Morning all, here’s a quick Interlull round-up for you.
It was an eventful night for Ben White who, according to reports, was booed when introduced as a second half sub for England in their 1-1 draw against Uruguay last night. Not unexpected, I guess, but still lame. Then he scored a goal, that should win him some favour with the dickheads. Seems not, the Guardian match report said, “The response of the crowd to the announcement of the goalscorer’s name? Another round of boos.”
Sometimes life is complicated. It’s hard to know what to think about certain matters, but around this there’s obvious clarity in my opinion. Anyone who boos Ben White is a wanker. Simple. Then there was a late incident in which minor contact from him in the box saw Uruguay awarded a penalty from which they equalised. I guess there were more boos, but … you know … wankers.
Maybe Ben White will wonder why he bothered, but he might also just think those wankers are just wankers, and he’d be right. You know why? It’s because they’re wankers. In more worrying news though, Noni Madueke started the game but had to come off in first half. It seems to have happened in this moment, but I can’t say for sure as I didn’t watch. There was also post-game footage of him in a leg brace which, even if they are applying an abundance of caution to this potential problem, is never a good sign.
It’s got to be a manager’s nightmare when players go away for these meaningless friendlies just as we’re about to get into the business end of the season, and they pick up an injury. The challenge on Phil Foden, as much as I want us to see off Man City and win the title, was an absolute disgrace from Barcelona’s oaf-in-chief Ronald Araujo, and the bloke wasn’t even booked. So, we’ll just have to wait and see on Madueke, and I’m sure Mikel Arteta will be less than pleased.
For me, regardless of what you think of any player, there’s no upside to an injury at this point of the season. We need as many hands on deck as possible, as many options as we can muster, because every game is going to be a big challenge. Let’s keep fingers crossed for Madueke, but when you see a player with his leg in a brace with less than 2 months of the season to play, you can’t help but fear his race is run for this campaign. After the Eberechi Eze injury blow last week, it’s another complication we really did not need.
Elsewhere, Kai Havertz played 62 minutes of Germany’s helter-skelter 4-3 win over Switzerland. He didn’t get on scoresheet but had a couple of shots on target and missed 1 big chance, according to SofaScore. Hopefully useful minutes for him all the same. Martin Zubimendi replaced Rodri in the 77th minute of Spain’s 3-0 win over Serbia, a game in which Cristhian Mosquera made his full debut, so congratulations to him. And in Andorra, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly both played the full 90 as England U21s needed a late penalty to salvage a 1-1 draw against the tiny home nation.
Update: Seems Ethan came off in the second half.
I think that’s it until next week, so let’s leave it there for this morning. I’ll be back with more here tomorrow, we might lose an hour’s sleep when the clocks go forward tonight, but we’ll have those brighter evenings as we head towards summer.
Enjoy your Saturday folks.
