SPRING BREAK
Football never stops. Except at the end of this week, when the Premier League ends and the prospect of a long barren summer with no football looms. Well, almost no football … apart from the FA Cup, Big Cup and Big Vase finals, assorted play-off denouements, the Euro Under-21 Championships and the Confederations Cup to take the bare look off an otherwise blank calendar before we get into July, when football more or less starts again and all will be well in the world. So as we brace ourselves for this imminent vacuum, it is imperative that we cherish what little meaningful and competitive football action we have left – specifically the race for fourth place and the prize of a place in Big Cup’s summer preliminaries.
The latest chapters of this in-no-way tedious saga will unravel on Tuesday night, when both Arsenal and Manchester City hope to ramp up the pressure on Liverpool with wins over Sunderland, who are already down, and West Brom. While all sorts of things could happen between now and Sunday, the smart money suggests Arsenal will need Liverpool to mess up at home to already-relegated Middlesbrough to have any chance of exiting Big Cup in the last 16 next season. And let’s face it, already-relegated Middlesbrough – who can neither score nor defend – are exactly the kind of team Jürgen Klopp’s men have had troub … ah, who are we trying to kid? Not even Arsène Wenger can possibly believe anything other than a damned good thrashing is coming hopeless Boro’s way.
While The Fiver’s been tempting fate, the Arsenal manager has come in for criticism after taking what has been perceived to be a swipe at West Ham for raising the white flag of surrender against Liverpool on Sunday, saying that at the end of the season “some teams turn up, some teams are on holiday”. It is Wenger’s considered opinion that “to be professional is to do your job well until the last day of the season” and that “what is not excusable is to not give your best”. Quite where he stands on the professionalism of Premier League teams taking their holidays mid-season and not giving their best against teams like Watford, Liverpool, Tottenham, West Brom and Crystal Palace remains unclear, as for reasons that remain unspecified it is a scenario he curiously neglected to address.
Wenger’s latest moan has also been interpreted as a feeble warning to West Brom, Manchester City’s opponents and a team whose season has effectively been over since March, when they secured safety with an emphatic win against – irony of ironies – Arsenal. And while Tony Pulis’s side surprised many with the obduracy with which they took on Chelsea last week, City boss Pep Guardiola pointed out that if Arsenal hadn’t scheduled their own unofficial spring break, then the timing of other clubs’ summer holidays would not be a source of concern. “I never saw one player in my life go to the pitch and don’t try to win the game and when the target is done, it’s done,” said Pep, who clearly didn’t witness the Gunners’ sorry capitulation at the Hawthorns. “But so if you don’t want that, win more games yourself, or qualify before or win [Big Cup].” Translation: get your own affairs in order and there’ll be no need to meddle in those of others.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“OK boys, listen up. Twenty-five thousand fans are out there waiting for you to explode. Twenty-five thousand are praying to God you put your foot down and go off like fireworks. But something is more important to me. At home you can always let go of what happens with your wives, kids and girlfriends. Everything that happens here, you can let it all go there. They’re always there for you. They’re at home every day. Today they’re sitting in the stands and praying to God like the rest of them that you’re going to go off like fireworks. That’s why Kathrin’s here and filming this – and she’s going to send it to your wives before the match. You’ve got to promise right here, right now that you’ll give everything for your families. Everything in this 90 minutes! For your families! For your children! You’re going to slog your guts out from start to finish and we’re going to win!” – Arminia Bielefeld release a video of assistant coach Carsten Rump guilt-tripping his relegation-threatened side into a 6-0 win against third-placed Bundesliga 2 side Eintracht Braunschweig, with an entertainingly wild-eyed and weird pre-match rallying cry.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
It’s your boy, David Squires, on Chelsea’s title win.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Get your ears around AC Jimbo and co’s latest thrilling Football Weekly podcast.
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FIVER LETTERS
“Having seen the current Mansfield manager sweating around several technical areas in the past, the thought of anyone sniffing around Steve Evans (yesterday’s Bits and Bobs) has, quite frankly, ruined my day. Thank you” – Dave Maynard.
“Myself and my family decided to collectively ‘do one’ from the Birthday Cake Stadium, Stratford after the home defeat to Liverpool, when what I can only describe as a football tourist (as we’ve been calling them) decided to take umbrage at being asked by 450 other people whose view he was blocking by standing up, to actually sit in his expensive seat. Fisticuffs ensued unfortunately, with final straws broken all round. Anyway, I digress. Watching the opening shots to Sunday’s game on Sky, with the usual helicopter view of said Soulless Bowl from 1,500 feet in the air, my mate casually piped up: ‘That’s the view from my seat’. To which we all fell about. Until the whistle went and it was business as usual for our buccaneering defence” – Andy Marriott.
“There was much scoffing from Liverpool fans on 1 April, when Jamie Redknapp declared Philippe Coutinho ‘bang in form’, despite his goal against Everton that day being only his second since November. But the last weeks of the season suggest that, far from being a mere pundit, Redknapp is in fact a prophet in overfussy clothes. Five more goals have followed since, leading one to the inevitable conclusion that Redknapp noted that goal and correctly foresaw the form that would follow. ‘Bang in form’ in this sense clearly means ‘about to become bang in form’. I for one am now convinced Redknapp has powers of divination, and that we should mark his birthday as we do Christmas. After all, is it any coincidence that it falls on 25 June, exactly half a year on from Christmas, and half a year before the next?” – Michael Hann (not of Big Paper/Website any more).
“Can I be the first of 1,057 pedants to point out that there have only been 12 people walk on the moon (yesterday’s Fiver letters)? Please can I?” – Darryl Hood (and 1,056 others).
“While Harrison Schmitt was the last person to set foot on the moon – he stepped off the lunar module after Eugene Cernan, the commander of the Apollo 17 mission – Cernan was the last person to have been on the moon as he boarded the lunar module after Harrison. However, I couldn’t tell you the name of any of the Blackeye Rovers squad” – Tom Burke.
“Before 1,057 self-important pedants demand a moon-related retraction, can any of them actually prove that N’Golo Kanté hasn’t been there? He’s been everywhere down here” – Robert Macmillan.
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 … Robert Macmillan.
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NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Eight of the professional clubs contacted by the independent inquiry into the game’s sexual-abuse scandal have failed to respond and now risk disciplinary action unless they tell the investigators what they know.
Pep Guardiola has handily reminded his Manchester City paymasters that at a proper club like Barça or Bayern he’d have already been given a one-way ticket to destination Do One. “At a big club I’m sacked. I’m out. Sure. Definitely. At the clubs I worked at before I am not here,” he mumbled.
Perhaps because it already has a Fiver nickname, Vodafone has pulled out of a £20m naming-rights deal for Taxpayer FC’s Dome O’ Doom.
Filling Old Trafford for Big Vase through the season = dollar, dollar bills, y’all.
Newcastle United are set to sign Christian Atsu for £6m from Chelsea.
Mamadou Sakho will be free to leave Liverpool in the summer as long as someone replenishes the Anfield vault with 30m big ones.
Laurent Koscielny has revealed his lingering achilles-knack is so pesky that it will need tender love and attention from a physio every day for the remainder of his career. “Sometimes, with all the games we play, it is difficult,” he sniffed.
And the newborn behind Bebeto’s rock-a-bye-baby celebration at USA 94 has just signed a five-year deal at Sporting. “So proud of you son! Continue working hard and with humility and you will go far,” cheered the Brazilian World Cup winner of Mattheus, 22, who is now massive and un-rockable.
STILL WANT MORE?
He may have clanked about like an overeager old tin man but Plain Old John Terry enjoyed a raucous night on what may have been his last Chelsea appearance at Stamford Bridge, writes Barney Ronay.
How Paul Clement saved Swansea City. By Stuart James.
Gold-gong winning Paralympian Jonnie Peacock on why going to the toilet at a match shouldn’t be an arduous task for disabled fans.
What next for Hull, Middlesbrough and Sunderland? Louise Taylor on what we can expect from the three relegated Premier League clubs.
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