You've either got or you haven't got.......

Okay, so it's official, Rob Styles is rubbish - he shamelessly conspired to destroy Liverpool's season, before it even began and that is a crime of the highest magnitude. Well possibly less magnitude than spoiling the season for Man U or Chelsea, but still a biggy, nonetheless.

As all football people will tell you, it is the issue of consistency with refereeing, that is paramount. So it seems timely to remind those callers for consistency, to remember another diabolical decision at the start of last season. Cast your minds back to a lunge by Chris Morgan - minimal contact, if any, on Stephen Gerrard at Bramhall Lane on August 16 2006. Penalty given and dispatched : 1 point each for Liverpool and The Blades instead of 3 to Neil Warnock's lads.

In the dying embers of the opening day fixture of 2006-2007 season, Liverpool "won" a penalty which could well have saved us all a summer of legal action and sour grapes. I am struggling now to find any comment from Rafa Benitez about the ludicrous decision. So I'm presuming he accepted it, with enough grace to suggest he should have done the same after the non penalty against Chelsea.

I suppose we demand consistency in our refs but not in our responses to good and misfortune. I guess that's football for you.

Oh and the ref at Bramhall Lane that day when Liverpool received the gift of 1 point .

Go on guess click here

A lesson for us all

Many may well have forgotten the the fact that Blackburn Rovers F.C. were the original "Rich Man's Play Thing" when wealthy businessman Jack Walker decided to sink a seemingly inviable amount of money into a extremely unfashionable club - delightfully, his club. Almost 15 years on, Blackburn are an established part of the Premier League order, playing in Europe regularly and have, in Mark Hughes, an exceptional manager.

As player, Mark Hughes was, to say the least, uncompromising -I once saw him physically assault Alan McDonald in front of 54,000 witnesses I tell a lie, I saw him do that on 3 separate occasions. He was a superb player in spite of his, all too often unnoticed, physical nature. When he took up the managerial sheepskin as an initially as an international manager there were many suspicious of whether he had what it takes. Too quiet? Not enough experience? Great players don't make great managers.

Now at Blackburn we are seeing the blossoming of a rare talent. He buys well, he is tactically astute, makes inspired substitutions, nurtures youth and protects his under fire players. And he's British.

His tactics haven't always been to the taste of the soccer purists - "Big 4" coaches who seem to want plucky losers rather than gritty and challenging opponents with fire in their bellies - but it is likely that this season we see a further notches on his managerial belt.

Exciting times ahead at Eastlands

Few could fail to have noticed the explosion of activity in the Manchester football world with the takeover of Manchester City by former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra. It has spawned a furious number of acquisitions most notably set off by the UK media fall guy Swen Goran Ericsson.

Having audaciously ruined English football - a fact universally held by baying tabloid hacks - he is now procuring almost a complete new squad, built around two or three of the exciting young players that City enjoy a rich history in producing, and sadly selling, before they fulfill their potential. It is dramatic and seemingly unprecedented, the number of players arriving and makes for a fascinating time ahead. I will take immense personal joy in Swen's success, since to my keen eye, he has done nothing wrong to deserve the shoddy treatment by the English media. We shall see.

Perhaps the most surprising thing in all of this is the liberal attitude shown to Thaksin Shinawatra's ownership approach. People who follow these things say he has a tawdry track record in Human Rights back in Thailand. click here for a brief outline of the issues they have unearthed. Having read this I was struck by how difficult it must be to run a country. He appears to have run a country unafraid of using difficult solutions to solve difficult problems. I'm sure he is the envy of many western leaders having the ability to use drastic measures to solve drug evil or unwanted opposition.

Is it true? The eternal question. The Premier League approach would appear to be ignore the whole thing and hope it goes away. City fans I suspect will take an equally liberal view. After Swales and Lee, I'm sure they sense a leader capable of matching their wildest dreams. In 1996 I worked for some time with the previous main shareholders in their penultimate venture JD Sports. I know from personal experience that they too will have seen little in Mr Thaksin's CV that would be incompatible with due fitness to take the reins at Man City.

Happy Days