Angry Fans
REAL Madrid's manager Bernd Schuster looks to be in the final lap of his contract
at the Bernabeu. Fallen out with the press, arguing with the club's administrators,
his team dropping off the pace. Who's going to be the next in charge there? You
just know it's going to be Rafa if the Americans don't sort themselves sorted
out. Where Benitez goes, Torres will follow?
When you say 'Limerick Red', I take it it must be of the United
kind. If not, you Liverpool boys must no longer be able to differentiate between
the silver lining and the cloud.
Who told Tal Ben Haim that he could
defend? Couldn't get a place at Chelsea, and when he is picked for Manchester
City he is woeful. And what has happened to Micah Richards? Great defender last
year and an international player. Looks like a pub footballer this season.
STEPHEN Ireland is the best goalscoring
midfielder in the Premier League right now and scored a wonderful second goal
against Hull. Yet there still seems to be little chance of him being integrated
back into the Republic side. Is there something about players from Cork that makes
them determined to turn a drama into a tragedy.
Good point - that Irwin fella was terribly undependable
too.
ISN'T the row this week over a St Pat's player who didn't
even play in the match concerned betting on his own team to lose a storm
in a very small teacup? OK, so Gary Dempsey placed an insignificant bet on the
game against Cobh Ramblers, but the rules aren't watertight anyway. It's simple.
Just ban players of from betting on games in which their teams are involved. Problem
solved.
Agree wholeheartedly
with this. What Dempsey did was ill-advised but, a minor misdeanour not a crime,
and I hope he does not become the victim of hysterical over-reaction to what may
or may not be a much wider problem in football.
THE plans to integrate
Premier League players into the Olympic Games drug-testing regime go too far don't
they? Should players really be subjected to a process where they have to tell
investigators where they are 24-hours a day, even while they are on holidays?
The football authorities already have their own drug-testing system in place,
and it's not as if the Olympic Games is the benchmark in this anyway. They might
have had plenty of practice (Ben Johnson?) but didn't they also make horrible
mistakes with Christine Ohuruogu who overturned her ban just in time to win gold
in Beijing. Why should football involve itself with this organisation?
Prize-winning letter of the
week.
LIAM, can you give us an explanation of what's going on with Roy
Keane at Sunderland, or at least an assessment on this season. Last Friday night
bookmakers stopped taking bets on Keano being the next manager to leave his job.
Saturday he turns up at Blackburn full of black Cork humour and Sunderland win.
What do you think the odds are on him leaving?
Whoever knows with Keano? But when one good result
- as in the win against Blackburn - can push a club from the relegation zone to
comfortable mid-table, it behoves everyone to take things at least a game at a
time.
THAT performance from Arsenal at the weekend was back to their
old, craven, ways. For how much longer is Arsène Wenger going to pretend
that William Gallas is captain material? Or that a young and talented midfield
can overcome seasoned pros like Gareth Barry, Sidwell, and Petrov. Gael Clichy
is going through the worst patch of his career, and whatever their Carling Cup
form might be like Arsenal are now nine points off the top and still have to go
to Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford and Anfield. I can see Arsenal failing to qualify
for the Champions League this season, unless they win it, and there would be long
odds against that. Wenger is supposed to have plenty of money to spend? Why hasn't
he done it? Doesn't he care about Arsenal winning the Premier League title again?
See answer to previous
letter before dancing on tombstones. And have a red card while you're at it.
IT CAN'T be right, can it, that Arsenal have offered Robin Van Persie an
£80,000 per week deal. Fine player, sure, but he's never there.
Perfect candidate for a BBC presenter
gig.
THOSE may have been great free-kicks against Stoke, but we have waited
a very long time for Cristiano Ronaldo to look like a fraction of the player he
was last season. He has nothing like the same hunger that he displayed last time
round. Come what may I think this will be his last season at Old Trafford, and
perhaps it would be a good thing if we cashed in on him while he's at his peak.
€65m for him in the summer would have been very good business in my opinion.
United might even have been further up the league than they are now.
Yeah, only two against Stoke.
The lad really must do better.
IT MUST be friendly international time
again. Let's have a look at the walking wounded . . . Robbie Keane, Steven Gerrard,
Rio Ferdinand, Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Joe Cole. Do you think club managers
are trying to tell international bosses that they're not too struck by yet another
game being arranged after the season has stopped twice already for World Cup qualifiers?
Yeah, tough on club managers.
International gaffers are trying to build sides for a World Cup which is a rather
bigger deal than who wins the Premiership, La Liga or anything else.
HAS
anybody in the Premier League got bigger puppy-dog eyes than that Spurs goalkeeper
Gomes? Not that I can feel sorry for him.. If someone is earning 50k a week and
can't even catch a ball, which is what he's paid to do, then he should be sacked.
That is what would happen to the rest of us if we were useless in our jobs.
I
suspect ' Arry might have noticed it too, no?
THERES a lot of fuss
about Maradona's first game in charge in Scotland, including from your own paper
Liam. But should we take such an interest in a fat little cheat, who whatever
his gifts as a player, largely snorted his talent up his nose? Maradona is somebody
to be pitied, a bit like Gazza, not eulogised. I expect him to be a complete failure
as a manager, and when that happens I won't be at all surprised.
Snorted his talent up his nose,
eh? So I must have completely imagined 1986 then.
I CAN'T feel sorry
for Drogbas three game ban for lobbing a coin back at Burnley supporters
(I recall Jamie Carragher doing similar a few years back). But Burnley
subjected him to some horrible racist chanting, which is something that might
have been expected, and Aston Villa's failure to find the person who threw a coin
at Harry Redknapp and injured the fourth official, doesn't give much hope over
punishing culprits. I remember you saying, Liam, that the many should not be punished
for the sins of the one. Given that the many haven't helped find the yob at Villa
Park perhaps it's now appropriate to close the ground for one game. Or do we wait
until someone loses an eye?
A fair point.
