Rooney Is Not That Kind Of A Person, Carragher Admires Arsenal, More

There’s not much happening in the world of Arsenal. Even a comment from Fabregas that had enough juice to launch a thousand headlines didn’t really get much attention (and I don’t have words to describe how delighted I am by that). One rag did conjure an amazing headline about how Arsenal kept El Capitan against his wishes but it seems most other hacks are busy with the Cricket scandal or the Rooney scoop.

Regular readers will know that I don’t generally spend much time on these scandals. Personally, I couldn’t care less. But since I’ve not seen these comments from anyone so far I thought it best to say it myself,

I can assure you Rooney is not that kind of a person. He is an honest lad and a role model for youngsters all over the world. If, as alleged, he did go in hard I’m sure there was no malicious intent and he certainly didn’t want to hurt Coleen (or his fans, manager, team-mates, et al).

I’m not particularly interested in how the story unfolds on a personal level for the United striker but I’ll definitely keep an eye on how he is treated by his managers (club and country) and by the media.

Will Sir Alex “At Manchester United we don’t just build footballers in terms of just ability, we try to build their character and make them better human beings, in terms of standards and responsibilities.” Ferguson take any action if the stories are true? (I’ll be very surprised if they are not.)

I seriously doubt that. I don’t think United can mount a serious challenge without Rooney. In the past when Fergie had to take some tough decision he didn’t face the level of competition that exists today. Most teams in those days lost the game even before it started. There are some that still do as Mick McCarthy showed us last year but that number is rapidly dwindling. I think Fergie will try to protect his striker and will, in the worst case, shield him by not playing him in tough games like the upcoming visit to Everton.

I would also like to note that I browsed around looking for reactions to the revelations and ended up visiting a couple of United blogs. I was impressed by the fact that many of their supporters were genuinely disappointed and didn’t condone Rooney. I have to say I’ll probably respect them a little more because of that.

Moving on, I read an interview that Jamie Carragher gave just before his testimonial game. One portion about “class and dignity” caught my eye. Speaking about the recent image of Liverpool he said,

I care about the club because I’m a supporter as well. It does bother me if things aren’t as they should be. I think a lot about the future of the club, the direction it’s going in, the way it is run and how it is perceived from the outside. There are some things that Liverpool should be doing in a certain way, the correct way. We should be a little bit different, and we need to get back to that.

I’m not just talking about winning games, but the way we do things and the way we conduct ourselves. The class and dignity this club was renowned for. It’s the way Liverpool used to be seen by people and we should be aiming to recreate that.

I just think that over the last few years people didn’t like Liverpool. Other managers didn’t like us, we were always getting criticism in the press, obviously we were not doing well on the pitch so that comes with it, but everything was just negative Liverpool all the time.

We’ve had situations like Martin O’Neill and Steve Bruce criticising Liverpool and they were right. We shouldn’t be getting involved with stuff like that. Everyone else should look at Liverpool and say they have dignity, class. I mean, like the way people look at Arsenal. They do things right and you think they conduct themselves in the right way. I think we have been a club who were like that and we need to get back to that, to do things right. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose; that’s football. You can’t win all the time. But you can still behave in a way where people respect you.

I liked the spontaneous way in which the first club that came to his mind was Arsenal. He was talking like a fan and that makes it even more pleasing. I’ve a feeling most individuals involved with English football will probably name Arsenal if they’re asked to associate a club with “class and dignity” (Fat Sam, Pulis, Brown, and some others might have a different view but I think we all know why that is). It’s not directly related to the football but I believe it’s quite important in its own right.

There’s not much else going on. Robben came out with some comments about Van der Vaart saying he was as good as Fabregas and that Spuds are now in the same league as Arsenal. I don’t think its worth paying attention to, Robben probably doesn’t realize we are talking about a team game here; something he doesn’t really understand.

Adebayor says it feels like City are bigger than Arsenal. To be honest I can understand why he would feel that way. Firstly, his wages and those of the others around him can certainly create such an illusion. Then there is also the fact that he is constantly on the bench. Surely he won’t want to feel that he’s moved onto the bench of a smaller club. He does realize that it’s all about results but then goes on to say something like, “We can finish in the top three – that’s our belief now.”

He must be at a really big club if he has ‘top three’ ambition even after that kind of insane spending. Let’s hope we have better things to discuss in the coming week.