‘I CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT I SAW TODAY’
Dangerous levels of hot air, bluster and steam threatened to cause an emergency outside the Emirates Stadium on Sunday afternoon as the various eejits, pirates and headphones models who make up Arsenal’s YouTube massive suffered a collective loss of their heads and All Perspective following their side’s self-parodic 2-0 defeat to a West Ham side who were able to win despite starting with a foetus in midfield, before adding insult to injury by treating everyone to a two-minute airing of their much-loved Modibo Maiga Standing Around And Letting The Ball Bounce Off Your Head And Feet Experience. Oh, Arsenal. Oh, Arsenal. And once more for good luck: oh, Arsenal! How is it possible for you to remain such an endless source of entertainment, with your goalkeeping howlers and complacency and ongoing insistence that Olivier Giroud deserves to be classed as a top, top striker, up there with the very best, seeing as he has excellent hair. To be fair to Giroud, he does have very nice hair. It’s very good. It’s hair that’s worth at least 20 goals a season, if you think about it deeply enough.
This time last week, everything was hunky dory. They had just beaten Boring Old Chelsea in the Community Shield, meaning that they entered the new season as treble winners after a heroic summer in which they also collected the Emirates Cup and the Barclays Asia Trophy. Take that, José Mourinho! The excitement was huge, not that anyone was getting carried away. “I don’t think we are inferior to the Spanish clubs or Bayern Munich,” Santi Cazorla cheered in the sequel to Theo Walcott’s classic claim in April that Arsenal had been the strongest side in Europe this year, despite losing to Monaco in Big Cup, and it’s hard to argue with that, seeing as trophies really should be awarded based on calendar years and Eibar, Granada and Getafe haven’t been much use in 2015. Alas the FA remains as shortsighted as ever and continues to press ahead with the arcane insistence that the title be awarded based on a team’s results from August to May, which is obviously a total farce.
This was supposed to be different. Arsenal finally had a proper goalkeeper in goal and confidence was high, only for Agent Cech to do his very best Wojciech Szczesny impression for Cheikhou Kouyaté’s opener, before failing to save a Mauro Zárate shot which had about as much bite as a piece of satire from The Fiver. Arsène Wenger was livid with his players, although he did point out that they weren’t physically ready yet. The Fiver is unsure who was tasked with making sure they were up to speed, so we’ll move on and give a bit of praise to West Ham, who have celebrated their win by, er, opening talks with Joey Barton.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT
Join John Ashdown from 8pm BST for MBM coverage of West Brom 1-2 Manchester City.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This man has never been my cup of tea … why do I not like him? Because he’s a d1ckhead, that’s all” – Montpellier owner and The Fiver’s go-to man for cheap and easy Quotes of the Day, Loulou Nicollin, gives outgoing Marseille coach Marcelo Bielsa the big send off.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Sport’s favourite podcast is here for your aural delectation, it’s Football Weekly, with AC Jimbo, Barry Glendenning, Ian McCourt and Nick Miller. And while we’re here, when Manchester Cathedral was built in 1421, it’s unlikely the Good Lord envisioned AC Jimbo, Barry Glendenning and 1,000 pod fans sitting in the pews. Yet – some 594 years later – it is happening. Get your tickets for Football Weekly Live in Manchester on Thursday 3 September here, and do check out the other events taking place at the Manchester Football Writing Festival.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
Jonathan Fisher went to Bournemouth’s first day in the Premier League and bumped into Jacob Steinberg and Iain Macintosh, among others. Here’s the vid.
FIVER LETTERS
“Oh, David Read (Friday’s Fiver letters), I am an Arsenal supporter, man and boy, and I can assure you that I very much appreciated The Fiver’s (attempts at) humour concerning our Jack Wilshere, because if we don’t laugh the only alternative is wailing and the gnashing of teeth as we descend into deep, dark, bottom of the well depression. The man is made of glass yet continues to throw himself at stones, for crying out loud” – Barry Etheridge.
“On the subject of knack, David may want to get that raw nerve looked at” – Kevin Dartnall.
“I came across an article by Oliver Burkeman in Big Paper on a serious contender for ‘the title of History’s Most Gullible Person’. However, I can only presume he wrote the article before checking out the Arsenal fan’s prediction for where Arsenal would finish in Big Paper’s previews of the season by fans and who would be their key player (in a good way) …” – Noble 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 is: Rollover.
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BITS AND BOBS
Two years after West Ham co-owner David Gold said he would give the then West Ham manager Sam Allardyce “some time off” should he think of signing Joey Barton, Joey Barton is in talks about a move to West Ham.
The honesty of Stoke City players’ hips is set to be improved now that Xherdan Shaqiri is coughing for the Britannia quacks before a proposed move from Inter.
Superstar West Ham whelp Reece Oxford has revealed that Tottenham bought him a half fare ticket on the Do One double-decker when he was just 13. “I was at Tottenham for a while, but they did not want me, and I went to West Ham,” said the midfielder who has yet to collect his GCSE results.
Manchester City have dangled a hook with £47m on it over the Wolfsburg training pitch and expect to find Kevin De Bruyne attached to it. “I think some clubs have definitely turned Kevin’s head,” understated Wolfsburg sporting director Klaus Allofs.
FC United have apologised to fans after goalkeeper Dave Carnell was forced to wear a training top in the 1-0 National League North defeat at Gloucester City after a kit clash. “In future we will ensure that we always have a spare top on the bench so that this does not happen again,” they needlessly trilled.
In far more apology-worthy news, East Fife have said sorry for their fans’ $exist chanting at East Stirlingshire physio Anna Murray during the 1-0 loss in Scottish League Two. “The behaviour of a number of East Fife fans was deplorable and an embarrassment to East Fife FC,” read a club statement. The chanting and singing by that group of supporters was disgusting, rude and $exist. The fans who acted in such a disgusting manner should consider whether they wish to return to Bayview in future as the club cannot be expected to tolerate this behaviour again.”
And fans of a team that did not exist several months ago have such a fierce local rivalry with another one that is named after a fizzy drinks company, that they were forced to go on to the streets and hit each over the head.
STILL WANT MORE?
True or false? Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew helped install the windows of Sea Containers House in London’s Blackfriars. The former Millwall manager Ian Holloway has three deaf daughters. The Exeter City manager Paul Tisdale was once a top-rated teenage cricketer in England. The Wycombe Wanderers manager Gareth Ainsworth is a practising Catholic who occasionally fronts a rock band named Road To Eden. The former Leyton Orient manager Martin Ling once considered taking his own life while having a mental breakdown in a service station on the M5. Barry Glendenning has the answer.
Reece Oxford is too young to drive or vote but he is not too young to show the Arsenal midfield how it is done or have Jacob Steinberg write about him.
Big Website’s big writers put away their sunglasses, crime novels and loungers to get back to work and write about what they learned from the weekend’s action in the Premier League.
James Milner or not, Liverpool still have midfield issues, warns Michael Cox.
Today’s Rumour Mill reckons Lucas Silva is on his way to Arsenal and Javier Hernández is doing one to West Ham. O … K.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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