IT shouldn’t be a surprise what happened to Tottenham over the course of five days last week.
TWO successive defeats: Carlos Tevez injured and back in Argentina; seemingly well-founded rumours of unrest in the camp.
SO that’s all right then?
THE Texas lawyer representing Tom Hicks and George Gillett said: “This outcome (the sale of Liverpool to John W Henry and his NESV group) not only devalues the club but it also will result in long-term uncertainty for the fans, players and everyone who loves this sport because all legal resources will be pursued.”
NEEDS must: I can’t avoid the subject of Liverpool that, in itself, probably encapsulates ‘Good Week’, ‘Bad Week’ and ‘Gripe of the Week’.
FOR MOST of the last 10 years I’ve presented a programme called ‘World Football’ on BBC World Service.
IS it an exaggeration to say matters at Anfield are developing into a full-blown crisis?
ONE cynic at half-time in the Britannia Stadium press room wondered aloud if it would be a “particularly good result” if West Ham won the game when Avram Grant wasn’t there (the Israeli coach missed the match because of his observance of Yom Kippur).
THANKS to the intrusion of international commitments, the new Premier League season has been a while ‘kick-starting’ but it came fully alive for me at Goodison Park on Saturday with a wonderful game between Everton and Manchester United.
THE current Premier League table is highly misleading in regard to my recent visit to Villa Park: Aston Villa in fourth place?
YOU’LL have noticed that I wasn’t back for the start of the season.
CALL me cynical, negative, whatever you want, but I don’t consider that this has been anything like a vintage Premier League season.
APART from the occasional overnight blip, the leadership of the Premier League effectively changed hands nine times this season.
A GOOD friend of mine writes for one of Britain’s most popular daily papers.
SO, for the first time in seven years, England doesn’t have at least one representative in the last four of the Champions League: so what.
IT was 2003 when England last didn’t have at least one representative in the semi-finals of the Champions League. It could easily happen again.
THOUGH I fully appreciate there are others ways to be successful in football, I rather regret that Arsenal are playing Barcelona on Wednesday night.
OPPORTUNITIES to focus attention on matters away from the most glamorous clubs and the biggest competitions come along all too rarely, so they must be grasped.
THOUGH it isn’t any of Dave Whelan’s business, unusually for the Wigan chairman (he is as big a font of bad ideas as Sepp Blatter), what he said about Liverpool is substantially correct: they ARE a mess.
I WAS just settling into my London hotel room, prior to heading to Fulham, when I remembered that the first FA Cup quarter-final was already well into its second half and that I could watch the remainder on television.
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