STICKY TOFFEE
At a time when so much in the world divides us, when nobody can agree on anything, when the fabric of our society is coming apart like a damp digestive biscuit, it’s comforting when something comes along to unite us. And that something is pointless, self-defeating, flamboyantly immature pettiness.
Everton face Manchester City tonight, and if they haven’t got enough problems at the moment, they have to cope with the possibility that winning – which as the Fiver understands it is loosely the point of football – will give the lot across the park a pretty hefty boost in the title race. And that prospect has proved too much for some people. “Definitely,” one Everton fan said on Sky earlier, when asked if he’d be happy to lose, thus enabling City to nudge ahead of Liverpool on goal difference at the top of the table. “Don’t want Them winning the league. We’ll never hear the end of it. Do you have to work with Kopites? They’re ‘orrible.”
This is the sort of thing we can get behind. Sure, it’s only one step removed from a five-year-old throwing their favourite toy in the canal because their brother wants to play with it, but this is the sort of thing that makes sport special. Actively sabotaging your own short-term happiness in order to make the lives of others more difficult is at the very core of supporting your team.
You can’t really blame any Everton supporter taking the counterintuitive route to fandom on Wednesday night. Should they win, they will ROCKET from ninth to eighth, nudging slightly ahead in their noble quest to sneak seventh place, and thus have to begin next season and the Europa League qualifiers at some point in March. Theirs is an existential question, in many ways: their team is essentially pointless, on course to achieve nothing aside from fulfilling their fixtures, so what better way to find meaning than by tripping up the hated rivals?
Actually there might be a scenario in which everyone is happy, and could even be more satisfying for the Schadenfreude-seeking Toffee. Recently, when presented with the opportunity to pull clear of City themselves, Liverpool reacted like the teenage Fiver when presented with the vague opportunity to kiss a member of the opposite $ex – which is to say they panicked at the prospect of grasping the nettle and ultimately departed full of self-loathing. Surely beating City, then allowing Liverpool to sabotage themselves, is ultimately more pleasing than their own indirect scuppering.
In the end Everton fans probably don’t need to put themselves in the confusing position of urging their lot to lose, because that will almost certainly happen anyway. Under Marco Silva, who thus far appears to be football’s answer to the emperor parading around nude while various lickspittles proclaim him to be wearing the finest threads, they have in the last few weeks contrived to be beaten by Southampton, Leicester, Wolves and Millwall. Gradually it sounds like the Evertonian top brass are realising that their man has not a stitch on, and could invite him to do one forthwith. The question is, will winning or losing on Wednesday night will make that more likely?
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Regrettably we are aware that, in some cases, there were queuing times in excess of three hours, which is of course entirely unacceptable and not a scene we want repeated” – Gibraltar’s FA apologises to local fans after pulling the plug on their online ticket sales system to prevent Irish fans from snapping up tickets for next month’s Euro 2020 Group D qualifier.
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Producing the Guardian’s thoughtful, in-depth journalism [the stuff not normally found in this email, obviously – Fiver Ed] is expensive, but supporting us isn’t. If you value our journalism, please support us. In return we can hopefully arm you with the kind of knowledge that makes you sound slightly less uninformed during those hot reactive gegenpress chats you so enjoy. And if you think what we do is enjoyable [again, etc and so on – Fiver Ed], please help us keep coming back here to give you more of the same.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re. Frankie Dodds’ email about Style Council related Burnley headlines [Tuesday’s Fiver]: Have You Ever Had It (Claret and) Blue. The Paris Match (hopes of a big game in the Europa League). Long Hot Summer (the extent of Burnley’s Europa League campaign). It Just Came To Pieces In My Hands (Sean Dyche reviews Burnley’s Europa League campaign). Balls Come Tumbling Down (Sean Dyche reviews the effect of signing Peter Crouch). Come To Milton Keynes( once the wheels inevitably fall off)“ – John Meara.
“On the subject of footballer-musician namesakes, don’t forget that for the first few years of their musical career, Neil Young was also turning out for Manchester City and his backing band, Emlyn Hughes, was becoming a legend at Liverpool” – Ed Taylor.
“Actually got a genuine ROFL for myself when I looked up Creedence Clearwater Couto to see if it was truly a real name, and found this, specifically arfing over the footballer with the name Bongo Christ” – Steve Hibbert.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is … Ed Taylor, who wins a copy of Rob Smyth’s Kaiser!. Plenty more prizes to come.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
The Metropolitan Police is investigating footage that appeared to show fans directing Islamophobic abuse at Mo Salah during Monday night’s game between West Ham and Liverpool.
Ravel Morrison, this generation’s coulda shoulda woulda footballer, is channeling the Six Million Dollar Man after signing up with Swedish side Ostersunds. “I’ve come here to rebuild myself,” he roared.
Back in the late 1990s, drunk on their own sense of self-regard, Suede decided to release the title of their album Head Music one letter at a time. Eden Hazard is taking a similar approach to drip-drip announcements, informing French radio “I know what I am going to do,” but declining to specify what that actually is.
Meanwhile a Bournemouth fan who tried to provide his clearly malnourished heroes with sustenance by throwing a pie on to the pitch during their FA Cup defeat to Chelsea, faces being banned from games.
Hats off to Newport goalkeeper Joe Day, who very rapidly did one after his team produced yet another upset in the FA Cup last night. He’s not a party pooper: his wife Lizzie was in labour at the time, and has happily given birth to healthy twins.
STILL WANT MORE?
José Mourinho finally gives the public what they want, by falling on his backside. Marina Hyde expands on the theme.
We have a title race. Have there been title races before? Find out with Gregg Bakowski’s Joy of Six.
Aston Villa have to pull their finger out if they want to avoid another season in the Championship. Lickety split, writes Ben Fisher.
Infinitesimally low xG, double penalties and Gianluca Pagliuca kissing a goalpost: it’s all in the Knowledge.
Some rivalries are historic. Some rivalries are local. Aberdeen and Rangers’s rivalry was heated up by an absolutely horrible tackle, as Steven Pye writes.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
