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THE LEEROY JENKINS ISSUE 13-3-06
So, in the Walter Mitty-esque world of Jose Mourinho, Chelsea beat Barcelona on Tuesday. Presumably The Not-So-Special One thinks the aim of football is to concede possession, chances and goals. It's not golf, you daft get; highest score wins.
Liverpool meanwhile also crashed out of the Champions League, but seeing as they scored their last goal in 1454, it hardly came as a surprise.
Arsenal, however, flew the flag for. erm.. Germany, Ivory Coast, Switzerland, France, Belarus, Holland, Brazil, Spain and Sweden by riding their luck against a toothless Real Madrid side, and Union Jack-waving Alan Pardew proved to everyone why more Premiership teams aren't filled with domestic players, as Bolton opened a can of whup ass on the Hammers at The Reebok.
Let's do this.....
"Well, if by 'wank' you mean educational fun, then stand back. it's wanking time."
The ever-improving Chris Riggott has admitted that he quite fancies becoming Boro skipper when Gareth Southgate calls time on his career.
Riggott, who has become a first-team regular this season and already filled-in as captain when Southgate has been unavailable, told The Times, "I would be lying if I said I didn't think about that [wearing the armband]. It has taken a few years to come out but I am starting to show a bit of maturity on the pitch. I am starting to feel like I can be captain of this club."
"One of my problems is that I think about stuff too much really, I am my own biggest critic." With talk like that, Chris, you'll do me out of a job.
"Now for the first of our eighty-two commercial breaks. Then you can see more of my boooobs!"
After watching his side trounce three-time scudetto champions AS Roma on Thursday night, Steve McClaren, presumably after pinching himself, told ITV4, "It was an excellent performance, a great European performance full of experience and discipline."
"We got the early goal when Jimmy bought it [the penalty] and we defended well," said McClaren, "and I said all along we needed to defend well and keep a clean sheet," a revelation that proves why McClaren is so highly thought of by the FA.
"I was a little disappointed we didn't get the second goal. When you get the opportunity, you have to take it," McClaren concluded; in no way making a dig at a certain balding Spaniard.
"Hey, lookee! It's that young'un what sorts them squiggles into words. Can you spell 'scabies'?"
George Boateng's agent, Sigi Lens, has announced that the Dutchman will not be moving back to Holland this summer.
Boateng, whose contract ends in the June, has been continually linked with a move to Feyenoord but Lens confirmed, "We had no contacts or talks with Feyenoord," a statement which is either incredibly reassuring or an indication that Lee Cattermole's ascension as Boro's first-choice central midfielder has led Boateng's representatives to conclude that now is not the time to be playing hardball.
"Nothing has yet happened, we are still waiting for Middlesbrough," Lens wrapped up by saying. As anybody still waiting to receive a ticket for Wednesday's match in Rome will vouch, you might end up waiting longer than you'd like for Middlesbrough to get their act together.
"Welcome. to the games of the 34th Spellympiad. I'm George Plimpton, founder of the Paris Review. I also played the evil dean in Boner Academy."
Not content with the attention he received after his Man of the Match-winning display against AS Roma, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink decided to admit this week that he nearly left The Riverside in January.
"I came very close to leaving in January," Hasselbaink told Sky Sports, leaving this writer wondering why he'd bother writing the previous sentence, "There was a time when I thought I'd played my last game for Middlesbrough."
ComeOnBoro.com understands that Hasselbaink was offered to a number of clubs in January as Steve McClaren sought to lower the wage bill, and Hasselbaink mused, "I don't want to go into the ins and outs of everything but sometimes things happen in football and you have to make choices. It isn't always easy, but I am happy with the choice I made."
"I am playing football and, at the end of the day, that has always got to be the most important thing," Hasselbaink concluded, ensuring that his cliché count reached the requisite standard for publication by Sky Sports.
"It's not just a sandwich. It's about brotherhood. It's about freedom! It's about three days since I've had one! I'm getting the shakes, and I'm getting the fries."
Having watched his side lose to an eminently beatable Charlton team, Steve McClaren was left to rue his ridiculous team selection. Only he didn't.
"The first thing you look at is performance and the performance from that team was very, very good," said McClaren, ignoring the fact that the first thing most fans will have looked at is the teamsheet, "We think 0-0 at half time away from home is okay but on this occasion we had the chances and we were disappointed."
"We've played far worse than that and we've been critical of their performance but we've won football matches. Today I applaud the performance but the result was disappointing," McClaren claimed, with one eye directed so far towards Wednesday night that he bore an uncanny resemblance to goggly-eyed Radiohead wailer, Thom Yorke.
The Skinny
What a difference three days makes.
The performance against AS Roma was as good as we've witnessed all season, and, to his credit, Steve McClaren got his selection and his tactics exactly right. There was always a decent chance that the Marco Materazzi goal which ended their record-breaking run of victories would take some of the momentum out of the giallorossi and, sensing exactly that, McClaren made the uncharacteristically bold move of beginning the game with two strikers. Even after we'd taken the lead, McClaren permitted his team to attack and, in truth, we should be heading to the Stadio Olimpico with more than a one-goal lead.
Where McClaren was daring on Thursday, he resorted to his default setting of unconditional caution on Sunday. Clearly McClaren was saving most of his first-team for a run of fixtures that sees Boro play five games in fourteen days, but it's a tactic that is ill-judged when Boro have only just begun to pick up steam for the first time this season.
Granted, Boro did have the better of the first-half, and from my seat, Maccarone's goal appeared legitimate, but to leave out nine first-teamers is folly. Aside from the issue that no professional footballer should struggle with the rigours of more than one game a week, the basis of Boro's recent resurgence has been the partnership of Riggott and Southgate; both must play as many games as possible between now and the end of the season.
McClaren might attempt to justify his selection if Boro do enough to win the remainder of the tie with AS Roma, but to rest the majority of his first-team before all our remaining cup games would be churlish. However, if Steve McClaren is confident that thirty-four points is enough to stay in this division, then on his head be it.
And with that....
BACK TO JAMES BASSETT INDEX
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