LATELY YOU’VE BEEN ACTING MIGHTY STRANGE …
As The Fiver sat in its pit and stared at the television, absorbing the amusing spectacle of plucky Crystal Palace outplucking mega-rich Manchester City, it realised something. There it was, right in front of its beady little eyes. The Fiver has been a victim of identity theft. A victim of plagiarism. Because there City were, pootling around the pitch without a care in the world, phoning it in to the extent that at one point in the first half Edin Dzeko appeared to be on a mobile to his Mr 15%, every one of them looking at the bench with an expression that just screamed: “Will this do?” And the answer is no, it won’t do, and not just because highly paid professionals should allow themselves a season off every other year, but because doing the absolute bare minimum and hoping to get away with it is The Fiver’s speciality, an act it has been trading on for years. City are muscling in on The Fiver’s turf!
But two can play at this game. The Fiver would ask its lawyers to draft a cease and desist letter, but it can’t be bothered to remember where they sit or what their names are or what they look like or if it even has any lawyers to speak of, so instead it is time to up the ante. If you came here looking for a sharp-eyed analysis of City’s latest defeat, you are in the wrong place. The Fiver is doing a City. It’s downing tools. Blah last night lost to Meh in a match that has put a major dent in Blah’s hopes of winning the title. “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,” Blah’s sitting duck of a manager, Manuel Pellegrini, yawned. “Blah blah blah offside goal blah blah blah blah blah I am not worried about losing my job blah blah blah blah this is a great job blah blah blah I couldn’t ask any more of the lads blah blah blah weep.”
Yes, they sure are a great set of lads at City. At one point Yaya Touré even broke into a light jog and decided to do a goal and the whole team even pretended to care in the final 10 minutes. Well done, City, you had us fooled for a minute at the end there, but then the final whistle blew and the realisation dawned that somehow they have contrived to drop below Louis van Gaal’s resurgent Manchester United. “We have United on Sunday and a derby is a derby,” comedian-in-chief Vincent Kompany said, putting his famous command of languages to good use. “It doesn’t matter what place you are in the league, it’s a derby.” See, he’s not even trying to hide it. City, we will see you in court.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The strength of character in that changing room is alarmingly weak. You’ve got to be accountable for yourself and have pride, there are players who can’t say they care; they put in a performance that shows they don’t. They are players who don’t deserve to be professionals. They are weak … I might get 50 supporters to come down, have an open forum and through Andrew Jenkins [the chairman] they can have half an hour with the players. They can tell them exactly what they think of them, and they’ll have to take it. Supporters can see when people aren’t giving everything for the shirt” – with his Carlisle team hovering just above the League Two relegation trap-door, boss Keith Curle showcases his own brand of man-management.
BRAVE, BRAVE DECISION OF THE DAY
11 March: “Malky is a big part of what we are doing here. He realised when he came in back in November that we had a squad that was living off reputations and what they’d done in the past. They weren’t achieving what they should have been achieving and we moved them on in January. We made some brave, brave decisions together to try to take this club forward, because we were moving backwards with those players. It’s something Malky has done and we are fully behind him in terms of who he’s brought in and the squad he has put together” – new Wigan chairman David Sharpe backs boss Malky Mackay.
6 April: “I feel that for the long-term future of the club, there needs to be a change now” – Sharpe sacks Mackay.
FIVER LETTERS
“So The Fiver is launching a campaign, and that campaign is called ‘Footballers: Stop Talking’ (Thursday’s Fiver)? When I saw the headline I was jolted back to the reality of my home life which has involved my three-and-a-half-year-old pointedly staring at me at least once on a daily basis and requesting in a raised unequivocal and expectant voice that I ‘Stop Talking!’, typically to my unassuming wife. The fact that I play ball from time to time and support Manchester United may or may not have something to do with it or it could be some canny form of marriage counselling to ensure I don’t get into trouble, but now I’m wondering if The Fiver test-marketed the campaign at Montessori level before rolling it out unashamedly to its few remaining email pedants. Yours in hope” – Nigel Byrne.
“Footballers: Stop Talking. Are you sure this is for the good of all. If we are to include virtual talking, ie Twitter, I suspect about 40% of Fiver stories are about footballers making total [Snip – Fiver Bad Word Ed] of themselves by either opening their gobs or letting their fingers do the talking. If they were to stop, The Fiver would be finished. Oh, now I see it” – Graham Haslam.
“My wife has long been a proponent of not talking to the athletes and, interview after interview, I’m realising she has a point. And then my buddy, also a Fiver reader, pointed us in the direction of this interview. Really, why do we talk to the athletes?” – Travis Giblin.
“What with it being Friday lunchtime and all, I decided to treat myself to some Tin with my microwave dream lunch. Imagine my horror when I tried to open said Tin and the ring-pull thing came off without having any effect on the availability of the contents! And I’m talking high quality, not the usual Purple Tin. Fortunately my resourcefulness was good enough to discover that a good old fashioned tin-opener does the job quite nicely. I thought fellow readers might find this useful” – Iain Gallagher.
• 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: Nigel Byrne.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
If you missed it yesterday, here’s the latest Football Weekly podcast, with AC Jimbo and co.
JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES
Chances are that if you’re reading this tea-timely football email, you’re almost certainly single. But fear not – if you’d like to find companionship or love, sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly folk who would never normally dream of going out with you. And don’t forget, it’s not the rejection that kills you, it’s the hope.
BITS AND BOBS
After just the six months of legal wrangling, Greg Dyke has returned the £16,000 watch given to him by Brazilian FA suits at last year’s World Cup.
Fifa president Sepp Blatter has called for tougher punishment for teams and associations found guilty of racism and discrimination, saying monetary sanctions had become increasingly ineffective. “We have to use our rules to suspend teams,” he roared, upping the ante on his hard-line handshake plan.
Meanwhile, Torpedo Moscow have been ordered to play two home games in an empty stadium after fans displayed a banner with a Nazi symbol, the Russian club’s fourth racism-related punishment this season.
Turkish police have detained two people suspected of involvement in Saturday’s attack on a bus that was carrying Fenerbahce players, in which shots were fired at the vehicle. “We believe the incident was a terrorist attack, targeting not only Fenerbahce but Turkish sports,” said Yildirim Demiroren, Turkish football federation suit. “We decided to postpone all league and cup games for a week, because we attach importance to the players’ psychology.”
And Ricardo Moniz, who sounds like a fancier, continental version of Cambridge United’s manager, has been appointed as Notts County’s new boss. “I know that when I come to Meadow Lane I want to be entertained, I want to be excited by what I see out there on the pitch,” trilled chairman Ray Trew.
STILL WANT MORE?
David Squires. Newcastle United. Essential.
Raphael Honigstein reports on why Bayern’s ugly win in Der Klassiker in Dortmund was pretty for Pep Guardiola.
Jacob Steinberg is pretty much saying QPR’s Bobby Zamora should be cast in a fresh reboot of the A-Team. Pre-tty much.
The Raheem Sterling Supremacy: a very localised farrago. By Barney Ronay.
Glenn Murray’s Indian summer has seen him claim the best goals-per-minute ratio in the Premier League. Dominic Fifield has more.
It’s not football, but a long read on The Power is always worth your time.
And this week’s edition of The Gallery is on Premier League referees. You have 20 seconds to comply (by clicking this link).
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
SIGN UP TO THE FIVER
Want your very own copy of our free tea-timely(ish) email sent direct to your inbox? Has your regular copy stopped arriving? Click here to sign up.
.png?w=600)
