AHEAD OF THE GAME
Alpha mail. The only truly useful football e-mail
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007. 1600 GMT
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The news in 40 seconds
POLICE INVESTIGATE UNITED 'RAPE'
Police are investigating allegations that a woman was raped during the Manchester United Christmas party last night. A 26-year-old called 999 claiming she had been sexually assaulted at a luxury hotel that the squad had hired out for their celebrations. There has been no immediate comment from United.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3069345.ece
WENGER DUCKS BAN
Arsene Wenger has escaped further punishment after serving a one-match Champions League ban for his spat with the fourth official during Arsenal's defeat by Seville (after apparently saying he had a good reason not to go and sit in the stands).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/arsenal/article3069383.ece
WHAT A TOZER
Ben Tozer hasn't even signed for Newcastle United yet - let alone trained with them - but Big Sam is ready to ship him out on loan. The Swindon Town starlet, 17, is preparing for a £1.1 million move to the North East, but Allardyce said: "There is a possibility Ben will be allowed to go out on loan."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/newcastle/article3069567.ece
BENITEZ ON MESSAGE
The Bearded One is sticking to the party line - say as little as possible to friendly media outlets while stroking his chin - over his talks with Liverpool's co-owners. "The conversation was very fluid because we were face to face, whereas it's more difficult over the phone or by e-mail. My English isn't always the best," Benitez told the club's website in near-perfect English. Rick Parry denies there is a transfer embargo.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/liverpool/article3069396.ece
SORENSEN WANTS OUT
Thomas Sorensen, who is out of contract at the end of the season, has thrown the toys out of his pram at Aston Villa. "I am simply not interested any more," he said. "Villa have shown that they have no interest whatsoever to invest in me." It's got nothing to do with Arsenal's reported interest, of course.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/aston_villa/article3069547.ece
MUNTARI PLEDGES FUTURE
Sulley Muntari has underlined his commitment to Portsmouth, despite talk that Liverpool are preparing a bid for him. "I'm happy with the performances from me and the team," he said. "I don't care if people don't recognise me. If they recognise Pompey that's great."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/portsmouth/article3069638.ece
TERRY'S BAD BREAK
New manager, familiar problem. Fabio Capello has yet to start his job as England manager but he will already have programmed Chelsea's club doctor into his speed dial. John Terry will be out for six weeks after breaking bones in his foot and is likely to miss the new manager's first match in February.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article3065829.ece
BUT OSMAN PLAYS ON
So much for Captain Courageous. Leon Osman, the Everton midfielder, broke a bone in his toe but didn't even break stride. "He was in a bad way but still wanted to play," David Moyes said after the player was injured in the first five minutes of the Carling Cup tie against West Ham last week but went on to finish the match and also play in the teams' league meeting on Saturday. Proof that Terry is, in fact, a wuss.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/everton/article3068416.ece
BIRMINGHAM GIVE UP ON TAKEOVER
Birmingham City's takeover is (still) not going through and the likelihood of it happening is about as remote as Fabio Capello's chances of learning English in a month. "As far as I am concerned, the deal is dead in the water," David Gold, the club's co-owner, said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/birmingham/article3068186.ece
CARLING CUP TEAM NEWS
Elano is expected to be fit for Manchester City's match against Tottenham this evening, while Arsene Wenger is ready to give his fringe players a runout against Blackburn Rovers in tonight's other match. All the Carling Cup team news.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article3062607.ece
Capello's hello in 20 seconds
LIPPI SERVICE TO STARS
Marcello Lippi, Italy's World Cup-winning coach, has told Don Fabio to wield the axe. "In order to make a team you may also need to drop an important player that perhaps is not [on] the same wavelength as the others," he said. Such as Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article3067907.ece
IT FEELS LIKE A DEFEAT
England have got a foreign manager and a foreign player (Owen Hargreaves), so why not a foreign board? Martin Samuel says England should appoint the French equivalent of Dave Richards or replace the entire FA board with ten Italians - then we might get an English manager.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article3065564.ece
BAD LANGUAGE
Syntactical errors could be as important as tactical boobs, according to Gabriele Marcotti. Our European Football Correspondent was on hand to witness Don Fabio's first press conference yesterday and there were signs that his message could get lost in translation.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article3065725.ece
LAST WORD ON TALK SHOW
"So where do you draw the line? Should we refuse to allow players to seek medical assistance for footballing injuries from anyone other than English doctors? Should we stick to steak-and-chips nutrition, or should we give players spaghetti alla carbonara?" Simon Barnes on the notion that the FA should have appointed an Englishman.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article3065635.ece
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>>>>>FANTASY FOOTBALL WITH BRAINS<<<<<
* Register today for PlayTheGame - it's the same in any language
* It's free and you can still enter
* Win monthly prizes and tickets to the Euro 2008 final
* http://www.timesonline.co.uk/playthegame
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If you've got another couple of minutes
SCENTED CANDLES, A TUXEDO, WAYNE AND A LOAD OF SCHMALTZ
Before we start this section, let's be clear about something. AOTG has a policy that normally precludes it from buying any magazine that ends in an exclamation mark (OK! LOOK! HELLO!), just as we rule out reading any publication that describes Coleen as a model (she's a WAG! OK!) or thinks that it's a good thing England were knocked out of Euro 2008 because Wayne Rooney can now get married in June!
But after instructions from our esteemed (and patently perverse!) boss, we were told to swallow what's left of our already dishevelled journalistic pride to find out what Rooney had to say in today's world exclusive in HELLO!
So after smuggling £1.90 worth of glossy magazine into the office like it was imported Dutch pornography, we set about flicking through picture exclusives of "Strictly star Gethin" and his new partner Katherine Jenkins ("The handsome Welshman even impresses the beautiful mezzo-soprano with a quick display of his fancy footwork"), Anna Ryder Richardson posing in a mansion the size of the Outback after her I'm A Celebrity ordeal ("many viewers commented on how toned she looked") and Martha Louise of Norway (we've never heard of her, but apparently she's "Europe's most unusual princess and believes in fairytales").
And there, crammed on to only 11 pages, is a spread that would make Posh and Kecks seethe with envy (and send AOTG rushing to the nearest lavatory for a technicolour yawn). One minute, Rooney is pictured alongside Coleen, smiling happily, wearing his finest V-neck jumper and surrounded by scented candles. The next, he is wearing a tuxedo and holding a glass of Kristal in front of a mammoth 22-foot Norwegian Christmas tree that looks like it's been nicked from the Arndale Centre. Only a page later, he's taken off his bow tie and changed into an open-neck black shirt to pose with a Christmas present. The smooth devil could even get a job modelling winter jumpers for C&A!
But in case anyone thinks this is just celebrity promo tat, the couple - who the mag tells us "fell for one another when he mended her bicycle chain" - also reveal that they are good, honest, salt-of-the-earth, just-like-you-and-me-but-with-a-bit-more-cash people.
Their wedding, Rooney says, "is not going to be a big celebrity affair, because we just aren't like that. It's all about our family and our old friends. Of course, there will be some players from England and Man U. They may be famous but they're my mates first and foremost."
We obviously don't need to explain to our esteemed readers the irony of using a celebrity magazine to say that you're not a celebrity (although we just used a sentence to say we didn't need to say something that we then said, which in itself is an irony that would not be lost on Wayne). Anyway, we'd better draw to a close with a positive: with no Euro 2008 to look forward to, Wayne and Coleen can not only enjoy a relaxed honeymoon, they can also sell their wedding pictures to HELLO!
THEGAME PODCAST
Guillem Balague has an exclusive with a difference on this week's show. Instead of telling us the outcome from the big showdown talks at Anfield, he can reveal ... nothing. That's because he's heard that the five people who attended the meeting have all signed a confidentiality agreement, meaning they won't spill the beans on the tete-a-tete (or should that be cabeza-e-cabeza?). Sadly, he doesn't tell us who broke the confidentiality agreement to tell him there was a confidentiality agreement, but some things must remain, err, confidential. Simon Barnes, The Times chief sports writer, also joins the show to explain how Don Fabio can avoid going through the tabloid food blender and coming out as a vegetable, while Matt Hughes has the inside line on events at Chelsea. And as if expectations weren't already high enough in Manchester, Bill Edgar has a stat that will make City fans dream of the Champions League.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/audio_video/podcasts/thegame/article3046907.ece
TEAM DEBATES
A new era, but the same old story. We asked you to select The People's England Team and you've done just that. As George Caulkin, our esteemed colleague suggests, the concept was "aimed at showing Don Capello what we're made of. And, apparently, what we're made of is huge egos, big wages and past failures."
The team is virtually identical to the one that flopped under Steve McClaren. The only real surprises are that Calamity James is back between the sticks and that you'd rather have David Beckham in the team than Thin-Skinned Frank.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2007/12/the-times-onlin.html
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>>>>>THE TABLOID SCANDAL<<<<<
CRISTIANO COCK-UP - Daily Mirror
What do you need: 1) Cristiano Ronaldo was involved in an embarrassing mix-up at the Fifa World Player of the Year gala in Zurich. 2) The Manchester United winker was handed the prize for second place - then forced to hand it to Lionel Messi in front of a star-studded audience after it emerged he had actually finished third. 3) It's embarrassing but at least he missed the club's Christmas party.
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A quickie before you go, sir?
A LOAD OF KAKA
Still wondering why AC Milan's mercurial Brazilian Kaka pipped Ronaldo to the title of world player of the year? The highlights package from this year's award show is as long as the accompanying soundtrack is as atrocious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBJKjRnm3YI&feature=related
TROPHY STRIFE
And that awards ceremony. Ronaldo looks slightly sheepish as he is forced to swap his trophy, then change places in the line-up with Lionel Messi. The awards ceremony from the 2007 world player of the year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqigDTuTe8U
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8
Eight of the past 12 world players of the year gongs have been awarded to Brazilians.
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In TheGame
In Fanzine Fanzone, our Manchester City fan delights in ruining Richard Keys' big day by gate-crashing Grand-Slam Sunday while our Chelsea man says that if he had fallen as far as Andriy Shevchenko he would be sitting in a hot bath with a packet of Wilkinson blades in one hand and 400 Nembutal in the other. And that was him skipping over the problem of the mis-firing forward. The voice of the terraces and it demands to be heard.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/fanzine_fanzone/
Liverpool are not one of the big clubs in the Champions League, at least according to Martin Samuel in this week's debate . Our Chief Football Correspondent says the yardstick for big clubs is still domestic dominance.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/thegame/2007/12/the-debate-live.html
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>>>>>THE RIVALS<<<<<
* Discipline and form the key, warns Capello - The Guardian
* THE IRON FIST: Capello begins his reign with warning - Daily Mail
* GODFATHER: Capello will use iron fist to keep any ideas of mob rule in check - Daily Express
* VISION OF THE FUTURE: Capello insists he will restore pride in England's football team - The Independent
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Joe Bloggs' Soapbox
Just to let you know that the £44 million takeover of my favourite footie team, Ipswich Town, went through yesterday. Amidst all this talk of foreign ownership it is good to note that the new owner, Marcus Evans, is British!
Richard Morbey
Send your mail to: sport@timesonline.co.uk
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Tomorrow's news today
- Benitez to be given money to spend - just not much
- Centre par excellence? The rights and wrongs of Burton
- James Ducker and Oliver Kay report on the night's Carling Cup action
And expect...
AOTG to be caught taking out a subscription to a glossy magazine. It's a Christmas present.
The new registration process is up and running, so it's like pyramid selling once again. Spread the word.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tools_and_services/subscriptions/e-mail_bulletins/
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