The Monday Miscellany

So, Wayne Rooney, the Premier League’s best player arguably since some time before Cristiano Ronaldo was flogged to Real Madrid, has scored four goals against Hull City.  Jolly nice for him too.

But Manchester Utd fans should be worried; not about the result but about how Rooney’s increasingly stellar profile increases the chances of the Glazers wanting to cash in on him in the summer.  It is not fanciful to imagine Real Madrid or Barcelona – please, let it not be Real Madrid – being prepared to offer a colossal transfer fee in July, knowing full well just how perilous Manchester Utd’s financial situation is.

You have to feel sorry for the United supporters.  Well, just a little bit.  Their season ticket prices have risen at an intolerable pace, they are treated heavy-handedly by Old Trafford stewards ordered to stifle any ghost of an anti-Glazer protest and face the likelihood of the club’s best assets – be it the Carrington training base set up by Sir Alex Ferguson or Rooney – being ‘liquidized’ (sold) in the summer.

There was a new wheeze this week: wearing the old green and gold strip of Newton Heath instead of the ‘official’ club merchandise.  Manchester Utd did bring back the classic strip as their away kit in 1992 to general amusement, though in hindsight it is one of the iconic outfits of the early nineties, far more stylish than the blue and white stripes which followed.

What’s needed at Old Trafford now is a period of subterfuge.  Whenever Rooney is clean through on goal, he needs to square to a more expendable player; say, one from Bulgaria.  Penalties should be taken by Anderson or one of the fading veterans like Gary Neville or Paul Scholes.  Ferguson must slate Rooney after every match – knowing that half the media would believe him if he said Tuesday followed Wednesday – and praise Nani to the hilt, even issuing a hands-off warning to Milan, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

In short, the impression must be given that Rooney is an over-rated English passenger being carried by technically superior foreigners such as Dimitar Berbatov, Park Ji-Sung, Nani and Anderson.

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Arsenal, as we all know, play the best football in the world; and Stoke City are a bunch of cloggers who depend on long throw-ins for their goals.  How nice to see both teams live up to their reputations yesterday as Arsenal scored a beautifully deflected goal from a set-piece while Stoke bundled in twice from a couple of ugly flowing moves down either wing.

Park player Matthew Etherington brought shame to the game with his inch-perfect centre for Dean Whitehead’s goal, while Arsenal’s promising young sweeper Sol Campbell wowed the northern plebs in the Britannia Stadium with a Lothar Matthäus-like display of standing still and heading the ball as far as he could.

Arsenal manage Arsène Wenger picked as strong a team he could.  His well-documented (by him) list of injuries necessitated squad players such as Andrei Arshavin, Eduardo da Silva and Aaron Ramsey being drafted into the matchday squad and they even got a chance of first team football, replacing more celebrated players such as Francis Coquelin and Jay Emmanuel-Thomas.  No wonder Stoke would go on to take the lead after those changes.

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The FA Cup fifth round draw in full: Wolves/Crystal Palace v Aston Villa; Manchester City v Stoke City; Derby County v Birmingham City; Bolton Wanderers v Tottenham Hotspur/Leeds United; Chelsea v Cardiff City; Fulham v Notts Count/Wigan Athletic; Reading v West Bromwich Albion; Southampton v Portsmouth.

Highlights include the obligatory home banker against a lower-division side for Chelsea, a potential derby between Wolves and Villa and a south coast derby at St Mary’s.  Crowds should now start to pick up as we approach the serious end of the FA Cup and the bad weather eases.  If Southampton price their tickets sensibly, they should have a sell-out.

ITV have chosen their live Round 4 replays: Crystal Palace v Wolves at 7.30 on Tuesday 2nd February on ITV4; Leeds Utd v Tottenham Hotspur the following day at 7.30 on ITV1.

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Algeria, our adopted national side, surprisingly changed their tactics for yesterday’s Africa Cup of Nations quarter final against tournament favourites Côte d’Ivoire; they decided to score some goals.  Blackpool winger Hameur Bouazza headed the winner in extra time to take Algeria through, 3-2.  The match had it’s own ‘Croatia-Turkey’ moment; Abdul Kader Keïta’s long-range thunderbolt in the 89th minute looked like giving the Ivorians a 2-1 win before an even later equalizer was headed by Rangers defender Madjid Bougherra.

Now the fun begins: if Egypt beat Cameroon in today’s first quarter final, Algeria and Egypt will face each other yet again in the first semi final on Thursday afternoon in Luanda.  It will be a chance for Egypt to ‘avenge’ their World Cup play-off defeat in Sudan last November, when Algeria beat them 1-0 to reach the finals for the first time since 1986.

If Egypt do beat Cameroon, you can expect the relentless hype to begin almost straight away and, rest assured, here at TMM we will be joining in shamelessly.