RARE ARSENAL FIVER
These are changing times in Big Cup. All-conquering Barcelona aren’t what they were. Live action, once the preserve of boring old terrestrial telly, is now shown on BT’s amazing new flicker-tastic zoetrope service. And this could be the last year in a good while that the Round of Arsenal is staged, because, well, you know, there are quite a few reasons for that. So tonight, in what could quite feasibly be nearly man Arsène Wenger’s valedictory Big Cup bow, Bayern Munich come to town for London’s most searching exploration of pipe dreams since Kevin Spacey starred in The Iceman Cometh at the Old Vic.
Precedence suggests it’s quite the tall order for Arsenal. Only three teams have ever overturned a four-goal deficit in European competition: Real Madrid against Borussia Mönchengladbach in the 1985-86 Euro Vase, Partizan Belgrade over QPR London in the same tournament a year earlier, and Leixões against La Chaux-de-Fonds in the 1961-62 European Cup Winners’ Cup, and don’t you dare pretend you knew about that last one. That all happened in secondary competition, though. The most impressive turnaround in Big Cup history was achieved by Deportivo La Coruña, the Galicians coming back from a quarter-final first-leg 4-1 deficit against Milan in 2004. But then given Milan spent half of the 2000s seemingly hell-bent on single-handedly redefining Big Cup bottle jobs, it’s hardly a fair or relevant comparison. Bayern are not Milan, and Arsenal have it all to do.
That’s not to say Bayern don’t have a history themselves of stratospheric balls-ups, and most of them come against English sides to boot. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory against Manchester United in 1999 and Chelsea in 2012, were somehow swatted away by mid-table Aston Villa in 1982, and lost the 1975 final too, if we’re to believe what Nasty Leeds sing about, and why wouldn’t you? Problem for Arsenal is, Bayern usually wait until the business end of the tournament before discharging the contents of their gaskets, so the Gunners probably shouldn’t rely too much on the prospect of a helping meltdown this evening.
With a recall for Alexis Sánchez by dithering authoritarian Wenger most likely, the popular prediction tonight seems to be a deeply irritating/comical 4-1 win for the Arsenal: yet another time-honoured case of nearly but not quite. But that particular paean to despair and disillusionment ignores how Bayern have won on their last two visits to the Emirates, and Arsenal are in a right old state at the moment. So we’re going for another 5-1 reverse, followed by reruns on the forecourt too, courtesy of beleaguered fans Moh, Troopz, Vladimir and Estragon. Try to enjoy it all while you still can!
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I don’t actually feel like I’ve gone past a legend. I may have surpassed him in longevity but I won’t ever be able to match his statistics and the career he had. It’s not so much about numbers anyway, it’s more about how you play” – Kazuyoshi Miura, aged 50 years and seven days and who was born on the same day in 1967 that Engelbert Humperdink’s Release Me (And Let Me Love Again) soared to No1 in the UK charts, plays down overhauling Stanley Matthews as the world’s oldest ever professional footballer after trotting around for 54 minutes of Yokohama FC’s 1-1 draw with V-Varen Nagasaki in J2.
FIVER LETTERS
“Am I the only one that is disappointed to learn that the Leicester City players’ nickname for interim boss Craig Shakespeare is ‘Shakes’. I’m not expecting a whole William Shakespeare sonnet, poem or play but, surely, even the least literate footballer could have gone for Macbeth or Hamlet?” – Noble Francis.
“Following the reporting of Arsène’s pre-Bayern press conference, can I be the first of 1,057 Fiver readers to officially welcome back the Arsenal manager’s selective myopia? Things just haven’t been the same without it, y’know” – Barrie Francis.
• 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 prizeless letter o’the day with the surname Francis is … Noble Francis.
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And we’ve now got tickets available for an evening with Ray Parlour and Andrew Cole on 13 March. Get them here.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Despite claiming Bournemouth’s Tyrone Mings jumped into his elbow, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has accepted an FA charge of violent conduct and will serve a three-match ban.
Meanwhile, Bournemouth will contest Mings’ alleged violent conduct charge and the FA’s recommendation he serves a longer ban for appearing to introduce his studs to the big Manchester United striker’s noggin at the weekend.
Leicester City are set to confirm that Craig Shakespeare has been permanently given two balls to hold and the manager’s job for the remainder of the season.
Manchester United fans have been warned not to show any outward signs that they are Manchester United fans when visiting Rostov for their Big Vase tie. “For your safety and security you are advised not to wear Manchester United colours when in Rostov, or attract attention to your presence in the city,” read a letter sent to fans attending the match.
Chelsea are going to win the league. “I trust my players to do this,” cheered Antonio Conte.
Premier League players are to be reminded to leave on-field emergency procedures to trained medical staff after cases where players have intervened in the belief they are assisting colleagues knocked unconscious on the turf.
And PFA chief suit Gordon Taylor is the latest bigwig to say they reckon the FA reform plans are bobbins. “Their only transparency is their lack of diversity and such proposals do nothing to bring us in line with the rest of the world,” whistled the middle-aged white man.
STILL WANT MORE?
Video-assisted referees are coming! And David Squires’s latest cartoon imagines a future under our robot overlords.
Lincoln ‘have a one-in-a-1,000 chance at Arsenal but we can do it … we might surprise some people,’ roars Danny Cowley in this chinwag with Donald McRae before the non-league side’s FA Cup quarter-final at Arsenal.
Talking of Arsenal, they almost certainly won’t be able to recover their first-leg deficit against Bayern Munich in Big Cup, but they can recover some pride, if they overcome their collective timidity, counsels Amy Lawrence.
As BT waves more money in Big Cup’s face, and imposes more football on its subscribers, is there a danger viewers might switch off? Quite possibly, reckons Jacob Steinberg.
N’Golo Kanté is the rock upon which Chelsea’s counterattacking canter to the title is based, trills Dominic Fifield, who says the midfielder has made them unstoppable.
It’s all unravelled at Osasuna, and relegation is a certainty, sniffs Sid Lowe.
QPR in Big Vase? At Highbury? Against a crack Eastern Bloc outfit? It can only be That 1980s Football Blog, and Steven Pye’s account of how Partizan Belgrade overturned a 6-2 deficit.
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