This is true – genuine for those who wish to read it. I’m just back from the pub. Chatting to my mate who I shared a cab with from the airport to hotel in Napoli. He’s away scheme too, and hasn’t missed a game for scores of years. And he’s well known to the club.
This is truly what happened in the team hotel in napoli…
3 of us jumped in a cab from the airport. My mate was in the front (he’s 6ft 5) and me and the mate I do all the away games with was in the back. We stopped at matey in the front’s hotel first – which was the Vesuvius. This is where the team was staying. There were loads of local fans outside and many police. Many fans got ousted from this hotel after booking the hotels (and getting confirmation) as the team block booked the first floor and the hotel needed room (really). Those ousted were offered other hotels. We waited in the cab for a few minutes (the driver had a smoke) and then we went on to our hotel, about 1km further around the port.
Anyway, later on that afternoon – at about 4pm local time on the day of the game – my mate at the vesuvius hotel wonders up to the first floor as it wasn’t cordoned off, or anything preventative like that. He hears lampard, cole and boas all having a shouting match. He stood there listening to it – gobsmacked. Come 5pm the team were off to the ground and my mate and some of the other guys leave the bar to see them off. He said the team looked so down. Beaten. Heads down. No motivation. He said they all just looked beaten. This was 3 or 4 hours before the game.
One can assume Cole was asking why he, England left back (still excellent but not maybe quite as good as two years ago) was being left on the bench whilst bosingwa, a mediocre right-footed right full back, was taking his place on the park instead of him. Or maybe they wondered why rhino essien wasn’t starting in front of the back four, which included the champions league virgin cahill and ‘side show bob’, instead of meireles, who has been very poor these last couple of months and was soon found out with the napoli equaliser. And maybe Lamps was expressing his thoughts on malouda being on the park at all, whilst Lamps warmed the bench.
The whole fkn thing is a joke. Boas is so far out of his depth he needs inflated armbands. He’s trying to make a statement and show who’s boss but he’s failing big time.
I was also told that Di Matteo isn’t liked at all. He is aloof and tries to be the big boss too. He is exactly the opposite of Wilkins, who held it all together. Di Matteo has been a manager of west brom, so he is now trying to play the different level boss to the players.
It’s not a happy Bridge.