january 6th
09.58 – If there’s anything more boring than playing Middlesbrough, it’s playing them four times in 18 days. There’s an FA Cup fourth round game, a league game and the two legs of the Carling Cup semi-final. Given Boro’s reputation for free flowing, fast, attacking football, we’re in for a real treat.
Thierry Henry is not going to let talk of trophies and records distract from …erm…winning trophies and setting records this season. He also talks about Jens Lehmann’s error against Leeds saying “Unfortunately for Jens he made a mistake, but at the end of the day we are all in it together. That’s why we wanted to put everything right and make it up for him, otherwise he would have had a difficult time.”
For his part Lehmann reckons he’ll always remember it because it’s a ‘funny goal’. It wasn’t that funny. The Gene Wilder headed German says “I said sorry at half-time but the rest of the lads told me not to worry about it. But my mistake switched me on. Before it, I had been without tension and I had not been as sharp as I should have been.”
Right. Maybe one of the other lads can give Jens a shout and tell him when the warm-up finishes and the match begins. Transfer target (according the the press at least) Alan Smith apparently had a bit of a bust-up with Patrick Vieira and Edu at half-time. But not enough of a bust-up for the ref to report him. So there.
Today is a holiday here, when all the kids get their presents. They don’t do Christmas so much. It must be a pain though, waiting for the whole of the crimbo period to get your hands on your new stuff, then you have to go back to school the next day. It makes me say ‘Ha Ha’.
