The Week That Was

Attention all media outlets! We’ve been asked a few times this week what the fans’ view of Emmanuel Adebayor’s antics were and it goes a little something like this: Manchester City fans think he’s great. Most other fans found the incident vaguely amusing while simultaneously thinking he’s a bit of a nob. We’d better not publish what the Arsenal opinion of him is. Our ears are still ringing though.

There isn’t a singular fans’ view, obviously. Although if he’d shown as much effort, pace and commitment for Arsenal last year as he did running the full length of the pitch last Saturday, who knows, Gooners might not have booed him in the first place.

Arsenal fairly dominated the news this week with Eduardo’s diving ban overturned too. Uefa obviously saw some top secret evidence that hasn’t been made available to the public. The sword of justice swung into action allowing Eduardo to nick the winner away to Standard Liege on Wednesday.

While Liverpool’s Champions League tie was rather dull and Debrecen (wahey!) the club’s previous home game to Burnley was anything but for Michael Shields who found himself back at Anfield following Jack Straw’s pardon.

Earlier this week we noted how Michel Platini’s latest plans had irked Richard Scudamore but that’s not all that he’s been up to this week. Platini’s goal in the Europa League (we still cringe typing that) secured CSKA Sofia a draw at home to Fulham. OK, it wasn’t that one, this Platini’s from Brazil.

Speaking of the Europa League they’ve also introduced this new system with two line judges. So what do we call the fourth official now? It’s a crucial question and we demand answers.

Meanwhile the most pedantic refereeing decision of the week surely goes to Alan Wiley who ruled out Carlton Cole’s effort at Wigan by blowing the whistle for half time precisely 0.0005 seconds before the ball crossed the goal line. He didn’t disallow it because he’d wrongly given a free kick to the Hammers in the build up. Ohhhhh no, of course not.

Flavio Briatore has been all over the news following Formula 1’s race-fixing scandal and it did occur to us that this could have an impact on his ownership of QPR, given that anyone subject to a sporting ban can be ruled an unfit owner.

Apparently though, since he’s jumped ship before the F1 authorities could find him guilty, he’ll be OK! Another slight hole in the fit-and-proper person test, surely? And to paraphrase Mrs Merton – just what did Briatore’s new wife, 28-year-old model Elisabetta Gregoraci, see in billionaire Flavio?

Catch you next week!