Source: Telegraph
Manchester United the bad guys in Michel Platini's morality play
16.00 THE HEADLINES THIS HOUR
Lio Messi, for reasons best known to himself, has decided he doesn't want to play for Man City. What is wrong with these people?
Michel Platini (Favourite sculptor: Gaudi. Favourite Olympics: 1992. Favourite pedestrian thoroughfare: Las Ramblas: Favourite regional Spanish dialect: Catalan. Favourite Freddie Mercury/Montserrat Caballe duet: Ba..) has no problems whatsoever in describing next weekend's Champions League final as Good vs Evil... (see below)
And a group of Arsenal fans called REDaction are planning to march in support of Arsene Wenger this weekend. "The consensus among fans is not only that he should stay but also that he's one of the few managers in the football league that's earned the right to walk away," read their slightly confusing statement.
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14.00 THE HEADLINES THIS HOUR
Arsene Wenger has told Arsenal fans he is staying put. Presumably he thinks that's what they want to hear...
David Sheephanks, the Ipswich chairman, has done the wise thing and stepped down before Roy Keane parks several tanks on his lawn.
And Rome police have told Man United fans to stay as far away as possible from the city's tourists areas to avoid trouble next week. Gulp...
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13.30
"I say goodbye with the feeling of having fulfilled my duties and with a positive balance professionally and personally," Pedja Mijatovic, Real Madrid's Sporting Director, really should have updated his leaving speech from the one he drafted last summer...
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13.15
Rio Ferdinand won't play in the Champions League final if he's not fit enough to face Hull on Sunday.
'To go into the Champions League without playing for three weeks is too much, so hopefully he'll be fit for Sunday,' said Fergie. Funny, but after reading Michel Platini's comments (below), I'd almost forgotten United had any English players...
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13.00 THE HEADLINES THIS HOUR
Arsenal's Eduardo is to have surgery to have the small binding objects in his injured ankle removed. Not just Gooners' fans who have a screw loose, then...
Neil Warnock reckons Newcastle will just have to grin and bear it if Manchester United field a weakened side against Hull on Survival Sunday. "It's just the luck of the draw. It's just how it happens, that's life," said Warnock, which is EXACTLY what he himself would say in the same situation.
And Lionel Messi has reportedly turned down a €200 million move to Manchester City, who have clearly taking a more sensible approach to team building post Kaka...
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12.00 THE HEADLINES THIS HOUR
Gloom descended over Islington this morning after Arsene 'The Muppet' Wenger decided he wouldn't pocket £8 million a season to coach Real Madrid and would instead keep producing champagne football on a beer budget for the world's most ungrateful fans.
The Sun has caused white vans to be pranged all over the south-east this morning by running these two stories in the same paper. 1. Rafa: The price has to be right. "Rafa Benitez says he has to be careful when he splashes the cash – unlike Man Utd". 2: Kop in £50m Tev bid.
And Hull City have offered their players a £70,000 bonus to stay in the Premier League, proving once again what a monumentally Championship club they are.
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HOMAGE TO PLATALONIA
When Chelsea's players surrounded Tom Henning Ovrebo like prepubescent teens locked outside a Jonas Brothers gig, they weren't just bitching about a few iffy decisions.
They thought they'd been done. Cheated, conned, connived, and generally mugged off by Jonny Foreigner.
Though they didn't say it, the clear impression from the bare-chested mob was that Uefa didn't want two English teams in the Champions League final, and had hand-picked Ovrebo to implement their wicked plan.
Paranoid nonsense, we assumed, from a club whose manager once accused the Berkshire Ambulance Service of plotting against his men.
How Ovrebo's decision to send off Eric Abidal fitted into this dastardly scheme was not immediately clear. But Chelsea's bleetings may take on a slightly more credible tone this morning with this latest offering from Michel Platini.
"Barcelona represents my philosophy, not just in their style of play, but how they form their footballers," cooed the objective Uefa president.
"I believe players should be protected until they are 18, more for moral reasons than economic ones.
"Barcelona embody the ideals of Spanish football, which represents technique, an easy and open style of play. It seduces me."
A week before Barca, those seductive temptresses, play in Uefa's own showpiece final, you might expect Uefa's head honcho to keep just the slightest bit schtum with the old homage to Catalonia stuff.
Some fans are still boiling with rage at Platini's heretical suggestion that United – owned by an American, managed by a Scot and staffed with players from Holland, France, Portugal, Brazil, South Korea, Ireland, Argentina and Bulgaria – might not be the most accurate thermometer with which to judge the relative merits of "English" football.
Bringing morality into the debate will enrage said fans even further, particularly when Barca plucked Lio Messi (you know the one, little guy, decent left foot..) out of Argentina aged 13 to stick him in their own youth system...
