WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Alexis Sánchez made his expected debut against Yeovil Town in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Friday evening.

Martin Keown, ex-Arsenal-destroyer-of-all-things-football, decided that the Chilean did enough to merit being awarded man-of-the-match. Doing enough, in Sánchez’s case, included giving the ball away on at least five separate occasions and firing a free-kick tamely into the arms of the Yeovil keeper.

He did, however, assist in two of the goals and looked, at times, to be different class to everybody else on the pitch.

We have to agree with Keown’s assessment which leaves us wondering where this signing leaves Marcus Rashford.

Sánchez prefers to play down the middle either as centre forward, which is unlikely to happen, or just behind the centre forward. His second choice would be to play out wide on the left which is where Rashford has been playing when selected.

With Lukaku the obvious choice for the main striker’s role Sánchez will, more than likely, be asked to play wide left, although he will certainly be given licence to roam.

With Sánchez on one side and Martial on the other there is no room for Rashford so he could be spending quite a bit of time on the bench in the near future.

This, as he is only 20, should not be regarded as a problem yet and his World Cup place with England should already be assured. His time as an automatic selection will come!

At The Emirates…..

Stubborn Old Man is still trying to sign Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but admits that Arsenal and Dortmund are “miles from reaching agreement”. This is always a comment we find quite strange because, at the start of any negotiations there is a “selling price”. Just offer that fee, or come very close to it, and the player is yours, no problem.

Down at The Bridge…..

Antonio Conte sounds sad. He sounds as though the only decision he is allowed to make at Chelsea is who plays in the team on match days.

The poor, down-trodden members of the press are reduced to asking him questions about who will be playing in the next game and other such nonsense rather than the ones they really want to ask such as; have you fallen out with the board? Has Roman Abramovich grown tired of your whingeing? Will you ever work out how to beat Arsenal? Which is your favourite pizza?

It’s hardly surprising the the clever money is on the Italian returning to Italy at the end of the season.

At his recent press conferences he has looked like a man who can’t wait to get on that plane!

Does Jürgen even know…..?

Liverpool need a new goalkeeper. We mention this on the off-chance that this publication is perused by Jürgen Klopp and he is unsure which position needs strengthening next.

He appears to be a little confused on the issue because, having stated categorically that Loris Karius is his number one, he then selected Simon Mignolet for his next game, against West Brom in the FA Cup.

The Schnapps is working Jürgen, leave it alone!

Meanwhile at White Hart Wembley…..

Mauricio Pochettino wants to manage Real Madrid, but not yet. What does that mean? Simple, it means that he expects Zidane to stay at the club for the time being but, if he doesn’t, the Spurs man can take over and say he didn’t expect to be given this “wonderful opportunity” of managing the “biggest club in the world” quite so early in his career.

If he does go he will be joined, at some stage, by Harry Kane and, possibly, Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli unless Dastardly Dan starts paying well and the club start winning things!

And finally…..

In between adverts for an app that promises to have us speaking a new language in only three weeks and another showcasing the ten most dangerous countries to visit in the world, (presumably the former is useful if you are a masochist thinking of bucket-listing the latter), we found a short piece reporting that Mario Balotelli, ex-Manchester City player and pyromaniac, is going to join Juventus at the end of the season.

The only reason for mentioning this article is to demonstrate that, even after leaving clubs like City and Liverpool, it is possible to have an average career and continue pocketing oodles of cash!

Balotelli always flattered to deceive, occasionally doing something brilliant on the field but, more often than not, doing something stupid off it.

Now, still only 27 years old, he is going to return to his homeland for the second time, this time from Nice in France.

Apparently, he is playing the best football of his life and has even grown up, starting to behave like a sensible adult.

If this is all true then we wish him all the best as football is very short on characters at present.