Good news from Italy, where the racism suffered by Kalidou Koulibaly during Napoli’s game against Inter the other day is being treated with the requisite seriousness by authorities at the highest leve…oh, no, wait.
The country’s deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, appeared on Italian TV last night and said:
Racism is the stuff of idiots in 2018, but let’s not put everything in the same pot. In the stadiums they also sing ‘Milan in flames’, would that be racism too?
Bonucci was booed by the Milan fans, is that racism? Healthy teasing among fans is not to be considered racism.
If we want to condemn and defeat violence we can’t pretend it’s all the same stuff. The vast majority of the organised fans [Ultras] are good people, those people yesterday are delinquents, not fans. A fan doesn’t go to a stadium with a knife.
What would I say to Koulibaly? That I’d love to see him in a Milan shirt though, he’s very strong.
With thanks to Football Italia for the translation.
Let’s try this: how about your nominations for the game of the year. I nominate Roma 3-0 Barcelona, when the Italian side started 4-1 down and with barely a hope against a Barca team who basically thought all they needed to do was rock up and claim their semi-final spot.
Here’s the highlights, featuring what I like to call Peak Peter Drury. I ask you to pay particular attention to Alessandro Florenzi’s reaction straight after the winner: genuine, unfiltered disbelief, with not a clue what to do with himself. Marvellous.
And here’s the Guardian report from the day:
We’ve been running a series of pieces as the year stumbles to a close about the various flashpoints of 2018. Here are the football ones:
Sid Lowe, on ‘Julen the Brief’, a man who had and lost the two biggest jobs in Spanish football within five months.
Andy Hunter, on Sergio Ramos going all WWE on Mo Salah’s shoulder during the Champions League final.
Here’s an extract from John Arne-Riise’s new book. It is, as you will presumably be delighted to hear, about the time Craig Bellamy attacked him with a golf club. Bellamy…doesn’t come out of this well.
A short interlude to say that if you’re one of the many masochists with a Twitter account, you really must follow @Ftbllrswanimals – it’s a simple concept, in that it only posts pictures of footballers posing with animals. It’s one of social media’s basic, uncomplicated joys.
Footballers with animals (@ftbllrswanimals)
Niall Quinn pouring a pint for a horse pic.twitter.com/ABZHWng6Qv
Suzy Wrack’s latest investigation into the abuse allegations surrounding the Afghanistan women’s football team is pretty shocking. Have a read:
The burning question in Brighton at the moment is who will keep goal while Maty Ryan is off with the Australia squad at the Asian Cup. They signed a couple of goalies in the summer – David Button from Fulham and Jason Steele from Sunderland – so Chris Hughton is faced with the agony of choice:
I’ll make the decision as to who replaces Maty. There’s nothing that happens in the goalkeeping department that I don’t know about. I want a tough decision and both keepers have worked really hard, pushing Maty to his high levels.
Karl Gibbons would like to big up Manuel Pellegrini: “This season I have been to see West Ham play a few times (not my club but with a season ticket-holding friend) and they have been very good, yet I feel that Pellegrini has not had any of the media hoo-haa that other managers (Gracia, Silva, Howe et al) get for their exploits. Granted, he has already proven himself over his career and doesn’t need any media backing, but I thought I would email you to that end anyway.
“They are also working with a huge list of injured players. Also, Declan Rice is quality and the fact that West Ham will not stump up the cash to give him a bumper contract is very surprising.”
You may have seen yesterday that Bournemouth captain Simon Francis has banjaxed his cruciate ligament, and will thus miss the rest of the season. Clearly, bad news, but it might be worse for him, in that there’s a reasonable chance this will be it for his substantive career with the Cherries: he’ll be 34 in February, his contract runs out next summer and while you’d like to think his remarkable service to the club will warrant some sort of reward, you wonder how much they will be able to rely on him as a regular starter. At the very least, Bournemouth should be in the market for a new defender in January.
Dejan Lovren reckons Liverpool are pretty good, you won’t be surprised to hear.
“I think experience,” the 29-year-old said when asked what this Liverpool team possess that previous sides did not. “There are quite a lot of players still here and it was like a puzzle, you just keep bringing these players you missed and now I think it’s a perfect match. You feel that in the squad, it’s how it should be. There has always been something missing all these years but I think now we have everything.”
He added: “It’s more only about us and that’s how we should do it always. We have learned from all these previous seasons.”
Some tactical chat from John Delaney (presumably not that John Delaney), also featuring booze.
“I had a weird dream over Christmas that the 4-4-2 made a comeback. Obviously too much rich food and whisky… I’m going for a nice country walk today before I go peculiar.”
If you missed it, Eden Hazard is keeping his eyes on the prize/the football this term before thinking about any potential transfer to Real Madrid, or wherever, in the summer.
To be fair I’m just focused on the pitch, and we’ll see at the end of the season.
Then he was asked about his form…
I’m scoring more goals, I don’t feel I’m playing better, I’m just scoring more goals. I don’t know why, maybe I’m just nearer to the goal. My position is winger. I feel better as a winger, but today I did well as a striker, and against Brighton I did well as a striker. The manager chooses where to put me on the pitch and then I try to do my best.
If you score 100 you want to score more, so I’ll try to score more goals. I’ve scored a couple of good ones through the years, so I can’t choose my favourite.
Here are some words from Mauricio Pochettino about the new Tottenham stadium, and how that will help his boys.
We cannot ask more from our fans, they are doing a fantastic job. The circumstances of that period in the club, we need to be strong and we cannot complain about all that happened. It was not easy to get to Wembley on public transport, it’s not easy.
Maybe they were our fans, but many fans that have come in this period have visited London and, like a theatre, they say, ‘Oh it’s a game at Wembley, I’m going to buy a ticket.’ It’s normal, but our fans feel and they try to increase the atmosphere of the club or the game, but we have a limit too. Our fans tried to increase the atmosphere of the game but in a 90,000 stadium we are limited to 51,000. On Boxing Day we had 45,000. We can’t complain, we need to be stronger and try to deliver our best job.”
That is why when I was asked before, ‘Do you want to move’, I said, ‘Of course, as soon as possible’, because it’s going to be a massive boost for the team. It’s going to be a place where the fans can help the team to achieve more. There is no doubt. I am so happy with Wembley but tomorrow if the new stadium is ready we are going to move to our new house.
To play in your own stadium is the best thing that can happen in your life. The moment the new stadium is ready, if it is my decision, my decision is to move quickly.
You can feel like yesterday when I saw the highlights that the people at Anfield are desperate to win and they are showing their support to the team. Yesterday Anfield was amazing, every game Liverpool play at Anfield is a party and that sometimes makes a difference.
Rumour Mill! It’s here! What thrills lie within?
Some Tottenham team news:
Tottenham will assess Dele Alli ahead of their Premier League game with Wolves. Alli missed Boxing Day’s 5-0 romp over Bournemouth due to a hamstring injury picked up at Everton and will be monitored after training on Friday.
Serge Aurier has returned to full training after a groin injury, but Jan Vertonghen, Eric Dier, Victor Wanyama and Mousa Dembele all miss out.
Provisional squad: Lloris, Trippier, Alderweireld, Aurier, Sanchez, Rose, Winks, Eriksen, Lamela, Moura, Son, Kane, Gazzaniga, Davies, Walker-Peters, Foyth, Sissoko, Skipp, Alli, Llorente.
Here’s a quick news story on Peter Hill-Wood.
And following on from that, some Manchester United team news:
Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez and Anthony Martial remain doubts as Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s Manchester United prepare to face Bournemouth. The caretaker manager has overseen comprehensive wins against Cardiff and Huddersfield in his first two matches since succeeding Jose Mourinho.
Martial scored in the first game but missed the second match through illness, while Lukaku and Sanchez have been unavailable for both so far.
“We’ve not had a lot of training since, so we had yesterday off so today’s the first day back,” Solskjaer said. “Romelu, Anthony and Alexis they were light, light (training) yesterday so hopefully they can join part of the training today and let’s see after how they come through.
“Marcos (Rojo) and Scott (McTominay), they look like they can take part soon so it’s looking better. (Chris) Smalling’s got a sore foot so I don’t think we’ll see him until the New Year anyway – maybe not before Spurs, probably, around about that time but you never know.”
Ole Gunnar Solskjær has LAID DOWN THE LAW to Alexis Sanchez and Romelu Lukaku. Well, sort of.
Former Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood has died at the age of 82. The club released a statement earlier announcing the news, with no cause of death specified. He was part of what doesn’t really happen in football anymore, taking over from his father Denis, who in turn took over from his father Samuel. We’ll have a fuller appreciation of his contribution to the club later on.
Let’s start with ten things you could/should/might want to/are thinking about ahead of the weekend’s action.
Morning all. What have you got to tell us? Sure, the idea of this blog is broadly supposed to be the other way around, us telling you stuff, but it’s always nice to make this a two-way street.
If you do have anything of note to contribute, whether that’s about this weekend’s football, football in general, sport in general, life in general, or anything really, the email is [email protected], or the Twitter is @NickMiller79.