The Crow - Dear Chelsea fans, aren’t you a little bit embarrassed?
Published: 3 February, 2011
ARSENAL
AN open letter to all Chelsea fans:
We are aware that Chelsea this week acquired Fernando Torres for £50million from Liverpool and almost half that again on David Luiz. As supporters of the club, the people of Camden and Islington would like to know, and I’m asking on their behalf here, whether you feel at all embarrassed?
We would like to know whether there is a teeny-weeny part of you that thinks: “Hold on, this isn’t right.” Just a teeny-weeny part? Maybe? There is, isn’t there? Isn’t there?
We just wondered if this was the case, as some people have been saying that this kind of spending could look a little like Chelsea were trying to buy success. Again.
They are saying that it looks like, because the team has been misfiring, there has been a rush to the chequebook. Again. Some people are pointing out the fact that the amount of money spent on Torres was £10m more than the cost of the entire Arsenal team which beat Everton on Tuesday night and sits above Chelsea in the league table.
Do you wish that your team could win without resorting to this big spending? Don’t you wish youth team players like Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere had the chance to graduate from the youth team?
And we just wondered that when people say that football has been ruined by money, whether they might just be talking about your team? We just wondered.
Yours,
RICHARD OSLEY
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
I WENT through a series of interesting thought processes while watching the nightmare that was Fulham versus Spurs on Sunday.
I wondered what was the worst thing that could happen if Tottenham lost this FA Cup tie?
I concluded that, apart from a few idiots with predictive texting and one or two columnists who make me laugh with embarrassment when talking about their own teams, there wasn’t really that much!
Life throws up these challenges that make you realise in the bigger scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. Now having said all that this game was about two terrible mistakes by a man who doesn’t usually make that many. The decision to send Michael Dawson off was harsh considering some of the grappling witnessed in penalty areas from corners and free kicks every week. If we really are applying the letter of the law and Dawson did deny a goal-scoring opportunity how come the striker got a shot off that was saved by Heurelho Gomez?
In truth Spurs defending was akin to times gone by, times I’d hoped we’d never see again.
The thought of being out of the FA Cup is a lot less stressful than the thought of a Spurs campaign that promised so much and achieved so little.
Meanwhile £35million for Andy Carroll... what’s the world coming to?
TONY DALLAS