Friday, August 01, 2014

Caviar trumps sausage...again


"With all due respect to them, I said to him that he was too good for Arsenal."--Steven Gerrard on a conversation he had with Luis Suarez in 2013.

"Have you ever seen Gerrard win the league?"--Matt Haines to some Liverpool supporters in Manhattan, July 2014.

Stevie G., the man who fell over, thought it was a good idea to insult Arsenal. He's the Liverpool captain, after all. He was the England captain, too. He'd like to thank John Terry for being a racist twat.

Liverpool are were once a club for which honours seemed to be an entitlement. They won the league quite a bit in the 1970s and 80s. Of course, the last time they won the domestic league was in between George Graham's two title-winning sides. That was, let me count, 24 years ago?

"Alexis Sanchez asked me 'Should I move to Liverpool?' I told him, 'They aren't the team they used to be. Join Arsenal."--Javier Mascherano

"You're never too good for Arsenal and Steven Gerrard knows that. But I can understand completely that he asked him to stay because he wanted him (Suarez) to play with him and have a chance to win the Premier League. But it didn't happen, and anyway, Suarez left."--Arsene Wenger

That cabbage truck that rode out of town?  Well, Arsene Wenger didn't just fall off of it. Were he a cowboy, he could calmly say "This ain't my first rodeo." Wenger actually has wits to match with anyone, anywhere.

Sometimes it's done simply through his teams' results.

“The difference from last year is we are on an upward spiral in terms of confidence and they are in a negative spiral in terms of results. And to get out of that negative spiral is extremely difficult."--Andre Villas-Boas, 3 March, 2013

How exactly did that work out for you and your wee trenchcoat, sir?


"Am I afraid of failure? He is a specialist in failure. I’m not. So if one supposes he’s right and I’m afraid of failure, it’s because I don’t fail many times. So maybe he’s right. I’m not used to failing. But the reality is he’s a specialist because, eight years without a piece of silverware, that’s failure."--Jose Mourinho, 14 February, 2014

Chelsea won nothing, and Real Madrid under Carlo Ancelotti won the Champions League.  Arsenal, of course, defeated Tottenham, Liverpool, and Everton on the way to winning the FA Cup for the fifth time under Wenger. Cheers, Jose.

But there are of course times when Wenger looks at those sniping at him and must think, "His jest will savour but of shallow wit, when thousands weep more than did laugh at it." And that is when he reveals just how much of a command of the English language he has.

"They are scrappers who rely on belligerence - we are the better team."--Sir Alex Ferguson, May 2002

"Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home."--Arsene Wenger, in reply

"I think he is one of these people who is a voyeur. He likes to watch other people. There are some guys who, when they are at home, they have a big telescope to see what happens in other families. He speaks and speaks and speaks about Chelsea."--Jose Mourinho, October 2005

"When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent."--Arsene Wenger, in reply

"If you eat caviar every day it is difficult to come back to sausages."--Arsene Wenger on supporters booing the Gunners during a dire 1-1 draw versus Middlesbrough, November 1998

"You ask 100 people, 99 will say it's very bad and the 100th will be Mark Hughes."--Arsene Wenger after Hughes defended Emmanuel Adebayor's stamp on Robin van Persie

So you see, Stevie G, in a battle of wits, you came unarmed. Better luck next time, lad.

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