Thank heavens the Premier’s back: our Blackburn Rovers preview will appear soon … Nice remain our team of choice, thanks …
Just as my back was turned – back in England for a few days – Eric Roy’s Nice took their first defeat of the season and it was a grim-sounding 4-0 thumping at Sochaux.
And then went out in the League Cup – which may seem familiar to Sunderland fans – in midweek, though at least the scoreline was more respectable (2-0) and it was away to this week’s Ligue 1 leaders, St Etienne (it’ll probably be someone else top next week).
Raymond Domenech cut a pathetic figure as French team coach in South Africa, humiliated by his players during the Mutiny of Knysna and then bringing his country into further disrepute with an act of gross discourtesy as France tumbled out of the World Cup. The players have been punished; now it’s his turn …
France also had a weekend off for internationals and probably wishes it hadn’t after yet again failing to score (in Friday’s 1-0 defeat by Belarus in Paris). But the big news is the dismissal of by the French Football Federation of Raymond Domenech for his part in the scandal of Les Bleus in South Africa.
Update: from the Sunderland Echo: photographs of Asamoah Gyan arriving at Newcastle Airport have been posted on Facebook.
For Salut! Sunderland’s Nice corner – our regular look at French football – I scoured today’s L’Equipe in vain hope of finding authoritative news that Asamoah Gyan is already booking his passage from Rennes to Roker.
One or two other French reports were still talking of our interest in bolstering an attack “trop dépendant de Darren Bent” as one put it. But the emphasis was more along the lines of “Sunderland not abandoning hope of signing…” than “Sunderland set to clinch deal ..”.
Apologies instantly to Tony who, commenting on the last piece, thought one bite at la cerise of French football was already more than enough.
Jeremy Robson , who clearly puts my stance on Evra, Anelka et al on a par with the way his ancestors regarded wicked coalowners, simply wouldn’t shut up. His thoughts are now published uninterrupted after an earlier technical glitch …
It was interesting to see the quotations from the “punished” French players referring to “being on strike” rather than “being banned”.
One thing is for certain, and that it that you can no longer kill someone who is already dead, any more than you can effectively blacklist players who have already withdrawn their labour.
Salut! Sunderland readers produced a healthy response to my account of the French Football Federation’s individual punishments for four of the five players called before a disciplinary commission.
One, presumably Irish reader still hadn’t forgotten the Hand of Henry; someone else considered it a mark of arrogance to have a point of view at all. And two Sunderland fans in Canada – both regular contributors to these pages – described events in terms suggesting a struggle between downtrodden labour and ruthless capitalism.
An 18-game international ban for Anelka, a five-match exclusion for Evra and taps on the wrist for Ribery and Toulalan. Have we heard the last of this French farce? Probably not; they can appeal …
Fair play to Patrice Evra, Jérémy Toulalan and Eric Abidal. Of the infamous five French World Cup rebels summoned to a disciplinary hearing in Paris today, they did at least deem the occasion worthy of their presence.
This old clip, starting with Eric Roy waltzing through the Chelsea defence to set up Niall Quinn’s first goal in that 4-1 hammering of too long ago, seemed as good a way as any of illustrating a quick look at events in French football over the weekend.
The team Eric now manages, Nice, who therefore qualify for Salut! Sunderland support in the way Paraguay and Ghana did in the World Cup. came back from the long trip to Brittany with three points after an excellent 2-1 win over Lorient. Loïc Remy, for whom each game is described as probably his last for Nice (Marseille have joined the clubs wanting him but Spurs look favourites) got the winner.
Good wins for moneyed QPR, Keano’s Ipswich, Millwall and Hull City – and back down to earth for Leeds – in what we must learn to call the Npower Championship but Salut! Sunderland observes a pre-season pledge to look out for Eric Roy’s Nice team in the French top flight. Not, however, a great opening match …
The shameful conduct of the French World Cup squad in South Africa has tarnished the reputation of the overpaid, brattish players concerned, and French football in general. Now, leaving aside the meaningless exclusion from a friendly, comes the reckoning. Colin Randall reports …
One of my regular newsagents had sold out of L’Equipe. It was first item on the French TF1 news last night. The French Football Federation has sent five players to a disciplinary commission for their part in the “billionaires’ strike”, as one French magazine called it.
