Player(s) of the Week

In my usual unimaginative fashion, I thought I would steal an idea from Jon Mac's blog and have my own 'saint of the week', only limiting it at the moment to footballers. I had thought about having a 'Classics Scholar of the week' and even a 'Classics Babe of the week', but I knew the former would pretty much be limited to the lecturers at St. Andrews, and as for the latter, well, lets be honest, there aren't many of those (except Alice Koenig). For this week I would like to have 3 Players of the week, each of who, for one reason or another, has made an immense contribution to world football over the past few weeks.




Player 1: Steven Gerrard

In my opinion, Steven Gerrard is the best midfielder in the world at the moment, bar none. I don't think his skill and ability to completely change the course of a match in a split second can be underestimated. We saw it in the 2005 Champions' League final, when he pretty much single handedly lifted an average Liverpool side from complete collapse to defeat A.C. Milan, Shevchenko and all. If Rooney isn't playing in this year's world cup, I certainly think that Gerrard is the man that can make it happen for England




Player 2: Samuel Eto'o

I have been able to watch Eto'o a bit this year in the Champions League and the Spanish League, and I definitely think the hype that has surrounded him is well deserved. He is extremely quick, makes brilliant runs, and is simply extremely hard to defend against. He almost scored a beauty of a goal on Wednesday by cleverly turning past the Arsenal defender, and his shot was only just turned onto the post by Almunia. He is the type of player who I think could light up the Premiership.




Player 3: Thierry Henry

Signed a new 4 year contract with Arsenal today which is great news for the Premiership and for Arsenal. Perhaps missed a few chances in the Champions' League final which he ordinarily would have taken, but he worked his socks of, and in my opinion played better than Ronaldinho. One of the best forwards in the world- there is just noone quite like him.