From Alexander :
I like how you turned Fabregas’s frustration from not scoring from few good chances, and ending the game, into a piece suited for the Barcelona players whenever there is a microphone around them.
Myles replies:
You’re being ironical, right?
Very quickly, since I woke up two hours later than usual this morning, and have a lot to do in the two hours before kick-off.
Cesc has not been 100% fit for some weeks.
That is part of his frustration but not all of it.
Today I’m worried that he might get hurt at Everton. I know that Fabregas is very good at looking after himself but somehow, irrationally, I’ve had that anxiety for the last two days
I knew 100% that I would get emails like yours if I wrote that.
Thanks to Ed, Matt, Frank, goonergerry, Stefan, Chris and LAGoonner and everybody else for your responses.
Such an inevitable response is an incentive to think : don’t bother, don’t be the uproar business.
But I had to say what I thought of that tackle.
It’s only opinion, it makes the world go round.
Let’s be crystal clear on one thing : However many mistakes I make, however many errors of judgement I make, I’m in the honesty business, not the popularity business.
The day I’m scared to say what I think is the day I finish.
My two favourite players are Torres and Fabregas.
Both are great footballers but not angels.And I hope Fabregas manages Arsenal one day.
BTW, those quotes by Barcelona players were 95% made up by a third-rate hack who is now disgraced. His lies were a big story in European media but the English gutter press kept silent.
One of my reporter friends knows the guy very well and gave me chapter and verse on how those quotes came about, and how they came to be published.
But I promised that I would not blog a story that reflects badly on some sports editors we both know well. And I did not want to slaughter the friend of a friend. That’s how it is sometimes. I ignored it and wrote about other stuff. That’s how journalism is. There are a lot of relationships and a lot of self-censorship.