THE WEEKEND proved that the romance of the cup is alive and real and thrilling.
Indeed, the FA Cup was starting to look like fun until Arsenal drew Bolton away in the Fourth Round.
It was Big Sam’s bruisers who showed everyone how to bully Arsenal.
But, oddly enough, Bolton’s 2-0 win on December 3rd was a game where they outplayed Arsenal and did not kick them.
Maybe that challenging FA Cup draw will affect Arsene’s team selection for tonight’s Carling Cup semi at Wigan.
Their sparky manager Paul Jewell reckons Arsenal will field their strongest side. We doubt that but we will find out at 7.30 tonight on Sky Sports 1.
ARSENE says he wants Thierry’s contract talks to proceed swiftly. Prolonged negotiations would be another soap opera and hugely counter-productive at this perilous point in the season.
Will TH14 demand a seven-year contract? A six-year contract?
His age is 28 years and 5 months.
BURTON ALBION, LUTON and Clyde showed us how much fun the cup can still be.
Steve McClaren and Peter Taylor, dull managers who produce dull teams, will never have good cup runs.
Middlesbrough could only draw at Nuneaton and Taylor’s Hull rarely threatened in a 1-0 defeat by Aston Villa, where James Milner was crossing the ball for dimwits like Angel and Luke Moore.
Milner is bonkers to carry on playing for a club that is going nowhere under doddering chairman Doug Ellis.
BY CONTRAST, Mike Newell’s Luton played fantastic football but went 1-0 down to Liverpool before leading 3-1 and then losing 5-3 in a pulsating, classic battle.
Burton Albion, lads on £150 a week, played good football against Man United and were seen live in 70 countries. United brought on Rooney and Ronaldo but could not score and the replay will earn Burton £500,000 and assure the future of Staffordshire’s proudest little club.
CLYDE hosted Celtic in Cumbernauld with Roy Keane making his debut.
Keane, 34, had dreamed of playing for the Bhoys since he was a kid in Cork.
A Celtic supporters bus came all the way from Donegal for this historic moment.
Last summer Clyde had no players and manager Graham Roberts took an ad in the paper and had 25 replies from guys wanting a trial. He has created a spirited team from that.
Clyde beat Celtic 2-1 with goals in 32 and 36 minutes.
They also missed a penalty and had a good goal disallowed.
I didn’t hear it, but on Radio 5Live Graham Roberts revealed that just after the final whistle he said to Keane,”Don’t worry, Roy, it will come good for you ” and Keane replied, “Your boys were magnificent today.Absolutely magnificent.”
The sad truth is that Roy has left it too late to play for Celtic. He looks worse than rusty. He looks way over the hill. It’s a shame that such a colossal warrior should be suffering such humiliations.
I saw Graham Roberts play hundreds of games for Spurs in the Eighties.
A powerhouse centreback with very good ability, a gladiator whose bravery inspired Hoddle, Ardiles and Archibald, especially in their UEFA Cup-winning run in 1984.
If you want to win a European trophy you need a hard man with skill, a Dave Mackay, a Souness, a Desailly, a Keane, a Gattuso, a Vieira or Van Bommel.
Graham Roberts was one of those.
On floodlit nights against Austria Vienna, Bayern Munich, and Hajduk Split, Roberts, bursting forward from the back like a runaway steamroller, was an awesome sight as he skipped through the mud and thundered straight towards the penalty area.
So it’s nice to see Graham enjoying a big day again. He gave a lot to football in London.
MY SON MICHAEL saw me reading Jarhead and said, “Do you fancy the film?”
He loves films and I love books.I don’t want to see a film of a book I read four days ago.
Also, Hollywood films are part of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about in 1961.
In a piece in Saturday’s Telegraph magazine, Anthony Swofford says he is an author who was in the Marines, not a Marine who has written a book.
Jarhead is about Desert Storm 1991 and it has taken Swofford a long time to distil his experiences into this vivid memoir. The technical details of soldiering and combat are compelling, even for a peacenik like myself.
The structure of the book is quite sophisticated and I now understand the Marines much better.
I didn’t know much beyond the motto at Quantico: One shot, one kill. Quantico, Virginia, is their sniper school and Swofford was a scout/sniper.
On page 222, during their advance into the burning oil fields of Kuwait, as occasional artillery rounds fall near them, Swofford writes this :
If colonialism weren’t out of style, I’m sure we’d take over the entire Middle East, not only safeguard the oil reserves, but take the oil reserves : We are here to announce that you no longer own your country, thank you for your co-operation, more details will follow.