. If you have not been keeping up with the tomfoolery at the bottom of the Premiership over the last few weeks then here's a recap.

East Londoners West Ham signed Carlos Tevez and Jose Mascherano (the latter since moved to Liverpool). Their contract was illegal in the sense that a third party is not allowed to have ownership of a player. Whilst common in South America it was apparently overlooked (or ignored) by former West Ham bean counter Terry Brown. Enter Eggert Magnusson. He's the new top dog at the Boleyn ground and after appointing ex-claret, leg jumping legend Alan Curbishley, he set about engineering West Ham's Premiership survival. Meanwhile, after finding that West Ham had indeed broken the rules in the signing of Tevez, the Hammers are fined 5 million quid and told to tear up the contract they have with the third party (Media Sports Investment). The teams at the bottom of the league (spotting an escape route through tinted glasses), were incensed that West Ham had not been docked points. Points that would have relegated them (as it happens by only one goal!) and saved Wigan and Sheffield from the drop without a ball being kicked.

Flash forward to Sunday. West Ham need a point against Man U at Old Trafford to be sure of Premiership footy next season. Wigan needed a win and Sheffield United needed not to lose. In dramatic fashion West Ham beat United (and the drop) due to an excellent goal by... guess who? Yes, you got it... one Carlos Tevez. Sheffield lose at home to Wigan and get a derby against cross town rivals Wednesday next year. Outcry ensues!! Wigan's resident big-mouth chairman Dave Wheelan cries foul. Blades chairman Kevin McCabe throws his toys from the stroller. "It's unjust", he declares! "I feel cheated because yesterday's result was not the root cause of our relegation. If I were on the Premier League board, I would say 'we must address Sheffield Utd's plight that has come about through no cause of their own'.

What a load of nonsense. Did he watch Sheffield Utd this year? They were relegated from the Premiership because they won 10 out of 38 games. Wigan were just as bad and escaped by the skin of their teeth! They won 10 of 38 and scored a measly 37 goals in the process while letting in 59. They could have saved the wages they paid keepers John Filan and Chris Kirkland and placed a cardboard cut out of Yoda between the sticks instead.

Whilst the contract of Carlos Tevez was illegal for a while and while he single-handedly kept West Ham in the Premiership with his unbelievable goals (and man of the match displays), it would be outrageous to relegate the Hammers that late in the season by deducting points.

newyorkbrits.com