We’ve not heard from Cantona for a while so what better way to reintroduce himself than with the sort of bollocks he spouted when avoiding jail time for karate kicking his studded boots into that Crystal Palace yob in January 1995.
Sure the yob was a nasty, loud mouth but sticks and stones!
It’s always been my opinion that Eric, having been stolen from Leeds for a paltry £900K, was jealous of losing his Old Trafford adulation to Manchester United’s subsequent, then British record, signing, just 2 weeks before, of Andy Cole (who would surely have been as big a Man U legend if he hadn’t had both legs broken in a reserve game at Liverpool in ’96) for £7m, & King Eric decided to do something to make the Man U fans regret their disloyalty to him.
If that was his desire (and only he knows), some bollocks about Trawlers and Fish and sure enough, on October 1st 1995, just 9 months after his now celebrated Kung Fu kick, Eric was welcomed back onto the Old Trafford field with the joy and enthusiasm of the Second Coming.
Given that result, today’s little speech, almost certainly with UEFA’s approval, elevating guys who kick a bit of plastic around for obscene amounts of money, to saviours of mankind, was not just a slap in the face for UEFA & Eric’s shared nemesis, Michel Platini, but must surely herald Eric’s return, in some form or other, to football’s halls of power.
Personally, I’m predicting UEFA will give Eric a sort of Official Match Philosopher role, so rather than wonder why the game has been stopped, yet again, for some microscopic VAR infringement, we’ll get Eric’s “cryptic wisdom” and we’ll be too busy wondering what the Kung is on about now than to think about how the beautiful game is being destroyed by paper-shufflers.
Fixball - they're playing it cause we're buying it. 