A MASOCHISTIC NOD TO THOSE DAYS BEFORE THE LOTTERY WIN
Playing Bayern Munich is difficult at the best of times, what with their only discernible weakness being a goalkeeper that’s grown so bored with never having to do anything bar deal with the occasional back-pass, he has taken to doing so with a range of avant garde flourishes that looks likely to end in ignominy sooner rather than later.
Playing Bayern Munich is particularly difficult when you’ve got one ear tuned into events in Moscow, desperately hoping for news that CSKA and Roma are playing out the draw that is crucial to your chances of Big Cup survival, assuming you can get a result against a Bayern Munich side that are unbeaten in 18 matches and currently scoring goals for fun. But that is the ordeal that awaits the players of Manchester City, whose best hope this evening is that Bayern Munich might go easy on them because they’ve already won the group and couldn’t really be bothered trying too hard.
“We can’t find the tension, the power or the joy to qualify with the three points because the job is done,” said Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola, upon being asked how he’d go about motivating his players for a match against a football club whose Big Cup campaign to date has resembled some sort of weird nod to masochistic fans who pine for the halcyon days before their lottery win when they lurched from one comedy crisis to the other. “The game for them is more important than our game, but we always find the right way, something to be motivated, to be a competitive team. We have to defend our club.”
With David Silva, Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov all knacked and Yaya Touré and Fernandinho sitting this one out on the naughty step, City manager Manuel Pellegrini is down to the bare bones and will be forced to throw inexperienced whelps such as Frank Lampard, Fernando and Samir Nasri into the white hot heat of battle and hope City fans who haven’t seemed all that into Big Cup finally get behind their team, even if it means just shouting general encouragement from their living rooms while watching Holby City.
“I don’t feel there is any extra pressure,” said Pellegrini, whose punishment for another Big Cup failure could be a multi-million pound bonus in the shape of a hefty severance payment. “It’s important for this club to do well in Europe; it’s one of our targets, to improve every year. Tomorrow we will see the team fighting to the end to try and continue in [Big Cup] and I hope we will do it. I’m sure the team, plus myself, have a lot of faith that we can do it. I hope we will continue to have a chance until the last game.”
Quite why City haven’t fought to the end, or even much past half-time on several occasions, to try and continue in Big Cup thus far is something of a mystery, with many questioning the hunger and motivation of players who are now so ludicrously rich they may no longer care about winning football matches. Still, with Sergio Agüero on hand to carry his team-mates on those narrow little Argentinian shoulders, anything is possible. This being City in Europe, the Fiver’s plumping for the draw City need to keep their hopes alive in the behind-closed-doors match in front of a handful of fans in Moscow, plus a tragicomic last-minute defeat for City in the behind-open-doors match in front of a handful of fans in Manchester.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
Monday 24 November: “My client’s position is simply that it is not him singing in the video. If you take the decision to publish legal proceedings will follow as it will undoubtedly cause various issues for my client” – FAI chief suit John Delaney’s lawyers tell Big Website that’s not their man singing a pro-Republican ballad in a Dublin pub.
Tuesday 25 November: “I sing a large number of songs and it’s normally done in a private way when there is a sing-song. It’s a typically Irish thing we do, we sing songs amongst a group and you expect that to be kept within the group. Unfortunately on occasions people use camera phones in a sly way when they are not in your company and then they try to make something bigger out of it. If the song offends anyone of course I’m sorry” – ah, but FAI chief suit John Delaney confirms that it is.
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FIVER LETTERS
“Who is this imposter and what have you done with the real Fiver? Imagine my concern for the unfunny and quite terrible tea-timely email I am accustomed to receiving when I read Monday’s Fiver and it came close to making sense #ReturnOurBS” – Samuel Kathungu.
“The famous Liverpool Way (yesterday’s Fiver). It was set up so nicely for you. There were so many open goals, and you missed every single one of them. You could have gone with the Steve Heigh-Way. Or transposed Gérard Way (miserable goth-singing bloke) with the Gerrard Way (miserable footballer weeping-bloke after his slip against Chelsea last season). It’s not like you to miss an easy joke … oh” – Ben Graham.
“I’m not personally familiar with the roads on Merseyside, but this ‘Liverpool Way’ that Dalglish is harping on about, does it lead to a dead-end? Also, if this fabled street does exist, isn’t it about time they kicked Glen Johnson to the curb?” – Shaun Payne.
“While ‘Last night I dreamt of Luis Suárez’ (yesterday’s last line) had me singing ‘No hope, some harm, just some teeth marks in my arm,’ I realised there was no need to alter Morrissey’s lyrics for the Uruguayan. He was a sweet and tender hooligan, but he swears that he’ll never, never do it again and of course he won’t, not until the next time” – Colin Seiler.
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: Colin Seiler, who wins a copy of Football Manager 2015, courtesy of the very kind people at Football Manager Towers. We’ve got more copies to give away this month, so if you haven’t been lucky thus far, keep trying.
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BITS AND BOBS
Renowned socialist Arsène Wenger has asked Alisher Usmanov to show “solidarity” with the Arsenal cause instead of being critical. “When you have something to say to each other, we say it face to face. We don’t need to go to the newspapers,” he told, erm, various newspapers.
Meanwhile, Jack Wilshere has been ruled out for ‘a while’ – which the Fiver understands to be slightly longer than ‘a bit’ – after suffering ankle-knack against Manchester United.
Ryan Giggs has come to the conclusion that the Premier League 2014-15 shutters may as well come down now. “I think everyone will agree Chelsea are head and shoulders above anyone else,” sniffed the United No2.
Russia’s former assistant manager, Christian Panucci, has taken aim at Don Fabio for not backing him over a pay dispute that caused him to leave his job last month. “He behaved in a shameful way towards me and all the other Italians on the staff. I will tell him that to his face the next time I see him. A great manager has to defend his men and he hasn’t done that,” sniffed Panucci.
French police have nabbed just the 95 Ajax fans before the Big Cup match with PSG. The detained supporters were carrying iron bars, knuckledusters and ski masks and definitely not in the French capital to take part in Scrapheap Challenge.
Police are investigating a serious blaze at a company that is refusing to make way for Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium, with the owners suspecting arson.
Former Stuttgart manager Huub Stevens is now Stuttgart manager Huub Stevens again after jumping back into the job he left just months ago to “have a break.”
West Brom’s Saido Berahino is to be interviewed by police after being arrested on suspicion of drink-driving on the M6 in Cheshire.
And away-day burglaries are back! Victor Wanyama was reportedly relieved of his Range Rover and three TVs by thieves who got busy in and around the Southampton midfielder’s home while he was trotting around Villa Park last night. “They turned the house upside down and [Wanyama] is still in shock,” a member of his family told Nairobi News.
STILL WANT MORE?
Happy 33rd birthday Xabi Alonso you hero. To celebrate this triumphant day, Paul Doyle has written this on why despite his advancing years, Man City should remain terrified of Bayern Munich’s well-groomed quarterback.
Jacob Steinberg got his chat on with Borussia Dortmund’s Serbian defender Neven Subotic, who is in London town preparing to face Arsenal in Big Cup.
Oh Brendan! What’s gone wrong? Andy Hunter explains. Clue: it has something to do with missing the two best strikers in the Premier League last season.
The best XI from each of Europe’s top five leagues, courtesy of our friends at WhoScored.
Daley Blind stars in this week’s Gallery, with predictable results.
Oh, and if it’s your thing, you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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