Category Archives: Early Morning Notes

TalkSport are carrying a story this morning about Carlos Tevez joining Diego Maradona at Al Wasl in Dubai – apparently to ‘end the striker’s nightmare at Manchester City’. Little bit of context boys, just a little bit.

Arsenal midfielder Denilson hasn’t enjoyed a brilliant start to his career at Sao Paulo, he was sent-off twice in his first three games and has now turned to slagging off the club’s fans on Twitter. According to The Metro:

‘Denilson was criticised for his petulance with a series of angry messages on Twitter, but his online row escalated this week, after he branded fans who moaned about manager Adílson Batista as ‘very, very annoying’.

A series of angry exchanges took place, before the mild-mannered youngster embarrassingly tried to claim he did not mean his comments in a negative way, only to once again rile up the Sao Paulo faithful.’

Rafael Van der Vaart has done his best to disrupt things at Tottenham, criticising Harry Redknapp for how he’s recently deployed the Dutchman:

“I have definitely had a series of irritations. You want to play in the position where you do best. But if I have to chase after an attacking full-back every time, I can’t play my own game to my best ability. Sunday was not the first time I have played out wide and I was given the freedom to move infield. But you could see from the goal I scored that my strength lies in the centre of midfield. It proves that I am more dangerous when I am close to the goal than when I play out on the wing. I do what the manager asks me to but I hope this won’t be a regular occurrence.”

Finishing with some good news, Accrington defender Tom Bender is now in a stable condition following an horrendous head injury in last night’s JPT game with Tranmere. The game was abandoned after Bender was taken from the field on a drip after a three player collision – fortunately, following a night in hospital the player was diagnosed with just severe concussion.

Rumours around this morning that Manchester United, AC Milan, and Juventus are all pursuing Borussia Dortmund’s Shinji Kagawa, but given that most of those rumours appear on the TalkSport website there probably without much foundation.

Arsene Wenger has dismissed Arsenal’s hopes of winning the league, which wasn’t overly-necessary given their start to the season:

‘We are 12 points behind Manchester United and Manchester City – so it’s not realistic to say that we will win the league.’

The Mirror have done the usual slightly-xenophobic preview of what to expect from Bulgaria – thrillingly we have another four days of this kind of coverage to look forward to.

More interestingly, the Telegraph have done an interview with Peter Reid following his departure from Plymouth Argyle – read it here.

Big article in The Sun this morning with Alan Shearer ruling himself out of the England job. Was anybody actually asking Alan? It’s ok, I’m sure the FA will get over the crushing disappointment and Shearer can go back to his cliche-athon on Match of the Day.

Amidst all the outrage about Amanda Knox being freed, the Mail have published an article about Sam Hutchinson, the 22-year-old Chelsea defender who was forced to retire because of a knee injury. It’s interesting…

All the highlights from yesterdays games are now on the Facebook page, and it’s also the place for La Liga, Ligue 1, and Serie A goals…

Steve McClaren and Chairman Nigel Doughty have both resigned their positions at Nottingham Forest.

Bacary Sagna is out for three months after Arsenal confirmed he broke his leg in yesterday’s North London derby.

The latest player to get in trouble on Twitter? Jack Wilshere, who described Glen Hoddle as the ‘most biased pundit around’ during Sky’s coverage of yesterday’s game – the letter from the FA will presumably be in the post.

A funny story in the Mirror this morning – not so much if you’re a QPR fan – but Adel Taarabt left Craven Cottage after being substituted yesterday and took the bus home. During the game. Really Adel?

Steve Kean is somehow still in a job at Blackburn, but will be meeting with the club’s owners this week. Rovers are due to play an exhibition in India this week, which is probably not the most sensible mid-season fixture. If you’re going to do something like that for commercial reasons, it’s probably best to take a team that foreign fans are going to take an interest in.

Rio Ferdinand and Jermain Defoe have been left out of the England squad to travel to Montenegro, and Andy Carroll and James Milner have somehow been included. There’s also a return for Scott Carson, David Stockdale, and Kyle Walker.

Highlights from yesterday’s games are now on the Facebook page, as are all the goals from Inter Milan getting thumped at home by Napoli.

A preview of today’s North London derby is here, and Paddy Power’s market on the game is here. If you’re a new user, then take advantage of their ‘Bet £10 get £20′ offer by clicking the banner on the right – promise you it’s not a bad link.

Joey Barton has had his say on the goings-on at Manchester City this week, in his unique non-delicate manner…read the full article here.

There’s an extraordinary set of quotations from Diego Maradona in The Mirror this morning, as he rounds and fires on Sir Alex Ferguson for commenting on the Carlos Tevez issue. Wouldn’t you love El Diego to manage in this country?

Henry Winter has written a decent piece on Emmanuel Adebayor this morning, as ever with Winter it’s weighed-down by his verbose style, but still.

For once the punditry on Match of the Day was totally banal, and they drew up an interesting comparison between the tackles by Jack Rodwell, Marouane Fellaini, and Tony Hibbert. Rodwell’s was easily the least-dangerous of all of them, yet was the only one punished by a red card. Referees are allowed to make mistakes, but it’s when they display the level of inconsistency that Martin Atkinson did that it becomes a problem.

As fine a player as Luis Suarez is, it’s getting a bit grating watching him throw himself to the floor with the same faux-agony after every single tackle. The referee made a huge error in dismissing Rodwell, but the Uruguayan played his part.

Highlights from last night’s Europa League games are on the Facebook page – including a fairly unlikely win for Birmingham away in Portugal.

Edin Dzeko has apologised after his show of dissent in Munich on Tuesday night:

“I know my reaction was bad and I have spoken to the guys and coach as well. I have apologised and Roberto has accepted it and said everything is OK.”

There’s an interesting situation brewing in Fiorentina with Stevan Jovetic’s contract, which is due to expire in 2013. The 21-year-old forward is rightly regarded as one of the hottest properties in Europe and is due to have showdown talks with his club next week. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see him in the Premier League next year…

Paddy Power are running some fairly enticing specials this weekend. They’re refunding all losing 1st /last goalscorer, correct score & scorecast singles on the North London Derby if Emmanuel Adebayor scores, and the same set of conditions if Luis Suarez or Marouane Fellaini scores the last goal in the Merseyside Derby. Yes, yes, this site is an affiliate of Paddy Power, but good value is good value. Bet here…

There are rumours around the press today about interest in Robin Van Persie from AC Milan – no foundation in any of that, it’s just typical hack-work based predicated on his contract situation. Ignore.

The Sun is reporting that West Ham are interested in signing Carlos Tevez on-loan, presumably up until his imminent exit from Manchester City. This story reeks of Karren Brady garnering a lit bit of attention for her club, that’ll be the same Karren Brady that writes for The Sun. See how that works?

The Champions League goals are up on the Facebook page as usual… enjoy.

For those who haven’t already heard, Carlos Tevez has been suspended for two weeks by Manchester City – he’ll be unavailable for selection and unable to train in any capacity.

El Hadji Diouf is now set to move to Anzhi Makhachkala instead of Wigan or Doncaster. Mercenary player moves somewhere solely for money? Never.

The Mail are running their Top Ten sports videos of the week here… the clip of Walter Pandiani sweating is just bizarre.

QPR are making more noises about bringing David Beckham back to England – Amit Bhatia the latest board member to declare the west-London club’s interest. Just don’t see it happening.

Mark Ogden of The Telegraph has written a piece on the ‘individual vs team’ issues at Manchester City; I don’t necessarily agree with it, but here you go.

Highlights of Norwich against Sunderland are now on the Facebook page – click here for that.

The BBC have posted their interview with Sir Alex Ferguson online – it’s really very interesting, and well-worth twenty-five minutes.

An utterly bizarre little story in The Mail this morning, featuring Didier Drogba, Jens Lehmann, and Oktoberfest. As bizarre as it sounds…

Those of you who doubted Carolyn Still’s qualifications to be a CEO at Mansfield Town might be interested to read this. Nothing like a bit of nepotism.

Sebastian Squillaci is back in training at Arsenal, which I’m not sure you can brand as ‘good news’ but still.

Arsenal have also confirmed that Jack Wilshere will be out for another five months following his ankle surgery.

Highlights of QPR against Aston Villa, as well as all the other games from the weekend, are up on the Facebook page.

The Metro is making noises this morning about Tottenham pursuing Athletic Bilbao midfielder Ander Herrera in January. Not much substance to that, given that Herrera only joined Bilbao this Summer.

Staying with Spurs, Caught Offside makes the fairly optimistic claim that Rafael Van der Vaart is wanted by Arsenal. Not so sure about that…

The Sun leads this morning with a story on Robin Van Persie and his ‘refusal to sign a new contract’. Read the article a little more carefully though, and it appears that The Sun are just up to their usual tricks – quotes from Van Persie:

“It’s not only about me, it’s about the team. We are not talking now because we are so busy — we have games every three or four days. I don’t think it’s clever to do that during the season.”

Yup, so a transfer request is not exactly imminent is it?

The Mail is making as much as possible of Frank Lampard leaving the substitutes bench before the final whistle against Swansea. The implication is of course that the midfielder was upset at not being used by Andre Villas-Boas on Saturday, which may well be true – but these things happen in football all the time. Come on, it’s not worth the exclamation mark in the headline.

Today’s goal of the day? Well this effort from Jone Samuelson isn’t bad…