march 30th
Ok, first things first. Thierry Henry and Lauren did not trade punches in the tunnel after Sunday’s game, chalk that one down to some creative reporting from The Mirror and more than likely a friendly journo ran the story on the back of some info from a Manchester based source. My man on the inside tells me there was nothing to it and Lauren and TH are super-friends again. Hurrah.
And even more credible than my man on the inside is the man himself, Thierry Henry, who has poured scorn on the stories and blasted United for their underhand tactics. He says “If they have to resort to that kind of tactic, then that is really. Really poor. I don’t respect them as players and now I don’t respect them as men. We cannot be affected by this, In fact, it will only make us more strong, It will give us extra incentive for the match on Saturday.”
Pretty strong stuff from Thierry, but who can blame him for being annoyed? It’ll be interesting to see if he’s rested on Saturday now.
Yesterday saw clarification of our upcoming fixtures, as the Liverpool and Newcastle games hadn’t been officially announced. We’ll play Liverpool on Good Friday at Noon, handy so everyone can nip off and do the stations of the cross around 3pm, then we travel to Newcastle on the Sunday for a 4pm Sky kick-off. That means we’ve got United this Saturday in the cup, Chelsea on Tuesday in the other cup, Liverpool on Friday and Newcastle on the Sunday. 4 games against the four most difficult opponents in the league, all in te space of 9 days.Quite a fixture list you have to say. Still, winning cups and championships isn’t easy, these are games we should want to be involved in, although probably not all so close together.
Patrick Vieira says the lads aren’t feeling any real pressure with all these huge matches coming up. The captain reckons taking it one game at a time is helping to keep focus. He says “Making the treble or the double isn’t in our minds. We know that we’re in a good position but, this year, we’re just taking it game by game and not putting too much pressure on ourselves.”
Another one bites the dust as Freddie Ljungberg has withdrawn from the Swedish squad to take on England on Wednesday. I like the first line of this Independent article, which does suggest that the withdrawals of players from the top clubs are based on convenience rather than serious injuries, and that’s fair enough in my opinion. Scheduling international friendlies at this stage of the season is just daft, although I’m sure I’ve said that on more than one occasion in the past.
Three more days of teaching this week, then it’s the Easter holidays. Hurrah.
