Strictly for Premiership fans (day 1)

[chinelo]

For those of u who can\'t get enough of the English premiership the awards for worst players and managers is on now - courtesy of \" The Fiver\". i don\'t agree with most of the nominees but hey my opinion is worth just a single vote.Lets hear yours
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THE FIVER WORST PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARDS VII

It\'s English football\'s equivalent of the Golden Raspberry, the shiny
statuette no multi-millionaire Premiership star wants to win, and one
of very few end-of-season gongs neither Frank Lampard nor John Terry
will be preparing acceptance speeches for this year. Yes, hold on to
your hats for the rubbish-strewn roller-coaster ride that is our
annual Worst Player award, an anything-but-prestigious accolade
previously bestowed on such luminaries as John Hartson, Chris Sutton,
Christian Ziege, Juan Veron, Mr Em and - most recently - Titus
Bramble.

Chosen by you, our reader, the Worst Player award does exactly what it
says on Weird Uncle Fiver\'s Tin: goes to the most consistently
useless, overpaid waster in the Premiership. And with such stringent
selection criteria, it\'s small wonder that this year the competition
is ... as stiff as ever. So without further doggy-doo, let\'s look at
a handful of the mangy runners and riders lining up behind the tapes
for this year\'s donkey derby.

James Beattie: an uncompromising target man brought in at great
expense to replace the ageing Duncan Ferguson, the man they call
Beats got five goals and a comedy red card before being replaced by
the ageing Duncan Ferguson.

Nightclub Patrick: he may have scored 13 goals for Newcastle, but four
Euro Vase strikes against Brei Sachnin obviously don\'t count.
Kluivert pulled off the impressive feat of looking more overweight
than he is overpaid.

Francis Jeffers: with five goals in 24 games for Charlton, the
jug-eared Scouser confirmed received wisdom that he has a great
future behind him. As Public Enemy once asked of bass: how low can he
go?

Andreas Jakobsson: the token Southampton defender can consider himself
unlucky to have been drawn from a fez containing three other names,
not to mention Granny Fiver\'s head. Those other names, incidentally,
were Claus Lundekvam, Danny Higginbotham and Jelle Van Damme.

Harry Kewell: a mysterious \"injury\" (perceived by some to be bone
idleness) kept the money-grubbing Australian on the sidelines until
the prospect of Big Cup glory prompted a recent return to action, if
not to the form that deserted him in 1847.

Darius Vassell: three goals in 22 appearances for Villa - exactly half
the number he\'s scored in 22 for England.

Roy Carroll: haplessness, thou art a Manchester United goalkeeper from
Norn Iron whose laughable attempts at holding out for a new contract
look set to backfire spectacularly.

Of course these are merely suggestions, so we want you to vote early
and vote often for whoever you like (with a sentence or two
explaining why). We\'ll print a shortlist of 10 tomorrow, then whittle
it down during the week as your electronic ballots pour in. Voting
closes on Thursday at 6pm, but before then we\'ll spend the rest of
the week taking the mick. So get voting now! Send an email to
the.boss@guardian.co.uk with the subject heading Fiver Worst Awards
VII and we\'ll examine the contenders in greater depth tomorrow.

As ever, we will also be running a Worst Manager poll to find a
successor for last year\'s worthy winner, Peter Reid. The 2005
shortlist is ...

... Graeme Souness.

[chinelo]

THE FIVER WORST PLAYER OF THE YEAR AWARDS VII
(DAY TWO)

Who will succeed Titus Bramble? Ladeez\'n\'gennelmen, by 3:15pm today
you\'d suggested a whopping 48 different players, but having counted
the votes, here are the 10 nominees who will duke it out for the
seventh annual Fiver Worst Player of the Year awards.

Didier Drogba - \"He can\'t run, he can\'t jump, he can\'t score and he\'s
got a rubbish haircut,\" writes Alistair Lawrence. \"GBP24m for that
carthorse? His goals-per-chances ratio must be the worst in the
league,\" says Nick Munby, seconding.

Roy Carroll - \"Any man that has Man Utd fans yearning for the glory
days of Barthez deserves this award,\" observes Mike Wilner. \"Useless.
If you do end up presenting him with this award, make sure he doesn\'t
drop it,\" adds Liz Hennessy.

Mark Viduka - \"Boro\'s answer to Desperate Dan - a pie-eating lardy
who played one game in 2005 and scored twice since mid-September,\"
declares Scott Gilbert. \"Fat, lazy and uncommitted, to list some of
his more endearing qualities. A disgrace,\" harrumphs Andrew Haslem.

Mateja Kezman - \"A player that has everything Robert Fleck/Chris
Sutton had and less,\" notes Paul Honeyfield. \"His total ineptness was
at times comical,\" sniggers Ben Cawdron.

 

Nwankwo Kanu - \"Lording it around the Hawthorns on massive wages
despite scoring three goals in 30 games. And as for that superb
1.5yard effort he put over the bar against Boro - good on you Robbo
for dropping him,\" cheers David Sayer.

Harry Kewell - \"I was watching a Liverpool match the other week with
my mate and said I hadn\'t seen Harry Kewell in ages,\" writes Anthony
Hull. \"I asked if he was retired or out with a long-term injury, to
which the response came: \'No, he\'s playing\'.\"

Steve McManaman - \"Fit only for appearing in a Harvey Nick\'s XI,\"
fumes Iain Campbell. \"He pocketed GBP35,000 a week, played 44 games
in two seasons and didn\'t score or look interested,\" seconds Mark
Bowden.

Tony Popovic - \"For good old-fashioned donkeyism it has to be Poppa,\"
argues Conor L, bringing the number of Aussies on the shortlist to
three. \"Spectacular own goals aplenty from the big man helped Palace
to yet another inauspicious Premiership finish.\"

Rio Ferdinand - \"A money-grabbing guttersnake,\" snarls Billy Hill.
\"Has any player in the history of football ever had such an
over-inflated opinion of his own worth?\" wonders Brian O\'Shea.

Nightclub Patrick - \"Kluivert could have been a legend on Gallowgate
but obviously he couldn\'t be bothered,\" snorts Graham Charlton. \"If
he scored as often on the pitch as he did ... [That\'s enough, thanks
- Fiver Lawyers],\" a disgruntled Geordie whose name we\'ve lost.

So there they are. We\'ll whittle it down to five by tomorrow, drag it
out through Thursday and announce a winner on Friday. What\'s more,
there\'ll be a bag of tat from our distressingly empty sleaze cupboard
in it for one unlucky reader, so keep those votes coming to
the.boss@guardian.co.uk with a sentence or two explaining your
choice. And stick Fiver Worst Player in the subject bar so we won\'t
mistake your mail for a lucrative Investment Opportunity in Nigeria.



THE FIVER WORST MANAGER OF THE YEAR

It\'s shaping up to be a blanket finish between Graeme Souness,
first-time contender Sir Alex Fergie and last year\'s winner, Peter
Reid: \"He did his very best to get Coventry relegated by making sure
the players were as disinterested as they possibly could be and
watched sod all reserve or youth games,\" writes Simon Fahy.

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[uapo4]

LOL :lol:  It has got to be Mark Viduka. I don\'t think that so-called hitman can beat a defender off the ball. The last time I saw him, he was standing close to the opponent\'s goal post for a corner kick and looked lost.  He might as well come to me and I\'ll show him how it is done :wink:  Thanks Chinelo for this post; the British sense of humor writing adds a good variety

[Honeybunnie]

Don\'t follow the premiership leagues too closely, but I couldn\'t help but notice the slam-dunk-yabbings that was dished out to our very own Kanu Nwankwo. Please oh, they should leave him alone, he must have been going through a phase at the time, remember that he just got married (**sarcastic grin :wink: **).

I definitely remember watching Kluivert play, Not sure, was he the cute one???  :?  .. No, that was Thiery Henry. Oh well! Funny how they use the word \"rubbish\"....Nice one Chinelo!

[uapo4]

LOL. @HB, well Kanu Nwankwo did miss a goal once in the season that was a clear one. All he needed to do was tap the ball in; instead, he put it over the bar. How one could kick the ball over the bar from such a close range was baffling :twisted: .  Hopefully, he\'ll amend for it next season.

[Honeybunnie]

I definitely remember those games, when someone will be alone facing the goal keeper, no defenders, you could feel the tension and everybody will be holding their breaths....My momsie will be standing, popsie will be on his feet with his eyes on the screen looking like the coach, and then instead of just putting the ball jejeli in the net, the player will \"gbafuo\", the ball way over the net :lol:....used to be so funny, as if they just finished chowing down on some serious akpu before the game..I think Okocha did something like that one time, you shoulda seen my popsie raking as if he was in the stadium.

Even now, if there\'s a soccer game, he never misses it ! Nigerians and soccer, abi football! I tell you people go through different levels (way higher, heart attack level) of emotion in soccer compared to American sports!