"He's got some great stuff on YouTube"

Frustration. A word that keeps cropping up for me recently whenever I watch the beautiful game. As an Arsenal fan, I have got used to this time of year being painful. One long, drawn-out period of pain and disappointment, anti-climax mingling agonisingly with false hope to provide a cocktail that should be sold along with the others at the Emirates for £5, maybe called "Long Season Ice-Tea". Arsenal always seem to do the same thing. They will play fantastically from August until December. They will light up the league, no doubt drawing plaudits, making journalists and fans purr with compliments. Players will begin appearing in the press: "This is our year", "we are ready", "we are mature". This time next year, and Arsenal player will tell you, we'll be millionaires.

Alas, as another season draws to a close, and probably one of the most drastically under-performing championship-winning teams in recent history is crowned Premier League champions, Arsenal fans are sipping at that bitter cocktail again, the only thing sticking in our throats more is the perpetual ability of our team to throw away games. Against Tottenham, Arsenal squandered a lead for the 6th time this season in the Premier League alone. This is simply not championship winning form. Don't get me wrong, Arsenal weren't exactly their normal fantastic best during their traditional purple patch before Christmas. Home defeats against Spurs, Newcastle and West Brom left Arsenal fans worrying about what was to come down the line. They were right to.

Frustration isn't restricted to North London. No, every football fan across the globe has experienced disappointment at some stage, and many the frustration that some are unlucky to experience consistently during particularly poor spells. One of the things I find most frustrating, however, is a phenomenon I have noted throughout my life watching football. Namely, when a player is quite frankly criminally overrated. So, in the spirit of this frustration, I have decided to try and name an "Overrated XI", filled with the most over-hyped and under-performing players I can think of. This will be, I know, a particularly contentious post as many will no doubt have seen reams of highlights on EuroSport of one or more of the players I name, but this is simply an opportunity for me to name and shame the players I have found the most frustratingly underwhelming during my life as a supporter:

Goalkeeper: Pepe Reina: I have always found Reina to be very overrated indeed. Yes, there is no doubt he is a talented penalty-saver and at times he shows great reactions. He has also undoubtedly produced some great saves during his time at Liverpool, but for every one there is a criminal gaffe to match. One thinks of his gift against Arsenal this season, as well as against West Ham and in the Europa League against Steaua Bucharest. Quite frankly, how this keeper has a World Cup winner's medal is beyond me.

RB: Glen Johnson: To be frank, Glen Johnson's consistent selection as England's foremost right back has been one of the most disappointing aspects to the National team's recent history. To go from players such as Gary Neville, Lee Dixon and even Danny Mills, who was excellent at the 2002 World Cup, to Johnson is a drastic step in the wrong direction. Johnson can attack with a fair amount of flair, and has scored a few goals in his career, but his defending is seriously suspect as has been shown time and time again both at Anfield and in an England shirt.

CB: Joleon Lescott: Lescott rose to the forefront of media attention with an impressive goal haul in the 2007-08 season while still at Everton, scoring 8 Premier League goals from defence. In four subsequent seasons, he has scored 6, only two following his astonishing £23M transfer to Manchester City. He has only started 26 EPL games in two seasons, and hopes of an England call-up have faded with his form.

CB: Matthew Upson: England's third choice centre-back at the 2010 World Cup, Matthew Upson's career has been very hit and miss. Lacking pace, error-prone and weak in mentality, Upson is somehow viewed as an in-disposable feature in his club's defence. His selection at the World Cup was more out of necessity than merit, and his goal against Germany was marred by an underwhelming display which saw him torn apart by the fast German attack.

LB: Gabriel Heinze: Heinze has somehow managed to play for Manchester United, Real Madrid, Marseilles and win 71 International Caps. For a player as unashamedly under-handed and dirty as Heinze to have played for such great teams speaks more for the fantastic defenses which have surrounded him during his career, rather than any particular attributes he possesses.

RM: Franck Ribéry: As many people continue to wax lyrical about the speedy Frenchman, I continue to wait to see him play well in a game I am watching. A goal against Manchester United in the Champions League last season was about as I have ever seen him do, while the worst includes laboured displays in last summer's World Cup that saw him attacked from many quarters.

CM: Gareth Barry: Barry's continued success is completely baffling to me. The bedrock of England's midfield for so long, Barry offers very little indeed. Not the defensive industry of Scott Parker, nor the attacking ability and passing of Tom Huddlestone. Barry's goal scoring record at Aston Villa, where he excelled in the role of big fish in a small, adoring pond, was impressive, but since his £12M transfer to Man City he has netted just four times, before going on to captain England against Ghana.

CM: Daniele De Rossi: Mentioned in the same group as Sneijder, Totti and even Xavi, De Rossi has never justified the incredible hype surrounding him. A fairly industrious midfielder, he has managed 29 goals in 10 years at Roma, where he is treated as a god. Rumours of a £30M transfer to Manchester United consistently fill the back pages, a fee that beggar's belief when one considers the players Sir Alex Ferguson has bought for less.

LM: Stewart Downing: A more toothless winger I struggle to think of (runner-up may have to be Shaun Wright-Phillips, while Walcott narrowly misses yet another squad selection), but it is Downing's persistent attitude and air of self-satisfaction that infuriate me most. He considers himself an imposing winger with faultless delivery and dangerous crossing. In reality, a fairly sweet left foot and a powerful shot (when he manages to control where his shot goes) is about the extent of his talents.


ST: Zlatan Ibrahimovic: Perhaps the ultimate YouTube player on this list, highlight reels of Zlatan's finest moments (mostly taunting opposing players with mazy runs while in Holland) outnumber the amount of goals he's scored in his career. An impressive goal haul at Inter Milan aside, his perpetual club-swapping belies the anti-climactic nature of his career. He arrives with a fanfair and leaves silently out of the back door, while his brace against Arsenal last season remains the only time I have ever actually seen him play well.

ST: Andy Carroll: A talented front man, a great header of the ball and a good lone forward he is, 8th most expensive player ever he shouldn't be. His transfer to Liverpool cost more than David Villa's to Barcelona, and no amount of battling performances and thundering left-footed goals will ever justify his £35M price tag. In the space of one year he has suddenly become the future of English football, and Kenny Dalglish was undoubtedly restricted by necessity and hype in Carroll's transfer, no matter how much he denies it.


So, there we have it. I welcome debate, as I know that many people will disagree with some of my selections and have their own. As far as i'm concerned, these are the 11 most overrated and frustrating players I have seen play the game. Others, such as Clichy, Eboué, Wright-Phillips, Heskey and Robinho would probably make the bench, as deciding between them is more difficult than it seems. Now, where did I find that video...?

Rory McIlroy - A graduate of the school of hard knocks?

Like many British sports fans, I watched an entertaining Masters from Augusta over the course of last weekend with a particularly intense mixture of emotions. As the hope and excitement whipped up by precocious young Northern-Irishman Rory McIlroy faded into disappointment and desolation on a terrible Sunday, one wondered if the youngster had wasted the best opportunity of his fledlging career. Going in to his final round with an impressive four shot lead at twelve under-par, McIlroy suffered a disastrous collapse on the back nine on Sunday to finish at four under for the tournament - a truly gut-wrenching capitulation for such a young golfer. However, the point of this piece is not to badger McIlroy for his collapse, nor to hash over ground that has been so mercilessly analysed in an attempt to discover what went wrong, but it is instead to praise Rory McIlroy for the incredible character he has shown, perhaps even more impressive than his first three rounds at Augusta this weekend.

McIlroy's beginning to Masters weekend was truly ideal. An opening round of 65 set the tone for what was to come over the next two days. Some of the golf played by the youngster was sensational, as his spirited display gradually drew more and more praise from the following throng. Throughout the weekend McIlroy reiterated the need to remain calm and grounded as other fellow brits stuttered all over the famous course, Westwood and Poulter particularly failed to find any consistency to drive themselves forward. The emphasis on 'just playing the game' from McIlroy's camp was impressive from the very beginning, when young Rory was spotted playing some American football outside of his hotel. He was enjoying his golf, not feeling any weight of expectation and simply excelling in the relaxed climate.

Perhaps, then, McIlroy's age that can be pointed to as one of many contributing factors behind his collapse in the final round, where in three holes he triple-bogeyed, bogeyed and double-bogeyed. This is perhaps because, as many have found in the past, the game can become ery hard when there is expectation applied. McIlroy bogeyed the first hole, and from that point one could sense that disaster was never too far away. With more years under his belt, and with this heartening experience put behind him, McIlroy will be far better equipped should he be in a similar position in future, something he has said himself. One can only hope that in future he will be able to cope with the inevitable pressures that will come in the career of a player who shows such impressive talent.

A taster of this character has been shown by McIlroy so far this weekend in Malaysia. Instead of wallowing in the disappointment of his Masters failure, McIlroy has flown out of the traps and now leads the Malaysian Open by two shots (with a score of, you guessed it, 12 under-par). The ability to get in to this position shows tremendous grit and determination from the young Irishman, but now he simply must push on and finish the job. If he doesn't, it may be a fatal blow to his form over the next few tournaments. However, a victory in Kuala Lumpur will excorcise the ghosts of Augusta once and for all, just a week after they began to haunt him.