Outlook: No manager has ever defended the Kenna title, and even Sporting Lesbian’s most optimistic fan would say this side doesn’t look like emulating the success of last season’s outfit. The only survivor from that collective, Marc Wilson is joined by a capable defence of Coleman, Rose and Coloccini – although the Argentine is prone to homesickness. David de Gea looks likely to start in goal all season.
Up front the £27m price tag for the untested, and injury prone, Jovetic may seem excessive, but Podolski could be one of the bargains of the season. Creativity abounds in midfield, but last season’s success was built on the outstanding form of Michu, and a similar discovery is yet to be evidenced here.
Outlook: As the hunt for that elusive first Kenna title enters its ninth year, the Newington Reds manager stands accused by the club’s fans of giving up before the season has begun. While they believe Joe Hart is a solid buy in goal, they think forking out £22m Shinji Kagawa – who spends much time as an unused substitute – and £14m on the controversial Loic Remy represents a particular lack of financial and tactical savvy.
But, those complaints are nothing next to what Reds supporters view as the manager’s biggest crime. With three midfielders still to buy, the Wulfrunian left the auction halfway through to go to Lion King on Ice in the West End. Fans’ forums lit up last Saturday with deprecation for a move which resulted in the manager missing out on such late-auction deals as Juan Mata and Joe Cole – who went for £0.5m each.
What Reds are left with is a team unlikely to bother the top half of the table, even if James McCarthy is brought into the top flight. With only £2m left in the war chest, the Reds manager better sort out his office fax machine once and for all come the window if he wants to unlock the £10m bonus and drag himself back into the contest.
Outlook: Once upon a time the Judean Peoples’ Front manager’s most notable achievement was his uncanny resemblance to Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik, but in May the Welshman secured a podium finish – his best ever in four Kenna campaigns.
Last season’s success was built on a solid defensive platform – unlike his Scandinavian lone wolf doppelganger his side found the target the least number of times in the field – and again goals would appear to be this new team’s weakness. Jelavic and Rodriguez scored 14 times between them last term, and the Croat looked out of sorts compared to his initial spurt in England.
In midfield it’s the same story. Stewart Downing’s shortcomings are well documented, Holtby sits deep, Sidwell’s ginger and while an impressive player the marquee £23m signing Jack Wilshere struggles to apply his particular talents to the Kenna scoring system.
Just as Njemana Vidic and Branislav Ivanovic hint that the JPF manager is searching for that same defensive formula again, Ciaran Clark and Liam Ridgewell imply he ran out of ideas in the auction . At least Allan McGregor should start every game.
Boiler room: The auction itself was tranquil enough, but the after party…
SHOCKWAVES from Saturday’s Kenna fantasy football auction are still being felt in London five days on.
The marathon event shook the upstairs bar of the Roebuck in Borough for a record eight hours, as 21 managers worked their way through 232 lots and many more units of Central European lager.
Robin van Persie fetched the highest price of £46m – almost half a Kenna manager’s ton budget – bought over Skype by a mysterious man in Valencia wearing a Panama hat.
At £39m each Wayne Rooney and Sergio Aguero were the next biggest signings bought by St Reatham FC, the former Woking manager’s new team, and KS West Green, the Chairman’s team, respectively. Both managers steered their teams to relegation last season.
But it wasn’t the ninth annual Kenna auction itself that caused the biggest stir.
Locked in competition for a full shift, the majority of Kenna managers decided to accept the FC Rapid de Cuillons manager’s invitation to a late drink on his Thames boat bar: Bar&Co.
As the complimentary shooters flowed, the pressure of entering the world’s most competitive fantasy football league began to show, with memories of the evening becoming hazier.
Anders Breivik lookalike the Judean Peoples’ Front manager was among a hardened group of post-auction revellers who reported getting home at breakfast time, but he was not the biggest casualty.
Shutting himself into the Kenna HQ situation room with nothing but a case of tinned sardines and the auction wildcards, it took until Wednesday for the Kenna chairman to come to terms with the beast he’d created.
Emerging from his solitary vigil the chairman said: “Up until Saturday many people associated with the Kenna often wished there was more than one auction a year. Not any more.
“Glad as we are to be involved with this great institution, no one’s sanity, home life or alimentary canal could possibly deal with more than one of those sessions in 12 months.”
The first transfer window in October will probably come close.
The league will issue full details of teams and remaining budgets ahead of the season curtain raiser on Saturday at 12.45pm.
Wildcard: each manager could pick one player at random to be auctioned immediately
Spot the Luger: The Chairman claims he was never in the former Gestapo headquarters in Warsaw
THE KENNA League has been accused of taking a ‘back of a fag packet’ approach in the wake of a cup results controversy.
On Tuesday Kenna HQ published aggregate scores of the Canesten Combi Cup quarter finals which were immediately called into question.
Sporting Lesbian were initially believed to have beaten Just Put Carles after their match at The Gash. It now appears that result was wrong and JPC will progress.
The Spartak Mogadishu manager also claims that his team had no chance of beating Northern Monkeys. Both goal counts are to be reviewed.
The league has come under severe criticism surrounding the matter, with the Chairman’s official visit to Poland pinpointed as the reason for the oversight.
Rumours abound that instead of attending to Kenna business the Chairman was making ‘guess where I am’ phone calls to his mates from the duty office of the former Gestapo headquarters in Warsaw.
“You can shine a desk lamp in my face and kick me in the knackers with a jackboot, but I’ll keep telling you the same story: what with eating a strange mixture of cabbage and pickled herring at mealtimes, and drinking myriad shots, I’ve had my hands full,” said the Chairman, who isn’t any less of a man for discovering a taste for quince vodka.
“You must appreciate that I’ve had no access to Microsoft Excel for a week, something the Headless Chickens manager will understand, and when I return to Kenna HQ all will be resolved.
“Right now I’ve got three more days of Poles giggling as I attempt to communicate with them in their native tongue.”
FOR MANY Englishmen the Germany 2006 World Cup was a rude awakening.
In the build up to the tournament expectancy filled the air, and the airwaves. Everyone was telling us that this was England’s chance. The Golden Generation.
“Look at our players. Just look! They’re all playing for top clubs reaching the latter stages of the Champions League.”
“They’ve knighted Geoff Hurst! This must be an omen, because he beat the Germans in an era we can’t remember and from which we’ve never watched a full game, just the same clips over and over again.”
“All the World Cup winners since 1966 form a mathematical sequence that is completed only if England win in Germany. I’m not saying it’s in the bag, but by thunder it’s our best chance for years!”
Such were the sentiments fanning the flames of hope.
As with any tournament it all ended with tears for the English, and that was the moment most Kenna managers should have realised that no matter how many ‘years of hurt’ they’d undergone mediocrity should just be accepted.
Looking back now, the 90s – two semi-final finishes and a roller coaster of a game against Argentina in Massif Central – were the pinnacle of England’s international endeavour since lifting the Jules Rimet, but as managers assembled in the One Tun near Goodge Street tube station for the 2006-07 season’s auction in early August, the memory of that Madeirense eyelid movement on a field in the Ruhr still cut deep.
Most expensive summer signings
1
T Henry
£36.5m
Tourette’s Allstars
2
A Shevchenko
£35.5m
Tourette’s Allstars
3
W Rooney
£34m
Fat Ladies
4
S Gerrard
£29m
Thieving Magpies
5
J Terry
£28.5m
Fat Ladies
The auction became a morality play. Footballers were merited on their performance in Germany rather than their week-in, week-out trade at club level.
Widely vilified for failing to find the net in the World Cup, Frank Lampard went for a paltry £18m to Thieving Magpies despite being one of the domestic game’s top performers the season previous.
On his Kenna debut the FC Gun Show manager, noted for his pragmatism, loose morals and Hackett socks, cleaned up.
As he bought diving Drogba for £5m, Berbatov for £18m and the anti-christ himself Cristiano Ronaldo for £22m, the rest of the league guffawed at the folly.
Green: Manager of the Month, Red: Turkey of the Month
The Portuguese went on to enjoy a three-season reign of majestic dominance in the Kenna, and helped FC Gun Show become the second ever manager to win the league.
His three star players aside, only one other of the FC Gun Show manager’s original eleven chalked up over 100 points – Stewart Downing.
Thieving Magpies came second, although at the time their inability to do better was touted as further evidence that Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard can’t ‘dovetail’ in midfield.
Defending champions Vasco De Beauvoir could only muster third place, but were consoled by winning the inaugural Canesten Combi Cup competition, beating 120 Checkout in the final by 34 points to 19.
The Kenna’s first ever female manager bumped right into the glass ceiling. Building a team around Ricardo Vaz Te was held at fault, rather than gender issues.
Every manager learnt two important lessons that August night in Fitzrovia: no one wins the Kenna buying players they like and the One Tun is not a good auction venue.
They also discovered that the Kidderminster Harriers squad possessed more Premier League winners medals (one) than the Liverpool squad. And so the Stuart Watkiss League was renamed to become the Jeff Kenna.
Happy ending: Half the teams in the Kenna have already progressed from the cup group stage (Photograph courtesy of Wet and Messy Photography)
CRYSTALLIZED at the bottom, breathless at the top and much jiggling around in the middle: in many ways the Kenna table resembles a fat man with gout and a carrier bag over his head in the final throes of rubbing one off in the shower.
So it’s fitting that the coming weekend sees the climax of the race to the cup knockout stage. Who will breathe a satisfying sigh of relief? Who will tumble through the shower curtain, sustain a fatal head injury on the sink and be found naked three days later by sniggering paramedics?
Going into the deciding week, each manager will be looking at his team for goals, the key to a successful cup campaign. Chances of progression to knockout stages are analysed below – starting with the most wide open.
The Lickers will be backing Peter Odemwingie (7 goals this season) and club top scorer Fellaini (11) to combat the recent upturn in form of Just Put Carles striker Daniel Sturridge (4). Lokomotiv Leeds will hope that Jonathan Walters (7) will score at the right end, while Piedmonte look to Lambert (10) and Lampard (7) – a draw will not guarantee survival for either club.
Sporting Lesbian trio Luis Suarez (18), Michu (14) and Sergio Aguero (8) will take some beating from Newington Reds, who rely on, oh dear, star striker Fernando Torres (7). A woeful goal difference means FC Testiculadew will have to keep out Spartak Mogadishu star Romelu Lukaku (9) to ensure safety.
No player at either Vasco De Beauvoir or Judean Peoples’ Front have found the net for two weeks, and being on equal goal difference survival may be decided on who ships the least in the final game. A 1-1 draw was played out between the clubs in December, so JPF carry the advantage having scored one more goal in the contest.
