Wayne Rooney has hit the headlines in recent weeks because of allegations about his private life, and his United form has appeared to suffer, with the striker managing to find the net just once in five games this season, having netted 33 in all competitions in 2009-10.
And having watched Rooney fail to score again in United’s 2-2 draw at Bolton on Sunday, ESPN analyst Kevin Keegan, who enjoyed a distinguished playing career with Liverpool and Hamburg, said that players should be able to deal with media interest in their private lives.
“You can’t have all the contracts, you can’t sell your wedding to magazines and things like this and suddenly say, ‘That’s the tap I want to turn on, but we want to turn the other one off’,” Keegan said on ESPN.
“But it’s just one tap and I know from when I played that, if you are advertising boots and all these things, you have to go and make appearances. You are going to appear in the paper.
“But the one thing I would say is keep your home and your family out of it and just take your endorsements if that’s what you want to do.
“You can’t then turn around and say there’s too much paparazzi around or there is too much publicity. One minute you are courting it, the next minute you’re saying ‘I don’t want this.’
Had a little technical hitch this week but its all been sorted now and we are back.
Bobby Smith played as a centre forward for Spurs as they won the Double in the 1960-61 season, scoring 33 goals in the First Division and FA Cup that year. Spurs have not won the title since.
So after six years away from the Premier League (and it feels like about 4 of those were speculation he was joining Villa – can you believe its been less than a month?) Gérard Houllier has officially been confirmed as manager of Aston Villa.
Get used to that smile. The incredible ride continues for Ian Holloway’s Blackpool. When they won the promotion playoff last season, they got a lot of sympathy from neutrals. “How nice for them”, many of us thought. Then we started thinking about what would happen when Holloway’s attacking style met the counter-attacking speed of Premier League opposition. We saw 4-0 scorelines dancing in our heads for their league opener, but shame on us, we saw them going the other way. Granted, this Wigan side is not Champions League material, and I’m not claiming that the Pool won’t get a thumping or four this season. But when the final toot-toot was heard on this match, and the fulltime scoreline came up – Wigan nil, Blackpool four – it was something very special, and a warning that this Cinderella team isn’t happy just to be nominated. 