We’d better start coming third.
117 comments January 26th, 2007
Disastrous news for European football as the man who has in the past claimed he would ban diving and heading has been voted as President of UEFA. How this has happened, I have no idea. Platini is one of Sepp “The Idiot” Blatter’s cronies, and his ideas are just as terrible. And they could directly affect us: he’s keen to reduce the number of Champions League teams from each country to a maximum of three.
According to Platini,
“This is just the beginning of an adventure.”
Yes, it is. But it’s not a classy, romantic adventure like Lawrence of Arabia. It’s more like Jumanji, with monkeys pulling off your windscreen wipers and rhinos just running everywhere causing chaos.
Seeing as we’re already on the bad news, I might as well continue. Jeremie Aliadiere and Emmanuel Eboue are both big doubts for Sunday’s FA Cup tie with Bolton, and Alex Hleb will be out for a month. Furthermore, Robin van Persie may miss up to ten weeks, which would really put paid to what’s been a brilliant season for him. Of course, this would represent a real opportunity for Emmanuel Adebayor to cement his first-team place, but the Togolese is unmoved:
“I don’t know whether it’s a big chance for me to show what I can do, but: I’m happy to be here. I like our footballers. I like Robin van Persie because he can score at any moment. I would just say, I don’t care whether I’m going to play fifteen or twenty minutes. All I have in my head, as soon as I get the ball, is to run a lot, give my best, do my best, play from my heart, and that’s all. I know van Persie is injured, but I could be injured aswell, like Thierry Henry was in the beginning of the season, and I’m not thinking of somebody’s injury like a chance.”
He really is a top man. There are a few transfer whispers about. In fact, Sky Sports have got hold of the Ryan Babel story, so it’s less a whisper, more a shout. If there is any move for him, I would imagine it would be in the summer, though another significant injury could change things.
Finally, Arsene today said of Gareth Bale:
“I like the player, but as you know, I have two left-backs already”.
A point which I made a few days ago. However, I do have reason to believe we are very much in the race. One to watch…
