THE REST IS VERY TRAUMATIC OR VERY AMUSING HISTORY
Ah, 1990, such a long time ago. No one had even thought of satirical tea-time emails back then. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a Fiver, though. Instead it was either sent out to its tens of readers by horse and cart, ensuring that it would arrive at its destination 26 days late, or by carrier pigeon for those lucky readers who had taken out a gold subscription membership. They could expect to receive their daily dose of biting satire merely 13 days after it was sent out and how happy they were. At least, that’s what we had to assume. By the time complaints reached Fiver Towers about, say, The Fiver’s tardiness or its lack of quality or its cynical take on Paul Gascoigne’s tears at the World Cup, it was 1993 and the world had moved on. No one cared. What a time to be alive. 1993. Simpler times.
But anyway, back to 1990. Did you know that was the last time that Liverpool won the league title? Well you do now! They haven’t won it since then and it’s been a frustrating 24 years for Liverpool. Mostly it has not been much fun, at least not until last season. They were fun last season and they were good and the wait was going to come to an end and YOU’LL NEVER WALK ALONE and ... the rest is very traumatic or very amusing history depending on your allegiances. Liverpool did not win the league and although Steven Gerrard hauled himself off the floor after giving the ball to Demba Ba, this season has not gone to plan for him so far, to the extent that people have been wondering out loud whether he should be given a new contract. The cheek of it! Don’t these fools know that he won the Big Cup? In 2005? Nine years ago? Exactly.
Heaven forbid that the theory should be put forward that a 34-year-old midfielder who is no longer the rampaging force of old ought to be ushered out of the Anfield door when his current deal runs out in the summer. It’s an outrage but, luckily, Gerrard was on hand to silence the critics last night by doing a goal against high-flying Leicester City, which changes everything. It certainly did for Michael Owen, the BT Sport co-commentator claiming that Gerrard’s game-changing heroics proved that the criticism has been “laughable” and was reason enough to give him the man of the match award. Even if the performance of Wes Morgan at the heart of Leicester’s defence was far more influential in a win for Liverpool that gets their season right back on track until the next crisis.
It sure is easy to be wise after the event, something The Fiver discovered when it thought that Dress Down Friday meant coming to work topless – we can still remember the screams. Southampton have also been on the receiving end since Sunday. Champions elect before being smashed by the minnows of Manchester City at St Mary’s, now people are queuing up to say that they knew that Southampton were never that good anyway, probably going down actually, it’s impossible to come to any other conclusion after a dismal one-match losing streak. Tonight Ronald Koeman’s relegation strugglers go to Arsenal who, like Liverpool, are back after winning two games on the bounce, one against the Bundesliga’s bottom side, the other against West Bromwich Albion.
But now Arsène Wenger is mulling over the possibility of unbeaten Chelsea being caught at the top of the league, Arsenal’s manager pointing out that the six-point gap between them and City isn’t really that big. “After 13 or 14 games, you cannot say that the title race is over,” he said.
José Mourinho does not seem that bothered, though, Chelsea’s manager content with landing one on Arsenal’s Invincibles instead. “We are not playing for that,” Mourinho said when he was asked if Chelsea are planning on losing any games. “Because, if you play for that and that is one of your objectives, maybe you draw too many matches because you don’t take risks to try and win matches.” So, with City travelling to Sunderland, their bogey team, confirmation arrives that Chelsea will try to win against Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge, where the visitors have not won since 1990. Could this be the year? Has the Tottenham masterplan been to lull Chelsea into a false sense of security, wait for the right moment and then pounce?
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“France is hypocritical, cowardly. Sometimes I think if we’d been overrun by the Germans, we’d be better run … I have never seen such arrogant, smug, lying and hypocritical people.” Emmanuel Petit does his best to endear himself to his fellow French.
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FIVER LETTERS
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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 letter o’the day is: Benj White who wins a copy of Football Manager 2015, courtesy of the very kind people at Football Manager Towers. We’ve got more copies to give away this month, so if you haven’t been lucky thus far, keep trying. If the contents of today’s mailbag are anything to go by, it won’t take much winning.
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BITS AND BOBS
Former Internazionale chief suit, Massimo Moratti, has revealed the parting words of humility’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic: “He was getting on a plane to Barcelona after the last training with the team and he said: ‘It has been nice playing with you but you won’t win anything without me’.”
“If [Lord Ferg] apologies I would be happy to move on… for Ferguson to badmouth me after I left, I think he does owe me an apology.” In case you didn’t know, Roy Keane still has a book out.
Under pressure’s Nigel Pearson says he’s over Tuesday night’s in-play row with a Leicester fan. “It was just one idiot in the stands. If he doesn’t like what he sees, then don’t bother coming.”
A Borussia Dortmund suit has come out and said that the story claiming Real Madrid have first dibs on Marco Reus is as rubbish as reality TV. “This is complete nonsense that there is an option right agreement. Marco alone will decide where he will go,” said suit sniffed.
Mr Em wanted to join Leicester last week but this week he wants to join Bolton after turning up for training. He could form a sprightly partnership with Eidur Gudjohnsen. The duo would have a combined age of 72.
After telling Bertie Vogts to do one, Azerbaijan have leafed through the CVs of Roberto Mancini, Martin Jol and Slaven Bilic and plumped for, eh, Robert Prosinecki.
And José Mourinho says it’s time the public understood what players go through. “We couldn’t even fly back to London [from Sunderland last week] by plane because of the fog. We had seven hours by bus to get back.”
STILL WANT MORE?
Gary Al-Smith talks to Michael Essien about how it feels to be the target of an online Ebola hoax. Answer: not much fun at all.
Page 10 stunnah Marina Hyde thinks football’s shut-up-and-play ethos ain’t all that.
Arsenal are definitely going to sign Sami Khedira, Christoph Kramer, Yohan Cabaye, James McCarthy and Vlad Chiriches. Or maybe none of them. The Mill has its suspicions.
Does $tevie Mbe deserves a new contract? Yes, says Paul Wilson. And he should accept it, too.
Remember when Kevin Keegan went to the Bundesliga for three seasons and won the Ballon d’Or twice, played in the European Cup final against Forest and released a top-10 smash hit? Probably not, eh? But Luke Ginnell does.
David Squires eyes football’s fit and proper test in the latest of his mighty fine illustrations.
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