Strength in depth – quantity over quality?
Amid the general admiration for Bobby Robson’s achievement in taking Newcastle to the top of the Premiership table at Christmas, it was widely asserted that he did not have a strong enough squad to make a serious challenge for the championship. That may well be true. However, Newcastle currently have no fewer than 40 players under contract who are considered near enough to the first team to be given a shirt number.
Thursday 1 Chelsea go out of the UEFA Cup after a 1-1 draw with Hapoel Tel-Aviv. Claudio Ranieri keeps his sunny side up: “The result went against us but it was a brilliant performance.” Leeds survive a scare in Troyes, where they lose 3-2 but go through 6-5 on aggregate. Ipswich save their best till last again, winning 3-1 in Helsingborg. Stung by rejection, Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan refuses to accept Steve Bruce’s attempt to resign as manager: “At no time will Steve be allowed to talk to Birmingham.” Bruce will not, however, be taking charge of Palace’s team at the weekend.
Friday 2 The Bishop of Oxford blesses the pitch at Oxford United’s supposedly unlucky new ground. “There was talk among some players of a sense of evil – they interpreted it as a curse,” says a church spokesman.
We asked some of our regular contributors if they could remember anything about 2001. Surprisingly, quite a few of them could
Harry Pearson
Best • Seeing different faces in the home dugout at the Riverside. Finally getting a radio that allowed me to listen to Alistair Brownlee’s delirious, deranged commentaries on Century FM. His pronunciation of Marinelli alone is worth the price of the batteries. Oliver Kahn’s expression at the end of the game in Munich.
Apparent misfits in the Premiership, more than a few imports have gone on to have perplexingly good careers elsewhere. We tracked down three of them, Craig McCracken looking at Marc-Vivien Foé
Marc-Vivien Foé was an early developer. A first team regular for Cameroon’s top club Canon Yaoundé at 17, an international at 18, a World Cup player at 19, he won his first transfer to Europe when he signed a contract shortly after his 20th birthday to join Lens.
Apparent misfits in the Premiership, more than a few imports have gone on to have perplexingly good careers elsewhere. We tracked down three of them, Gabriele Marcotti looking at Darko Kovacevic
If he hadn’t been run out of town after making just eight starts for Sheffield Wednesday, perhaps Darko Kovacevic might have earned himself a funky nickname in Yorkshire. Certainly, English fans tend to be a little more imaginative than their Spanish counterparts (“Golacevic”was the best Real Sociedad supporters could come up with). Perhaps he might have entered Sheffield lore as the “Darko Destroyer” – after all, he was Nigel Benn’s contemporary.