No? That’s odd! You would have thought that with the way things were going for Malaysia these first two months of 2010, everything had turned upside-down.

By now, most readers of this website would be well aware of the recent exodus, and as claimed by some, a forthcoming second wave of those “disenchanted” by PKR.

Well, phooey. The brilliant Jonathan Wilson at The Guardian beat me to it, and has done so magnificently.

However, genius as his article is, it misses out on one particular point — not a criticism since there is only so much that one article can do — that of what teams with 10 men should do to maximise their chances of winning matches despite the handicap.

The recent column by Alex Paul was also met with praise but cynical remarks that the country has already been sold down the river by corrupt politicians.

I don’t mean to say that corruption is not a problem. It is a huge one. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that it is a problem endemic to Malaysia.

Once conquerors of AC Milan and Champions’ League semi-finalists, the past seven years have seen them go from title challengers to being relegated to the third tier of English football. With this stunning win — which was more than just a snatch-and-grab as Man Utd contrived to cede control of possession despite playing at home — might Leeds United have started the new decade by rekindling the romance of the FA Cup before going on to reclaim their former glory?

Cops are crawling all over the place. Several dozen are making sure that the crowd doesn't get out of hand, imploring them to stop stepping on photos of opposition figures and making sure they do not march in the streets. Others are advising onlookers to keep their distance or leave, telling them not to encourage the protest.

The only caveats I would insert is that this of course depends on what sort of formation you want to play and whether your emphasis is on all-out attack, solid defence, possession football, wingplay, etc, etc. In the interest of chucking in as many exciting offensive players as possible, I've gone for a 4-1-3-2 formation. Two flying wingbacks, just one holding midfielder behind three players trying to get in and around two strikers. Yes, we'll leak about a million goals a season, but we'll score two million.

The century of world wars, mutually assured destruction, sci-fi, psychoanalysis and man’s utter inhumanity to man. Congratulations, you’ve defeated all the bosses for Level 1, Super Mario. Let’s see what you’ll achieve in the next 10 years.

1. Yes, Liverpool have been the victim of some questionable refereeing. The team that has hardly any players sent off under Rafael Benitez has already had four red cards this season — ironically, sending offs have traditionally been an Arsenal problem — with those shown to Jamie Carragher, Philipp Degen and Javier Mascherano all by one referee — Lee Mason — being quite befuddling. Carragher claimed that Bobby Zamora agreed he had gotten the ball with his tackle and Zamora has not contradicted the Liverpool centrehalf since. Degen was late but only caught Clint Dempsey with his trailing foot and Mascherano's was on a slippery and icy pitch in Portsmouth where his tackle hardly made any contact with Tal Ben Haim before he crashed into the Israeli defender. Liverpool were also denied a clearcut penalty claim against Arsenal which ended up in a 2-1 defeat at home.

I fully acknowledge that I took a bit of a leap in my last piece and the point was misunderstood by some readers. It was not meant to simply say that Barisan Nasional (BN) have absolute power to declare what everything is — far from being true, in fact.

More precisely, it was that power itself depends on who is saying what and how/what is being articulated. Made popular by the French thinker Michel Foucault, he regarded “enunciations” as the building block of a discourse, and those who could enunciate, exerted influence and effectively silenced other views over what was what. ]]> Shannon Teoh Tue, 08 Dec 2009 01:02:38 +0000 http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/shannonteoh/45769--the-disarticulation-of-btn-is-nigh-now-about-those-reforms http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tmi/columnists/shannon/~3/DRCwcKDatps/45219-derby-day-defeats-due-to-depth http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/shannonteoh/45219-derby-day-defeats-due-to-depth DEC 2 — Clever alliteration aside, Sunday’s big grudge matches were all won by teams who could call on extra “reserves” to finish off their opponents.

First the Merseyside derby, then the battle of London’s top sides and then, not a real derby, but probably one of the world’s most intense sporting rivalries, —El Clasico they call it in Spain — Barcelona versus Real Madrid saw either the use of substitutes or the loss of players as key factors and main talking points.

The day began with Everton very clearly making Liverpool look second best. Liverpool failed to put any decent string of attacking play together with local hero Steven Gerrard, who’d you expect to be fired up for such a game, looking especially pedestrian.