What Do I Know?

Watching some of the Preston v Newcastle match on Monday night I came to the conclusion that despite thinking otherwise for the best part of forty five years I really know nothing about football.

The reason for this revelation? Marlon Harewood.

Oh Marlon. The player who scored that glorious FA Cup Semi Final goal against Middlesbrough back in 2006 and then missed from six yards against Liverpool in the final and caused the game to go to penalties and heartbreak in Cardiff. The player who scored at home to Manchester United in under ninety seconds and yet plays with all the finesse and grace of a Hippo. Just as we are told by scientists that the humble bee (and its cousin the bumble bee) defy the laws of physics to fly so Marlon defies all known logic to be a footballer. He has pace but has trouble standing on two feet to go beyond the last defender, he is big and strong but rarely wins the ball in the air, he has a powerful shot but often troubles the spectators behind the goal rather than the opposition keeper and he has the flattest feet of anybody who hasn't walked the beat as a policeman.

Marlon had a good record at West Ham, he scored close to fifty goals in a hundred and fifty appearances, the best form of his career and yet he never really looked like a footballer, and let's face it still doesn't. And yet despite my reservations good, experienced, managers form an orderly queue to sign him. He left West Ham because he didn't feel loved and went to Villa where Martin O'Neil didn't love him either and sent him to Wolves on loan and then to his current home Newcastle.

West Ham fans loved him for three years because he was a trier and whilst that will buy you some initial goodwill it will soon fade because as Martin O'Neil said last week of his other least loved player Emile Heskey, "I believe that centre forwards are there to score goals."

Since leaving Upton Park two years ago he has scored six goals in fifty matches, not a great return for a forward with his natural attributes and watching him on Monday night it was hard to believe he will score more than six in his next fifty matches. He played with the detached air of somebody who had come to fix the plumbing in the changing rooms and tried on a shirt just to 'see what it looked like.' He even managed the seemingly impossible task of crossing the ball from the right wing so badly that it actually ended up behind the left winger who was directly opposite him.

He's what fellow professionals call an 'honest pro' which in my book means he's somebody who tries but never really looks like he knows what he's doing. But then what do I know?