An Amazing 2 Weeks In English Premier League

Over the last few days, the weekend basically, I’ve been reading the papers, (something I love to do at the weekends as I don’t get much of a chance during the week).  But anyway, as I was reading through a few articles it suddenly struck me that the last couple of weeks, since just before the transfer deadline, have been a pretty amazing time in the life of the English Premier League and English football/soccer.  So I thought I would just recap over what has gone on exactly in that time, because when you see it all laid out in front of you, it’s quite something!

Ok, let’s head back to:

Sunday August 31st

On that day, Robinho was still a Real Madrid player and he was quoted as saying the following:

“I am only thinking of Chelsea and want to play there.”

Ok, so that’s pretty straight forward and clear then, no chance of getting that short statement confused. Hmm! 

Monday September 1st

So here’s me talking about 2 weeks being a long time in football, ain’t nothing compared to one day obviously.  In less than 24 hours of coming out with that quote about Chelsea, the Abu Dhabi United Group, who make Roman Abramovich look like he should join the nearest Soup Line, swoop in and agree to buy Manchester City from a former Thai Prime Minister who was basically on the run in the UK from his homeland who were after him on corruption charges.  Make all this up?  You couldn’t!

The Abu Dhabi Group waste no time in immediately waving cheques around in front of some of the best clubs and players in Europe, filled out with telephone numbers for amounts.  And no, they weren’t wrong figures.

However, the sulky Bulgarian, Dimitar “I don’t want to play anymore for you” Berbatov obviously isn’t taken in and doesn’t succumb to the lure of the oil dollar and joins Manchester United with minutes to spare before the bewitching hour of the transfer deadline struck and he was turned into a pumpkin.  Of course we will never know what went on behind those closed doors that made Daniel Levy the Spurs Chairman change his mind and drop the charges he was going to make to the Premier League up until those final few minutes.  But I think we can all have a pretty good educated guess.

Meanwhile across town, the real “coup de gras” was taking place.  Robinho gets his geography mixed up and agrees to sign for Man City instead of Chelsea less than 24 hours after coming up with the above quote.  Although I suspect money may have had something to do with it.  Either that or he just heard Manchester, didn’t realise there were actually two teams that play in the city and he made one hell of a mistake.  Which might explain the confused look on his face when Mark Hughes handed him that light blue shirt, not a red one, in that hotel reception, or whatever the hell it was.

Apparently the deal, a British record at £34.2m (approx $60m) only started at 7pm on that transfer deadline evening.  Money sure does talk quickly!

Tuesday September 2nd

Totally out of the blue, at least it seemed to be to everyone outside of the Newcastle Boardroom, Kevin Keegan, the undisputed God of Tyneside, tells the Board that unless his limited involvement in the club’s transfer policy changes he will resign, again!  Or is that resign for the first time and he was sacked the other time?   I can’t remember that far back, remembering everything that’s gone on in the last 2 weeks is bad enough!  The Newcastle Board apparently spend the rest of the day trying to persuade Keegan to change his mind.

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On the same day, the leader, frontman or whatever you want to call him, of the Abu Dhabi Group Dr. Sulaiman al-Fahim, stated they were prepared to offer their new arch rivals, Man Utd, £135m (approx $238m) for Cristiano Ronaldo when the transfer window opens back up in January.  He states the reason is “because we are going to be the biggest club in the world!”  They obviously have a keen sense of humour in Abu Dhabi.  Bet the comedy club scene is a riot.

Wednesday September 3rd

Trouble down the East End of London rears it’s ugly head as Alan Curbishley resigns as the West Ham manager because of apparent interference in transfer dealings.  In other words, he wasn’t interfering in them at all!  I seem to remember this coming right out of the blue, or was it because I was so shell shocked with everything else that was going on?  Who knows, who cares?

Whilst all that was going on Keegan was apparently still having talks with the Newcastle Board and Mike Ashley.  I presume those talks involved Denis Wise.  Would you have liked to have been a fly on the wall in that meeting?

Thursday September 4th

King Kev decides he’s had enough, again, and Newcastle goes into mourning, again.  Keegan was quoted as saying, “A manager must have the right to manage and a club should not impose on any manager any player that he doesn’t want.”  Well, call me old fashioned, but that kind of sums it all up really.  At least it does for me!

Friday September 5th

Fortunately this was like a little day of rest.  Not a lot went on apart from having to look at endless views from outside St James’ Park as that Sky reporter tried to think of what else he could say, to make up for the fact he had to keep repeating himself, hardly a first for Sky.  So John Terry thought he’d better say something before the England game against Andorra by stating England players play with “a fear of failure”.  Good motivational speech John! Way to go!

Saturday September 6th

Terry’s “rah rah” speech obviously does the trick as England go on the rampage against the mighty Andorra winning 2 - 0.  Apologies for the slight hint of sarcasm.  Actually, no I’m not sorry!

Sunday September 7th 

News comes out of Eastlands that City’s new (and let’s clarify, prospective) owners plan to tap into transport, financial services and food industries around the world by establishing CityCars, CityCards & restaurants named, wait for it, City Eating.  And NO, I’m not making this up!

Monday September 8th

Another bolt from the blue (excuse the pun) as the former diminutive Chelsea striker Gianfranco Zola is actually named as a front runner to take over from Curbishley at West Ham.

Meanwhile back in Toon Town the Newcastle supporters plan to boycott the club’s merchandising and sports retail empire belonging to the owner Mike Ashley, who at this point must be so pleased he’s splashed out £250m (approx $440m) of his own money in just over a year on the club.

Tuesday September 9th

Fabio Capello, the England manager states he prefers his players to play away from home (I just hope he was talking about the football, you know these language barriers) because he believes the Wembley crowd can be too critical.  Firstly he obviously told Terry to keep his mouth shut and let him do the talking, well he does speak better English than Terry but secondly Fabio, maybe the crowd are a little critical after they have raided the piggy bank to just be able to afford the price of the ticket and a disgusting hot dog, when the team plays crap? Just a thought!

Wednesday September 10th

Fabio is proved right when England play away in Zagreb and don’t play crap against Croatia.  Instead they produce their best performance for 7 years and 10 days, since they beat Germany 5 - 1 away in Munch.  So put September 20th, 2015 in your diaries now because whoever England play that day, they’re going to get stuffed.

Little Theo Walcott proves he could be the real deal and that Sven may have had something after all as he totally destroys Croatia almost single handedly with a brilliant hat-trick as England win 4 - 1.  And no, I’m not getting a little ahead of myself, he did look good.  Although to be honest he is so damn quick I may not have been looking at the right player as I couldn’t keep up with him.  A little like the Croatian defence.

Thursday September 11th

Little Zola is named as the new West Ham manager and the debate starts as to whether the guy simply just to nice to be a football manager.  Although if he’s as good at managing as his was at playing, Hammers fans and the rest of us, could be in for something special.

Friday September 12th

No idea what really happened this day, I was simply too knackered trying to absorb everything else that had been going on in the last 12 days.  However, you can bet your life that that poor sod was still stood outside St. James’ Park going “errr” every fews seconds.  He’d been there so long I swear he’d developed a Geordie accent.

Saturday September 13th 

Fans of Liverpool and to be fair most of the players and most definitely the manager, finally know not only what it’s like to beat Man Utd but to also actually score one of their own goals against their arch rivals.  No, they didn’t score an own goal, Utd did.  I mean one of their own players scored for their team.  Hadn’t happened in a long time.  Perhaps they had forgotten they were actually allowed to do that?

Later in the day the Oil Firm Derby or The Clash Of The Cash took place at the richest club in the world, as  Man City took on poor old Chelsea.  It’s going to take a while before I can say Man City are the richest club in the world without questioning my own sanity.  Robinho said “Hello” to English football with a wonderful free-kick, at which point all City fans must have thought they’d all died and gone to heaven.  Utd beaten earlier in the day and their new hero just waltzes, (or should that be sambas?), into Eastlands and scores a great goal against the team he thought he was actually signing for.

Oh, and just to add more insult to injury, Newcastle get beaten at home to Hull City. Both Mike Ashley and Denis Wise must have got their dates wrong because neither of them remembered the game was on and didn’t turn up.  Strange!

Sunday September 14th

By now I’m not even sure if this was the right day, but let’s just assume it was…Keegan flies back to the UK from Spain where he had escaped to have more talks with Mike Ashley in London.  I hope Kevin is on Airmiles because that’s basically all that came out of the meeting other than, no there wasn’t going to be another (3rd) Coming of the Messiah!

Mike Ashley releases a rather long statement on the Newcastle Utd website basically saying “please leave me alone, don’t worry I’m off, you’ve won” to all the fans.  Sales of Newcastle Brown treble overnight.

If I’ve missed anything out, just let me know.  I’m off for a lie down, as should that Sky reporter who is no doubt still outside St James’ Park. Why Ay Man give that man a Newkie Brown!

Rik
The Soccer Blogger

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Many thanks
Rik