Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

Placenta-forward

Tue Nov 17 08:53AM

Arsenal striker Robin van Persie's trip to the Balkans for placenta therapy on his ankle injury has caused predictable consternation.

The Dutchman has taken drastic action after suffering ankle ligament damage playing for Netherlands against Italy on Saturday.

Van Persie said of the doctor: "She is vague about her methods but I know she massages you using fluid from a placenta."

Call Early Doors old-fashioned, but having horse placenta smothered all over your limbs doesn't sound like the kind of thing you want your doctor to be vague about.

However, it is a tabloid sub-editor's dream ('Well, he is a placenta-forward', 'Let's hope he doesn't suffer a foetal injury', 'As treatments go, it's womb or bust'). 

When a Dutch TV presenter told Sky Sports News of the treatment yesterday, the channel was so impressed it immediately slashed its projected recovery time from six weeks to two, before mysteriously losing faith in the power of placenta and settling for four to six.

Footballers have always been suspicious of alternative therapies. When Glenn Hoddle was England manager, he introduced Ray Parlour to faith healer Eileen Drewery, who stood behind the midfielder and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Short back and sides, please," quipped Parlour. He never played for England again. Had Drewery obliged, and taken a pair of scissors to Parlour's unkempt curly mop, she might have been respected instead of ridiculed.

Sam Allardyce was mocked for introducing pilates and yoga at three clubs until it turned out the techniques worked.

If Gary Speed were reunited with Big Sam at Blackburn, he could probably play on into his 50s.

Fulham, meanwhile, have a cryotherapy room where players are exposed to temperatures of minus 120 Celsius - at Aberdeen they replicate the technique by stepping outside.

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Doublespeak of the day comes from David Beckham, who claims his high-profile falling-out with Landon Donovan helped bring the LA Galaxy squad closer.

The club's two highest-profile players had a public slanging match over Beckham's apparent refusal to "bust his ass" for the club, with Donovan claiming the Englishman was "not a leader, not a captain" and "not a good team-mate".

Despite (or because of) the row, Galaxy have had their best season of the Beckham era, reaching the MLS championship game.

Beckham claimed: "There's nothing wrong with a bit of controversy in a club. It brings players and teams together and it's done that."

Come again? Is Beckham genuinely suggesting Donovan's seething resentment towards him is a good thing?

Presumably, if the pair enjoyed a relationship of Ant and Dec-style symbiosis, the surfeit of goodwill and stability at the club would have made a play-off place impossible.

Early Doors will admit it doesn't watch much Major League Soccer - in fact, nobody does - but it would bet Galaxy's resurgence has more to do with Bruce Arena's installation as manager than the blood feud between Beckham and Donovan.

And as if to prove ED's point, Becks has been left out of the All-Star team. They care about this sort of thing in the US.

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ED had its say on George Burley's sacking yesterday, but would like to publish one reader response, from mcguinnessmufc:

"Cant believe what I'm reading here: 'The SFA would be better off persuading the youth of Scotland to put down their deep-fried Mars bars and have a kickabout.' That's the worst statement I've ever read on a respected website. So when England get put out the World cup will I see a statement like: 'The FA should persuade the youth of England to use their Burberry jackets for goalposts and stop mugging pensioners on the streets'? Absolutely shocking."

Yes, ED imagines you'll see something very much like that. Thanks for the material.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "**** off Irish p****. You are out." What Lassana Diarra allegedly said to Keith Andrews. Diarra's version of events: "I did not lose my head. It lasted for 30 seconds and afterwards I went calmly back to the dressing-room. I don't know about any altercation."

FOREIGN VIEW: The Basque Country could play host to the national football team again after an absence of more than 40 years after its parliament voted to ask the Spanish FA to stage matches there.

Legislators in the autonomous community, where Spain's ruling Socialists won control earlier this year, also voted to ask organisers of the Vuelta to bring the cycling race back for the first time in 31 years.

The authorities have been reluctant to stage major sporting events in the Basque Country in part due to the activities of ETA, the guerrilla group which has killed more than 800 people in its campaign for independence.

Spain's last football match there was a European Championship qualifier against Turkey played at Athletic Bilbao's San Mames stadium on May 31, 1967, and the Vuelta has not passed through since 1978.

Gorka Maneiro, a representative from the Progress and Democracy Union who proposed the two motions, said the move was designed to inject a "dose of normality".

"The Spanish football team has become a global icon in recent years," Maneiro said. "Their talent suggests they will be well received at any stadium, including any of the Basque ones."

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