Ole welcomes back an important player…..
Chris Smalling has returned to Manchester United after his loan spell at Roma ended. He was loved in the Italian capital, had apparently found his niche there and would have liked to make the move permanent.
Olé Gunnar Solskjær, still at the wheel, looked a tad embarrassed when asked about his defender’s return. He obviously wanted him out of the club as part of his “new broom” policy and was convinced that Smalling would be sold either whilst on loan or at the end of it.
Sat next to Jesse Lingard, another of those who should be going down with Bournemouth, Watford or Norwich he chose to be economical with the truth.
The Norwegian wordsmith pointed out that the defender was important to United and his experience would be invaluable. This despite signing Harry Maguire and pairing him with Victor Lindelof whilst having Eric Bailly and Axel Tuanzebe in reserve, not to mention a reported bid for Gabriel Magalhães of Lille!
From this we deduce that Solskjaer is not very good at lying. One thing he could, and maybe should, have learned from the master is that if Sir Alex Ferguson didn’t want a player at the club then the player didn’t stay at the club! Before a sale or after a sale, Ferguson would cheerfully lie about his reasons for letting a player go! Either that or he would say nothing at all. Solksjær, at present, hasn’t mastered the art of either.
Sánchez may have played his last piano in Manchester…..
Chile’s answer to Dudley Moore looks to be moving to Milan permanently!
Apparently United are close to an agreement with Inter Milan over the permanent sale of Alexis Sánchez. The fee would be less than half of what they nominally paid for him but the sale would, reportedly, save the club around £55 million in wages. This is good news for the parasitic Glazer family as it increases the collateral against which they can borrow money for their own personal well-being, (until around £90 million makes it’s way to Dortmund, that is).
And finally…..
By the end of the season and since the restart, Chelsea will have played 12 games of football. This assumes that they will not overturn a 0-3 home defeat to Bayern Munich when they travel to Bavaria for the return leg.
The time frame for these games will have been 47 days meaning a game almost every 4 days. This is no more nor less than the norm for a successful Premier League club.
Frank ponders ways of overcoming the sheer exhaustion caused by having to play 12 games of football in around 170 days!
Despite this and, more to the point, despite all football players just having had a 3 months enforced break, Frank Lampard thinks his players need a rest! Strangely, he didn’t think they needed a rest 12 games into the season when they had only had a break of 2½ months and had also indulged in a pre-season tour which involved some more games of football.
As we said, assuming Chelsea don’t go to Germany and win 0-4, then their season will be over and the new one isn’t due to begin until the 12th September. This gives his poor overworked players a further 36 days in which to holiday, tweet, drink, prepare for the new season and generally do as they please.
So may we suggest that, if 12 games of football in a total of 170+ days, has tired out the Chelsea players to such an extent that they will barely be able to drag their weary bodies out of their beds when it comes to the first game of next season, then they are in the wrong sport!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 