The Soccerlens Daily - Arsenal v Usmanov, Tottenham v Chelsea, Manchester United v Newcastle United goals, Liverpool scared and more
Our thoughts to go Arsenal’s Eduardo da Silva, a talented young footballer who will miss the rest of the season (and maybe the rest of the year, what with rehabilitation and getting match-fit) and especially Euro 2008. Good luck with your recovery mate, get well soon. Also, props to Wenger for retracting his comments on Matt Taylor.
On to today’s round up of takeovers, turncoats, floatation devices and the maladjusted in our society. Yes, floatation devices.
1. More Coverage Of Player-Support Services, Please
Stan Collymore says that the PFA are not doing enough to help footballers - Gordon Taylor blames Stan’s short memory as he claims to have looked after Stan regularly.
Really, that’s news now? Here’s a guy whose most famous moment in recent memory was being killed by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2. That’s it, that’s what he’s done recently. Not to be crude, but giving him airtime is ridiculous.
What IS true is the amount of psychological and physical stress that the modern footballer goes through, and it would be good to give more airtime to player-support services instead of quoting this back-and-forth tripe.
And no, I don’t mean this sort of support…
2. Arsenal v Usmanov
Long story short - Usmanov needs 51% shares to take control. He has 24.2, Stan Kroenke has 12% and there are 18% on the open market.
I don’t see why Usmanov cannot get the 51% required come summer time. I’ve said this before - if the Arsenal board feel so strongly against him, they should find a way to buy up 50% themselves and thus directly prevent any type of takeover. Otherwise, Arsenal will be bought out sooner or later.
3. David James: No One Cares About The League Cup
I’ve always read Jamo’s column with interest - he’s not always right but he always has something interesting to say and he’s a fairly eloquent and intelligent bloke. His thoughts on how (and why) the League Cup is unimportant are more poignant given that he’s a footballer himself.
Perhaps we should get the Premier League teams out of the League Cup and leave it to the Football League? 
4. NewsNow ODs on Eduardo
I know it’s serious, but come the fuck on!
5. No more Rafa-loving, PLEASE!
Rafa Benitez is a fine coach, better than most. However, despite his team’s 2-0 win over Inter midweek (a flattering scoreline considering their inability to break down Inter till the last 10 minutes, despite the team playing with 10 men), European football is not vindication of his tactics. Not at all.
Rafa’s men do better in Europe because Rafa himself has confidence in battling it out in Europe. It’s not tactical superiority, it’s the manager’s confidence that imbues itself in the squad. You can see with Ferguson in the Premier League and in Europe - fantastic in the league but cautious in Europe. Wenger, same story - a tendency to get mentally stuck when faced with in-your-face, hard-and-fast football.
Liverpool? They may not fear Chelsea, but they definitely fear Arsenal and Manchester United, and that inferiority-complex plays a big role in those matches.
Rafa doesn’t deserve the praise - mainly because he didn’t deserve the scorn that came before either.
6. Too Much Money In Football?
Leaving aside the fact that nothing important has ever been done by committee, what exactly is the purpose of this ‘forum‘? I respect the sentiments behind the move but fail to see it’s purpose - or rather, it’s value. If football is to move forward and be responsibly commercialised, you don’t need to hear the self-interest of 100 people - you just need a few smart people at the top of the pyramid.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the confidence in the English FA to do so, and I doubt anyone else does either.
7. Where do footballers spend all their money?
Seriously, where does it go? Taxes? Shopping? Mansions? Prostitutes? Traveling? Gambling? I’d like to see some finances, please.
8. Floatation Devices
I almost didn’t put this in, what with the whole “why do you put up racy pictures on a serious football blog” reaction this type of stuff usually gets, but this is an aesthetics question and as such I hope I can count on my discerning readers to give me their honest opinion:
Who is hotter, Lucy Pinder (Lucy Pinder, Lucy Pinder 2) or Sophia Bush (Sophia Bush,
Sophia Bush 2)?
One is a natural floatation device, the other is a very cute celebrity. Who’s your pick?
9. Newcastle United 1-5 Manchester United
All the goals from the game, here.
And all the goals from the previous league fixture at Old Trafford, which United won 6-0, here.
Tottenham take on Chelsea at Wembley today - see how that turns out.
All the latest football headlines.
The photos(of Eduardo) look horrible. That fellow who tackled is a complete retard. He may not have intended to do it, but to go like that for a hopeless ball especially when the player is so far from you is crazy. Altogether a draw was good, considering how we played after the substition. And on top of that we have the Manure loving russian cuntface trying to buy our club…………….
What a shitty week!
First AC milan & now this.
Iqnadirshah i’m gonna have to disagree with you mate. We needed the win here & Clichy’s last minute lapse in concentration was costly. We are now left with 2 strikers who don’t especially get along with each other (which was still blatantly obvious from the way they played together in the match) & we’re now faced with reverting back to the shitty 4-5-1 formation which helps us dominate games but doesn’t get us many goals. Note to RVP: get your butt back in the game, FAST!
The only positive outcome of this match was that Walcott finally got his goals in the Premier League (the second was amazing), but that’s it. Props to Sagna for coming back & playing the way he did despite what happened with regards to his family (did his Dad pass away?).
I felt really depressed watching the match & what happened to Eduardo. The guy was doing so well & for this to happen to him is just the worst possible luck. He’s missing the rest of the season, Euro 2008 (which he worked so hard to help the team to qualify for), definitely the rest of the year & God knows if he’ll ever play again (or even be as good as he is/was now). Not to mention the psychological impact all of this is going to have on him.
I seriously doubt us having any success in the CL now (please prove me wrong, o fate!). Premiership title is our only hope of any silverware really, but with Man Utd, Chelsea & Liverpool coming up i’m not sure how well we’ll do.
Oh yeah, & don’t even get me started on Usmanov!
Clichy may have wandered a bit. But that was not a penalty. He got the ball cleanly. There is a limit to what humans can do when bad luck comes on a Boeing 777.
But yes, we had a lot of chances to kill the game and to be very honest, a lot of players (especially Ade and Cesc) looked a bit lethargic.
And to be frank Spiral, after the horrible injury to Eduardo, I wasnt that much bothered about the score.
Here’s wishing the little fellow lots of luck towards a speedy recovery(he’ll need lots of those……….)
And lastly, I just want us to get one trophy, namely the EPL. Our squad is too depleted to play for everything…………..
Ahmed, would you have put the same tail piece(you know which one I’m refering to) if it was Rooney who suffered it? The guy’s career is almost over at the age of 24. This is somebody who left his home for one Eastern European country to play the game and came up from there. And now who knows? If thats not newsworhty, then what is?
No disrespect to eduardo but him and rooney are different.dont you think?sad to see him get injured,he was beginning to play really well.But shit happens.Much better players have suffered.Ronaldo for instance,he would have been the greatest player in the world if he didnt get them dreadful injuries.I dont know how we managed to fuck up against birmingham.Maybe the united result did affect us.Adebayor seemed to have lost his finishing along with his hair.Fabregas is looking so ordinary right now.What happened to his early season form?Im sorry to say but united will win the league,3 points is nothing now,especially with our injuries and everything.Where the fuck is Robin!He is getting really injury prone.
Newsworthy yes, but is it ALL that’s happening in football today? Probably not.
Just wanted to second the props to Wenger for retracting his comments. They were dreadful things to say, but at least he was man enough to reconsider when he had cooled down.
I must say as a lfc fan , I really feel for eduardo.Let’s just hope he can get his career on track in a year or so.
And get off on taylor. Ok,the tackle was not the best there are, but he did try 2 get 2 the ball. Wenger is just stupid, his comments themselves blaze the matter beyond proportion… taylor did look very sory and did not complain. Its was just bad luck..
Come on arsenal, don’t let manu win the title….
ade and bendtner look absolute shit together….clichy-well he looked real good before the catastrophe which ended in the penalty…3 points is a good margin..but the team will be in shackles….
As a football fan and man united supporter due to the on going premier league on board, asernal have little bit previleg to make the champion, but littl a slip from them, the champion will make it over them which is man united.
4rm sheffy
MAN UNITED TO I DIE
HAHA, Newcastle are trying to bid for Aiden McGeady, THAT’S NEWS? Anything with two legs and isn’t named Jean Alain Boumsong is going to be a target for Keegan. Also, Sophia Bush is definately hotter IMO. Don’t get me wrong, I like a girl with a nice figure, but nothing beats a face like Sophia’s. Finally Eduardo, hope he gets better soon, he was starting to play well too, sure the news seems a little obsessive now, but it hasn’t even been a week yet and in this high speed internet world we live in, everyone wants to know what has just happened and what everyone else says about it. Rooney broke his foot twice, Djibril did too, but the first time it happened did Man United and Liverpool fans not go crazy about whether or not their player was ever going to walk again?
Those boobs are great!
This time a good article,
Ahmed. I agree with you on helping more with football players. Too much pressure is on them. But please don’t trash them like you do to Gallas. They are just human after all.
I retract my comments about you on the Gallas article.
Come on Newcastle - don’t let this happen next season.