YouTube sensations - style over substance

One of the growing trends around transfer windows and speculation is the YouTube link. Read through an average rumours page, and within seconds you could be looking at their finest moments online, a moving picture of the sorts of skills they can do. People take an awful lot of time putting them together, and there are several clips of Zlatan Ibrahimovic doing flicks and kicks to the tune of Winds Of Change by Scorpion... The Guardian even has a weekly feature on the best of YouTube videos, more than just football.

Even when a defender is signed, Twitter soon fills with clips of fine finishes and last gasp tackles, but there is usually no context - was the last gasp tackle required because of poor positioning? Or perhaps the seal-esque dribbling culminated in losing the ball and a goal as a result.

 The seal gets clubbed

Take Kerlon for example - named best player at the 2005 South American u-17 tournament, he became a worldwide hit for his seal dribble, and as the video above shows, his opponents took somewhat agricultural methods to stop him. In all honesty, in most games he would play this would happen, with the inevitable defence of saying that his seal dribble was disrespectful. Kerlon came to Europe, to Inter via Chievo, and played four games in three years (admittedly due to injury), and was last seen trying to get a game in the lower reaches of the Brazilian leagues.

The online video does have it's place - it has made the world smaller, and that includes the world of football. We're now familiar with the Icelandic team with the weird goal celebrations, or the Moroccan goalkeeper who saved a penalty, went to gloat, then the ball spins slowly over the line... (Ok, I know you want to see it...)

The FA were busy claiming he had English parentage after this

Another victim of the online video is the traditional end of season review. A staple purchase for the days when highlights weren't so readily available, when perhaps only eight-ten games a season were shown live. Pore over the games where titles were won and lost, or relegation just survived. Even on the 1988-89 Arsenal video, a Sheffield Wednesday goal was missed due to lack of coverage. Imagine the outcry now! Not like ITV cut to an advert break...

All the goals, all the fouls, all the comical mishaps are on tap, on your laptops and smartphones. The old VHS tapes in the lofts are disintegrating and we no longer have the means to watch them. It's a tide that can't turn backwards, and even the releases of DVDs of specific games (SPURS) seem almost novelty, and for Newcastle fans to buy a copy of their 4-4 draw with Arsenal would be silly, surely they'll just fast forward to the second half?

Hughes refused to shake hands with the makers of the video for showing his bad thigh

All those puppy videos and weird make up tips won't disguise the fact YouTube is here to stay. Maybe I'll just start recording these blogs on webcams and you can all miss out on the sarky picture captions...