Park Life

Oba Martins Mr Eko Looks like the Alabama swamps.... Are you suggesting Emre sent him off on a mystery tour? Well they are 'room mates'. What with the Gallas thing and now Oba.....This could develop into the 'slave' issue that Moaney was intimating.

They're notoriously terrible, to be fair. Is it carpetbombabletastic?

Oba Martins Mr Eko Looks like the Alabama swamps....

He has played a lot of games this year, the Nigerian FA should have done better with all this mess and thought about the player.

Must have been a culture shock going from the Mourinho legendry match preperation to Glenda's 10 min. nasal whine just before the game starts.

"It is only a friendly and Nigeria cannot insist on Oba playing, and because he has had so much football this season, I will be asking him not to play against Ghana," Roeder said last week. GR seems to think there is no legal re-course.

He isn't really 'missing' though is he?

Aye I can see if it is the club saying no you cannot play against the players wishes, but that's a different situation. But the rule has to be the same across the board, otherwise (as long as the player is complicit in this) a club could just say: it's down to the player not wanting to play, nothing to do with us. I'd love to know what Martins is playing at btw. He's at a bar near Stamford Bridge.

He could take a leaf out of Drogba's book tbh.

It's all gone wrong since players started getting 'rights'.

Well if he is going down hill the way he goes down he will roll all the way to the bottom. I never realised he had asthma.

How the hell does that work? Banned from international games, ok. But domestic games? Why? It wouldn't be much of a deterrent though would it? - The punishment for refusing to play for your country being suspended from playing for your country. Frankly I'm surprise EU human rights laws allows it (in fact I would imagine it is illegal if it is ever challenged), it's like being suspended from work for not turning up to a charity fun run. Hunting down and shooting players that didn't turn up would be one HELL of a deretent, but that doesn't mean it would be correct or legal.... although knowing FIFA that wouldn't stop them trying it. Perhaps move the whole 'roadshow' to Alabama. A Fifa van drops off a panting Martins in the night...Locals high on hooch and waving shotguns sniffing the night air...etc...I see it as a location piece, perhaps with a sub-plot of a local farmgirl being raped... In all honesty Dafur would be the place for it at the moment. But again say fining them for breach or contract (assuming the do indeed sign one) for not turning up is one thing. But denying someones right to work for something that whilst related (you wouldn't get to play international football without domesitic unless you were an incredibly special case) is not directly the same thing. And not only does it infringe the player but it also punishes the club who have done nothing wrong at all. I'm amazed they can get away with it, in most other contexts there'd have been a test case already. 'Boss Freddy' chews on a huge hock of ham. Richard Burton plays on the grammy his burlesque rendition of 'Dark Satanic Mills' in full blown Welshery. Hark is that the persistant squeek of a mouse...? No it its Glen Rodent snaffling crumbs under 'Boss Freddies' huge cherry wood desk.

How the hell does that work? Banned from international games, ok. But domestic games? Why? It wouldn't be much of a deterrent though would it? - The punishment for refusing to play for your country being suspended from playing for your country. Frankly I'm surprise EU human rights laws allows it (in fact I would imagine it is illegal if it is ever challenged), it's like being suspended from work for not turning up to a charity fun run. Hunting down and shooting players that didn't turn up would be one HELL of a deretent, but that doesn't mean it would be correct or legal.... although knowing FIFA that wouldn't stop them trying it. Perhaps move the whole 'roadshow' to Alabama. A Fifa van drops off a panting Martins in the night...Locals high on hooch and waving shotguns sniffing the night air...etc...I see it as a location piece, perhaps with a sub-plot of a local farmgirl being raped...

Funny thing is I suspect Chelsea tend to burn our certain players...Robben has gone downhill over the last two years or so.

How the hell does that work? Banned from international games, ok. But domestic games? Why? It wouldn't be much of a deterrent though would it? - The punishment for refusing to play for your country being suspended from playing for your country.

Maybe Emre ate him, thinking he was a Negro chocolate bar?

Nothing too serious iirc. He seems skinnier and unfitter these days. He hasn't been on holiday to Russia or anything has he?

Fifa always ready to 'look after the money'.

Were there some injuries before Moaney got rid of him?

That's exactly it Baggio. 4231. Well then why not have Martins further forward than Owen. Or is that tearing up the handbook? Apart from scoring goals Owen offers little else in the way of team play, he would be ineffective out wide. I meant more as the veiled striker as Raul was in his prime 4/5 years ago. ON ME 'EAD SON! Is that Mido? Giving the goalie the eyes? I tell you what if you stare at it long enough you find the ball has gone between yer legs.

Point made. Unfortuanately if you can just about read and write you get to fly the planes.

That's exactly it Baggio. 4231. Well then why not have Martins further forward than Owen. Or is that tearing up the handbook? Apart from scoring goals Owen offers little else in the way of team play, he would be ineffective out wide. I meant more as the veiled striker as Raul was in his prime 4/5 years ago. ON ME 'EAD SON! Is that Mido?

Aye, they often play with two disciplined DM's. As you say though, where would Owen (or indeed Martins) fit into that. Martins could play out on the left or through the middle, he's the same type of player as Eto'o and he often cuts in from the left for Barcelona. Rijkaard has stuck to this iirc from the word go. ................Eto'o................. Ronny........Xavi...........Messi Eto'o and Ronaldinho often swap positions for large portions of the game, Eto'o spent the majority of the CL final out on the left. Personally I thrill at such interchanging and role defying styles.

'In the hole' they call it here luv. But on the continent the veiled striker rotates with the main striker and has more a less a free role. He is the one player who is expected to know what the most dangrous area for the opp is at anytime. Like Messi and Ronni do......They 'veil'. The act almost disinterested in striking untill you're picking the ball out of the net. Raul was also very good at it.

That's exactly it Baggio. 4231. Well then why not have Martins further forward than Owen. Or is that tearing up the handbook? Apart from scoring goals Owen offers little else in the way of team play, he would be ineffective out wide. I meant more as the veiled striker as Raul was in his prime 4/5 years ago.