Sagittarius in Japan

I would dearly love to know what Sir Alex Ferguson says and does during those precious few moments when he is out of range of the twitching ears of the press corps. Surely we are not to believe that he believes that Michael Carrick is worth the king’s ransom he has paid for him. 14 million pounds, set to rise to as much as 18.6 million based on appearances is no small sum for a man who, at 25, is yet to show signs of living up to the hype surrounding his performances as a teenager at West Ham. We shall see.
Ferguson has compared the signing to that of Gary Pallister, once, at 2.6 million pounds, the most expensive centre-half in
England. Perhaps this is to be taken to mean that Carrick will be turned from a skilled but unproven midfield distributor to a skilled but blustering central defender. All Ferguson needs to do is unearth another Steve Bruce and he’d once again be able to boast the distinction of fielding the two most flushed faces in football. Go Fergie.

With Ghanaians John Paintsil joining West Ham United and namesake John Mensah looking set to join newly promoted
Reading, at least two top flight English clubs will be able to profit from the talent of arguably the most exciting team at the World Cup. The African legion has been steadily growing in British football in recent years. It is a surprise that it has taken Africans so long to establish a foothold; arguably the most successful of the Premiership era has been
South Africa’s Lucas Radebe. The former
Leeds and Bafana Bafana captain was a mainstay at the
Yorkshire club from his arrival in 1994 until his retirement in 2005. Linguistic and cultural ties would be expected to help make the transition simpler for Anglophone Africans, the way they seem to do for
Africa’s Francophone presence in
France. So why is it only recently that Africans, from the English speaking world or otherwise have begun to prosper at the top level in British leagues?