Quote
"You don't want to score a hat-trick and lose the game 3-2." Andy Cole, losing count on beIN Sports.
Number: 1,000,000,000
That’s how many Euros make up the release clause in Pedri’s new Barcelona contract. Newcastle here he comes.
Who will Newcastle lure?
Now that Newcastle United have a stack of cash to spend, speculation on what players they'll attempt to lure to the sunny north-east is mounting. The Sun asked Chris Waddle to provide his shopping list, which they detailed under the rather excellent headline 'Pog on the Tyne'. Ready?
“Paul Pogba’s out of contract isn’t he? Money talks - if they sell the dream about what we’re going to win and achieve, it might work. And then, do you raid your Bayern Munichs and teams like that and say ‘we want him, we want him’. Could you get somebody like Eden Hazard out from Real Madrid? Federico Chiesa. Moussa Diaby. Anthony Martial. All available. Donny van de Beek.”
Was he done? Oh no.
“And then do you test teams like Arsenal for people like Emile Smith Rowe? What about Kalvin Phillips at Leeds? Declan Rice. Marco Asensio at Real Madrid. Then you start looking at younger talent like Yeremi Pino who plays for Spain. Gavi from Barcelona. You’ve got four or five in the Spanish team who you could build around. Next season you add another three, four, five players in the summer.”
That list could indeed make Newcastle contenders, while also doubling the population of the city.
Word of Mouth
"Honestly, Katie McCabe bro…. you know who she reminds me of? Stuart Pearce. She was just steamrolling, no sh*t, gets on with it. Gets clattered into, gets up and gets on with it." Ian Wright swooning about the Irish captain, Psycho McCabe, after watching her in action against Everton.
"I was an exceptional player, I was never on the bench, always I was playing, so I cannot answer this question. I was so good." A winking Pep Guardiola on being asked about Raheem Sterling and how he, Guardiola, coped with being dropped as a player.
"My plan is not to manage as long as Claudio Ranieri, that's for sure. I'd be on the Italian coastline just now with my Speedos on." David Moyes providing an image that will be difficult to erase.
More Word of Mouth
“Newcastle need 17 players. It’s not like they have a good core of a team already which they can top up with a couple of world-class players. They need everything.” Paul Merson suggesting Newcastle’s squad needs more than a little tweaking.
"Lately we have not been in great form. We might have to change, do we need more legs in there? What do we need?" 'A new manager' might have been the gist of the response to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's question after his team's latest hic-cup on Saturday.
"Sometimes Gareth reacts if you are not playing for your club, so you can't play for the national team. Obviously there is a special thing for Mr Stones." Jürgen Klopp a bit peeved about Southgate picking Mr John Stones and not Mr Joe Gomez despite Stones playing no club football this season (well, until Saturday), and Gomez starting a whole two games.
Bleeding hearts in Michigan
There’s been a bit of a to-do in Michigan after a high school game between Benzie Central and Kingsley proved to be just a touch one-sided; Benzie were 17-0 up by half-time, at which point the game was ended.
One of Benzie’s players, Kevin Hubbell, helped himself to 16 of the goals, a new national record for a high school game.
Kingsley were none too impressed by the scoreline, regarding it as unsporting. “To go after a personal record like that at the cost of another team’s dignity was a little uncalled for,” said their coach Tim Van Wingerden. “Soccer is not the right place for that. Soccer is a gentleman’s sport.”
No one was angrier, though, that school board member Heather Bartelmay. “He [Hubbell] was firing them off like a rocket,” she said. “We went over and hugged our boys. That’s what was needed. Their hearts were bleeding.”
Heather had a particular reason for feeling so upset - her poor young fella was the goalkeeper.
