Cristiano Ronaldo Crashes His Ferrari, Liverpool Get Loan Reprieve, Defoe Gets Greedy, and more

While many might be fretting about how Cristiano Ronaldo is doing after he crashed his Ferrari on the way to training this morning, I feel the need to give a little sympathy to the barrier that Ronaldo hit. I’ve been hit by a car before, and I can only imagine what it was like for the poor barrier to get nailed by a Ferrari.

Speaking of accidents, it was no accident that Derby yesterday handed Manchester United a 1-0 defeat in a performance that no United fan could be pleased about.

With the second leg of their Carling Cup semifinal at Old Trafford, you still have to favor United to go through to the final to face Tottenham (unless Burnley pull of a miracle comeback). Thought Derby will have plenty of confidence after getting a victory against a pretty strong side, you can bet Sir Alex Ferguson won’t stand for anything less than the best.

Of course, the story of the day for United might be an off-pitch one, thanks to Ronaldo’s scrape with the barrier. Considering the shape of the car, it looks like Ronaldo is pretty lucky to have come out of it without the slightest scrape.

As it is, he’s a-okay, and with the kind of money he makes, getting another Ferrari won’t be a problem. He might be shaken up for a while, but we should see him on the pitch for Sunday’s match against Chelsea. That’s a match that Liverpool will be hoping for a draw, so that they can gain some separation from both of their biggest challengers. Winning the Premier League title would be important not only because it’d extend their record number of league triumphs and be their first since 1990, but it’ll bring in some extra funds that appear to be necessary. I suppose they weren’t expecting January 2009 to roll around so quickly, eh?

Money is on everyone’s mind these days, and you’d have to expect that the world’s current economic issues will certainly have an effect on even the world’s richest league. But, despite the current state of the economy, you can expect plenty to go on in the January transfer window.

The biggest deal of the window so far is Jermain Defoe’s £15m deal that wasn’t, and it’s come out that he had the audacity to ask Portsmouth for his £700k loyalty bonus because he didn’t actually ‘request’ a transfer.

I can understand where he’s coming from, because he didn’t exactly hand in an official transfer request. But he certainly wasn’t shy about his wishes to return to Tottenham, and frankly, when you’re about to make plenty of money elsewhere, it’s a little unnecessary to make that kind of request.

Defoe’s deal will likely soon be eclipsed by Arsenal’s move for Andrei Arshavin (if Zenit don’t hike the fee up too much) Manchester City’s move for Roque Santa Cruz (if City and Blackburn can agree a fee), or with a little luck, a City deal for David Trezeguet, which Eastlands’ male spectators wouldn’t mind at all.

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