JULY, JULY!
You may well remember the first days after the end of football’s coronaviral pupation, when the sport emerged from the sarcophagus into which it had temporarily been forced, spread its wings, and with the entire football-loving community watching, spellbound and desperate … well … then it … it was a little bit rubbish, wasn’t it?
There was a period when almost nobody scored in the first half, and things were only slightly better in the second. The 26 games during June featured, on average, 2.15 goals each, 0.3 fewer than in 2008-09, the least free-scoring season in Premier League history. In 13 games during the month of June the bottom five between them won none, scored four goals and banked three points at the rate of 0.23 a game. But something changed around the turn of the month, and now everything has turned just a little bit completely mad. There have been more goals, obviously: the 41 games so far played in July have featured, on average, 3.02 each, 0.2 more than 2018-19, the most free-scoring season in Premier League history. The bottom five have woken up: in 17 games they have claimed five wins, scored 20 goals and banked 17 points at the rate of one a game.
Yet goals are just the start of it. Over the weekend four of the bottom five won; normally sensible Leicester staged a senseless self-destruction to hand Bournemouth a first victory since the first day of February; a referee caught the gibbers and disallowed a perfectly good Crystal Palace goal because, well, why not?; a single player in a West Ham team that between the sorry lot of them had scored five away goals in 14 away matches this calendar year scored four away goals in the space of little more than an hour. Since then Southampton plundered a 96th-minute equaliser at Old Trafford and Burnley scored a 96th-minute equaliser against Wolves – and when interesting stuff starts happening in Burnley games you know things are turning weird. While that was happening Bournemouth went to Manchester City and outplayed them (but still lost).
Liverpool watched all this and saw a new challenge. The rest of the league were engaged in what basically amounts to competitive bonkersball, and they wanted to be champions of that as well. There can be no other explanation for the goings-on at the Emirates on Wednesday night. Virgil van Dijk – Virgil van Dijk, mind you – committed a ludicrous defensive blunder. Alisson made a goalkeeping howler. Arsenal had three shots in the entire match, two of them essentially created by Liverpool, an eighth of the visitors’ tally of 24. The Gunners won 2-1. There are 29 games left in this Premier League season. Hold on to your hats.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I accept some responsibility but not all of it. These assessments always focus on the coach but I don’t feel I’ve done things too badly because we drew three games. I would give more credit to Madrid for winning every game” – Barcelona boss Quique Setién tries to lay some groundwork before Real Madrid’s impending La Liga title, but Barcelona being Barcelona, you can be pretty sure where the Big Finger O’Blame will be pointing.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Football Weekly Extra will be in this general vicinity, while here’s the second part of our Forgotten Stories of Football podcast on Dundee United’s glory years under Jim McLean.
FIVER LETTERS
“How considerate of Hull to let Plucky Wigan run up a rugby league replica scoreline guaranteed to please their DW Stadium-mates and possible future overlords. But why stop there? A replica breakaway league could reset the EFL’s lunatic economics. Just add [Nasty] Leeds, Huddersfield, Salford, Bradford, Oldham and, to make up an even number of clubs, Toronto FC. The Broken Time Conference. Party like it’s 1895” – Adrian Armstrong.
“As we learn that Marcus Rashford is to be deservedly awarded an honorary doctorate by Manchester Unitedversity (yesterday’s Quote of the Day), I started to wonder which other footballers/coaches had actually earned real degrees. I was faintly aware that Steve Coppell has an economics degree and that Arsène Wenger had also earned some academic stripes along the way, but I’m sure there are quite a few more Mastermind wannabes plying their trade up and down the country that I’ve missed? Over to you, reader” – Allastair McGillivray [try this – Fiver Ed].
“‘Jim White’s teeth and the garish breaking transfer news tickers of doom’ (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs) sound like a suburban teenage heavy metal band. You know the type: long hair, home by teatime, practice in the dining room on a Saturday morning when mum’s at her book club, that sort of thing. They probably sound terrible, but I’d bet they’re better than being repeatedly told that Todd Cantwell’s car has been seen in the Bramall Lane car park” – Nick Kinsella.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Nick Kinsella.
BITS AND BOBS
Spain’s health minister is struggling to see how fans will be able to return to La Liga games come September. “We have to step carefully with the virus, and concentrating large numbers of people at this time is not advisable at all,” said Santiago Illa.
England and Wales will duke it out in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Wembley on 8 October.
Beth England and Emma Hayes have scooped the WSL player and manager of the year gongs, respectively.
Tottenham are thrashing it out with Southampton over a deal to sign Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and send Kyle Walker-Peters in the opposite direction.
Bristol City and Birmingham have been spotted circling Plucky Little Wigan manager Paul Cook.
Carlo Ancelotti has warned Jordan Pickford that his form must improve, after face-to-face talks with the erratic Everton keeper. “He’s not doing well,” sighed the Italian. “For the quality that he has, and he agreed, he has to be better.”
And Ole Gunnar Solskjær is feeling funky at Chelsea getting 48 hours longer than Manchester United to recover before Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final. “It’s not fair,” he tooted. “We spoke about a fair scheduling going into this restart and, of course, it isn’t.”
STILL WANT MORE?
Max Rushden on Jack Charlton, a giant fish and the memories that make us love sport.
Sassuolo are surprisingly good at football, writes Nicky Bandini.
Dvd O’Lry explains how ruddy bloody brave his Nasty Leeds boys were.
Arsenal are now less bad than they were but could still be better, as Jonathan Liew points out.
There is plenty at stake when Leicester City take on Sheffield United. Paul Doyle discusses the showdown.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
