Search: ' Luis Figo'

The team were still a letdown, but England had more winning ways off the pitch, to the relief of Philip Cornwall

Six years ago, at Euro 2000, I was on the point of giving up on England. I had the masochistic streak needed to cope with events on the pitch, but not what came with it for much longer: the sullen contempt for anything and anyone who wasn’t English that radiated from so many of the team’s followers even if they weren’t expressing it in word, song, action. Some of these people seethed in their sleep.

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Thursday 1 “I think I have arrived here at the perfect time,” says Andriy Shevchenko on joining Chelsea for £30 million. Arsenal are to be questioned over a loan payment made to their Belgian nursery club Beveren, which may have breached FIFA regulations. Ronnie Moore steps down as Oldham manager, to be replaced by John Sheridan.

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The appointment of Steve Staunton and Sir Bobby Robson has not met universal acclaim in Ireland, as Paul Doyle reports 

“Oh Christ, we’re doomed. Not Sieve Staunton, anyone but Sieve bloody Staunton!” Those were the exact words that resounded through the Lansdowne Road press room on June 2, 2001, when the team sheet revealed that partnering clumsy Richard Dunne in defence for the Republic of Ireland’s vital World Cup qualifier against Portugal would be 32-year-old Steve Staunton, a once-admired left-back who in recent years had become the personification of a tool with many holes but, mercifully, had hardly so far featured in this campaign. It was obvious that either Luis Figo or Staunton himself would tear the Irish defence apart.

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After another incident-packed transfer window, is there any shred of club loyalty left?

If Chelsea were going to make Lyon an offer for Michael Essien they couldn’t refuse, you would think they could have hurried up about it a bit. Far too much newsprint was expended on a depressingly inevitable saga. Lyon’s point of view – that if they were going to lose their best player to a team with a bottomless pit of cash then they would take every rouble they could get – was understandable. Essien, too, cannot be blamed for wanting more money than he could dream of

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Friday 1 Sir Bobby’s interpretation of the Glazers’ outlook is rejected by Mark Longden of Man Utd fans group IMUSA: “I would like them to explain how they intend to pay off £500 million-worth of debt on profits of £19m. You do not need to be a financial expert to realise something big has to happen.” Middlesbrough’s new signing, Austrian defender Emanuel Pogatetz, may receive a six-month ban for an exceptionally violent tackle while on loan with Spartak Moscow; Boro reject Spurs’ £6m offer for Stewart Downing. George Burley is the new manager of Hearts. Good news for Wayne Rooney and Dennis Wise among others as FIFA scrap the ten-yards dissent rule. Greater Manchester Police reignite their old row with Wigan over an unpaid policing bill of £273,000, threatening to withdraw the JJB Stadium safety certificate unless it is paid by August.

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