1. Transfer
Window Is Open
As I’m writing this (January 24th) the two
biggest transfers are Juan Mata going from Chelsea to Manchester United and Mohamed
Salah moving from Basle to Chelsea.
Now with Juan Mata moving to Manchester United, I think this
is a magnificiant capture for them. Obviously I hope they don’t sign him before
Wednesday (Cardiff play United on Tuesday, lol), but when he does sign, he will
fill the gap that David Moyes is missing. If you have Van Persie and Rooney
playing upfront with Mata just behind providing the magic, that is a scary
combination.
Put into the mix a fit again Darren Fletcher sitting in a
defensive midfielder position, with Valencia and Januzaj on the wings, you have
the makings of a hell of a good team there. If David Moyes can sort out the
defence, either with new signings or getting them together, then there will be
a resurgence for the Manchester United lot.
I haven’t seen enough of Mohamed Salah to really comment on
how he is going to do. I don’t think it’s a bad move by Jose, as Mata is a
luxury player, and the way he likes to set his teams up, you need to work hard
in defence as well as in attack, and Mata doesn’t always give you that.
As for my Cardiff City, apart from trying to sign the whole
of Norway, we are looking to bring in Fabio and Wilfred Saha from Manchester
United on loan, Ramis from Wigan and a mystery striker from Germany (Diouf,
sorry to spoil the surprise, lol). Not good enough in my opinion, but hopefully
I’m wrong. If I’m right, at least I can start having some money every month
instead of paying the daft Premiership prices.
2. Premier
League Team Implode
This week has been quite funny for me as a Cardiff City fan,
to see two other teams going through craziness. Southampton and Swansea City’s
(I refuse to type their name again, so I will be referring them to as the
Jacks) players have been in high profile scuffles with each other.
Firstly, Southampton’s record signing, Dani Osvaldo has been
suspended for 2 weeks for a fight with team mate Jose Fonte. Not much is known
at this point about the fight, but apparently blood was drawn, does sound
nasty, It rounds off quite a weird week for Southampton, where there
influential chairmen resigned, and then the daughter of the owner has indicated
she’s looking to strip the club of its assists so that her family can recoup
the money invested. This has all led to their manager, the man who has really
got them playing together, to reconsider his position at the end of the season.
Going to be interesting these stories in the next couple of months…..
Well well well our little Brothers, the Jacks, have had
their own troubles this week. The official stories goes that there was a
training ground row between Chico and Gary Monk, and a member of the public
called the police, but they both deny that they threatened each other with
bricks. Well for a start, I know for a fact that the public can not go and
watch Premier league train, I don’t know why those are the rules, but I know
that for a fact, in which case whatever was seen by the member of the public
must have been outside the training ground.
Anyhoo, the rumour going around South Wales is that Gary
Monk was winding Chico up about his love for a well known breakfast cereal, but
pushed it too far and it resulted in a massive fight. As the story goes, Chico
then got a brick in the car park and was going to throw it through the
windshield of Gary Monk’s caravan, sorry I mean car. I’m not for a second
reporting this to be true, but this is the goss being talked about down here in
sunny South Wales.
3. Will
Anelka Ever Grow Up?!
In this very column back in August
, I commentated on the fact that Anelka is one of the most petulant, childish
players to have ever played the game professionally, over the last couple of
weeks he has proven this again.
Against West Ham, after scoring he included the so called 'quenelle'
gesture, which has links to the Nazi’s. Firstly, he said that he was only doing
it to support his friend, but now that the FA have charged him, he is trying to
deny even doing it.
I’m sorry, but what is this guy’s problem?! You cannot under
any circumstances perform a gesture like this, and claim ignorance. Ok, so he
was supporting his mate, great, but what about the millions of people you
offend in the process. What about all these kids who don’t know or understand
what you are doing, and perform a Nazi sign after they score a goal in their
Saturday morning games, because the guy who scored last week did it and it
looks cool?! Something like this has no place in football, under any
circumstances. Sport should be a way of escaping politics and discrimination,
and acts like this set back the good work that’s been done in recent years.
Does Anelka have any concept whatsoever of right or wrong,
or does he think the world actually revolves around him?!
4. Collymore
Gets Abused On Twitter And Then In The National Press
I’m all out of rants after my Anelka rant, but I need to
touch on this. Stan Collymore got the worse abuse I think I’ve ever seen
directed towards him on Twitter, the likes of which I wouldn’t want to see
happen to my worst enemy. He then promptly left Twitter, but not before causing
a stink and getting a lot of attention for the reason he was leaving twitter,
and what does he get for his heroic stand against modern society? One of the
national newspapers digging up a story from 16 years ago and using his stance
against him.
I’m not Stan Collymore’s biggest fan, in fact the opinion he
was spouting about Luis Suarez that got him all this abuse, I was screaming at
the radio listening on TalkSport about how wrong he was, but the abuse he got
from pathetic loser cowards, who hide behind their keyboards was shocking. His
stand to kick up a big fuss, name and shame, and then stand by his word and
leave twitter was nothing short of heroic in this day and age when we just
accept abuse. But Ulrika “fame hungry” Johnson reared her ugly head and said he
was being a hypocrite because what he did to her. Now don’t get me wrong, what
he did was one of the worst things you can do, but people change. He took his punishment
and has moved on a long long time ago, but mud sticks.
Just think about this for a second, a sportsman stands up to
racism and heinous abuse, and a national paper doesn’t stand up and applaud and
acknowledge this, instead they think we will make a story out of this at his
expense. And people wonder why our society is going downhill so far….
5. On a lighter note...
Now I have had my rants, hopefully for the next couple of
months, I wanted to find something fun that had been going on in the world of
football. I know it’s another Cardiff City story, but there we are, my feature my
rules...
Because he had his friends, mother, wife and kids were over
from Chile, after the 4-2 loss to Manchester City, Gary Medel, our top class
defensive midfield pitball, famous for taking out a plastic chair after being
sent off once, and for generally being bat shit crazy, was forced to catch the
train home with City fans.
Without batting an eyelid, he apparently signed autographs
and had photos taken with all the kids who were brave enough to ask.
How many other Premiership players would do that? In the
same circumstance, they would hire a car just so they wouldn’t have to travel
with us peasant fans. I personally find this a heart warming story for any
football, to know there are still real people in Professional football.
By Haydn Gleed - @HaydnGleed
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