Return of Le sulk

By European Football
November 1 2005

Newcastle United could have warned Portsmouth chairman Milan Mandaric all about Laurent Robert, hell picking up any paper from his time in Newcastle should have warned the Portsmouth chairman about Laurent Robert.

An extremely gifted player on his day, a temperament of a two year old parted from his favourite toy the rest of the time.

Well the toys flew out the pram at the weekend, and lets face matters it was hardly unexpected, but like Newcastle had done so many times in the past Portsmouth are putting a brave face on things with Mandaric stating to the clubs official website:

"Laurent has apologised to the manager, his team-mates and me. His biggest apology however is to the fans."

"The player knows he has made a mistake and everyone is entitled to make one of those.

"He has received a club fine which he accepts along with the fact that there should have been much better communication with the medical team, and thus manager, at a much earlier time.

"The issue is now resolved as far as we are concerned and we need Laurent to be firing on all cylinders so I would ask everyone to now put this to one side and concentrate on backing the team and all the players.

But this is for now, what happens next time? And there will be a next time, with Robert there always is.

Is his talent actually worth the trouble that goes with him? On his day he is simply unstoppable, but these days are quite often too far apart