Beef Bagel

The Bagel is rather excited. I’ve been trawling through this weeks articles, e-mails and epistles and damn it, I just like what I’m reading. Five without defeat, still in all cups, players on their way back from injury, a couple of transfer stories and some of our boys talking a good talk. This combined with a trip this evening to MK Plastics (we’ll be showing them who the Dons are) and well, frankly, I’m hard. I’m harder than a 3 day old crusty baguette. I’m as hard as marking Aaron Lennon. I’m hard like learning Hungarian is hard, like marble in a church, like Chuck Norris. You get the picture? No, harder. Yep that’s it.

So, lets unpack this shall we? Well, strangely it all started as I was reading the team news for tonight’s game and it’s the injury list that got me going. Teemu Tainio, everybody’s favourite Finn, is on his way back from a hernia operation. Actually, it’s his second hernia operation. He had both sides done a couple of years ago but this time it’s just the left. Not sure why he didn’t have both done again while they were in there. Won’t he feel all lop sided now? By the way, I recommend not putting the word ‘hernia’ into a Google image search.

Anyway, so Teemu wont be back for a good three weeks but he does admit that he was on bad form before the op this season.

“I know I wasn’t playing my best, but it was a bit of a shock to find out I needed an operation. Hopefully my bad games will be behind me now and I will come back stronger.”

He was playing with a hernia all along. If you’ve ever had one or were foolish enough to actually do that Google image search, you’ll see how that could put a bit of a crimp on your football form. So Teemu should be back soon and even better than before. That, makes me hard.

Didier Zokora. He makes me hard too. He’s probably not feeling too hard himself right now as he fights off a minor bout of malaria but then a minor bout of malaria is probably about as pleasant as losing a limb. One may wonder exactly how he managed to contract this disease in N17. I don’t think the mosquitoes in Hackney marshes carry the malarial plasmodium but I do have two theories for you to chose from at your discretion as to how the midfielder’s been laid out. I shall call them Bagel Theory 1 and Bagel Theory 2.

Bagel Theory 1

When the anopheles or malarial mosquito pierces a person’s skin it injects anitcoagulant saliva so it can continue to feed without the blood clotting. Now, this saliva contains the malaria disease itself, the Plasmodium. The Plasmodium heads straight for the hosts liver cells where it sits, multiplies and bursts out into the blood, causing fever as it does so. Now, some type of Plasmodium don’t do this straight away. Some go the liver and just hang out for 6-12 months but have been known to remain dormant for up to three years, after which point they finally get the arse together to do the job that they came there for in the first place. Hence, a ‘relapse’ effect. So, while Didier Zee will have picked up malaria and indeed gone through it all a long time ago in Africa, he’s now having the relapse in the UK despite there being no anopheles mosquitoes for hundreds of miles.

Bagel Theory 2

Didier has been feeling a little home sick of late. (You see where I’m going with this?) His neat London pad, lovely and tastefully designed as it is, is a little, well, minimal for the tastes of the Ivorian. He tried adding a few plants…and then a few more, some ferns, giant lilies, a lion, a waterfall but he still couldn’t sleep despite turning the thermostat right up to ‘tropical.’ It was just too quiet for any real shut eye. Sure the cicadas he installed make that peaceful clicking but without the danger of being dive-bombed by the odd kamikaze mosquito he couldn’t catch a wink. So, he got some mozzies shipped in and the rest is history.

It’s entirely up to you in which theory you put more stock, those scientists with their microscopes and books and things or The Bagel with his tales of the jungle and…well, you know…what I’ve got. I know where my money lies.

‘So why does this make him hard?’ you’re asking yourselves. This sustained absence from the first XI, which is due to go on for another couple of weeks, by the way, has meant that Man Mountain Tom Huddlestone has been playing every single game. We can all the see the potential of Big Bad Tom but the anchor role is a very sensitive position. These players must be nurtured. It’s probably the most influential role on the pitch and as such young players can find an awful lot of responsibility on their shoulders all of a sudden. So what Tom needs is a good run in the side with no suitor on the bench breathing down his neck and with both Didier Zee and Tainio out that’s exactly what he’s got. It’s such a joy to watch fully experienced Premiership players throw themselves at him like ships crashing on the rocks. He shakes them all off and over the next few games we’re going to get the pleasure of watching his confidence grow and grow and that, that makes me hard.

Next down then injury list is Steeeeeeeeeeed, as they used to know him at Fulham. Rumour has it he’s only a couple of weeks away from being fit. I wish someone would just have the balls to write the injury list as it actually is,

Tainio (hernia), Zokora (illness), Malbranque (cock)

I wasn’t overjoyed at the time when we signed him due to the fact I was glued to the internet and Sky Sports News, with my ear, literally to the ground, a hazel stick in my hands trying to divine as much information as I could and an empty coup on the roof waiting for my carrier pigeons to return with news of who we were going to get as a left winger. However, tricky little Steed may bring what we need to create a few goals out of the blue. His M.O. simply reeks of final ball and just imagine him linking up with Robbie Keane, two sets of the fastest, most tricky feet in the west. There’ll be sparks flying between their legs like those Jacobs Ladder things they use to dress the labs of all mad scientists in B-movies. These things…

…you know what they do don’t you? They make me hard.

There’s one more thing that really sets my cement and that’s this man…

…look at him. He doesn’t even need to open his eyes, that’s how hard he is. That’s all the vision he needs most of the time but God forbid should he open them…

…but we all know how great he is so what’s new? Well, not too much. Just a little quote.

“We are still not the football machine I want us to be with so many individual parts working together efficiently - but that’s for the future.”

We may not be on the finest form just now but as far as The Bagel’s concerned we’re still playing pretty decent football but MJ says there’s more to come. He wants an improvement and if it’s more than goals he’s talking about then I’m just rippling with excitement to see what he comes up with and that, that ladies, gentlemen, bagels, one and all, that makes The Bagel hard.

Hard as bagels.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Bagel News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.