Exchange And Mart
‘THE Sun is of the mind that Chelseas ambulatory wallet, Roman Abramovich, is spitting roubles that he missed the boat to buy Arsenals Spanish wonder Jose Antonio Reyes.
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| Will Keown make monkey out of Chelsea? |
The story goes that the Russians people had seen Reyes play in Spain and were ready to table a £20million bid for him. But then Arsenal bought him.
This story is given some degree of poignancy when we note that it was Reyes brace that knocked Chelsea from the FA Cup.
But we cant help thinking that anyone who plays well against the Blues will then be wanted by them.
What price a good performance by Arsenals Martin Keown when the Gunners meet Chelsea in the match of this weekend earning him a big money transfer across London?
Of course, the one thing the Blues really want is to win something. You can throw around money and gold but its proving pretty hard to buy silver.
In any case, according to Roy Keane, the Manchester United skipper, the title race is already over. Speaking in the Mirror, the Irishman says he cannot see the Gunners slipping up as they did last year.
To any casual observe this sounds like Keane throwing in the towel, but we know better, and this is surely, as the Mirror says, just the start of the mind games that pepper the Premiership run in.
Things in football never stand still, and Arsenal know that todays glory hunters are tomorrows yesterday man. Just look at Spurs.
But changes at the heart of the game could soon be on upon us if Lars-Christer Olsson, Uefas new chief executive, has his way.
The Independent says that the Swede, who took over from Gerhard Aigner two months ago, is looking at a few ways to improve the European game.
Among his thoughts for the days ahead are for every third World Cup to be staged in Europe; clubs to have 50% homegrown players; and for clubs with massive debts to be thrown out of pan-European competitions.
He also thinks that England should be expelled from Euro 2004 if her hooligans run wild.
On the face of it, these all seem like sensible moves, although we would go further: if Englands fans riot, kick the team out of all competitions for a hundred years.
Our friends on the continent will not miss them…’
Posted: 20th, February 2004 | In: Back pages Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
