EPL Ramblings – Bellamy’s Knee Sucks, Roque Rolling Away & More…

By: Wayne Farry | April 21st, 2009

First of all, I’d like to say sorry to the EPL Offside readers for my absence in the last month, I’ve been buried beneath books in college and have only been able to keep up my activity with the Man Utd Offside. Fair play to Rob for regularly keeping the blog updated, as he always does.

So as I always do with the EPL Ramblings, I’m just going to talk (or ramble, if you will) about the random goings-on in the EPL at the moment. The first piece of business to address is that Man City have been hit by the news that Craig Bellamy, due to a knee injury, is going to be out for the rest of the season, probably. According to something I read today it is Bellamy’s thirteenth knee injury in six seasons.

It’s another blow for Mark Hughes as he tries to hold on to his presumably tenuous job status. He spent something near €14M on the Welshman and he’s scored to goals in eight EPL matches for City. You really have to question a manager who pays that much money for a player who’s played twenty EPL games in the last eighteen months. But aside from all the gossip about Sparky’s job, you simply can’t dispute that Bellamy’s injured, no matter how hard you try.

Another piece of news that may or may not eventually involve Mark Hughes is that Roque Santa Cruz has apparently told the Blackburn Rovers hierarchy that he intends to leave at the end of the current campaign. Blackburn have underperformed in the EPL this season and so has Santa, but his season has been blighted by injuries so it’s more of a comment on lack of momentum rather than lack of form. He was highly in demand last summer with Man City having bids rejected for him and rumours that Man Utd were keeping tabs on the big Paraguayan. Whether he’ll be as highly sought after this summer is unlikely, but if a player like him says he wants to leave, there’ll be a lot of clubs interested.

Some tidbits now, in other words news that I didn’t think was worthy of me spending my sweet time writing lots about, so here it is. Guus Hiddink has reiterated all of our favourite motto; Russia comes first. By this he means that he’s entirely committed to Russia and still has no intention of staying on with Chelsea after the summer.

Finally, a nice wee interview I found today on the Guardian website with Fabio and Rafael da Silva. In this interview we find out that they’re not awfully fond of Real Madrid’s Pepe, Fabio has a little Brazilian wife at home and Rafael enjoys a glass of claret every now and then. Check it out here.