Good morning, dear reader. There was me thinking I’d get my usual Thursday morning off and I wake up to Premier League news all over the shop. So, here I am once again trying to find the funny football news for you.
Gonzalo Higuain has finally got his wish and rejoined Maurizio Sarri at Chelsea. He’s been given that number 9 shirt that has cursed many a Chelsea striker over the years. Higuain is on loan with a view to a permanent deal once he can prove that he is the missing piece in the Sarriball jigsaw.
Let’s just hope he is easy to motivate, eh Maurizio?
Sarri is playing an extremely risky game currently and yesterday suggested his star man Eden Hazard was more of an ‘individual player than a leader’. Considering Hazard is the best player from his country and their regular captain, leading them to third place in the World Cup, this doesn’t sound like Sarri is trying to woo Eden into staying put at Stamford Bridge.
It was your classic ‘he is good at this, great at that, BUT HERE IS THE BIT WHERE I KILL HIM IN THE PRESS’ routine from the Italian who must have found the Jose Mourinho playbook somewhere in his Cobham office.
Manchester City might have beaten Burton Albion 1-0 in last night’s EFL Cup semi-final second leg, but they lost the head-to-head they really wanted to win when Barcelona announced that Ajax midfielder Frenkie de Jong was to be theirs come the summer. At €75m, De Jong does not come cheap but Peppy G really, really wanted him.
Pretty much everything is going right for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Man United. Neymar is likely to miss the Champions League clash. The PSG star has been taken to hospital with a metatarsal injury which is likely to see him miss both legs.
Paul Scholes, a man who spent his 20-year career avoiding the mic but has barely stopped talking since he retired, has said it is ‘strange’ that only Nicky Butt from the Class of 92 is currently involved in the club. Maybe, Paul, just maybe having a pop at them in the press every week is damaging your chances of a phone call?
The Poch doesn’t want VAR introduced in England just yet. Tottenham’s manager is worried that VAR might kill the drama in the English game by slowing things down. Poch feels there are still too many grey areas, which must have been music to the ears of the Chelsea fans still smarting that they go into tonight’s match 1-0 down on aggregate due to a VAR influenced result a fortnight ago.
Borussia Dortmund have had success in signing a young English wide player this season and are believed to be looking to raise their stakes by taking a used-to-be-English international wide player who hasn’t quite fulfilled their potential yet. Dortmund are prepared to pay big money for Crystal Palace’s Wilf Zaha, say the papers. But really, what do the papers actually know?
Arsenal manager Unai Emery has been singing the praises of Roma’s Monchi. The chat was around Directors of Football and Monchi helped build Emery’s Europa League winning machine at Sevilla. And, with Arsenal being a bit tight cash wise right now it is felt, by Emery, Monchi might be the man to help Arsenal win the Europa League on a budget.
PSG are making overtures to Jose Mourinho because Thomas Tuchel isn’t doing a good enough job in Paris by getting them into the Champions League knockouts, beating teams 9-0 in the league and being 45 points clear at the top of Ligue 1.
And, finally today Aboubakar Kamara has been banned from Fulham FC indefinitely for picking a fight with Big Mitro in a yoga class. The police are thought to be charging him with ABH. And there was me thinking it would be Claudio Ranieri taking out a hit on the Frenchman after that penalty incident.
