Todays Tales

It’s OK, it’s OK – he said he was sorry. That probably makes Jonjo Shelvey cool with Rafa Benitez, Mike Ashley, all the teammates he let down and the 52,000 Newcastle United fans on Sunday. I mean, you can do anything stupid and it is OK if you say sorry, right? Gary Cahill must have breathed a huge sigh of relief after realising he wasn’t the daftest captain of the weekend. Rafa has forgiven Jonjo, in public anyway, probably because he needs all the players he can get right now so banishing him to the reserves would be counterproductive.

Diego Costa is claiming he is “being treated like a criminal” by Chelsea, as he parties himself towards obesity in Brazil. I am not sure which Judiciary system you are basing this on Diego, but most criminals don’t get their £200k plus wage packet a week, freedom to party all night long and the genuine chance of going back to play football for a living. Costa also made it clear that he is more than happy to continue his all expenses paid holiday in South America going right up until Atletico Madrid are allowed to buy players again. Seems reasonable.

Antonio Conte is doing his best to pretend the Spanish international striker no longer exists and is focusing his attention on finding new and different ways to ask his employers to buy some players. Losing to Burnley may not have worked as well as he had hoped, as they are being linked to Virgil van Dijk once more who, if you recall, has told the world he only wants to go to Liverpool where he’d rather be paired with players like Joel Matip of Dejan Lovren, rather than defenders that can usually defend like Gary Cahill and David Luiz. Well, it’s his choice I guess.

Cesar Azpiliceuta has stated that the club needs “top players”, kinda continuing the theme in London started by Danny Rose of Tottenham Hotspur last week. He didn’t go on to mention Google, probably knowing that nobody has ever successfully Googled himself as his surname is an absolute bitch to spell correctly.

Jurgen Klopp has said he feels let down by the timing of Philippe Coutinho’s transfer request. What he didn’t go on to say was “why on earth would he want to go and play with one average Brazilian midfielder when we’ve just got rid of one here”. If he had said that, it would have been very harsh on Lucas Leiva who actually won something at the weekend, lifting the Italian Supacopa with Lazio. I can see where Coutinho is coming from though, imagine playing in the same team as Paulinho week in week out. I’d go to Barcelona for that privilege.

Having been told off several times for expressing open interest in players that are not theirs, Liverpool have made it known publically that they wouldn’t say no to signing Nice’s Jean Michael Seri and they are more than happy to follow the appropriate channels. See, sometimes football clubs do learn from their mistakes.

Stoke City were not Stoke-a-lona enough for Mark Hughes’ liking at the weekend, so he has contacted Paris Saint-Germain to see if they have any creative attacking talent surplus to requirements since they signed that Brazilian fella. It turns out they do, and Jese could well be on his way from Paris to Stoke. There is no way on earth his agent has told him the truth, is there?

Tottenham Hotspur have responded well to the pleas from Poch to sign someone, anyone. They are now being heavily linked to Lazio’s Keita Balde, who will be delighted to play second fiddle to Harry Kane and Dele Alli, and Ajax’s Davison Sanchez who reckons he might have a shout of a game at centre back once in a while. Ajax are not so keen on that one happening, however.