I don’t hate him but this interview has annoyed me.
There’s a lot of bile on here towards him, half of it from kids too young to have seen him play.
The way I see it:
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We were a bit underhanded in how we got him, exploiting a loophole in Spanish youth contracts. £500k was a robbery.
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He could have jumped ship as soon as the Invincibles broke up and I bet most of the likes of RVP, Nasri, Adebayor, Hleb would have.
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He put in more of a shift than any of that lot. Leaving definitely was a signal to the rest of the squad but I doubt any of the Invincibles would have hung around with maybe the best club side in history calling.
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We didn’t build the squad. Even on a shoestring, a couple of signings could have made a huge difference. We always came up short as fixtures piled up and while he was leaving for Barcelona, we were signing Gervinho.
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Nobody leaves well. It could have been handled a lot better (Reina and the shirt ffs) but I don’t see people calling out Vieira nearly as much, or mocking Henry’s video when he left, or Ljungberg saying he was going to West Ham to win trophies. They were all more successful but I doubt they’d have done loads better with Cesc’s teammates.
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He was just fucking magic. At 17 he was twice the player of any other young player I’ve seen - and in central midfield. Wilshere, Saka, Ødegaard not in the same league as that kid. He was the heartbeat of that 2007/8 side and I loved them probably more than any other. If they’d pulled off the league win it’d have been more miraculous than the Invincibles. I loved watching them and I loved the way he played. Thought he should have stuck around for 1-2 seasons to build more experience while Xavi and Iniesta aged.
Jermaine Pennant.
Could’ve been quite a player with the right mentality.
I also forgot about Franny Jeffers until I saw some Kolo Touré punditry last month where he called Nketiah a ‘fox in the box’.