WHY SAY ANYTHING?

(Harry Kane stifles a yawn brought on by the intense tiredness suffered having spent the equivalent of 78 hours, (3.25 days), playing competitive football this season)

Any regular reader of ours will be well aware of our opinions of managers who claim that their players are tired.

You know the ones, they have to play two games in a week and, when they lose one, it’s nearly always down to tiredness. Most of the top Premier League managers will use it as an excuse at least two or three times per season.

They will go whining on about a winter break as though that will suddenly turn their players into world beaters.

Strangely enough, managers outside of the top ten or so clubs in England never seem to think of the number of games played as an excuse for their team’s poor performance and, as we have pointed out on more than one occasion, we very rarely, if ever, hear the players complaining about being tired because of too many games.

Maybe they think it would sound a little bit unreasonable were they to admit to being incapable of (occasionally) running around a football pitch for a whole 90 minutes every three days or so without needing another three days or so to recover from their exertions.

So it was quite good to hear Gary Cahill, in an England press conference, saying how the players were all “buzzing” and raring to go for the upcoming World Cup. Those words would have had some managers cringing.

What happened to being tired after a long, hard season, with no break, containing far too many games? How could he possibly disagree with so many managers who, after all, must know what they are talking about? He never once backed up the bosses by saying how knackered everybody was and that it would require a tremendous effort just to climb the steps leading to the plane!

In fairness to Cahill, he wouldn’t have realised that his words were in direct contradiction to those uttered by managers when they are asked about summer tournaments. He was just answering a question which actually had nothing to do with whether or not the players were tired or feeling jaded.

Still, it was refreshing hearing a player speaking the truth rather than a manager toeing the party line!

Meanwhile, in Spain…..

Sergio Ramos, somewhat like his team mate Cristiano Ronaldo, holds a couple of records at Real Madrid. Unfortunately for the Spaniard they are not records of which to be particularly proud. He has received more yellow and red cards throughout his career at the club than anybody else.

In the Champion’s League final he was involved in the tackle which resulted in the injury to Mo Salah. It was a foul, although replays show that it was possibly Salah who committed the first offence in which case the free-kick could have been given to Real Madrid. The referee, however, didn’t see the Egyptian hook his arm around Ramos’s arm and gave the decision to Liverpool.

Salah, as we now know, dislocated his shoulder when he fell to the ground during the incident and this has cast some doubt over his appearance in the World Cup.

In committing the foul, Ramos was cynical but nothing else. He didn’t deliberately try to injure the Liverpool player and he certainly didn’t set out to try and make him miss the World Cup.

The Madrid player is a card magnet and, when we have watched him in La Liga, it is actually amazing what he gets away with. The number of times he escapes even a yellow card when committing offences for which he would be sent off in England is incredible.

Our favourite description of him is that he is the type of person who would unplug your life support machine to charge his phone!

All of this makes him a tough-tackling, no-nonsense defender who will bend the rules as much as possible to suit his team. It does not make him a cold, calculating destroyer who will deliberately injure a player in an attempt to gain an advantage.

And finally…..

Liverpool have followed up their Champion’s League defeat by signing a replacement for Emre Can who will leave on a free transfer next month. Fabinho will join from Monaco on July 1st.

Manchester United had the chance to sign Roberto Firmino before Liverpool, but spurned the opportunity. That, in our eyes, was a mistake.

Last season, United had the chance to sign Fabinho but, again, spurned the opportunity and that player has now also been signed by Liverpool. Let’s just hope this doesn’t turn out to be a mistake as well.

By the way, does Jürgen Klopp know that his team needs a goalkeeper or did he not watch the Champion’s League final the other night?