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Cristiano Ronaldo has been honoured with the renaming of Madiera airport and a statue that looks like it was made by a child, Liverpool get ready to take on Everton in the Merseyside derby and Arsenal will have to double Alexis Sanchez wages to keep hold of the Chilean forward but don’t expect Arsene Wenger to be loosing the purse strings anytime soon.
Listen to the latest episode of EPLpod below:
Dignitaries at the official renaming of Madeira airport to “Aeroporto Internacional da Madeira, Cristiano Ronaldo,” were wiping the sweat from their brow in relief on Wednesday after the unveiling of a new statue of the city’s favourite son turned out to be a considerably less handsome than the real thing.
The new bronze bust succeeded in the almost impossible task of striking a fine balance between falling short of overshadowing Ronaldo’s sizeable ego and not scaring away arriving passengers.
This latest effort follows a tradition of producing questionable looking statues after a previous unveiling at Ronaldo’s CR7 museum. On that occasion, the resemblance was once again far from convincing, but that was more than compensated by the ample bulge in the groin region.
“I thank a lot the president of the regional government, who had the courage and strength to do this. My friend Miguel Albuquerque, I never asked for this,” insisted Ronaldo at the unveiling. If that really is true, then Ronaldo would be advised to model his next statue on himself rather than Niall Quinn.
A recent Barcelona training exercise centred around the game Naughts and Crosses, has dramatically exposed Neymar’s subpar puzzle technique.
Split into two teams, Neymar let down his two team-mates Lionel Messi and Gerard Pique in shambolic fashion after failing with what should have been a routine block manoeuvre. Quite literally, a failing of school boy proportions.
Neymar’s blunder, the football equivalent of leaving a man completely unmarked for a tap in at the back post, raises the the question of just how far his floored puzzle solving capabilities might extent to. Is it just Naughts & Crosses, or should the Camp Nou hierarchy be concerned about his Connect Four skills too?
A Barcelona spokesmen declined to comment at the time of press, but was spotted hastily pulling Snakes and Ladders, and Twister from a dusty wardrobe.
Watch Neymar leaving his man wide open in the video below.
Podcasting directly from the abyss, otherwise known as the wilderness beyond the Premier League’s top four, Mike and Paul from EPLpod cobble together something to chat about during the international break.
Rickety old man Jermain Defoe clambers out of his rocking chair and marks his return to international football with a goal, Seamus Coleman gets his leg snapped during Ireland’s clash with Wales, and Lukas Podolski gets a hollywood-like send off in Germany.
Listen to the latest episode of EPLpod below below:
In today’s lesson: Respect your elders.
1. An Old man is still able to mix it with the likes of Lithuania. Yes, unsurprisingly Jermaine Defoe who has 14 Premier League goals so far this season, and is now 60-years-old in footballer years, somehow managed to get himself on the score sheet. Who’d have thought? This was Defoe’s first goal for 1465 days. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another 1465 days for his next.
2. Wembley a Man United free zone. England’s starting XI was completely absent of a player from Old Trafford. It wasn’t until bag-o-tricks Marcus Rashford came on as a sub that a United representative was on the field. Rashford created more chances and made more dribbles than any other player in his 30 minute appearance.
3. Just when you thought Jamie Vardy couldn’t look more of a nasty bastard, he went out an got himself a black eye. Presumably this came from Vardy punching himself in the face again.
4. The calm and assured Michael Keane looks like he’s been playing international football all his life. Is a clean sheet against a team ranked outside the top 100 a good enough reason to fire up the hype machine and put an unbearable weight on young Keane’s shoulders. Yes, yes it certainly is.
5. As today is Mother’s Day, time would have been better spent lavishing our mums with appreciation, instead of watching this pretty drab affair.
Wales only managed to break Seamus Coleman’s leg during an ill-tempered 0-0 World Cup qualifier with Ireland on Friday evening, despite Gareth Bale’s best efforts to join his team-mate Neil Taylor, and get in on the gory act.
Before the game, it was Ireland assistant coach Roy Keane talking up the use of violent tactics, but it was Wales that seemed to be inspired by the words. First, Gareth Bale left a studs impression on John O’shea’s shin. Then, moments later, following his captains example, Neil Taylor went one further and lunged in with a stomach churning horror tackle on Seamus Coleman before rightly being shown a straight red.
Full of sympathy after the match, Wales manager Chris Coleman was keen to give an update on his traumatised player.
“Neil Taylor is devastated. It’s not going to make Séamus feel any better but Neil is not that type of player,” shrugged Coleman before adding “Your boys weren’t coming off with halos on their heads,” after accusations from the Irish press that Bale should have also received a red card.
Seamus Coleman, now set for a long spell on the treatment table, joins the other couple of hundred Irish players already on the injured list.
The Republic of Ireland take on Wales in a World Cup qualifier on Friday evening, and assistant manager Roy Keane has come up with a master plan to stop Gareth Bale inflicting any damage: “Hit him!”
A plan which Keane has clearly spent all night coming up with after reaching the obvious conclusion that there is simply no other way. “What you find is that players and coaches have tried to come up with a plan to stop him before, but top players figure it out and affect the game anyway,” moaned a frustrated Keane.
“The basic advice to any player if you’re up against a word class player: get to him, get to him as quick as you can, don’t let him get his head up like he does at Real Madrid. Don’t give him space in behind because the boy can run. Tackle him. Hit him… fairly. Tackling is part of the bloody game.”
Expect Keane to be leaping from the dugout with warm applause of appreciation as soon as one of his men goes into the refs book for putting a reducer on Bale.
England manager Gareth Southgate is leaving nothing to chance as he prepares his squad for more inevitable years of failure by showing them a video of him missing England’s decisive penalty against Germany in the semi-final of Euro 96.
Here is the inspirational moment in question:
RT if you didn't need to be reminded of this Gareth Southgate penalty! (Vine by @90sPlayers) https://t.co/2FRavWho89
— What A Goooooooal (@WhatAGoooooooal) 6 February 2016
Now, if that doesn’t inspire you to be England’s next great scapegoat what will?
Speaking to his England squad for the first time since signing a four-year contract, Southgate was keen to hammer home his discouraging message insisting his players needed to listen to some “brutal” truths about England’s position within the sport, pointing out they had won only three knockout games since 1990. Sticking the boot in further, Southgate also told them to take a look at Germany’s record over the same period.
And if that isn’t enough to get his charges shrugging their shoulders and send them spiralling into depression, Southgate has one other video which really should send them over the edge and ensure football doesn’t come home any time soon….
Luis Enrique’s team might be captivating audiences of late following their incredible turnaround against PSG and another comeback against Valencia on the weekend, but his press conference are clearly not having the same impact after a journalist nodded off during a recent interview.
With managers undergoing extensive media training these days, it’s rare to glean anything of interest from the hours they spend not answering questions in front of the media. And so with that in mind, one journalist instead used the time to drifted off into the land of nod before being rudely woken up by Enrique.
“Look, thats never happened to me: a guy sleeping in the press conference!” honked Enrique, before confirming “I must have been very boring.”
The journalist in question was unavailable for comment due to nap time.
Watch the moment Enrique caught the journalist sleeping during his interview below.
https://youtu.be/x7IOIgvxuNE
1. James Milner proved he not only knows how to convert a penalty after scoring his seventh penalty from seven, but he also knows how to get away with one following his kick on Raheem Sterling’s calf just as the winger was about to connect with the goal at his mercy.
2. Adam Lallana might possess one of the silkiest touches in the Premier League, but that miss proved sometimes the silk needs to be ditched for the laces.
3. The only thing more embarrassing than missing an open goal, is prematurely celebrating said miss. Step up Roberto Firmino.
Roberto Firmino had already started celebrating… pic.twitter.com/Dl8jLcC6Vx
— Futbol Agent (@Futbol_Agent_) 19 March 2017
4. Yaya Toure, whose contract expires in the summer, said he loves the frenetic pace of the Premier League and wants to stay in England. Judging by his huffing and puffing around the Eitad on Sunday and a lazy tackle on Emre Can, China might be more to his pace.
5. High-fiving Pep Guardiola has either been popping the happy pills or his sarcasm has reached new depths, following his positively ecstatic post-match interview. “This is one of the proudest days of managerial career” beamed Pep. Putting a 1-1 draw with Liverpool above Champions League trophies and Championship titles in both Spain and Germany.