Dundee have gone into administration and have sacked 15 players and 10 staff. di Stefano still claims he can pull the club out of the red, though he seems to be alone in this belief. It isn’t helping that two of their players have been charged with assault in an off-pitch incident (strangely, neither of the players got the sack…you’d think Dundee would be only too glad to get them off of their hands).
Aberdeen’s dhief exec Keith Wyness, in one of his not-too-infrequent hallucinatory outbursts, claims that AFC has “the most potential in the UK”. (Maybe it’s a roundabout way of saying “we’re the biggest underachievers in Britain.”) In a not-unrelated story, “(Stewart) Milne also insisted that manager Steve Paterson had the backing of the board.” In yet another not-unrelated story, The Sheep lie 11th in the table with a league-worst -18 goal difference.
…and in another example of football writing its own Brass Eye special, WBA striker Lee Hughes has been arrested for causing death by dangerous driving and failing to stop…
…and ex-England footballer Gary Charles faces a jail sentence after he crashed his car drink-driving (with a previous record too)…
…and a court has allowed Titus Bramble and Carlton Cole to be named as rape suspects…
Oh, I should have included that, as it’s the richest part of it. Ravanelli was one of the 15 sacked players, but di Stefano claims that, as he’s paying Ravanelli, he should still be allowed to play for Dundee. DIY pay structures, can’t beat that.
Inter Milan vs Arsenal - holy hell! Arsenal are 5-1 up at the San Siro. Henry is looking like the best thing since football cards in candy cigarette packets. Inter look just dreadful.
That was a brilliant game, and with several (Vieira, Keown, Lauren, Gilberto) important players injured!
And Hery is incredible, he just keeps getting better! And he’s a team player too, did you see him cheer for the 5-1 goal?
For the first time in years I think Arsenal can do something in Champions League, we need Vieira back and Henry can’t get any injuries but we could look like we can give the best a run for their money. Need to win against a Moscow that will qualify with a draw first though, another test of Arsenals will.
If we could get some opposition in UK or just across the channel we could bring Bergkamp for the away games too.
The Celtic-Bayern game finished 0-0. We missed a few good chances, and had a few scary defensive lapses. Fair result I suppose but not a good one for us. With Anderlecht winning the other group match, we have to beat Lyon away in a fortnight. It’s all very questionable.
Barks’ dog food – Don’t get too carried away. One lucky goal at Highbury and now this at the San Siro . . . early doors, yet.
Intersting that if they do qualify, the last eight are usually much more local (western or southern Europe) so Bergkamp could indeed take a ferry.
Btw, according to Sentient Meat’s maths, Norway is one of the countries that should have an 80,000 stadium with retractable roof and all mod cons . . . haven’t you people got a lottery over there ??? So Defoe gets to choosebetween ManUre and the Grovellers - where did the Grovellers get £8+ million from - perhaps they’re relying on a Champs League run to the final <paging Peter Ridsdale> ?
“With England boss Sven-Goran Eriksson looking on, Alan Thompson did his chances of an international call no harm as he led French full-back Willy Sagnol a merry dance in the early stages.”
So, Thompson, Sutton or checking on Hargreaves? Probably all.
Sven has a couple of friendlies to play with so it would be odd not to look at Thompson now, in my view. Even if he’s not first choice material, he could be an important squad option for Euro 2004. And if nothing else, he might put a firework up Gerards arse about left-sdie responsibilities.
Well the TV3 commentators assumed it was Thompson he was watching. I don’t think Sutton’s particularly interested to be honest … and he is rather injury-prone, so that suits me just fine.
Once Norway has been chosen to host a World Cup in one of two sports which could regularly fill such a stadium, it is entirely possible that £114M could be raised from commercial sources alone given the healthy return on their investment. The remaining £50M wouldn’t be too far out of line with Norwegian Lottery returns. (After all, cities achieve large stadia with no help whatsoever from larger entities, and £114M is comparable to what a single businessman has spent on players in one summer, as opposed to several businesses chipping in for guaranteed ticket returns for 20+ years).
I think we better.
To anyone, didn’t see the Gooner game but I assume Milan must have made a dreadful mess of it tactically. If they were 2-1 down with 9 minutes to go, presumably they were pushing up for an equaliser and Henry/Pires/Lumberg went berserk with all that space – is that how it went ?
Kind of. The third Arsenal goal was superb, but Henry had a clear run almost all the way while the Inter players were all up in the Arsenal penalty area complaining about Martins being fouled in the box (didn’t see the foul myself, so I don’t know whether it was a penalty).
After that Inter visibly gave up. Didn’t look organised or committed. Arsenal ran rings around them.
I hope people will see the posting time and forgive me for getting carried away. I know we still have to win against a team that qualifies with a draw, but with the form the team has shown lately and Bergkamp and Vieira it is possible. After that anyone can win but I don’t think Arsenal can do it unless the first team players stay fit.
And it’s not 5-1 that gets me excited, if Arsenal had won 2-1 I would have been as excited because Arsenal controlled the game. Except for 10-15 minutes in the first half Arsenal was always in control and Inter didn’t create any chances, their goal was a lucky deflection and after that it was only some free-kicks and chaos on set pieces.
It was never a penalty and it only took a second or two before Henry had the ball so it was impossible for the players close to the Arsenal goal to get back in time.
Arsenal looked magnificent yesterday, and were missing a lot of players. Maybe the combination yesterday is one AW should stick with against Moscow next month.
And top of the Prem still!
Hoping for a draw this weekend in the ManUre-Chelski match.
