BLACK

Struggling Derby County have parted company with Paul Jewell today, leaving assistant Chris Hutchings in charge of the Championship team.

Despite leading the Rams to an exciting Carling Cup semi-final tie against Manchester United, their 1-0 home defeat against Ipswich Town was the last straw for Jewell.

Derby County are currently 18th in the Championship and chairman Adam Pearson expected this resignation as Derby County are in danger of slipping down another division.

"It was probably one result too far for Paul," said Pearson. "He came to see me after the game and said that he felt it just wasn't working out and didn't want to club to suffer as a result.

"He just feels that the club needs a fresh impetus and a new direction.

Tottenham Hotspur have had a £6m bid for Craig Bellamy rejected by cash-flow challenged West Ham United. The bid was made by Harry Redknapp on Christmas Eve and shows Tottenham's priority in this transfer window is to get a fourth striker. It is expected that Spurs will go back to West Ham and bid a second time but Chief Executive Steve Duxbury is insisting that Bellamy is not for sale.

Martin O'Neill is also rumoured to be putting a bid in for £7m, as well as ongoing interest for Bellamy from Manchester City.

Premier League Football Tips Boxing day 2008 Premier League

The Christmas period can make or break a Premier League club's season. I am really pleased to be visiting West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns on the 28th December with my beautiful girlfriend who is 4 months pregnant. We found out that he is a boy on Monday, so I would like to dedicate this post to him and his second Spurs match (1st one was at home vs Wigan....not a classic). Here are the Boxing Day fixtures:

Friday, 26 December 2008
Barclays Premier League
Aston Villa v Arsenal, 17:15
Chelsea v West Brom, 13:00
Liverpool v Bolton, 15:00
Man City v Hull, 15:00
Middlesbrough v Everton, 15:00
Portsmouth v West Ham, 13:00
Stoke v Man Utd, 12:45
Sunderland v Blackburn, 15:00
Tottenham v Fulham, 13:00
Wigan v Newcastle, 15:00

I fancy Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd and Tottenham to all win.

Happy Christmas to all!

Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas will be out for up to four months after rupturing his knee ligaments against Liverpool in the Premier League clash on the weekend. the injury happened when Fabregas went into a challenge with Xabi Alonso and came out worst off.

This is a big blow to Arsene Wenger's league campaign with both Theo Walcott and Tomas Rosicky also injured and set to come back well into 2009. Fabregas is a clever midfielder who links up well with Robin Van Persie and his general composure will be missed in this four month period.

As Gary McAllister joins the list of other young managers to be sacked (arguably premature), he exits at a time when chairmen like Ken Bates are looking for instant results and will not wait for any manager to pull through a bad patch and create continuity in the long term.

It has to be said that Sunderland's chairman Niall Quinn has proven to be an exception with the recent issues at The Stadium Of Light. It appears that Quinn most definitely did not want ex Man United captain Roy Keane to leave the managerial post after 2 years in charge and wanted to support him in the long term. In the premiership it is fair to say that this is a rarity. Since 2001, Daniel Levy is now on his 6th manager. Now, in the case of Martin Jol and more recently Juande Ramos Levy would argue that he had no choice but to sack both coaches, as would many Spurs fans. It could even be said that Ramos was a success in his brief time at White Hart Lane as he did win a competition and bring in some decent players.

Historically, 'impact managers' were used in relegation battles to not only give the club a fresh start but simply do whatever it takes to survive. Managers such as Big Ron Atkinson and more recently Steve Bruce at Wigan Athletic were incentivised heavily to keep their club in the top flight. The transfer window now acts as a mid-point to give a manager the opportunity to improve his chances of better footballing performance. Chairmen will review the teams performance consistently and will only give the manager funds to buy new players if they trust them and believe long term that it is them that they want to employ as coach.

After being swiftly terminated by Newcastle United, Sam Allardyce is back where he belongs in a Premiership managerial position. His impact? Similar to Harry Redknapp he is a superb motivator of players and led his new club Blackburn Rovers to an important 3-0 victory against Stoke City. Paul Ince's loss is Allardyce's gain. Whether he will be given more time to succeed at Ewood Park remains to be seen.

What is the risk of this short termism? That you don't create a long term strategy from the club's Academy upwards to the first 11. Liverpool fans - take note. Benitez is a superb manager who got incredible levels of criticism last season for tinkering too much with his team. Is it possible that the Reds just weren't good enough in terms of ability last season? If the Liverpool board had made a hasty decision then they probably wouldn't be top of the Premiership this Christmas.

It is interesting to hear Alex Ferguson's views on this topic because he is the shining example of continuity paying off even when the team's performance at times is not what you'd want it to be. He blames 'hangers on' - non-director shareholders that want a say and try to influence senior decisions at board meetings. He refers to it as the 'second board' - corpoarate hospitality types that add pressure, demanding instant results that have a direct correlation on the financial health of the football club.

Gary McAllister is the latest managerial casualty of this football season as boss of sleeping giants Leeds United.

Leeds United chairman Ken Bates has taken action against their dip in form and sacked manager Gary McAllister after an 18 month spell.

Leeds, currently in ninth position in Coca Cola League One are in danger of drifting away from promotion with a 15 point gap between leaders Leicester City and themselves. After losing 4 consecutive matches including falling out of the FA Cup when losing against non-league Histon, McAllister looked vulnerable with Bates looking for quick results. It is expected that a new manager will be recruited quickly to give the new leader some time in the transfer window to strengthen the squad.

Ex assistant coach Gus Poyet has been strongly linked for obvious reasons as he was supposed to be instrumental in Leeds' success under Dennis Wise before departing for Tottenham Hotspur. Aidy Boothroyd has also been linked with the position.

Over the past few weeks since Helvellyn i've been getting back into the swing of a structured training plan.. working with Mark (Forgy) again for 2009... last year it worked really well with constant contact between the 2 of us we worked a really good programme and before my forced break i was in best biking shape of my life, unfortunately we didn't get to fully test the form but 2009 should be a good opportunity to see what i can do.

Weekdays are a mix trainer and gym sessions.. weekends are long slow base miles.. the weekend before last i was in Newcastle dealing with black ice... unfortunately not the AC DC album but the nasty stuff that drops you to the tarma hard withot warning... in just under 3 hours i took 2 heavy falls.. the first 10m from my front door.

Last weekend was a freezing 4 hours in the Manchester rain... testing the single speed mountain bike on the road an getting in some base miles... its just too undergeared on the road but a bigger gear would make the long and sometimes steep climbs here unbearable for zone 2 base miles.. so the bike is getting another build.. think it'll be version 5 and the finished product will be a 1x8 speed road mountain bike wih narrow range rear block and a thumb shifter operating the gears, well no one can accuse me of being run of the mill.
Unfortunately the rainy ride escalated an already sre throat to a full blown cold, even so training did not cease and think it aided recovery to do some sweating on trainers and do some good interval and single leg drills to ' The Flying Scotsman' film.. Obree is a living legend and the king of hard work and suffering.

This weekend was a classic peaks ride.. Ladybower figure of 8.. only managed to get one fellow rider to venture out, Dave from TSW cycles, good as haven't seen Dave much since moving to Manchester and good to have a chat and catch up while enjoying some nice muddy riding.

The weather was a little wet but unlike previous weeks wasn't unbearably cold... the first climb was touh going as grip was minimal although Dave looked to make lighter work of it than i did... felt like i had no grip and as i fin it difficult to spin up climbs i was frustrated at not being able to push a good gear and get normal low cadence going i prefer... later discovered this was due to me having very little grip and Dave using some nice mud tyres giving him a ton of grip.
The ride was going well... usual mix of muddy climbs and fast loose rocky descents, then we reached the last descent of the day... named by others as 'screaming mile' due to its flowing nature.. not as rocking as most but natural banks help the turns and keep the speeds high... that was until someone decided the trail needed sanatising:( this is unfortunately becoming more popular... basicalling involving cutting out natural and re instating sections with nice wide hardcore surfaces... although the sign indicated that the bridleway was closed at the top we thought we could pick our way down.. the top 200m metres remained unchanged.. then it became a 'motorway' style trail.. easily 4 times wider than it was then it became a ridiculous mud bath... you rolled when you could but if you had to dab your leg went in upto your knee:( The trail is now just memory in those that had previously ridden it an i am unsure as to what they can possible make of this muddy disaster.. time will tell but it won't be in the same league.

Well the forth coming week has fallen as both christmas and my first rest week... so Merry christmas to all.. don't over indulge and make sure the festivities don't get in the way of riding.. just think how quiet the trails will be with most users indoors watching tv eating mince pies.