Against the Romanians, Glenn Hoddle said Wayne Rooney played like a quarterback in United’s 2-0 victory.
Playing with a heavy ball on heavy pitch, Bobby Charlton used to swing the ball from one side of the pitch to the other. Rooney, playing against Otelul Galati with a modern ball on a lawn tennis pitch, was pinging it 50 yards too.
Trouble was, Sir Alex played 4-2-4, so Anderson and Rooney tired by 65 minutes, and he had to bring on Park for the Brazilian.
It was all a bit iffy and only 1-0 at that time.The only other goal was a Rooney shot that was going wide but deflected in off a hapless defender. Rooney was cream crackered by then, having covered every blade in those 87 minutes.
Almost wistful in the interview, Wayne said of his new role, ” I played there a lot when I was younger.”
Did you see Taya Toure\’s goals?
Yes, it was the weakest Villarreal side we\’ve ever seen but both goals were quality.
First one, a sweet sidefoot finish after he gets a beautiful little pass from David Silva. His second goal is Nasri to Balotelli to Yaya, tiptoes into the D and the box with five touches of his magic green boot, sends the last defender stumbling as he sits the keeper on his arse with his legs splayed, and then tucks his shot inside the near post for 3-0.
If you\’re that good, it looks easy. I\’m a big fan of Yaya, who’s always reminded me of Frank Rijkaard. A versatile giant with the power of a halfback and the feet of an inside forward.
Most exciting thing in football? A big man with skill : Osgood, Bergkamp, John Charles.
Talking of big heads with skill, Zlatan Ibrahimovic\’s new autobiography has spilled the beans on his fallout with Pep Guardiola.
After Ibra scored seven in his first seven games, Pep wanted to move Messi into the middle and after a 4-1 win over Villarreal in which Ibra only played five minutes, he had his first big ruck with Guardiola : “You have no balls!….You are shitting yourself because of Jose Mourinho. You can go to hell!\’
Napoli v Manchester City is a game I really want to see on Matchday 5.
The Italians were 3-0 down in Munich but Napoli pulled back to 3-2. Good side and fun to watch. Man City v Bayern is on Matchday 6, by which time Lahm. Gomez & the boys should have won the group. But Schweinsteiger is out till January with a broken collarbone after colliding with Napoli\’s Gokhan Inler, the Swiss midfielder they signed from Udinese.
Bigger challenges await Citeh.They still have plenty to do if they are to rectify the club\’s wobbly start among the big boys of Europe.
Nice to see Dennis pitchside as the Ajax coaches celebrated their 4-0 win over Dynamo Zagreb.
Really glad I didn\’t go to the Arsenal-Marseille game.
Park was pitiful.This is the striker Arsenal kidnapped during his medical. Why?
A discerning friend said the match was “awful awful awful.â€
Who wants to blog a 0-0 draw as tepid as that?
Instead I spent the whole of Wednesday reading a comic novel called The Understudy by David Nicholls, who is now my second favourite writer after Elmore Leonard.
Reading a novel during the day was like being back at university. Lovely. Just a shame I couldn’t finish it and go out to a discothèque and dance to Hold On, I’m Coming with a girl in a very short skirt.
Like his masterful best-seller One Day, The Understudy is a tonic and I felt much healthier and more chilled-out after reading it.
Nicholls told us at Book Slam that he was an unsuccessful actor for eight years, so I know where this material came from.
Josh, the obnoxious West End star, takes Stephen, his depressed understudy, to a ghastly private club for a Japanese beer and an intimate tête-à -tête :
They turned and began to weave between shin-scraping glass tables, past a tablecloth-sized dance floor, flashing ironically, where a lone skinny girl danced with an aloof narcotic stagger, as if stumbling away from a crashed car.
David Nicholls is on my wavelength, I guess that’s why I love him. He does something I admire but can’t do or don’t dare to try. His delicate wit hides the beating heart of an entertainer with loads of empathy.
And he’s the most skilful reader I’ve ever seen at Book Slam.
Talking of books, see Sparkling new Arsènal is essential reading.