All in the game
Word of mouth . . .
“They had Ginola and Anderton before. They always had great players.”
– Arsene Wenger downplaying Gareth Bale’s Spurs’ superstardom. Eh? Anderton?
“I will leave at the end of the season. They don’t need to worry about me.”
– Rafa Benitez, nicely settled at Chelsea.
“We’re dead lucky. We have only been doing it for 25 years.”
– Alex Ferguson’s response to Roberto Mancini, who had suggested it was only good fortune that had United top of the table by so many points. Saucer of cream please, waiter.
“Dear friends, I was booked for a mild case of drink driving last night. It was a quiet night but I am very very sorry to all my friends and fans.”
– Nicklas Bendtner apologises on Twitter after – very allegedly – driving in to oncoming traffic in Copenhagen in the early hours of Sunday morning.
You’d hate to see the lad have a rowdy night.
Robbie finally a star with the Galaxy
In the absence of Landon Donovan, who’s taking a break from football to find himself (last spotted trekking in Cambodia), Robbie Keane was named LA Galaxy captain last week by coach Bruce Arena.
“He’s a fabulous choice,” said Arena of his choice, Galaxy defender Todd Dunivant echoing that view, although he conceded there were, at times, communication difficulties: “Usually when he gets overly fired up, you tend to not understand a word he says, so you can kind of just nod.”
As Yahoo’s Brooks Peck reminded everyone last week, Keane’s star has risen notably since his arrival in Los Angeles, not least since the time Reuters’ caption on a photo of Robbie, David Beckham and Russell Brand at a basketball match labelled the Irish captain “an unidentified fan”. The neck of them. Mind you, our Robbie still has to make his mark in the Galaxy online store – which is still largely devoted to a former player of theirs. You know, yer man. They’re in serious need of moving on, them people.
JET yet to fly up in McCarthy’s estimation
Since his appointment as Ipswich manager in November, Mick McCarthy (right)has remained somewhat unconvinced by the form of Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, the former England youth international the club bought from Arsenal in 2011.
Naturally enough, the player is nicknamed JET, although it’s not how McCarthy refers to him. “He’s Jay Emmanuel-Thomas to me,” he said a month in to his reign. “I’ve told him I’ll call him JET when it looks like he has got a rocket up his backside.” Until then, it will be Jay to McCarthy’s predecessor in the Ipswich job, Paul Jewell, was no less frustrated by the player, saying of him that he could go from being “a world beater to panel beater” in a flash.
