Down to Ten Men

On Thursday, UEFA's Disciplinary and Control Body met to determine the fate of England's top striker Wayne Rooney after he was given a red card for kicking out at Montenegro's Miodrag Dzudovic. Unfortunately, some two weeks later, the Football Association, Manchester United, Rooney and the legion of fans are still waiting for an in-depth explanation on why the UEFA handed down a 3 game suspension. According to an October 26th report by ESPNSoccerNet, the UEFA made the following official statement about providing an explanation:

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It may be early days in La Liga but having secured three wins on the bounce – two of which came on the road – Valencia sit atop their domestic division two points clear of Sevilla and Real Madrid.

Despite the £60,000,000.00 paid to the banks to avoid a wind up of the team in June, money provided by the sale of their star players David Villa and, to a lesser extent, David Silva, Unai Emery’s Valencia have come out on top of their game.

Having chosen not to attend the first two home games of the season due to conflicting events I decided to make my season bow at The Emirates for the Champions League tie against Braga. After enduring a long day at work I hopped on the train to Marylebone and partook in the ritual of a couple of pints in the Allsop Arms in between Marylebone and Baker St where I can be regularly found before home games. I never felt any sort of nerves towards the fixture and to be honest I expected a comfortable victory.

As you may have noticed, Down to Ten Men have recently been going down to Court Place Farm in Oxford to cast an eye on the fortunes of Zamaretto Premiership side Oxford City. Although the results have not been going in the right direction much enjoyment has been had by going to watch the semi-professional echelons of the game.

And what do you see?

Today at work I had the pleasure of sitting on a table opposite another Arsenal ‘fan’. During the standard Monday morning football chat with his friends, he managed to assassinate Arsenal’s title chances/hopes of finishing within the top half within the time it took me to finish my apple.

I would have been impressed, had he not been so far wide of the mark as to make Emile Heskey look like a prolific striker.