An interesting story coming out of this weekend comes from the lips of Arsene Wenger. In a story that started to circulate on Saturday, Arsene spoke about his concern that after the terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team this past week, football could become a target for terrorists. Wenger isn’t a rookie to terrorism. He was managing in Japan during the deadly 1995 Sarin gas attack in Tokyo. The other thing Wenger brought up is that there have been false alarms at the Emirates before, but nothing serious. Wenger’s quote “It has turned out to be nothing – like a bag in the stadium that somebody forgot.”
Wenger also brings up the point about not getting police escorts before games, but teams associated with major championships (World Cup, Euros, ect) get them. That just boils down to the fact security is budgeted into those competitions. I’m sure if you pay the London police, or any other city police where you are, you can get an escort.
I do agree with him that it is kinda surprising that football hasn’t been targeted. Then again, it probably has been targeted and we just haven’t heard about it. We know that security has been tight around competitions of late, and it’s only going to get tighter in the future. All we can do is keep our eyes out and hope for the best, along with allowing those who are involved in security to do their jobs.
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It would appear there is a new twist to the news reported about Liverpool’s sale talks with a Kuwaiti consortium. Investment bank Seymour Pierce is taking the consortium to court over non payment of fees associated with becoming executive advisers to the takeover bid. For now the claim is just north of 300,000 pounds. If a sale is
to happen, that fee will increase by seven million.
It does appear though the takeover talks will continue, divisions looks to be coming back. One member of the consortium will only deal with Tom Hicks. Seems like history is about to repeat itself. Could we see a situation where only Hicks sells?
In other Liverpool news, Rafa Benitez has lost Yossi Benayoun for the next two weeks with a hamstring injury. Rafa is also admitting he is forcing the fitness of Fernando Torres so he is ready for Real Madrid on Tuesday night. I don’t think Benayoun is that big of a loss, even though he did score in Madrid. I wouldn’t risk Torres unless he is 100 percent. Don’t gamble the short term success only to lose out over the rest of this season.
You have to love Sir Alex Ferguson’s needling of Jose Mourinho ahead of their Champions League clash on Wednesday. He thinks that Inter will play for penalties. Sir Alex, you aren’t Rafa Benitez and you can only hope a repeat of Porto doesn’t happen. Fergie is also hoping that Rio Ferdinand is fit enough to play. Something tells me that an injection will be used in order to aid recovery.
Fergie also gets personal and admits he’s fearful about what will happen when he retires. I know those in the UK may not get this analogy, but it’s the only one I can see that fits. I could see what happened to Bear Bryant, former American football head coach of the University of Alabama. After coaching his last game on December 29, 1982 before retirement, he died January 26, 1983. Now Sir Alex is in much better health than Bryant was, but there is something to missing the routine that I could see him missing.
And finally, Ricky Sbragia is not happy with the careless nature Sunderland threw away three away three points against Tottenham.
You’re right, Sir Alex isn’t Rafa Benitez — and thank f*** for that.
Benayoun actually is a big loss for Liverpool…with Gerrard and Torres both lacking in fitness, he’s been top performer for the past few weeks and is one of the most creative players in the squad.
I agree with Django — Benayoun is a much bigger loss for Liverpool than I suspect the author realizes.
As far as United not having Rio available Wednesday, there’s this kid named Jonny Evans. You should check him out, he’s pretty good.
And I especially agree with JCL21.