POZZO > LEVEIN > FRAEYE
Charlton interim manager Karel Fraeye bears a slight facial resemblance to former Scotland coach Craig Levein. He’s not the spitting image of him or anything, but there’s a vague, ballpark similarity going on there. It’s more pronounced if you search out a picture of Fraeye wearing a pair of expensive designer spectacles, frowning quite hard, holding his head in his hands like he’s just off the back of a 48-hour turps bender, and staring at the floor while wearing the dazed look of a man who can’t for the life of him figure out how to break down Liechtenstein. Squint a little. Squint a lot. There! They’re not a million miles apart, are they? Although sadly for Charlton, the comparison ends there, because Fraeye’s results are so bad they make Levein look like Vittorio Pozzo.
Since taking over at the Valley in late October, Fraeye has masterminded just two wins in 14 games. Both of those came in November, since when his team have drawn four and lost six. The last two defeats were a 2-1 FA Cup loss at Colchester which could have been five, and a 5-0 thrashing at Huddersfield on Tuesday night which could have been 10. After being terrorised by the Terriers, Fraeye scuttled on to the team bus without saying a word, leaving his players to sweet-talk the media. Bad idea, because goalkeeper Stephen Henderson, after freely confessing to his own role in a couple of the goals, was, upon being asked about Fraeye’s future, forthright bordering on recklessly trenchant.
“Does there have to be a change made?” he asked himself aloud. “Without a doubt. I’d like to apologise to our travelling fans. I know they think I won’t mean it but the real fans will know I genuinely want to apologise for that shocking performance.” Club captain Johnnie Jackson went one step further by pledging to reimburse the 166 travelling Charlton fans the £23 they each paid for their tickets. It was a lovely gesture, albeit not one The Fiver understands totally, given we’d happily pay three or four times as much if it guaranteed something to self-righteously moan, grizzle and harp on about for weeks on end. It’s the best thing about being a football supporter. In that sense, although very much in that sense alone, Charlton fans will miss Fraeye when he’s gone.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“My beautiful island, regrettably, is still inhabited by some frustrated savages who deserve to live in Syria, between people that show no respect and hold no value for life in society” – Katie Aveiro, His sister, reacts rationally to the news that a statue of Him in Madeira has been vandalised by Lionel Messi fans.
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“Numbers not being my strong point, it’s taken me six weeks to complete this bit of maths. However, by my reckoning, the £130m spent by Premier League clubs on the Mr 10% brigade last season, and the rough overall attendance figure of 13 million, means that a neat £10 of every Premier League went directly from fans’ pockets into collective off-shore tax havens. I wonder if your other reader has ever seen a better redistribution of wealth? The rise in tuition fees perhaps or the last cut in the top rate of tax?” – Dom Smith.
“After yesterday’s Fiver, I feel a bit sorry for Jürgen Klopp. We’ve all been there, having someone lead us to believe they’ve bought us the perfect present, the one we’ve been going on about for ages, the expensive but really cool toy that, if the adverts are right, everybody wants, only to be disappointed when it transpires the person giving the gift has had the wool pulled over their eyes by the salesperson. As such, can I be the first of 1,057 who remember when The Simpsons was good to suggest that Mats Hummels is the Bonestorm of central defenders and Steven Caulker is Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge” – Ed Taylor (and no others who remember when The Simpsons was good).
“Sheffield United, ‘a reasonable League One team’? High praise indeed. Matt Gambrill (yesterday’s Fiver letters) may be interested to know that back in the mid-nineties, when I was backpacking around Australia – and pre-empting the lesser of the two Inbetweeners films by about 20 years – I spotted an advert on local TV for an upcoming pre-season tour by his beloved Blades. In the ad the touring party was announced, with much fanfare, as proponents of ‘Premier League soccer at its finest’. Notwithstanding the fact that Dave Bassett’s route one specialists couldn’t justifiably be described as playing in a style that embodied ‘Premier League soccer at its finest’, the club had been relegated to the (then) First Division a few weeks earlier” – Tim Grey.
“Shame that David Dunn got the boot at Oldham (yesterday’s Bits and Bobs). No longer will our candidate for song of the season be heard: ‘Who’s the worst manager in the Football League? It’s you Dunn, Dunn, Dunn, it’s you Dunn, Dunn’” – Alex Metcalfe.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is … Dom Smith, who receives a copy of Football Manager 2016, courtesy of the very kind people at Football Manager Towers. We’ve got plenty more copies to give away, so if you haven’t been lucky thus far, keep trying.
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BITS AND BOBS
This week on popular spin-off show Crimewatch: Fifa, secretary general Jérôme Valcke has had his job status changed from ‘suspended’ to ‘sacked’.
Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will not be joining Moon FC. “I still want to achieve lots with Dortmund,” he wept. “I am here and nowhere else – not at Arsenal, not at Barcelona, not on the moon – you can see that.”
Barcelona haircut Neymar has been ordered to testify next month in a fraud case relating to his transfer to Spain.
Rudi Garcia has been axed as Roma coach after his side plummeted to the humiliating position of fifth in Serie A.
Russian TV commentator Vasily Utkin claims a sleep disorder was behind him falling asleep during Bayer Leverkusen v Barcelona in Big Cup earlier this season – for which he’s been suspended. “It just so happened that at the end of the first half, I fell asleep and I was talking in my sleep,” he trilled. “In the second half there were no problems at all.”
Journeyman striker Marcus Bent has pleaded guilty to affray. “On the face of it a custodial sentence is justified,” freestyled Judge Stephen Climie. “Whether that is the right sentence in the context of this case is not a matter I will prejudge.”
Oldham Athletic like what Newport manager John Sheridan has done with the place and have opened talks over their vacancy.
And Chelsea left-back Baba Rahman is mad as hell and he’s not gonna take it any more. “Of course it’s frustrating for any footballer to sit in the stands and I don’t want to experience that too much more,” he theorised.
STILL WANT MORE?
Win! Win! Win! We’ve got tickets to Aston Villa v Leicester City on Saturday up for grabs.
Which uncapped player has made the most Premier League appearances? The Knowledge has the answer.
Guus Hiddink stars as Ethan Hunt, Hugh Glass and 1980s West Country icon Gus Honeybun in this week’s Gallery. Next: send us your Zinedine Zidanes.
It’s high time that new Newcastle signing Jonjo Shelvey finally delivered, reckons Ed Aarons.
Manchester United could do worse than get Paul Scholes on to their coaching staff, writes Paul Wilson.
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