JUST LIKE IT WAS NEVER AWAY
A scoreless game that failed to live up to its breathless billing? Tick. Played out to silence from the stands? Tick. Featuring a monotonously predictable technological controvery that left one side seething at the injustice of it all? Tickety-tick, tick tick tick! While it may have been exactly 100 days since the Premier League went on involuntary sabbatical, it took the players of Sheffield United and Aston Villa just 90 minutes to prove that little or nothing about the competition has changed. Whisper it, but perhaps it’s time somebody launched an ambitious campaign to STOP FOOTBALL.
Brought back with what many considered to be unseemly haste in a bid to – checks official government line – “lift the spirits of the nation”, it is difficult to imagine Wednesday’s opener did much to cheer up much of the whopping 1.65% of the UK’s 66.6 million citizens estimated to have watched Aston Villa take on Sheffield United. Unless, of course, they were Sheffield Wednesday fans.
Having seen his team denied a perfectly good goal by the combined unreliability of technology, the people operating it, referee Michael Oliver and his assistants, Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder was somewhat more stoic than the many Blades fans The Fiver has heard “venting” low-spiritedly on assorted radio phone-in shows since the final whistle. “The goalkeeper was in the Holte End!” he sighed, after Villa rookie Ørjan Nyland had carried Oliver Norwood’s clever free-kick over his own line and slumped into the side-netting like an exhausted sailor bunking down in his hammock. “He was about eight rows back! He would have been mullered by punters if they were there, he was in the Holte End! Everyone saw it, all 300 of us! This is a decision that can’t happen. If someone had the courage to make that decision at Stockley Park, I think that should be made, but it wasn’t.”
Meanwhile at the Etihad, anyone expecting Arsenal to have spent lockdown growing anything resembling a backbone was left disappointed as Mikel Arteta, English football’s Patient Zero, watched his side get steamrollered by Manchester City. Omitted from the starting line-up but forced on out of necessity, David Luiz enjoyed a 23-minute cameo in which he cost his side two goals and got himself sent off in his own determined effort to show the new normal is much the same as the old one.
The two normals did differ in one significant way, with players of all four teams sporting the “Black Lives Matter” slogan across their shoulders and opting to take a collective knee before their games to help raise awareness of racism. “I’ve got to say on this taking the knee thing, I don’t know, maybe it’s got a broader history … but it seems to be taken from the Game of Thrones,” parped tin-eared, tone-deaf Tory ignoramus Dominic Raab. “It seems to me like a symbol of subjugation and subordination rather than liberation and emancipation.” A lot done, then, by those trying to shine a light in dark corners, but given the UK’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs spirit-sapping ignorance, The Fiver can’t help but feel they have a lot more to do.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“’Arry Redknapp. It was incredible working with him. Regardless of a player’s reputation, he would take them off at the start of the second half. He’d make the three substitutions early, change things if he saw the team was playing badly. He was a big character. At the start he’d talk to me: ‘Sandro, calm. Take your time. Get used to it.’ Then I started playing regularly. And he really loved me” – former Spurs midfielder Sandro gets his chat on with Joshua Law.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Football Weekly Extra will be in this vicinity, while there’s a new Forgotten Stories of Football episode up on Fred Spiksley: wing wizard, film star and POW escapee.
FIVER LETTERS
“I see the Big Vase final is set for 21 August. Surely this means next year’s qualification round begins on 22 August. Which means next year’s final will be right before the rescheduled Euros, which will end directly before the following season, after which the summer break will need to be shortened to accommodate the Ethics World Cup. It’s never going to stop again, is it?” – Christopher Smith.
“For all the concern over the economic and social impacts of the pandemic, how it may structurally change work and home lives, alter social interactions as well as the emotional toil, Arsenal losing due to David Luiz’s errors is surely the greatest sign that everything is finally getting back to normal” – Noble Francis.
“Villa fans got a chance to ‘virtually’ support their team by being live-streamed on to stadium big screens. The rest of us were treated to Villa supporters using Zoom to watch Villa’s defence. You couldn’t make up this level of irony if you tried” – Simon Mazier.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Christopher Smith.
BITS AND BOBS
Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish has been charged with driving without due care and attention, and failing to stop at or report a collision, following an incident during lockdown.
Fans could be allowed back into games in September, according to FA head honcho Mark Bullingham. Meanwhile, one person has tested positive for coronavirus in the latest round of Premier League testing.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær is the latest person to lavish Marcus Rashford with praise. “He’s obviously a top footballer but also a fantastic human being,” tooted the Manchester United manager.
Everton are trying to sign South Korean defender Kim Min-jae, nicknamed “The Monster”, which is one way of scaring opponents.
Premier League title winner Andy King is leaving Leicester City after 16 years with the club.
And Uefa has advised that the transfer window should close by 5 October, which is fantastic news for gossip column enthusiasts.
STILL WANT MORE?
Football is back and Kevin De Bruyne is still ruddy good, writes Barney Ronay.
One Manchester City legend having a less enjoyable time is Mario Balotelli, as Nicky Bandini explains.
After Bayern’s eighth consecutive Bundesliga title, Andy Brassell looks at whether there is hope for anyone else.
Need things to discuss about the Premier League’s return down the pub on your sofa with the cat? Paul Wilson provides five.
And Timo Werner’s arrival at Chelsea shows they mean business, according to Jacob Steinberg.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
