Frontline Football Blog

As published in TO Sports Magazine and www.TOsports.ca

There are a couple of old sayings in football, one is, if you are good enough, then you are old enough and this is a fitting maxim for the players we have chosen as ten of the best young players in world football today.

The other famous saying is the Alan Hansen quote: "you'll never win anything with kids," which considering number three on this list of young superstars, is already the proud owner of a European Championship winners medal isn't strictly true.

Almost a year ago, I wrote an article asking the world if scoring a goal was better than sex? As one can see in the response http://bleacherreport.com/articles/16561-scoring-a-goal-better-than-sex, the idea was widely received and many sided with my opinion of scoring goals being better than sex.

However, I am not a professional "shagger" and with my professional career limited to the South African lower leagues, I was unable to declare scoring goals as better than sex due to a lack of an expert's opinion.

So you can imagine my surprise as I'm flicking through April's issue of Four Four Two and find an interview with a porn star, who just happened to once be an England school boy international and is the current captain of Hollywood FC.

Danny Mountain is not only a professional porn star of hits such as To the Manor Porn but is married to one too. The very cute Eva Angelina, so I think we can take his word on matters involving sex. After all, not only does he have a sexy wife but his work involves countless beauties on an almost daily basis.

Not bad work if you can get it.

Finally, after five attempts this season, I am home from Ibrox with a smile on my face, finally having witnessed a Rangers win thanks in part to Kyle Lafferty.

The Gers ran out 5-1 winners over a rather poor Hamilton Accies in front of a half empty Ibrox Stadium but it was a game which dispelled a couple of myths.

Barry Ferguson and Pedro Mendes can't play together is one - Well not according to today's performance. The pair linked up continuously with Barry as happy to pass to Pedro as Pedro was to Barry. Their slick forward passing and 1-2's in the midfield were a joy to watch for those who turned up to see it.

The captain is looking more and more his old self in the past few games and the fact he performed well alongside Mendes today should go a long way to silencing the anti-Barry section of Rangers support.

Walter Smith will never start Aaron Niguez is another - Not much explaining needed here, he just did. The youngster was hardly gold dust however and struggled when things got physical in a similar way Chris Burke used too.

It occurred to me last night I might well be part of Rangers problems this season. Four times I have managed up to Ibrox and four times I've failed to see Rangers win. Not exactly the proudest record of a bear but fans can't blame me, can they?

Well why not, fans have blamed everyone else but things aren't as bad as many have been making out (Celtic are still poor and will continue to drop points) and the criticism of some of our players is highly unjustified.

Take Sasa Papac for example. A player who honestly gets better every time he takes the field, yet is attacked on a weekly basis by Rangers fans for presumably not being Artur Numan. We don't need a new left back next season. Papac is good enough, strong in the tackle, tactically sound and more confident by the week.

I had a constant wry smile on my face (as did the fan next to me) as fans spat out anti Kirk Broadfoot remarks while ignoring the fact Steven Davis was having his worst 90 minutes in a Rangers shirt or that Kris Boyd was, Kris Boyd was, Kris Boyd was playing?

Yes, Kirk Broadfoot struggles to put a cross in but so do most centre backs. Maybe going to reserve games and shouting at the even worse Steven Whittaker would be more constructive as it is the former Hibernian mans lack of progression since joining Rangers which forces Smith to play Broadfoot at right back.

After listening to yet another Arsene Wenger moan about the opposition's tactics, I felt I had to speak out.

Wenger told Sky Sports. "You can give them credit, they defended well, but I do not want to go overboard because if everybody plays like that it would be very boring in the Premier League."

Many people may well tell me the Arsenal boss was not moaning and I'm just jumping on the "Arsene Wenger is a moaner" bandwagon but honestly, is he doing his side any favours?

My message to Arsene would be that sometimes your team just needs a kick up the arse, making excuses for them has only led to the continued under performance of your side.

Yes, give Sunderland credit as their far less glamorous and quite frankly less skilled "team" just beat Arsenal, as a point for Sunderland at the Emirates, is a win.

Let me start by saying, I have never been Nicklas Bendtner's biggest fan and of course, anything written in a tabloid newspaper can be taken with a pinch of salt but I just couldn't ignore the Dane's comments in today's Daily Mirror.

Are we to believe the 21 year old actually said this or was it possibly that he "wants" to play every minute and an interview has been taken out of context?

As a wannabe journalist, I'm going to have to side with my journalist friends at the Mirror and treat Bendtner's comments as fact (with one eye open).

Should Nicklas be starting every game?

Having decided not to write a match report on today's Old Firm derby as it was a rather even contest (as far as goals scored were concerned anyway), I decided to read through a couple of Rangers forums and see where my views lay in comparison to other Rangers fans.

I was fully expecting Walter Smith to play 4-5-1 but had been hoping that "one" was not Kyle Lafferty. Having watched him play upfront on his own against AC Milan, it was apparent that he couldn't win a header or continuously hold the ball up.

For some to say that Lafferty got no service during the Celtic game was laughable, as it was clear early on that nothing played into him was going to stick and holding onto the ball by other means was the way to go.

I'm certainly not saying Kris Boyd would have definitely done a better job, as he probably wouldn't but he would have won more headers and might have been there and there abouts for a half chance.

There was a lot of talk about Barry Ferguson passing sideways and how terrible he was but when there is one man ahead of you and two to either side, then surely you are going to pass sideways more often? The fact that anything played to Lafferty was coming straight back must have alluded some people.

When it comes to David Beckham, most say there is no middle ground, you either love him or you hate him but I disagree.

You don't have to love someone to respect them.

Last Wednesday night, I had the privilege of watching Beckham play live for the first time as his new AC Milan side played Glasgow Rangers at Ibrox Stadium in a mid-season friendly. It was amazing to see how he got on with the stars of Milan (considering he is a new player who doesn‘t speak the lingo) and it was quite obvious to those of us looking on, the Milan players respect him and are more than happy to have him around.

Now, I'm not one for watching the sun come out of players backsides and I don't believe Beckham is now or ever was, world class, but he was and continues to be, one hell of a player.

The thought of writing about the English international came to me after reading an article that described the midfielders performances in Italy as "ordinary" and that got me thinking. The fact Beckham's performances have been very good at Milan, where he has scored and set up goals aplenty since his loan move from LA Galaxy, the dead ball specialist has as always, ran himself into the ground but that is just part of the story.

In life, as in the work place, one has to stand up for oneself and avoid situations which could see you being "walked all over" by companies, bosses or colleagues, if you are to make a success of your career.

Daniel Sturridge is a bright young prospect who graduated to Manchester City's main office in 2006 and has since proven to be one of England's brightest young stars. His performances have been made even more impressive considering the form of players such as Stephen Ireland and Robinho.

For the 19 year old forward to be upstaging such famous names is surely a sign of what is to come.

There is no doubt in my mind, if Manchester City hadn't been bought over this summer, Sturridge would be a first team regular, probably in place of Brazilian superstar Robinho.

Unfortunately, as with any business, new owners means restructuring, new goals and new ideas.

The amount of foreign players in the Barclays Premier League has been an issue over the last few years with many people suggesting that the amount of foreigners in England was hampering the national team.

I had been inclined to think that way myself until I stumbled on the Inter Milan squad list while researching another article. It was flooded with foreign players and it got me thinking, does England really have too many foreign players and is this actually hampering the national side?

For my research, I took the top four sides (judging by league tables as of the morning of the 7^th February 2009) from Spain's La Liga, Italy's Serie A and England's Premier League and worked out how many foreigners they had as individual clubs and national leagues. I chose the top four as these are the players likely to be representing each country in next years UEFA Champions League.

Having first got the idea for this article while looking at Inter Milan, I'll start by looking at Serie A. The current top four in Italy are Inter Milan, AC Milan, Juventus and the surprise package of 2008/2009, Genoa.