Whether Arsene Wenger has developed a knack for selling players at exactly the right moment, or there is some genuine witchcraft going on, it seems that Arsenal players who move on to ‘better their careers’ don’t seem to be able to live up to expectations.
When making his home debut for Barcelona at the weekend, delicate little flowerAlex Hleb was forced off the pitch with an ankle injury that will keep him out of action for three or four weeks.
Also facing misfortune during Barcelona’s 1-1 draw with racing Santander at the weekend was Thierry Henry, who was left out of the squad following a disappointing display in a 1-0 defeat to La Liga newbies Numancia two weeks ago.
Continuing the trend of stars who have failed to live up to the form and success they experienced in a red and white shirt is Mathieu Flamini, who has thus far failed to set Serie A alight with Milan, who are maintaining a 100 per cent league loss record so far. Also, when the Frenchman’s former colleagues travel to the Ukraine to begin the Champions League campaign proper,
All of today’s transfer gossip, rumours and damn lies
Before Euro 2008, Manchester City and Everton were leading the chase for the fashion student/amazing footballer. Unfortunately he revealed himself to be world class and now looks like making a dream move to Barcelona, who have made a formal approach. His agent claims there have already been five offers for his signature, and the price being bandied around is currently £10m.
The Ronaldo saga latest
He may be acting like a spoilt brat, but Ronaldo is a man of principle. Accordingly, he has kindly agreed to pay Manchester Utd the courtesy of showing up for pre-season training in exchange for his £120,000-a-week wages.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Come on papers, try harder than this to find a story
Peter Crouch to Arsenal The Daily Mirror have been doing their homework and decided that Arsene Wenger, famous for his cautiousness with money, will match the eight-figure valuation for a benchwarmer at a club they finished above.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Unconvinced
Or…Crouch and Yossi Benayoun to Tottenham
Slightly more convincing than the Arsenal story,
Scolari wants every single big name player in the world, apparently
The newspapers should just ‘fess up and admit it - they haven’t a clue who which players Luiz Felipe Scolari would like to bring to Chelsea. Naturally, they have all assumed the Brazilian will want to load the squad with his fellow countrymen - The Sun fancy Ronaldinho to come for £20m and £120k a week (a damn site cheaper than the supposed Manchester City asking price), while The Guardian believe Kaka will be strolling over to West London, in exchange for a £60m slice of Abramovich’s bottomless kitty.
The Guardian also claims that Fernando Torres could become subject to Big Phil’s fiery temper next year - the unlikely move could ease Liverpool’s financial woes, but the Kop faithful would probably sooner burn a couple of Americans at the stake than let their prettyboy striker go. That said, the Spanish press linked him with a move to Chelsea over a month ago.
Not wanting to be left out in all the madness, middle England housewives’ favourite The Daily Mail have waded in by suggesting that Franck Ribery is also ‘flattered by their formal approach’.
Other players linked with the club since Scolari’s arrival include Barcelona’s Deco and Samuel Eto’o, and also Spurs target David Villa.
For a man who is currently engrossed in the process of winning a European Championships and has only been formally linked with Chelsea for two days, this seems like an awful lot of transfer inquiries.
So which rumours do you believe? Let us know who you think will be at The Bridge next season with a comment below.
According to this morning’s Independent, the top brass at Chelsea are showing their football nous by giving peripheral benchwarmer Andriy Shevchenko an important role in selecting the next team manager. The West London club are still keen on hiring Milan’s Carlo Ancelotti (you know, the chap who has turned them down a couple of times already), and the man who couldn’t persuade his way into the first team has been asked to persuade the Italian:
The 31-year-old striker is one of several people Abramovich has consulted over the recruitment of a new coach and is understood to have urged him to carry on with his pursuit of the man he played under at Milan, despite being rebuffed last week.
Originally Abramovich had only intended to speak to Ancelotti to ask him his opinion on who he should appoint but, under the advice of Shevchenko among others, he decided to offer the 48-year-old the post.
In other news, the groundsman who punched Patrice Evra has been asked to lure Samuel Eto’o to the club, while a 17-year-old girl who works at a burger stand in the Shed End will be holding interviews for a new marketing director.
Bid a welcoming “Ciao” to Federica, all the way from the sparkling hills of Roma - which is the capital of Italy. She’s a curvy thirtysomething who goes out with Livorno midfielder Giuliano Giannichedda - you’ll probably remember him as the young buck turning out for Lazio between 2001 and 2005, or the slightly aged gent darting around for Juventus only last year.
WAG gives strong indication that contract battles are nearly over
There’s a whole lotta kerfuffle over Alex Hleb and his contract buyout, but his wife - former WAG of the Day and Belarusian popstar Anastasia Kosenkova - has given the strongest indication yet that Professor Wenger is losing his battle to keep the midfielder.
According to a source at her fancy-pants Esporta gym, Anastacia cancelled her membership yesterday. Could a toned starlet with such hard-to-maintain abs live without her plush workout space? Of course not, but there are plenty of high end fitness clubs in Northern Italy…
Roma’s crafty dead ball fools Milan, the officials
Many years ago, I had the utter displeasure of watching Matt Le Tissier play his part in sinking the good ship Wimbledon FC by scoring directly from a corner. The lads at Roma, however, have just trumped Guernsey’s best export with the cheeky move they pulled off against Milan on Saturday.
It looks like Simone Perrotta utterly neglects the rules of the game when he runs towards the box straight from the
Jose’s travel agent is currently reserving tickets to…Madrid!
The problem at the very top of European football at the moment is that there are too many clubs chasing too little glory. They can’t all be pointing at the sky thanking the Almighty for picking the correct champion come the end of the season. That situation has in turn led to too many clubs chasing too few Jose Mourinhos, in the unproven belief that he can haul them out of the bog of failure faster than anyone else. After this weekend’s results, the unofficial Mourinho admiration chart looks like this:
1) Real Madrid. In spite of winning at the weekend and opening an eight-point gap over Barcelona, the season is already another expensive failure. President Calderon has given coach Bernd Schuster his vote of confidence (the same one he gave to Capello at this time last season), while shit-stirring Barcelona papers claim that Calderon has already sounded Mourinho out and it’s just a question of finding a way to get rid of Schuster without provokng the fury of the fans.
2) AC Milan. At crappy little Empoli, Milan needed two very late goals and a heroic performance from eminent Victorian Paolo Maldini to scrape a win. Saviour urgently required, but there have to be doubts over how smoothly a Mourinho/ Berlusconi relationshio would run. Especially as there is talk of Berlusconi bringing Shevchenko back. A most excellent joke, your highness!
Dutch manager clobbered by Italian taxman - will be looking for proper job soon
Marco van Basten may this morning be regretting having been such a phenomenal player in the late eighties and early nineties. As goalscorer-in-chief for arguably the best ever Milan side, Marco saw his bank accounts fill like Olympic swimming pools. Then he did his leg in, stopped playing and took all his lovely money back to Holland.
When the Italian bureaucrat responsible for monitoring Mr van Basten’s tax contribution got round to examining his file, he found the numbers didn’t quite tally, so called him up and said, “Mr van Basten, you owe us four million euros.”
Mr van Basten said, “I am in Holland now,” so the persistent Italian called the Dutch tax authorities, and together they
The last time Arsene Wenger and his troops visited the San Siro, the Londoners came away with a surprise 5-1 victory. Admittedly it was against Inter and in 2003 (when Theo Walcott was only six years old), but the squad will be hoping for a repeat performance tonight. You can get odds of 500/1 on the same scoreline happening again, but for some more reasonable punts on this and the rest of the games in the final sixteen, head to the oddschicken.
None of the English clubs will be going into the second leg of the Champions League last sixteen with a goal deficit to catch up on, but Arsenal will have the toughest job of all in scoring against Milan at the San Siro. On the basis of last night’s performance, can the Gunners do it?
