Flamini is still giving Arsene the runaround.
First it was March, then it was the end of April, now his deadline is Monday.
It’s become boring. It’s now a saga, a soap opera, it’s so, so tedious. Is it just me? Or do you think Flamini’s behaviour is insulting?
This is the guy who refused to play left back. I would have fined him two weeks wages for that. Matty, mate, you’re not good enough to make it in Serie A.You will be ordinary over there, almost invisible. Inside two years you will be history ! Wake up !
The silence from Alex Hleb is deafening. I’ve not heard any more on that. I like Hleb a lot but don’t mind if he goes.
The CL semi-finals were good games : a scorching shot by Paul Scholes beat Barcelona, two scorching shots by Drogba beat Liverpool 3-2. The venom in the first shot was for Rafa, who did Avram’s job for him by winding Drogba up, calling him a diver.
Jamie Carragher’s postmatch interview was a marvel of sanity, sportsmanship and commonsense. His dad knows a friend of mine. His dad doesn’t go in the good seats with the other parents and wives. Instead, he supports Jamie from the Kop with his lifelong buddies and travels with them to away games as well.
Drogba, Ballack and Essien are great players, so Manchester United will have to play really well to beat Chelsea in Moscow.
I read that Arsene was upset at missing out on Ribery and Pato last year.
AC Milan bought Pato at 17 for $31 million from Internacional in Brazil.
Fact 1: 18 clubs wanted Pato.
Fact 2 : His agent did the deal personally with Berlusconi.
Fact 3 : Galliani doesn’t know the terms of that contract.
Avram’s job is safe.
You read it here first. His job is safe for next season. He speaks Russian and talks to Roman ten times a day. Roman is in Moscow sorting out Putin’s future.
Some people in Israel have criticised Avram for using the Holocaust to promote himself but that is ridiculous. And Eyal Berkovic slaughtered him on the radio. So Avram is in good company. The names of people Eyal has slaughtered would fill a book. Or maybe two books.
Roman is flying Chelsea’s whole staff to Moscow for the final. Reminds me of Elton John in the early Seventies. When he played Madison Square Garden, Elton flew his whole London office over. Why not, if you can afford it? MSG is a much better gig than Wembley Arena. About the same size but a superior design, so it holds 20,000 rather than 12,000. But I’m not saying Elton and Roman are similar. The Russian doesn’t write songs with Bernie Taupin.
Have a good weekend !
Mine started at the gym this afternoon, where I had the pool to myself. What bliss. Half the trainers are Gooners so I told them some details on Edelman’s departure, which I can’t repeat here for legal reasons.
Mrs P says I can’t see I’ve Got News For You tonight because we are watching James Taylor on BBC4. She likes James so much she once went to see him with Josh, our neighbour, at Hammersmith Odeon.
We were talking about that over dinner and recalled seeing James Taylor at the Festival Hall with Carole King supporting. She was pregnant and wore a pink dress and sang ten songs perfectly while playing the piano beautifully. After my rave review in Time Out, Carole’s album took off and sold 14 million worldwide. The same issue carried my cover story with Rod Stewart and it came out 3 or 4 weeks before Maggie May. Rod recorded Every Picture Tells A Story at Morgan Studios, near where we now live. Today it’s called Zomba Studios.