Chelsea pardon Mourinho / Kroenke now owns 12% of Arsenal

Hello folks. Chelsea say they won’t sack Mourinho, Kroenke buys a few more shares, Maradona has alcoholic hepatitis – all in a day’s work, you’d think.

1. News Headlines

1. The biggest news from yesterday is Kenyon’s public statement that Chelsea won’t sack Mourinho. More power to them.

   Would be funny if Mourinho won the quadruple and then walked out on them, eh? No, I know he won’t, he’s here till 2010, but still, it would be funny 🙂

2. Rafael van der Vaart tells the press that he would like to stay at Hamburg but that he’ll leave if his dream club came calling.

   That would be Barcelona or Real Madrid, correct (considering that he’s half Spanish)?

3. Brian Homewood writes about fair play (or lack thereof) in South American football.
4. The Guardian has been a bit boring in the past few weeks, but with Barney Ronay and Russell Brand back, things should be more interesting.
5. Should Benitez rotate players and rest Gerrard before the Chelsea game? Absolutely. Not only do Pool have the squad depth to deal with Gerrard’s absence but they also only have the Champions League to play for, so let them do what they want and stop complaining. Not that Neil Warnock will stop complaining though.
6. Maradona has alcoholic hepatitis, which raises several questions. One, what is alcoholic hepatitis? Two, why do the doctors insist on calling it ‘addictive personality and not drug abuse’ when overdoing a drug thanks to your addictive personality is technically drug abuse? and three, how much do you have to drink to get this (and how much can you drinking can you get away with before you get this)? Questions, questions 🙂
7. Curbishley is angry that the West Ham players celebrate too much on goals scored (you can’t blame them) and as a result are not focused on the period right after the restart in which they tend to concede goals, like they have against Chelsea and Tottenham recently.

   Ok, so he has a point. But are the West Ham players this bad that they don’t know something this basic about football strategy?

   Maybe the phrase ‘too good to go down’ doesn’t apply to this bunch then…

8. Athens is gearing up big-time in preparation for the Champions League final. 20,000 police force would be considered excessive, but considering the carnival atmosphere that surrounds such a major event, Athens has every right to prepare itself as much as it can.

   Kudos to the authorities for being proactive about this – let’s hope it all goes right.

9. Adriano – who apparently hasn’t learned since the World Cup that diving can get you booked – was booked again for a clear dive in the Inter Milan vs Roma game midweek.

   Here’s the video.

   Here’s the news report.

10. From our friends at The Offside, news of current litigations going on in the football world. Rooney is being sued by Moyes, Mido is facing a possible lawsuit from a player he injured 3 years ago and Christian Vieiri is suing his former club Milan for tapping his phone and following him around for god knows what reason.

    Get the details over at Offside.

2. Arsenal News

1. Wenger says that only Baptista (going back on loan), Lehmann (end of contract) and Flamini (who wants to leave) are on the cards as departures from Arsenal.

   With the current status of Arsenal’s squad, I hope for their sake that they can keep Lehmann and Flamini. Not so sure about Baptista because he really has had a bad season after the high hopes for him. He’s picking on the traditional Arsenal whine quite well, but so did Reyes so that doesn’t count for much, does it?

2. Stan Kroenke has raised his stake in Arsenal to 12.19%. The clock’s ticking, Mr Hill-Wood – by the end of summer, will you be shown up as a raving lunatic or a hero?
3. The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust wants to ensure that the board takes into account all offers and doesn’t blindly reject something that’s good for Arsenal. Heh, that’s what I said yesterday, and that’s EXACTLY what the board is NOT doing.
4. Thierry Henry talks about Arsenal’s potential, supports’ Wenger’s policies and proceeds to remind us that Arsenal ‘really shouldn’t have lost that many games’, but injuries and ineffectiveness cost them.

   I guess you could say then that Manchester United should have been unbeaten all season, but that didn’t happen because of ‘ineffectiveness’. Would that be a whine? Yup.

3. Soccerlens Coverage

Manchester United News Roundup: 21 April 2007