I've recently had a chat with a client of ours about Roman Pavlyuchenko. Our client is Russian and also supports Spartak Moscow and Manchester United (don't they all?!). I told him that I support Spurs and immediately, his face lite up. Before I could say a word, he said "Roman Pavlyuchenko!".So I asked for some info on our player. We spoke for ages about Roman, Modric, Manchester United, Hiddink, England and finally, Tottenham.
Our client (we'll call him Mr. X), said that the decent newspapers in Moscow are filled with direct quotes from players and their agents all the time. You'll never get "a source close to the player", or "a club insider said" type comments. Mr. X told me that he read that Pav has said that he's unhappy at the moment because he feels he's in great shape and form and wants to be given the chance to play.
"I completely agree with him. He would have been better off at a club like Arsenal where they play good football". I smiled and explained that we also try to play "good football".
"Yes, but Roman isn't in the team. You have such a good player, you know the one..." I asked if he was talking about Luka Modric.
"Yes. He is fantastic!" Again, his face sparked up. "He plays football as it should be played." I agreed with him and we spoke about the Liverpool game, which he had watched with my boss (who happens to be a Cypriot Liverpool fan).
"Roman needs players like him (Modric) to play around him. You know, you haven't even seen 10% of what Roman can do. He needs passes to be played to his feet, not high passes like a lot of the English teams do."
I again found myself agreeing, but the way Mr. X was going on about Pavlyuchenko, I had thought that he can't be talking about the same player? So I told him so.
He didn't agree with me one bit.
"Last season, he was without his family. he was in a new country, he had no friends and was lonely." Fair enough. I also added that he must have been pretty exhusted, but that didn't seem to bother Mr. X.
"He needs Modric to feed him the ball, then you will see what a player Roman is. He needs to be playing regularly and you will see that he will score goals for your team."
We said our good-byes and I'll be seeing Mr. X again in November when he comes over for his next visit. I hope that by the time he returns, Harry has started to use him. I completely agree that Pavlova (nicknamed that by the Spartak Moscow supporters, not because he likes the cake, but because he moves like the famous Russian ballerina; another golden wonder provided by Mr. X), especially last season, showed us glimpses that he is quality. Unfortunately, Harry only saw glimpses of that talent to.
Someone on here the other day called Modric, The Modfather. I quite like the ring of that. I also believe that he is our finest player and one that we need to hold onto.
Would Pavlova play better with The Modfather on the pitch? Of course he would. Any professional footballer playing alongside Luka would benefit greatly. Whether Harry sees this is another matter altogether.
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