IT’S ONLY FEBRUARY, BUT ...
There hasn’t been this much talk about Liverpool’s bottle since they kept winning the Milk Cup during the early 80s. But Ronnie Whelan can’t save them now. Last weekend saw victories for The Son Heung-min Team at Wembley – now there’s a player you can’t do without – and Manchester City, who defeated Mattéo Guendouzi and a queue of 10 people waiting for a bus, daydreaming, whistling, checking their text messages, rolling a fag, absent-mindedly fiddling with the change in their pockets while scratching the back of their trousers, etc. It won’t be long before Arsenal Fan TV is worth watching again, will it? Anyway, those results have heaped the pressure on Jürgen Klopp’s side at the top of the Premier League, and Ronnie Whelan can’t save them now.
OK, so The Fiver isn’t the best at sensing which way the wind is blowing. If we were, we’d have gone to bed at 11.31pm on Sunday night, instead of staying up until 4am watching an insipid attacking meltdown by the LA Rams that made Arsenal’s second-half performance at the Etihad look like AS Adema’s masterclass against SO l’Emyrne. But we don’t think Liverpool are losing their heads just yet. After all, they were 0.00000001mm from scoring a game-changing opener in the defeat at City, while against Leicester on Wednesday there was no accounting for the random clacking of the two marbles inside Martin Atkinson’s confused dome. These things happen in football, so you can’t say they’ve gone full 2014 already.
Then again, we sense they’ll need to take all three points on offer at West Ham on Monday night, else people really will start to wonder. “If we win games, and hopefully we win a lot of games, we will see how people deal with it,” said Klopp, attempting to swerve the subject but merely bringing everyone’s attention to it instead. “We cannot talk week in, week out about the mindset because it will not change.” To further demonstrate this studied insouciance, Klopp insisted his team will go full pelt for Big Cup as well as the league, though that argument didn’t thoroughly convince either, given he also announced more leg surgery for Joe Gomez. A blow which, going into the business end of the campaign, places an awful lot of faith in the steady form of Dejan Lovren. Oh Joe!
Still, first things first, one thing at a time. Let’s see if they can make a major nerve-settling statement against a Hammers side who will be without danger man Marko Arnau … ah, seems he might be back ahead of schedule, and raring to go! Hmm. Where’s Ronnie Whelan when you need him?
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Scott Murray from 8pm GMT for hot MBM coverage of West Ham 1-2 Liverpool.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“In Cork City I’m completely normalised. The lads don’t make any exceptions for me. I don’t make any for them. I’m just a football coach” – Lisa Fallon, the only female coach working in men’s professional football in Ireland, tells Donald McRae about her extraordinary career.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Football Weekly is late, but will be in this general vicinity.
SUPPORT THE GUARDIAN
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: ‘When Crouchie dipped his head below the dressing room door’ (Friday’s Fiver). Perhaps doorway or doorframe might have been better, or lintel if you were feeling architectural? Doubtless you know best though; perhaps he’s better at limbo than I think, or perhaps Burnley had reinstalled the door in a giant cat-flap style to celebrate his arrival” – Louise Wright.
“Crouch, Pause, Engage (Friday’s Fiver)? You need to have a word with your egg-chasing cousin, The Breakdown. The magic mantra of refs at scrum time is now crouch, bind, set. Yours in the Wasps scarf” – Tony Clewes.
“After falling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole following my discovery of the Canadian Premier League, I came across current HFX Wanderers and erstwhile Trinidad & Tobago goalkeeper Elton John. Do other readers of The Fiver have any other favourite players who share their names with pop stars?” – Nathan Eaton.
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 … Louise Wright, who wins a copy of Jimmy: the autobiography of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. Plenty more prizes to come.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
One of the occupants of the plane that crashed carrying the footballer Emiliano Sala has been spotted by air investigators who have been carrying out underwater searches.
Refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi will face a further two months in prison after being given 60 days to prepare a defence against Bahrain’s attempt to extradite him from Thailand.
John Askey has jumped at the chance to manage Port Vale after Neil Aspin showed himself through the door marked Do One last week.
Paul Ince, who once scribbled “Shoot” on a tactics pad during an in-game management masterclass at Blackeye Rovers, has defended his view that he could do what Ole Gunnar Solskjær has done at Manchester United. “I have managed in the Premier League and all four English professional divisions, so no one can say I don’t know what I am talking about here,” he blathered. “It was easy for whoever came in after [José Mourinho] to right the ship.”
“David Moyes told me to [eff] off. I should have accepted it, but I said: ‘What do you mean, [eff] off, bro? You [eff] off.’ And then I left for Holland and didn’t come back” – Royston Drenthe revels why it didn’t entirely work out for him at Everton.
And Wolves boss Nuno Espírito Santo isn’t happy about the feline interloper who halted play for four minutes during his side’s 3-1 win at Goodison. “Where I come from in Portugal, the black cat is bad luck so I never want to see cats again,” he barked. “I don’t like black cats.”
STILL WANT MORE?
Paolo Bandini’s busy munching chicken biscuits and guacamole at the Super Bowl, but that hasn’t stopped him from keeping an eye on Juventus.
Andy Brassell didn’t get the Atlanta gig but has nevertheless managed to knock out 1,200 words on Bayern’s Dusel running dry.
No left-back? Fernandinho at centre-back? Playing almost all your attackers at the same time? Pep’s thinking too hard, reckons Jonathan Wilson.
Various people in football need to get their houses in order over concussion, writes Sean Ingle.
Villarreal have gone back to the coach they sacked earlier this season – but they still can’t win, reports Sid Lowe.
If Ole Gunnar Solskjær wants to know how to beat PSG, he could do worse than reading this on how Lyon managed it. Yes, yes, even though he was at the game.
Click for one Premier League talking point, get nine more free.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
