Black steel

Results

Date	Time	C	Opponent	F	A	R	S
19 Sep	3:00 PM	P	Wigan Athletic (H)	4	0	Win

It wasn't my intention not to blog on Friday. But a small series of events conspired against me. Arriving at football on Thursday night, I discovered that a meet up I was having with Steve the QPR season ticket holder, his daughter Kiara, my sister Helen and my mum was not taking place at Steve's, it was taking place at mum's.

This is significant only because it is easier for me to get home from Steve's than it is mum's. So I decided to stay the night at mum's, but she doesn't have internet access. And as my younger sister Helen came back with me before we went to see the new Massive Attack show last night, there was no opportunity to blog. Which was a shame, looking at the back pages of the tabloids in Tesco's.

Incidentally, it's ironic that I was talking about the first birthday of this blog earlier in the week, a blog that began life as I took a week off work with a badly sprained ankle and what do you know, I woke up yesterday morning barely able to walk, because my ankle has swollen up again. For no apparent reason. I can take solace in the fact that I had a blinder on Thursday, setting up one goal, as well as numerous other chances before blasting in my first goal for months, but it wasn't ideal preparation for a gig.

Good thing Massive Attack is generally "music for the head". If I can indulge myself a little bit longer, they were supported (and joined) by the excellent Martina Topley Bird - who reclaimed, as part of her support act, the song Black Steel, previously recorded with Tricky. She performed it with a human beatboxer providing the, um, beats, and a guitarist. A truly memorable moment, and much as I love Tricky, that song doesn't belong to him any more.

Anyway, football, football. I mentioned the back pages of the tabloids yesterday and I did look at the back of The Sun to see a headline featuring Adebayor and the words "Why I did it". Well, I'm sure you can guess that I didn't feel the need to dwell on that one. We all know why he did what he did. Yes, it's because he's a big lanky bast*rd (sorry, JC).

On the other hand, we had Cesc Fabregas in the Mirror fearing the big lanky bast*rd had broken his leg with that ridiculous tackle. As the young Spaniard observed, all he had ever done was try to create goals for Ade, so quite what he did to deserve such a tackle, God only knows. There's no gratitude in football anymore.

It's interesting though, isn't it? Whatever Ade did in 2008, it seemed he was never going to win over those who preferred the more elegant football of Robin van Persie, the victim of that stamp last weekend - though Robin may have asked for it with that tackle. And in that infamous Football Focus interview, of course, Adebayor bemoaned the fact that Cesc had been flirting with Barcelona without being subjected to the ire of the crowd. Clearly Alex Ferguson is not the only person in Manchester trying to knock people off their "perch" and Mr Adebayor has some jealousy issues he may need help with. The fool. When you have Emmanuel Eboue bemoaning your on-field behaviour, maybe it's clear you've gone too far.

Anyway, Dara O Briain has a nice take on it all, as we try and move on.

And speaking of Emmanuel Eboue, of course he was subjected to a barrage of abuse in the Arsenal v Wigan fixture last season. A barrage, I have to say, the like of which was ten times worse than anything Adebayor ever got, as the bleak midwinter tensions reached boiling point - boiling point in midwinter? You know what I mean. Anyway, Arsène reckons Eboue has learnt from the experience and changed accordingly. Um, I don't know about that. He certainly has improved his effort and attitude, which is good, but he is still prone to the odd theatric, as we all saw at Old Trafford. And I still don't think he's quite up to it and I wonder, at the age of 26, if he's ever going to be up to it. But the manager likes him and that's the important thing.

Robin van Persie returned to the squad yesterday, but that's it on the return front. Calamity Manuel is back in training, but not ready to play, so Don Vito continues and it seems Andrey Arshavin will be ready for next week's match. One confirmed starter in the Carling Cup on Tuesday night is Philippe Senderos and I guess, with no game time so far this season, he will be partnered by Mikael Silvestre.

So that should be fun. I'm quite keen to see what happens with Senderos this season, thought to be gone forever just over six weeks ago, Johan Djourou's potentially season-ending injury has opened a window to Senderos he would never have thought possible. I'm rooting for him on Tuesday night because we all know that Silvestre at the back for any length of time is going to be a disaster, so Senderos needs to get going again.

Come on you Reds!

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