Angry Fans
We’ll be offering a free sports prize to the star contribution each week. This week what does Eboue have to do to get a red card; Emirates clash like a pantomime; Cole’s abuse; United to win league; All’s well Liverpool owners; Torres buy of the season; The real Keano stands up at last; One greedy bastard sang the Gooners; Ramos the signing of the season.
JUST what does Emanuel Eboue have to do to get a red card? Commit mass genocide? Wipe out the royal family? Two weeks running he has committed dismissable fouls right underneath the ref's nose. Does he have some sort of diplomatic immunity?
THE journalist who wrote yesterday that the Emirates match was like "a pantomime directed by Quentin Tarantino, where villains are booed, heroes are blood-stained, the body-count is high, the entertainment pulsating, the language filthy" got it spot on. What Capello will have made of the acme of Premier League football is beyond me.
JOHN Terry had his cheek fractured by a sly elbow from Clint Dempsey. That went unpunished. Now he has ligament damage because of a sly studs-up tackle by Eboue which wasn't punished properly. And they want to replace him as England captain, no doubt with Steven Gerrard who has never performed when he has led his country. Is it open season on him. No wonder he loses his rag occasionally.
Ah, yes, the beautiful game blood, sweat, tears, tantrums, rows and a couple of not very good goals. Slamming stuff but not very grand. "Pulsating entertainment"? If this was the best the top four could manage, Capello might already be considering an early retirement. Still, there's always goal-crazy Wigan. (By the way, Cork Blue, if you don't know what Eboue has to do to get a red card, then he does?)
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HOW predictable that the FA will fine Ashley Cole for reacting at the end of 90 minutes after he had taken non-stop dog's abuse for the whole match and played a fine game. Must be time for them to top-up their Christmas party funds, or start to offset the ludicrous sums of money they are paying for the Italian mob. Can someone explain to me why an international team would need a "goalkeeping coach" much less a "director of football?"
UNITED will win the Premier League again. Not because they are vastly superior to either Liverpool, Chelsea or Arsenal but because they won't suffer from absentees in the African Cup of Nations, and because they have a wider choice of attacking options.
IT'S A bit early, isn't it, to be proclaiming the Premier League as a two-horse race. Isn't the situation just as it was a fortnight ago with the third and fourth teams just losing narrowly to the first and second, who themselves recently dropped surprising points at Bolton and Middlesbrough? Don't Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United all have to go to Stamford Bridge in the Spring? Is this a consequence of the constant references to "Grand Slam Sunday". Since when has the league been won in December?
Philip, I'm afraid that you've just ruined your chances of a lucrative career working in Sky Sports. By way of compensation and for services to common sense have our Letter of the Week prize.
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SO Liverpool's owners have had a meeting with Rafa which was "wide-ranging and positive" with everyone "united in their desire to bring further success to the club." That's what the club's website says, anyway. So that's fine then.
DESPITE losing to United I really don't get what the problem is with Benitez. Liverpool are still in the mix for the Premier League and the last three games of the Champions League were a triumph. Three victories needed, three victories gained. 16 goals scored. Just how bad can that be? OK, the potential Champions League opponents for the next stage don't look particularly, but neither do they for Arsenal. Torres is probably the buy of the season and looks a really world-class player. Babel will come good. Liverpool need another top class international centre-half and maybe some strengthening at right back. Come on Yanks, get your hands down. Top teams reinforce from a position of strength.
THERE'S one good reason why Liverpool will not win the Premier League. They don't perform well enough against their leading opponents. In 21 matches against fellow members of the 'Big Four', they have got 15 points; United's tally is 38. In three games this season Liverpool have managed a couple of draws and since they still have to travel to the Emirates, Stamford Bridge and Old Trafford who's willing to bet that they will get any more points?
They might if Rafa just does the right thing and plays Torres and Crouch as his first choice partnership upfront. Why can't he see it?
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AMI the only miserable person who thinks that owners and their relatives involved in great clubs could do better than standing in the centre circle at Anfield — as Tom Hicks's son, Alex, did on Sunday — and asking his girlfriend to marry him? I found this publicity stunt cringe-making. Perhaps I just likemy romance to be confined to my football team.
Quite. And as an old romantic myself, I have to say: can divorce be too far behind. Not specifying which one, you understand, but Anfield would be the venue again.
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WILL the real Roy Keane stand up? After Saturday's game with Villa we saw more of the old Keano haranguing Steve Bennett for disallowing a perfectly good Sunderland winner. I knew that Zen approach would only go on for so long!
RELEGATING Steve Bennett would be unfair to the Vauxhall Conference? LOL. Well done Keano. A leopard never changes his spots.
*
If people thought that this was Keano “losing it", well, they don't know Keano.
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IS THERE any more useless statistic in the world of football than the "possession rate?" Why do the even bother to measure it. Sure Liverpool had more possession than Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday, just as Marseille had two thirds of possession at the Vélodrome in midweek. Still got done 4-0 though, and Liverpool lost to United for the third time in four years at the weekend. Ferguson has got it over Benitez in the same way that Benitez had it over Mourinho in cup matches. It's one of those ineluctable laws of football. Ineluctable— that's a good word, Liam. Why don't you use it more often?
What? Hello? Sorry, must have fallen asleep halfway through the second sentence. Is this letter the worst advertisement for possession since 'The Exorcist'? Ho, ho, ho. Incidentally, thanks for the offer of the word, but I'm going through my 'eponymous' period at the moment
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"There's only one greedy bastard," chanted the Arsenal crowd at Ashley Cole at the weekend while they waved photocopied five pound notes around. Given the wage structure of the Premier League at the moment, doesn't this seem mathematically unlikely?
Given how wealthy Arsenal fans are, how come they were photocopies? ...............................................
EARLY days, but I think Spurs may have pulled off a masterstroke in signing Juande Ramos. For a man who became famous for his attacking football at Sevilla, he has Tottenham much better organised and has worked hard to turn Younes Kaboul into a Premier League player, and make Zokora look like the footballer he did for Saint-Etienne. Let's see how he does against Arsenal next weekend the real test for any Tottenham manager.
And what odds it will be a much better game of football than either of Sunday's offerings?
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goes to Philip Thomas, West Cork. Can we have a full address please and our glittering prize will be winging its way to you.
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