On a visit to Amsterdam back in March (cultural trip) I got talking to some Ajax fans in a bar who said Anita was (insert Dutch accent here) ‘too shmall to play in ze midfield’.
Europe can’t entirely explain all of our ills this term, but neither can it be dismissed. As Graeme Souness once said when he was in charge here c2006, it’s not an excuse it’s a fact.
While we’re obviously a long way from the situation we were in in the nineties, when every game was a sell-out with only a 36,000 capacity, is it now time to expand so that everyone that wants to, can get in – even if it’s just for the very biggest matches?
That moment he ran down Ashley Cole and handed the England left back his backside on a plate will stay with me for years, and for anyone not at the game I can tell you it looked much better from my vantage point in the Leazes than any TV highlights package later that night.