Souness’s Pogba fixation continues
Not even a pandemic can take Graeme Souness’s mind off Paul Pogba, his non-flattering fixation with the French lad causing no little mirth these past couple of years. Dimitar Berbatov professed himself to be bemused by the whole thing last week, reckoning that Pogba is most likely asking himself: “Wait a minute, am I the only player on the ****ing planet here?”
The whole thing escalated a touch last week when Pogba was asked on Manchester United’s own podcast how he felt about Souness’s obsession with him, to which he replied: “I didn’t know who he was really. I heard he was a great player and stuff like that. I know the face but the name…”. Naturally enough, half the British press went for the headline: ‘Sou Are Ya?’
Back on Sky Sports, Jamie Carragher decided to throw this red rag, in a rather bullish manner, in Souness’s direction. His response to Pogba? “Put your medals on the table! I’ve got a big table!”
Yes, Souness actually asked a player who has won four Serie A titles, two Coppa Italias, one Supercoppa Italiana, one Europa League and one League Cup to put his medals on the table.
What are we missing? Oh yeah, two World Cups - the Under-20 one in 2013 and the senior one in 2018.
Apart from that. . .
Quote of the week
"They come in time, which is important - too late to a session means you have to pay." Jurgen Klopp reveals the most 2020 thing ever - his Liverpool players are fined if they're late to their Zoom sessions.
Number of the week
2,000 - That's how many cars, containing 10,000 fans, Danish club Midtjylland are proposing allowing park at their stadium to watch their behind-closed-doors games on big screens when the league resumes. 'Drive-in football,' they're calling it. Weep.
Polar bears scupper Terry’s Spartak switch
Best ever reason for an English footballer to decide against a move to a club in Russia: We'll go with the one revealed by Italian agent Marco Trabucchi last week about John Terry.
At the age of 37 Terry was made a free agent by Chelsea, at which point Spartak Moscow offered him a highly lucrative two-year deal. Well up for one last hurrah that would put an extra few million in the coffers, Terry travelled to Rome where he completed a medical for the club, but before putting pen to paper he had a chat with his family about the move.
It was his young daughter Summer who scuppered the deal, according to Trabucchi. Why? Because she reckoned “there were polar bears walking down the street and he would never return”. Move called off. Most costly polar bears ever.
Word of mouth
"It's complicated for me. I'm trying not to eat a lot. I'm trying not to go into the pantry to eat a lot of buns, but it's not easy." Real Madrid's Eden Hazard, who had already been accused of being overweight this season, on his biggest lockdown challenge: resisting buns. We're with you Eden, we're with you.
"They play with a chain of four in defence, in front of them run three maniacs from right to left and in front of it they have three grenades that do the damage." Lest we'd forgotten, former Schalke coach Sven Hubscher reminds us of how Liverpool play football.
"I am not a sack of potatoes. I will decide my future. I want to be where I am valued. If it is here, delighted, and if not, it will be where I decide." Usually footballers feel like pieces of meat when it comes to the business of transfers, Barcelona's Ivan Rakitic has gone for the spuds comparison.
"Those proposing the cancellation of the season don't like football or Italians and want to take away the hope of restarting football." Italian Football Federation president Gabriele Gravina. being silly.
Tweet of the week
Tweet of the Week - We’ll go with this one from @theeuropeanlad: “Waking up to find out that Neymar (28) has a new stepdad (22) who is now happily in love with Neymar’s mother (52) while her ex-husband (55) shows his happiness for them underneath their Instagram post. Brazil is quite a fascinating country.”
Not only is this fascinating, it’s all true too. Never mind Brazil, though, that sounds like your average Eastenders family.
Kingsley Coman’s car cock-up
While they’re still maintaining social distancing rules, Bundesliga clubs have returned to training and on day one Bayern Munich’s Kingsley Coman found himself facing the prospect of being €50,000 the poorer.
What did he do? He committed the worst offence imaginable - he drove to training at the Audi-sponsored club in his McLaren 570S Spider. And he and his team-mates had already been warned earlier this season that such an offence could be punished by a fine of €50,000.
How sorry was he? Very. “I would like to apologise to the club and Audi for not having come to training in my company car. The reason was a damaged wing mirror on my Audi. Still, that was a mistake, of course I can see that. As a reparation, I will visit the Audi plant in Ingolstadt for an autograph hour as soon as possible and bring some attention to the employees.”
You’d imagine all the Ingolstadt folk will want is a spin in his McLaren 570S Spider.
