GOOD VIBRATIONS
Considering he’s been working in English football for more than a year now, you could be forgiven for thinking that Jürgen Klopp might have figured out how things work by now. Nevertheless, with his relentless cheerfulness, ridiculously reasonable world view and ready supply of amusing quips, the manager steadfastly refuses to play the game preferred by many of his more dour, paranoid, miserable, infantile, argumentative, abusive, and intimidating counterparts at other top-flight clubs. Well, played by one of them.
What’s more, despite all available evidence to the contrary he continues to labour under the delusion that devoting hefty portions of one’s money and leisure time to supporting a top-flight team is supposed to be “fun”, when in fact the default setting of most fans The Fiver sees at football is a kind of seething, red-faced outrage that occasionally boils over into the kind of full-on funk that prompts grown men to throw coins – their own coins – at each other, smash up porcelain and engage in other kinds of ludicrous behaviour that, if they’re lucky, will be rewarded with the prize of a banning order that means they can devote their free time to more serene pursuits they might actually enjoy.
Silly Jürgen. On Friday the Liverpool manager was at it again, prattling on about the “positive atmosphere” currently enveloping Liverpool’s training ground while telling hard-bitten hacks that “you can always have an optimistic view”. Try telling that to miserable movie-maker Ken Loach, whose current gloomy cinema offering I, José Mourinho has been making headlines this week. The often harrowing story of a once proud manager forced to survive on handouts from an assortment of high-profile football clubs, Loach’s film details the forlorn grind of a man cruelly exiled from London to live alone in a poorly appointed northern hovel while contending with the ludicrous number of injustices and humiliations visited upon him on an almost daily basis. Indeed, such are the hardships the t1tular character is forced to endure, it’s small wonder several critics have dismissed the movie on the grounds of its preposterous implausibility.
Anyway, back to Jürgen. “That’s good,” he said of the good vibes emanating from Liverpool’s dressing room. “It’s not cool when you always think about football that you’re 20% more upset, you should be feeling better. That’s our job to do.” The next step in his plan to make Liverpool fans feel even better involves a trip to Selhurst Park, where his team will take on a Crystal Palace side managed by a man who prefers to express his satisfaction through the medium of body popping. Alan Pardew, for it is he, will be hoping that Christian Benteke prompts some excruciating technical area dad dancing with a goal or two against his former club. Surprisingly, the man who sanctioned his sale to Palace was so effusive in his praise for the Belgian that it’s a wonder he actually let him go this summer. “We had to make decisions,” said Jürgen, by way of explanation. “I’m always honest. My door is always open. The agreement we have is work hard.” While a willingness to graft and gegenpress has never been Benteke’s strong point, you can bet he’ll be straining every sinew come kick-off time on Saturday evening.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The UAE offer came and I was starting to think that if I go there, we must be honest, it is for fun and for money. It could be easier. There were some problems with the transfer and then Burnley came in. The manager came and convinced me” – Belgium’s Steven Defour gets the chat on about his career, that correspondence from Lord Ferg and that Anderlecht game at Standard Liège, with Andy Hunter.
ICON OF THE DAY
“He’s had a huge impact on the club and Singapore football. Someone of his stature and, frankly, quite iconic status engenders an excitement and vibe which was much needed for Singapore football in the early stages of the season. While the club could afford his wages, it would also send the wrong message to all the other players that one player is getting a super-scale salary while the others have to take a pay cut. It would create a social injustice” – Tampines Rovers chief suit Krishna Ramachandra gets a bit too creative with his praise as he explains Jermaine Pennant’s refusal to take a pay-cut from his reported £23,000 per month salary.
FIVER LETTERS
“I did take my life into my hands and attend the West Ham v Chelsea match. Sadly, despite the powers that be blaming individuals and threatening life bans from ‘football’, the problems can be boiled down to mismanagement at best and downright greed at worst. To have four years’ preparation ahead of handing over control of a stadium for regular football matches and still not have the facility for the police to be in attendance because their radios don’t work is incomprehensible. To have that amount of time and not even consider that proper robust segregation is not something which means admitting that your fans can sometimes be a bit uppity is, frankly, disregarding people’s safety. The inclusion of the two ‘party decks’ at either end of the stadium have caused problems; with the one at the away fans’ end being one of the flash point locations as it was there that home and away fans were kept apart by means of a rickety fence and a line of yellow-jacketed youths. On that note, the employing of hundreds of enthusiastic foam finger waving theme park attendants as stewards has done little if anything to bring the unruly mob into line. In addition, the choice by the club to allow season-ticket holders to purchase up to six additional tickets when pre-booking their seats has meant that those traditionally only arriving at Upton Park for cup games or the odd fixture are now regular attendees, among which I am sure are many who Lady Brady would rather have not bothered. Looking at where the gaps were in the seats on Wednesday night, it is clear that she is probably more concerned with the number of empty ‘posh seats’ than those in the gods. Of the 45,000-odd who were there, there were around 200 involved in what the press is branding as ‘trouble’. Shouting and swearing and name-calling have been around in football since it was invented and came crawling out of the primordial mud, so those delicate souls complaining of noise and drunken behaviour can be excused as being numbered among the tourists, but there were a few (I saw two) seats thrown across the divide between rival sets of supporters and some coinage exchanged, some of which undoubtedly found its intended target. If the CCTV set-up is that good, and coupled with the evidence of the videotaping police presence, West Ham should be able to identify those involved from both sets of supporters, and set about banning them properly and making a show while doing it. The empty seats can then be offered to those of the many thousands, according to Brady, apparently on a waiting list for season tickets. Let’s get back to talking about how inconsistent West Ham have been this season as quickly as possible because all this ‘new stadium problem’ coverage is frankly boring now” – Andy Marriott.
“Re: the banning of unsavoury attenders at the Taxpayer Dome. It seems that finally, finally we have the beginning of a successful STOP FOOTBALL movement. All we need to do is keep holding matches there and keep those closed-circuit cameras rolling. Granted, 23 banned in a little more than three months means this will take time, but the journey of a thousand miles, etc” – Phil Keidel.
“Lord knows, I don’t need a video game to waste even more of my day but I did want to publicly thank Carlos Alberto for befriending a soccer-crazy, young man in New York in 1978. He even introduced me to Pelé and we kicked a ball back and forth on east 54th street outside my apartment while I waited for my laundry to finish. Hell of a guy. Ciao, buddy” – Dave Wilbur.
“Re: the peace in Germany’s gum wars (yesterday’s Bits and Bobs). Can someone please explain to Jörg Schmadtke that saying Julian Nagelsmann has ‘not blown up the matter’ misses the whole point of Hubba Bubba?” – Gavin O’Sullivan.
“Re: Patrick Brennan’s link to an article about the unreadability of certain fonts on the internet and his request that The Fiver follow the trend (yesterday’s Fiver letters). May I suggest that The Fiver is already quite unreadable, judged solely by the calibre of its content. No further techno-help needed” – Mike Wilner.
“I must take issue with Joe Matthews (yesterday’s letters). Having seen loads of A-level media studies projects, I can confirm that they are pretty much always better produced than the Channel 5 Championship highlights programme. And funnier, and better informed. But I take his point. It is hard to see how it could be worse. Maybe a new Stop Football Highlights campaign?” – Alan Willis.
• 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 Andy Marriott, who receives a copy of Football Manager 2017 from those good people at Football Manager Towers. It’s not out till 4 November so aren’t you the lucky one? We’ve got plenty more copies to give away, so if you want one, keep the letters coming.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Join AC Jimbo and co for the latest thrilling instalment of Football Weekly Extra. And Producer Ben tells us there are still some tickets available for the London Palladium live show on 15 November.
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BITS AND BOBS
Pulisball will reign at West Brom until the summer of 2018 after the Baggies boss landed a new contract. “I want to build things here and play my part in improving the club,” he honked.
Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola has lavished praise on his Hawthorns counterpart before Manchester City’s visit. “I have heard a lot about Tony Pulis and I would like to congratulate Tony Pulis on his new contract,” cheered Pep. “I have been speaking with my players and I understand he made it almost impossible for visiting teams to win at Stoke,” he added, in a surefire sign that he too has been subjected to the wet, windy Tuesday night cliche.
West Ham boss Slaven Bilic is feeling funky after seeing the club’s name dragged through the gutter by a witless minority. “It does hurt. Of course it does,” he sighed. “The club didn’t deserve it; the players don’t deserve it, definitely; the fans didn’t deserve it. The majority of them, of course.”
In more Man Says Something news, José Mourinho has tried to explain away Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s ongoing Manchester United absence. “He’s not [knacked]. Sometimes I confuse the meaning ‘fit’ in the English language,” mooed Mou. “Some players, their profile is adapted to come and play, some others they need more time to feel the intensity and the aggression, the game without the ball, the competitiveness.”
Joey Barton’s got more time to read up on progressive politics after Pope’s Newc O’Rangers suits told the suspended midfielder to stay suspended until a second disciplinary hearing on 17 November.
And Milton Keynes impresario Pete Winkelman reckons the club’s next manager needs to match their unrealistic aspirations. “Like our city, we have big ambition – this stadium was built for top-flight football and that’s where we want to get in the future,” he whooped. “I want to start achieving something on the pitch – it’s about the trophies that you win, the memories you create and I want to start doing that more.” Lock up your clubs.
STILL WANT MORE?
Here’s Graeme Le Saux on why the whoppers who wouldn’t want to watch their team play if they had an openly gay player among them should just do one.
There are some rank bad owners of English clubs at the moment, reckons Richard Williams. And they’re chip, chip, chipping away at the game’s core.
The children are our future! Jacob Steinberg sort-of-channels Whitney Houston.
Gregg Bakowski waxes lyrical as Esteban Cambiasso finishes off an Argentina move with at least one million passes in the latest from our Golden Goal series.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. AND INSTACHAT, TOO!
