By Myles Palmer
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STABILITY and harmony pay off.
When Real Madrid and Chelsea look at Arsenal, they can see that stability and continuity and harmony pay off.
Football clubs need to change and evolve, but the management of change can be very tricky.
The most successful modern companies are those which can master the management of change.
But most get it wrong.
Real Madrid President Florentino Perez sold his spine last summer as well as his soul.
And he retired his leadership.
If Hierro is retiring, keep Makelele.
Because Hierro was spinal and Makelele was spinal.
If Del Bosque is manager, and Hierro is captain, don’t kick out both at the same time.
If Perez looked at Arsenal coming back from 1-0 down to Leicester, he saw two great passes from Bergkamp, who has been there nine years.
The first pass goes to Ashley Cole, who wins a penalty from which Henry equalises – and Ash has been playing with Dennis for four years.
AND PAT HAS BEEN PLAYING WITH DENNIS FOR EIGHT YEARS !
He knows him very well.
So when Pat makes his run he knows the ball will come and he can waltz round Ian Walker and roll it in for the winning goal on the last day of the season.
There it is : 38 Premiership games unbeaten.
Over in Spain, Perez looked deeply pained as relegated Murcia beat Real Madrid 2-1.
Casillas was unlucky with the header he spilled because it bounced so near to him, hitting his chest before he could grab it, giving Luis Garcia the rebound for 1-0 after 3 minutes
Many said this was a bad goalkeeping error, but I beg to differ.
Murcia’s second goal was a harsh handball decision against Helguera, where he blocked a shot from 4 yards away and the ball flew up off his boot and hit his left arm.
Beckham made a good tackle and then swore at the linesman and got sent off.
My advice to Becks : grows some hair before Portugal.
Officials will be kinder to a metrosexual icon with hair.
An angry skinhead always looks like a hooligan.
The whole Madrid team was angry and it showed.
Raul had an angry shot, Figo had an angry shot, Zidane had an angry shot, and by the time Guti’s angry shot went through the Murcia keeper, the game was into its 92nd minute.
Perez looked pained because he has to cancel a big $$$$$$$$$$ Nike tour of USA.
Real now have to play a Champions league qualifying round in July.
Valencia are champions and Barcelona are runners-up.
ARSENAL DON’T HAVE a Sporting Director like Valdano or a General Manager like Uli Hoeness at Bayern.
Uli wears a stadium coat and sits on the bench next to Hitzfeld !
Arsene Wenger combines all those jobs, so there are no big disgreements about acquisitions.
Arsene might have an argument with himself one night, but we will never hear about it.
VALENCIA are a stable club and I fancy them to beat Marseilles in the UEFA Cup Final.
In the last five years Valencia have been managed by Ranieri, Cuper and Rafa Benitez, who cannot stand their Sporting Director Jesús García Pitarch.
Despite that conflict, Benitez has just won the title.
And he has turned left winger Vicente into a goalscorer, just as Wenger turned Overmars into a goalscorer.
Valencia reached two Champions League finals and have been champions in two of the last three years.
Not being in the Champions League this year has helped them in the Primera, no doubt.
But they have reached the UEFA Cup Final, no mean feat.
Drogba is an explosive talent, my kind of centre forward, but Ayala and the boys can contain him.
My guess (could be wrong)is that Valencia play against strikers as good as Drogba every other week.
SUMMER HAS COME to London and already feels good.
Can’t wait to sit in the garden and read a book.
Evenings, I will come in and watch my new summer sport.
My summer sport used to be tennis and I went to Wimbledon nine years in a row.
Wimbledon is fun for anybody of any age : you can go with your wife, with your Mum and your wife, with your wife’s former flatmate, with your best friend and both wives – or even with your journalist mates and chat to John McEnroe.
I haven’t been for ages, but I’m sure it’s still entertaining.
This year my summer sport is watching Tony Blair wriggle.
He can’t apologise.
He can’t admit it was a mistake.
He can’t say he knew that torture has been the policy of Rumsfeld and the CIA for years before 9/11.
He has wriggled out of everything since I voted for him in 1997, but Tony can’t wriggle out of Iraq.
It’s kinda horrible, watching him wriggle, watching the deep damage this is doing to him and his family, it’s kinda sadistic to keep watching.
But we tried to tell him he was making a big mistake, backing Bush and his gang of murderous millionaires and billionaires.
Huge legions of us hit the streets of London on Feb 21, 2003.
We knew we were right, but we also knew he would not listen.
When Blair is 70, if he lives that long, taxi-drivers will still shout, “Tony, have you found those weapons of mass destruction yet?”
CROUPIER is on C4 at 10pm tonight, a very good British thriller starring Clive Owen.
Whenever I think of Clive, I think of Chancer, my favourite drama serial, the only TV programme where I took the phone off the hook for an hour.
And when I think of that serial, I remember the night of the knock.
One night I’m enjoying Chancer and there is a knock on the front door and Jan goes to open it and a voice says,”I believe Myles has a question for me?”
It’s Ken Livingstone.
So she invites him in and I switch off Chancer and we all have a nice chat about politics.
Clive Owen is still doing well.And Ken is still around.
Kinda busy for the next 8 days, so I won’t be here much, if at all.
May 18th 2004.