Ventolin Fridays

It was good to know that Lucas was finally tied-up on a long-term contract. I was getting a bit nervous that current management (newly appointed Director of Football Comolli, Dalglish et al) didn’t actually like Lucas and favoured someone more local (or French). And hey, I’m not getting suspicious for no particular reason either. It’s a fact of life in club football. When there’s a change of management, there’s always a tendency to bring in players management believe fit their own philosophy and demands. After all, it’s much easier to work in a more familiar environment so, why not? The more high profile and senior players are normally exempt from this sea change in personnel but the ones that polarise popular opinion like Lucas (and unfortunately Aquilani as well as Insua) are always going to be prone to a bit of cutting and pruning.

Fortunately, in this case, quality prevailed and any doubt that favouritism existed in the club’s hierarchy was thrown out the window. The message was clear: if a player is good enough to be at the club, he will be at the club. The name on the passport doesn’t matter (although to be fair, this must be at the backs of every DoF’s and manager’s minds when they do the math to meet Premier League requirements on home-grown players).

So, that closes that issue and until the transfer window re-opens, I’d rather keep silly season discussions to the silly season or thereabouts.

In the meantime, with the lack of club-level football due to the international break, a group of us have been keeping ourselves entertained by putting our feet where our mouths and fingertips constantly are. Yes, after almost five years of not playing football, I’ve started to actually play the beautiful game again. OK, it's not proper full pitch, 11 v. 11 football but, an astro turf 7-a-side game is as good a start as any, isn't it? Plus, between my current circle of friends, we find it hard enough to drag 22 of us out to play nevermind lasting 90 minutes on a full-size pitch (with some lasting much, much less than others).

Hopefully, playing regularly will up our fitness levels to a stage where I wouldn't need to worry about where I put my Ventolin inhaler...

Have a good weekend everybody.


Lucas pic by José Porras