BIG TALK
Poor Arsenal. What utterly wretched luck. Already this season they have lost to Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool, to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, and to José Mourinho’s Manchester United, and now they are being thrown, like so many ill-equipped gladiators into a lion-patrolled Colosseum, at the mercy of perhaps the greatest tactical mind of them all. Again.
We talk of a man whose footballing acumen is so honed that he has just declared that no club in world football would be above begging for the chance of being blessed by his dugoutly presence. A man who twists the game to his will with the ease of a strongman flexing a plastic straw. A man who has brilliantly demonstrated his magnificence by coaxing his teams to no fewer than eight victories in their last 45 league games, a remarkable win ratio of nearly 18%. A man known to the Gods as The One, and to mortals as David Moyes.
T1tter ye not, reader: Moyes has a habit of proving self-assessments to be admirably accurate. The Fiver’s mind drifts back to 2013, when, on the eve of his departure from Everton, he was asked how much he had improved at Goodison. “I might have got worse because I’ve got mellower. That might be a bad thing,” he mused. “You are intense when you are young.” Sure enough he was a spectacular failure at Old Trafford, sent packing after 10 miserable months. It’s that kind of perspicacity that makes his statements so powerful and compelling. Fast forward four years, as he prepared to extend West Ham’s unbeaten run to four games in Tuesday’s Littlewoods Cup quarter-final against Arsenal, Moyes was asked about himself again. “Your reputation doesn’t stand for anything,” he cooed, which is probably just as well. “You have to show you’re capable of doing the job. I think I’m capable of doing the job at any club in the world, so I’m sure I can do it at West Ham.”
Moyes was asked a similar question when he was first appointed by West Ham, just a month ago. “I am back in, it’s what I do,” he blootered. “I want to do well. I think I am a good manager.” And he was asked a similar question a couple of weeks after that. “If you want to judge me on the grass, I will challenge most of the time,” he said then. “But I am only as good as my players. I just feel as if I need results quickly. If not, it will be something to do with David Moyes.”
He’s only been there a few weeks, in which time the Hammers have climbed gently from 18th to 15th, and it hasn’t occurred to him to wonder why people keep asking him with some degree of puzzlement whether he’s absolutely sure he’s not terrible. Already the humble “I think I’m good” has become “any club in the world would be lucky to have me”. Imagine what he’ll be saying if they get as high as 13th! If they finish in mid-table he’ll be off to run for president. Eighth place and he’ll ascend to the heavens and smite his foes with thunderbolts. Whatever punishment the great man inflicts on the Gunners tonight, they should count themselves lucky.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I started tarmacking when I was playing at Alfreton. I was doing stupid hours, plus going to a Tuesday and a Saturday game. One time I was working on the roads in the day, in Nottingham, played a game at Alfreton on the evening and then drove to Grimsby for a nightshift, to tarmac. I got back at five in the morning. It was ridiculous. I don’t know how I did it, to be honest. It makes me tired just thinking about it now” – Bristol City’s remarkably prolific gif-tastic defender Aden Flint gets his chat on with Stuart James about his, ahem, long road to facing Manchester United in the Milk Cup quarter-finals.
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FIVER LETTERS
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BITS AND BOBS
Atlético Madrid, currently banned from signing players, have got the right funk on with Barcelona for sniffing around Antoine Griezmann.
Swansea City boss Paul Clement has vowed to fight on after defeat at Everton nudged him ever closer to a Christmas Eve booting. “I worked very hard to get to this position and I’m not going to give up on it,” he trilled. “I will keep going.”
Chinese billionaire and Nice owner Chien Lee, along with Moneyballer Billy Beane, is part of the consortium to have taken over Barnsley. The club, not the town, that is. They’re not marauding around Shambles Street and down at Calypso Cove in some kind of maverick uprising.
West Ham’s Manuel Lanzini will serve a two-match ban for diving at Stoke.
And Birmingham City have cancelled winger David Cotterill’s contract. “He is not in Steve Cotterill’s long-term plans,” honked a particularly ambitious club statement.
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STILL WANT MORE?
The women’s game is becoming more professional, but a career in the game is still incredibly precarious, writes Suzanne Wrack in her latest blog.
The introduction of flamin’ VAR technology in Australia has been messy and divisive, writes Dean Biron, invoking Coen Brothers films as he does so.
Manchester City want more! Wilfried Zaha and Augsburg’s Philipp Max for starters. Why, they’ll be after the very Rumour Mill itself next.
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