SOMETHING LIKE A PHENOMENON
Bobby M and the Red Devils. Well it’s got a ring to it … if it were a ska and rocksteady five-piece, maybe as the highwire act of a circus touring Staffordshire in the 80s. But Belgium?!? The team ranked No1 in the world not long before the Euros and the team still at No2 despite their shellacking at the hands of Wales? Well we’ve seen some appointments in our time at Fiver Towers but having previously been the hot favourite to replace Bernard Cribbins at Hull City, Bobby M, after getting over the initial disappointment that Tom Cleverley has 13 (THIRTEEN) caps for England and cannot change allegiance, must surely be utterly unable to believe his luck.
You can hear the Belgian boffins – whose blood, sweat and tears were poured into the creation of the Golden Generation – crying into their petri dishes and luzzing their teat pipettes to the floor. Oh the Flemish fury! Marc Wilmots, a talented player but a pretty woeful manager has been replaced by … Bobby M, whose live and let live attitude towards defending tested and eventually cracked the patience of Bill Kenwright, a man whose knee is notoriously unlikely to jerk. A staunch refusal to teach John Stones how to defend, to educate Ross Barkley on the art of decision-making, the hubris with which he arrived at Goodison and bullishly declared: “I’ll get you into Big Cup” and an insistence that his side had shown “phenomenal character”, win, lose or draw, as unwavering as was his conviction that Gareth Barry was the best English footballer in … England, all combined to leave Bobby M as Not The Most Popular Manager in England which makes his appointment considerably more jaw-dropping.
And what of Belgium, a side so brimming with individual talent and so devoid of any cohesive strength? The first thing to note after the inevitable confirmation of Marouane Fellaini as captain, is that Rommy L will be pleased at being given the chance to work with Bobby, the one manager who seems capable of getting him to perform to a decent level, albeit at the expense of pretty much everything else. But what will Vinny K make of it? What are the thoughts of Eddy H? Martínez was quick to allay fears. “I’m humbled, proud, honoured to be the head coach of Belgium as a country. It will be a special journey together, to support these players that have got the world at their feet,” he trilled, reminding The Fiver of this, unfortunately. “My style is very clear and it goes along with this Belgian team. We will always work to be on the ball and be an attacking team, but you have to be able to defend. We want to play attractive football but we have to win.” He went on, immediately tempering expectations of supporters: “We have the talent but it’s not just about talent, you need to build a winning mentality and you need to play without too much expectation in a ‘golden generation’.”
Maybe history is being unkind to Bobby M. He did after all win Plucky Wigan the FA Cup on a day that will be forever tainted by unprecedented levels of nausea, brought on by the sheer weight on airtime former Plucky Wigan foghorn Dave Whelan was given to remind the world he once played in an FA Cup final and knacked his (Stop it! – Fiver Ed). We can at least take solace in the fact that Martínez will not waste his time in Belgium on cultural pursuits – Ray Lewington take note. “Today I would love to use the language but when I learned there are three official languages, that’s Mission Impossible,” he shrieked, before rejoicing in the fact that his first match in charge will indeed be against Spain. “I think it’s destiny!” he said. “I’m Spanish so I’ll get a real buzz, but it’s not about me.” Nope.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I apologise to Jérémy Ménez, and to Bordeaux, and hope to see him back in [PSG Procession Event] action soon. It was completely involuntary but had unfortunate consequences for him” – Lorient midfielder Didier Ndong says sorry after making the France forward’s non-competitive debut a memorable one by relieving Ménez of half of his right lughole after a clumsy tangle.
FIVER LETTERS
“I was smearing my chips with free-flowing ketchup at lunch, reading some drivel about Mark Tattenburg when I realised that it’s been a while since we had a good set of close-encounter yarns in The Fiver. Wandering up to my Tuesday five-a-side I noticed a little gathering of 10 or so spectators. Whilst not unusual in New York to see people gathered around inexplicably gawping at something, this was a little different; it’s Soccerball. They were just watching eight guys play a tepid 4v4 on an indoor astroturf? Bizarro I thought. Anyway it was almost 6pm, time for our game, and time to remove these pitch invaders. Imagine my surprise to see the man soon to be the world’$ most expen$ive footballer courteously vacate the field for us! My Haitian pal ‘bantered’ with Paul (we’re on first name terms now) en Français for a minute or two then he was gone – taking with him his own ball, and four or five friends with matching blond peanut haircuts. In hindsight I should have asked him if he wanted to be our sub, we ended up a little short. Oh well, c’est la vie (pic included for your viewing pleasure)” – Laurence Tunnicliffe.
“Just like the saying, you wait ages for a reference to my hometown club, the mighty Lincoln City, and two come along at once! Imagine how excited I was to see cult favourite Jason Lee mentioned, I remember having a football signed by him at my school fair back during his days with the Imps, I instantly forgot however and after playing a quick game of Wembo singles with my (real and not at all imaginary) friends, realised the leather patch he has signed had come clean off and my imagined eBay millions up in smoke. The Lincoln Red Imps completed the pair, and despite technically not being of Lincoln, were holding the club name high in European competition. I do hope that in homage to the original Imps they also have an air-raid siren for corners, and sing the Dambusters theme (narrrr narr nar nar nananarrr naaaar narrr) whenever they score, as a tribute to Lincolnshire’s history as ‘Bomber County’ during the second world war. We always wondered should LCFC ever make it to Europe, and end up playing a German Team, whether we could cause a full-blown diplomatic incident. Oh, and seeing as you ask, yes the 1,057 other pedants can join the official FPL league again, code 335949-102520. As always, it’s not the crushing defeats that kill you, it’s the hope. All the best! Luke Taylor (aged 31 and a half)” – Luke Taylor.
“Re: my brother James’s Fellaini Plan (Fiver letters passim), if that were legal surely football managers with the nous, inspiration and innovation of Moyes, Van Gaal and Wilmots would have deployed it. Oh …” – Phil Keidel.
“Given that there was no byline yesterday, we did, indeed, ‘get a Fiver that writes itself’. Congratulations to Fiverbot” – Gary Walsh.
“Your mildly interesting letter about Fellaini scoring by carrying the ball into the net in his barnet reminded me of a clip (which now, come to think of it, I may have been led to by The Fiver) of a chap in a competitive game, possibly South American. Said chap used a keepy-uppy move to juggle the ball on this head, whilst running into the penalty area. I can’t remember if he scored, but I remember one of the baffled defenders coming to his senses and just flattening the guy, putting an effective end to his shenanigans, which may be why such a move is not used more often. Fellaini, however, would probably go in elbows first, so might be able to score reliably, and this may be the only hope Sunderland have of staying up this season” – Steve Hibbert.
• 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 long-suffering reader Alan Gernon’s new book, Retired: What Happens to Footballers When the Game’s Up, is … Laurence Tunnicliffe. We’ve got more to give away so get typing.
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BITS AND BOBS
“I could hardly believe it. One or two players are going to think long and hard in future about whether they want to go to such a club.” Bayern Munich chief suit Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has a pop at Manchester United for demoting Bastian Schweinsteiger to the reserves because, um, Bayern Munich valued the midfielder so highly a season ago that they bundled him on an express Do One Airlines flight to Manchester.
Aston Villa have sent £13m down a tube to Fulham in exchange for the English second-tier equivalent of Gonzalo Higuaín, Ross McCormack.
He will likely miss the start of His Real Madrid season due to knee-knack suffered in the Euro 2016 final.
USA! USA!! USA!!! got off to a comfortable start at Big Sports Day with a 2-0 victory over New Zealand but the Rebel Alliance’s goalkeeper, Hope Solo, was taunted by some right pieces of work with Zika chants.
And perhaps because he cares about the environment, Antonio Conte is set to gather up all that deadwood in his Chelsea dressing room and take it to the recycling centre.
STILL WANT MORE?
With no replacement for manager Bernard Cribbins, only one summer signing and fans angry with the owners, is there any hope for Hull? Louise Taylor brings the gloom in No7 of our Premier League previews.
Meanwhile, in our eighth Premier League preview, Paul Doyle believes Leicester fans can drink from a glass half full after a summer that was all right you know.
Keep your eye on Derby, writes Louise Taylor, tapping the side of her nose while directing you to her Championship season preview.
Still unfinished and as yet unloved, Lahndan’s newest ground still feels like a long way from home but Slaven Bilic wants Taxpayers FC performances to define it, he tells David Hytner.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. AND INSTACHAT, TOO!
