Early Doors - Your morning briefing blog

Defending the Drog

Tue Oct 21 08:59AM

Didier Drogba faces one of those ubiquitous FA probes over comments made in his autobiography over his red card in the Champions League final.

Drogba was sent off late in extra time for a girly little slap on Nemanja Vidic, and said that he ought to have gone the whole hog and clocked the Serb seeing as he was going to get his marching orders anyway.

He wrote: "I have seen the match on video and I believe I should not have been sent off with three minutes to go.

"If I had punched him, I would have understood. Now I wish I had."

If that shows anything, it is admirable restraint on Drogba's part. He wanted to punch Vidic, but he didn't.

Instead he faces a fine, or at the very least a ticking off, for an incredibly tame comment.

Incidentally, Vidic responded by attempting to rip out Drogba's throat with his bare hands and had to be restrained by half a dozen team-mates.

But because the Serb's controversial public remarks only stretch as far as the fact that it rains a lot in Manchester, he is OK.

Compare what Drogba said to Roy Keane's tale of revenge on Alf Inge Haaland, which had to be toned down in later editions.

"I'd waited long enough. I f****** hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you ****.

"And don't ever stand over me again sneering about fake injuries. And tell your pal [David] Wetherall there's some for him as well. I didn't wait for Mr Elleray to show the red card. I turned and walked to the dressing room."

Next to that, Drogba's 'I wish I had punched him but didn't' seems even more tame. Nice of Keane to afford the referee appropriate respect, though.

But it is clear the era of interesting football books is long gone.

Wayne Rooney's autobiography, while well written (by Hunter Davies, not Rooney), was unremittingly dull because the lad had nothing to say.

Yet remarkably he found himself on the wrong end of libel action after having a go at Everton manager David Moyes.

Similarly, Ashley Cole's honesty about his contract dispute with Arsenal has made him one of the most hated people in Britain (number six, in fact - between Heather Mills and Gary Glitter).

People think footballers who speak in platitudes are idiots, but the opposite is true. Why else do you think David Beckham still enjoys near-universal popularity?

One of the reasons footballers have become so detached from the fans is that they so rarely say anything interesting - and when they do, everybody (ED included) leaps all over them, ensuring they never repeat the crime of speaking their mind.

The FA need to introduce a rule - something along the lines of diplomatic immunity - that allows players one book in which they can say absolutely anything, and nobody is allowed to give them any stick about it.

Disappointingly, it seems the one man whose book Early Doors would pay good money to read won't put pen to paper just yet.

Step forward Mr Joseph Barton: "England did nothing in that World Cup, so why were they bringing books out? 'We got beat in the quarter-finals. I played like s***. Here's my book'."

- - -

Proof that Tottenham really are a joke - today's Guardian devotes three quarters of a page to 25 Tottenham-related rib-ticklers.

Early Doors's three favourites are as follows:

1- Juande Ramos, shortly after another training session, comments to the head groundsman at White Hart Lane how impressive the pitch is looking. "It ought to," replies the groundsman. "We put 70 million quid's worth of manure on it every week."

2- I met this really kinky girl last night. 'Humiliate me,' she said ... So I bought her a Tottenham shirt.

3- What's the difference between Juande Ramos and a cowboy? A cowboy wears Spurs on his boots whereas Ramos is a crap manager.

ED was intrigued to see that Spurs fans have pledged to protest against the club's plight this weekend.

They will call for the removal of the chairman, the sporting director, the manager and quite possibly the tea lady, who always forgets that Gus Poyet has two sugars and just a splash of semi-skimmed.

If the protest is anything like as successful as Daniel Levy's pledge to qualify for the Champions League, then the suits have nothing to fear.

The fans will spend the whole week banging on about their ambition to make this one of the greatest fan protests in the world, before the whole thing descends into chaos by quarter past three.

- - -

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Gordon Strachan laments his dwarfish Celtic side ahead of the trip to face Manchester United:"We've been hit by injuries in important areas and we're actually trying to sign Snow White to lead my players out at Old Trafford. It's not just Ferdinand and Vidic. You've got Fletcher who's a giant, Berbatov, Ronaldo can leap, John O'Shea is big. They've got pace, power, height, ability, determination. I don't know if any of my players have that - and I'm not being cheeky."

FOREIGN VIEW: Corriere dello Sport reckons that Big Fat Ronaldo is in talks with Serie A minnows Siena. Nobody else wants him - and this video tells you how sad that is.

COMING UP: It's Manchester United v Celtic, Fenerbahce v Arsenal and six more in the Champions League. We've got live, minute-by-minute coverage of it all. And don't forget the Zenit St Petersburg v BATE Borisov blockbuster is an early kickoff - 17:30 UK time.

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