I watched a lot of football over the weekend: Manchester United versus Fulham, in which some
Dutch bloke scuffed the ball over the line; Chelsea v Newcastle, a mid table clash between the
fifth and sixth best teams in England; Stoke v Arsenal, in which a party of brave adventurers
including at least one dwarf travelled to Mordor, failed to slay some Orcs and came home again;
and, finally, a mugging in Liverpool (I know that's not news, but this one was a
footballing mugging, with the away team stealing an undeserved point).
I watched a lot of football over the weekend: Manchester United versus Fulham, in which some
Dutch bloke scuffed the ball over the line; Chelsea v Newcastle, a mid table clash between the
fifth and sixth best teams in England; Stoke v Arsenal, in which a party of brave adventurers
including at least one dwarf travelled to Mordor, failed to slay some Orcs and came home again;
and, finally, a mugging in Liverpool (I know that's not news, but this one was a
footballing mugging, with the away team stealing an undeserved point).
After yesterday's defeat to Newcastle, Liverpool fans are back to doing what they've done best this
season: revelling in doom, gloom and crushing negativity. So-called Liverpool fan-sites have
renewed their rabid calls for Roy Hodgson to be sacked, and the so-called fans that frequent these
sites have been falling over themselves to join the overwrought chorus of disapproval.
On some days, Santa mopes around his workshop, sluggishly slithering between the elves and
dwarves and other magical creatures he has at his disposal, with his mind fixated on Mrs Claus and
his children Roque Cruz and Pedro Cecilia.
Gerry takes a break from his weekly drudgery of crime-fighting and orphan-rescuing to give you the
latest on English football and your best bet for the weekend. In many ways I'm like a dwarf - I
find it hard to put my hand in my pocket. I never waste money on a newspaper and only [...]
Sadly, we could've turned this thing into an all-Prem list, but did our best to look elsewhere.
Didn't turn out so well. The problem is so many sums paid in the Premiership dwarf that of those in
other leagues - Serie A, Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1, etc. - that it can make their normally [...]
Since moving to Arsenal and demonstrating the fact that he's pretty darn good at football, Alex
Oxlade-Chamberlain has become hot property in the advertising world. He's already hawked the wares
of Nike and French car manufacturer Citroen, and the good folks at Disney were planning to use him
in a photoshoot this week.
1981 Today is the birthday of the former Tottenham midfielder Michael Carrick. Having been
signed from West Ham, Carrick played 75 games for Spurs over two seasons, before Manchester United
signed him for £18.6m.
Spurs Quote Of The Day: 28th July
"Let's be honest, I don't like Arsenal and I think that's fair enough.
Hands up, I watched the game in the boozer last night and, in direct correlation, can remember
next to nothing about the match save isolated moments of semi-lucid clarity though the order is a
little hazy.
Here are my 'notes', verbatim...
"Di Natale's forward roll was nice touch, SHOULD ALLOW DI NATALE'S OFFSIDE VOLLEY TO STAND ON
QUALITY CONTROL GROUNDS, worrying that Vermaelen had broken again when he lay slumped on the
touchline.
OMG I am part of the 60,943,912 block of humanity that owns 43.5% of Glasgow Rangers and nobody
told me.
Disinvest me.
I don't wish to own any part of a stock that I would rather make a strategic short selling position
upon.
This is a distressed stock.
All the playing staff are on the transfer list and it is rumoured that failed property developer,
Sir Murray, was ousted from his eyrie by bankers.
Lionel Messi has been very criticised for his role in Argentina's debacle at the Copa América, so
I thought I would give Mr. Messi some help in providing some excuses for the performance:5) "I get
confused when not playing in blue-red stripes"4) "mumble, mumble, mumble"3) "What do you expect? I
am a dwarf!
Alas for Franco Niell--the dwarf (or gnome, hobbit, halfling . . . whatever floats your coracle)
has boarded the slow boat home to Argentina. Hey, maybe we'll get one of those "ships passing
in the night" deals, and he'll be able to find out whatever happened to our other backup
forward, Francis Doe?
An excellent article by Guardian Sport/Football Weekly hero Barry Glendenning looks at the way
Fantasy Football corrupts your mind - the original can be found here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/aug/12/fantasy-football
Don't let this article cloud your mind in any way about the best game to play though - that is,
and always will be, by a street: http://fantasy.
Goal Keeper: Manuel Neuer: Winner of the Tallest Dwarf award. Very few keepers
merely had good tournaments let alone great ones. Neuer is my choice because he didn't make any
mistakes and for a young keeper was composed on the biggest of stages.
Football thrives on good old fashioned rivalry. Look at England v Scotland. England v Germany. Guam
v Faroe Islands. Netherlands v Germany.
The rivalry comes from a number of sources. England v Scotland of course is geographical with
dashes of politics thrown in for good measure. England's rivalry with Germany dates back to 1966
and all that with various military conflicts thrown in to the mix but perhaps that has been
replaced by England v Argentina.
We all know whats happened. We have read everywhere the opinions of the press and other sites. But
I want your view.
This is what happened before Kick off.
So I am asking was Wayne Bridge right to ignore JT? Was the crowd right to boo Wayne Bridge? Is
Mouth-almighty and the most annoying dwarf in football Craig Bellamy right to say what he said post
match about John Terry?
We all know David Villa, the world's greatest striker, resides with Valencia CF.
We also know he's fond of Sporting Gijon, the club where he began his professional career.
We also happen to be playing Gijon this weekend (more on that in a bit). So let's hope Villa
doesn't let sentimentality get in the way of scoring a few goals and leading us to victory.
River Plate defeated Olimpo by 2-1 for the eighteenth round of the Torneo Clausura 2008. Due to a combination of both this and Estudiantes' goal-less draw with Colon, "los Millonarios" were able to lift their 33rd Argentine League trophy.
River played an overall good game. Diego Simeone's team was able to go up 1-0 in the first half, after Diego Buonanotte successfully scored a previously-prepared set-piece.
