Cantona:KING of Premier League

Eric Cantona is back where he once belonged, at the forefront of English football consciousness and as the subject of heated debate, after picking up five nominations in the 20 Seasons of Premier League awards.

It's been 15 years since Cantona last played a competitive match for Manchester United, but his standing among those who worship him is undiminished. Still they chant his name home and away, still they arrive at Old Trafford with his No. 7 shirt on their back and collars turned up in tribute to the man whose spirit embodies the club they fell in love with. For the generation bred on United's second coming under Sir Alex Ferguson, it's Cantona, rather than any of the great Best, Charlton and Law triumvirate, who will always be the messiah.

For United fans, Cantona's greatness is a given. It's not about the number of goals, trophies or appearances he put down in the record books - it's about the things he made possible. Before Cantona, United were a team on the brink, streamlined by Ferguson and moving in the right direction but missing a vital ingredient. With him, they became an all-conquering force with a swagger and snarl that would launch a dynasty.

In that sense, Cantona transcends stats. His 64 goals in 144 Premier League games is a decent but unspectacular haul, while his five seasons - one famously interrupted, of course - is a fleeting cameo compared to the remarkable longevity of his former team-mate and fellow nominee for the Premier League's best player of the last 20 years, Ryan Giggs, who was there when Cantona arrived from Leeds in December 1992 and is still there now.

These are the numbers being used to argue against Cantona's case as potentially the greatest Premier League player of them all, and when you consider that two of his most prominent rivals for the accolade, Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry, helped themselves to 260 goals and 176 goals respectively, it's easy to see why.

But cold stats don't tell the full story. They don't paint a picture of Cantona's graceful genius, his featherlight touch or his brilliant football mind. They don't show us the passes he saw that nobody else did, or the number of times he willed United over the line when they might have fallen - consider, for example, Cantona's six winners in 1-0 victories during the second half of United's 1995-96 Double-winning season. And they don't even come close to measuring the legacy he left behind when he bade farewell to United in 1997.

Giggs could play for 50 seasons and would never reach the higher notes in Cantona's repertoire, while Henry was a supreme athlete and an instinctive natural finisher but nobody can really argue that he's had the weight of influence at Arsenal that Cantona did at United. Arsenal won two titles in Henry's eight seasons; United won four in Cantona's five and the one that got away owed much to his self-enforced absence. Yes, Henry has a statue at the Emirates, but Cantona is a religion at Old Trafford.

Shearer was a rampaging force of nature, but while he was perpetually sprinting off to the crowd with one arm in the air celebrating, Cantona was forging an empire. And though Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane have both earned their place in the pantheon of Premier League greats, Cantona's legacy will live on long after they resume their hostilities in the great football match in the sky.

The remaining nominees - Paul Scholes, Dennis Bergkamp, Cristiano Ronaldo and Gianfranco Zola - are fully deserving of consideration too, but none of them altered the football landscape as fundamentally as Cantona did. They just coloured it for a while - a very long while in the case of Scholes, but we'd never seen anybody quite like Cantona and we probably never will again.

When we remember Cantona, we must always remember the football club he walked into, and the one he left behind: United hadn't won a league title since 1967 when Ferguson lured the Frenchman from Leeds in 1992. Five storied and glorious years later, Cantona walked away having been hugely influential in bringing four titles to Old Trafford, and two of them came in Double-winning seasons. "I am not a man. I am Cantona," he once famously said, and in that sentiment could be found something for both his team-mates and the fans to believe in.

In the winter of 1992, with the weight of expectancy bearing down after United's capitulation the season before, Ferguson came upon the answer and Cantona took to his throne. Ferguson said of his arrival: "He swaggered in, stuck his chest out, raises his head and surveyed everything as though he were asking, 'I'm Cantona, how big are you? Are you big enough for me?'

Without Cantona, it's quite possible Ferguson wouldn't be at Old Trafford today; they could still be waiting for that first league title since 1967. And when you consider that United represent the dominant force of the Premier League era, having won 12 of 19 titles, Cantona's influence is thus surely greater than any other player to have graced the competition over the last two decades.

His influence endures at United to this day. The class of 1992 who came of age alongside him and learned how to hone their talent from a master have passed their work ethic onto the next generation. Those who saw Cantona train and prepare will talk of a consummate professional, with nothing but the heady sway of his heart to distract him from the business of being brilliant. As legacies go, you'd take it.

Like every genius, he was flawed. But when we look back on the five years Cantona spent in the Premier League, the heady highs far outweigh the lows.

Chest puffed, collar up, with a tap-dancer's touch yet the build of fighter, Cantona was truly something to behold. He did things no other players would have thought of and changed the way we think of footballers forever. He remains, without question, the greatest player to grace the Premier League. And there's no stat anywhere that can convince me otherwise.



Arsenal Feeling The Heat

I love a crazy statistics, especially when it is alarming but encapsulates a solid truth. Like, for example, that Jose Enrique is the only Liverpool player to have made more tackles in the league this season than Lucas Leiva (54 to 51), despite the fact that the Brazilian has been out since November. Or how, if Manchester United retain their title, Ryan Giggs will have won as many league championships as Arsenal.

Another beauty in that mould ahead of the Gunners' home game against Wigan last night was that Robin van Persie had scored as many goals this season — 33 in all competitions — as the entire Latics squad. No one had scored for Wigan at the Emirates since Denny Landzaat did more than five years ago, but the visitors scored two inside the first 10 minutes which saw them beat the Gunners 2-1 last night. Franco di Santo celebrated his opener in the understated manner of a striker who scores with regularity, not someone who had just scored only his fifth goal of the season and his first since November. Mind you, seeing as that strike made him Wigan's top scorer, he is a goal machine in comparison to the rest of his team-mates. Jordi Gomez made it two a minute later, and Arsenal could only muster a goal from Thomas Vermaelen in reply as their supposed march to third place took a tumble.

Arsenal have transformed from their shambolic early-season selves into a serious proposition once again, storming to the top three after spending the October international break in the bottom half of the table. Now, after talk of opening an 11-point gap between them and Spurs and Newcastle come Saturday afternoon, the Gunners look shaky again. They host Chelsea in the lunchtime kick-off this weekend. Defeat against the Blues then would leave them just five points above their two main rivals for the final automatic Champions League place having played two games more.

More bad news was to come for the Gunners when Mikel Arteta — perhaps Arsenal's best player in recent games — was substituted after just nine minutes with an ankle injury that Arsene Wenger described as "serious" after the match. The Spaniard is likely to join defender Per Mertesacker on the sidelines for the remainder of the season. It was another injury blow for Wenger, who also revealed that midfielder Jack Wilshere would not only miss the rest of a season in which he has played no part but would also not be fit for the European Championships.

Striker and captain Van Persie looks odds on to win the PFA Player of the Year award this Sunday, and deservedly so, but he has not been performing to his own exemplary standards for a while now. In his last eight games, the Dutchman has only scored three times, with two of those coming from the penalty spot. Wenger fielded is oldest Arsenal team for more than six years against Wigan. Anything less than a win over Chelsea on Saturday would be sure to make them age quicker than normal from the stress of a renewed three-way battle for third place.

Many column inches were devoted to paying tribute to Roberto Martinez and Wigan after they claimed their first ever win over Manchester United last week. Once again they have claimed a huge scalp. They did so by rigidly sticking to their own style of football, and it is now paying dividends at a crucial stage of the season. While Wolves were picking up their first point in eight matches, Blackburn were losing their fifth straight game, QPR extended their run of no away wins since November and Bolton... er... weren't playing at the weekend, Wigan put in another outstanding performance against a top side. Had they not been on the wrong end of some awful officiating against Chelsea, then their return in their last three matches — against each of the last three teams to win the title — could have been seven or even nine points.

A run of fixtures which must have been slowly looming ever larger over the Latics all season may have yielded enough points to keep them up for another season. It is still not too late to declare them safe - they are more than capable of losing heavily at Fulham in their next game - but considering the shower that is the rest of the bottom five you could be forgiven for assuming their five-point gap may well do the trick.

That's Why I Love Man Utd

Saw this video my dear friend posted on his Facebook page. Gotta say, I miss the former greats that graced the Old Trafford pitch. And to the Busby Babes and Sir Matt Busby himself, you all are not forgotten. Man Utd forever and ever. Enjoy ...



Respect, WWE Superstars

What more can I say about the WWE Superstars after a hellacious night at the grandest stage of 'em all, WrestleMania XXVIII. They were simply amazing and thrilled the 78,000 who attended the historic event. Here's what happened the night after, at Monday Night Raw (will be shown at 10pm Malaysian time tonight)

Post WrestleMania XXVIII : SPOILER ALERT!!!

In recent years, World Wrestling Entertainment has tried to cash in on the expected added viewers of the Monday Night Raw immediately following WrestleMania by doing things out of the ordinary. In years past, we have seen the WWE Draft held on this night, but it was last year that WWE decided to announce the main event for WrestleMania 28, pitting John Cena against the Rock. With that pay-per-view behind us now, WWE needed to come up with some new material for the show.

We saw Chris Jericho throw alcohol in the face of WWE Champion, CM Punk. We saw the Rock announce that he wants to be WWE Champion one day. We even saw the Funkasaurus side with Santino Marella, protecting him from Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger. But none of those things can compare to the return of former WWE Champion, Brock Lesnar.

The man who was once known as the Next Big Thing hadn't seen a WWE ring since WrestleMania XX when he met Goldberg in what was one of the worst matches in WrestleMania history. The only saving grace to the match that pitted two men on their way out of WWE was that Stone Cold Steve Austin hitting stunners on them both.

To many WWE fans, Lesnar's exit from the promotion prompted anger. Personally, as a fan of the sport for 20 years now, the way Lesnar left WWE without even turning back was a disgrace. He was given the sport of professional wrestling on the proverbial silver platter. He went from a monster with great athletic ability to a champion, all because WWE believed in him. Instead of showing his allegiance to the promotion that put the money in his bank account, he left in hopes of reaching his dream of being a professional football player.

When those plans to play in the NFL fell through, Lesnar turned his sights to the world of mixed martial arts and became an instant star. His brash attitude could have cost the Ultimate Fighting Championship one of their key advertisers (Bud Light), but he had so much talent in that sport, that it didn't matter what he did. As long as he wanted to fight, he would have a home in the UFC. After losing to Alistair Overeem at UFC 141 in December, Lesnar retired from MMA.

As soon as his retirement speech was done, the internet was abuzz with a possible return to professional wrestling. It took more than three months, but that return happened in a big way. With Cena expecting the Rock to appear on Raw, it was Lesnar's music that hit. After playing to the crowd, Lesnar finally made his way to the ring and extended his hand to Cena. As Cena reached his hand out, he was picked up and dropped with the F-5.

If the rumors are true that Lesnar signed a one-year deal, there are a couple of feuds that make sense during that time. This feud with Cena should be fun, but it is the potential for a match at WrestleMania 29 between Lesnar and Undertaker that would top any match ever put on at the event. If Lesnar did sign a one-year deal, a career vs. career match would easily be the main event at next year's WrestleMania from New Jersey.

The one thing I know now is I am glad to see Lesnar back. I hated the way he left, much like I hated how Kurt Angle left, but he can help bring something to the sport that has been missing for years.