LAND OF CONFUSION
Many things confuse The Fiver, the latest on the ever-increasing list of which are the signs on the toilet doors of pubs that have ideas above their station (seriously what’s wrong with this and this? Why do we have to choose between two basically identical penguins, or a pistol and a lawnmower, or ET and the Alien queen? When The Fiver needs to go, The Fiver needs to go, not wrestle with some fairly fundamental lifestyle questions before tentatively nudging open a door and waiting for the shouting to start). Anyway, the Premier League at the moment is a particularly confusing place. Leicester are top, Chelsea are two points from the relegation zone, up is down, north is south and, most confusingly of all, Olivier Giroud scored a hat-trick in midweek.
Part of the issue with Giroud is that the arguments for and against are the same. “Look at his goalscoring record,” say those who think he’s a lumbering 50p-footed pretty but essentially useless wandering wardrobe of a striker. “Look at his goalscoring record,” reply those who think he’s a muscular twinkle-toed sharpshooting adonis of a modern forward. And now: “He is among the best strikers in Europe,” says the man who dropped him earlier in the season, Arsène Wenger.
It’s all very puzzling, and not helped by the fact that, just as Giroud starts to convince people, he tends to perform unconvincingly. Bad news for Arsenal, then, but not so for Aston Villa, who are charged with stopping the in-form-but-soon-to-be-out-of-form Frenchman on Sunday. Even The Fiver knows the drill by now: Villa have the same number of points after 15 games as the Worst Premier League Team Ever™ Derby County side of 2007-08. Rémi Garde’s masterplan for survival involves the signing of Ashley Cole, who couldn’t have been more frozen out at Roma were he standing in the Trevi Fountain wearing nothing but a pair of socks and a sheepish grin. That Derby side, by the way, also signed a past-their-sell-by-date former England full-back in the January transfer window, and look at all the good Danny Mills did the Rams.
So it doesn’t look like Garde has anything sorted yet and Louis van Gaal is a bit perplexed too. “The problem is that we have to meet the expectations and the expectations at a club like Manchester United are very high, and that’s our problem,” he wept before his side’s weekend trip to Bournemouth, before adding: “[Our] injuries are very heavy – Shaw and Valencia have also been operated on and that’s our problem.” Which suggests the problem might be that he doesn’t know the problem.
Van Gaal may have 99 problems but the pitch ain’t one, unlike [Fiver straightens comedy bow-tie and brushes lapels proudly in triumphant expectation of the seamless segue] Jürgen Klopp, who by the time his team face West Brom on Sunday may have shaken off the royal funk he was in about the state of the surface in Sion on Thursday night. “We saw the pitch and we knew what can happen on a pitch like this but as a professional footballer and especially as a manager you cannot talk about the pitch,” shrugged Klopp, having just talked about it three times in the space of a sentence.
Manchester City’s Manuel Pellegrini, whose team take on managerless model-club-turned-shambling-shambles Swansea on Saturday, is still confusing everyone with his pronouncements – “Nothing changes because we have a squad that we think is the best squad in this moment for the team,” he said when asked about his January plans – while José Mourinho is confused about how he should be feeling: “I feel a little bit … not knowing how to react when the people are so nice. I feel embarrassed because I don’t know how to react.” Even Chelsea’s Monday opponents, loveable Leicester, aren’t on the same page. “How far can we get? Who knows?” cheered club captain Wes Morgan. “I don’t think we can win the league,” roared Riyad Mahrez.
The Fiver wants out. The exit door is around here somewhere – though it may have a picture of a badger with an umbrella on it.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Imagine if we play [Big Cup] football at the Britannia Stadium in five years. It can happen. If you can say five years ago you would not imagine me to be here … Who knows?” – Bojan Krkic talks Stoke and Barcelona with Amy Lawrence.
FIVER LETTERS
“As an old man, I’ve never been a fan of the modern footballer, with his/her fancy coloured boots, cringe-inducing advertisements as they try and flog rubbish (yes, I’m looking at you, Jordan Henderson), going down at the touch of a feather and earning crazy amounts of money for what my ex-girlfriend used to call ‘kicking a lump of leather around’, but surely sitting on the bench at a half-empty Stadio Olimpico and raking in the Euros at Roma must be better than playing for Aston Villa?” – Noble Francis.
“First, David ‘Dai’ Hunter claims to have an ironic point (yesterday’s Fiver letters), but doesn’t. Just a ‘hilarious’ joke about how us Welsh like our L’s. (Dda iawn, chi. Donial iawn. Erbyn hyn, ewch a dysgwch beth yw ystyr ‘eironi’.) Then, Ed Taylor has a legitimately ironic point about Michael Owen calling someone ‘boring’, but doesn’t acknowledge it. And all of this in a Fiver largely about irony. Is there a word to describe that?” – Matt Dony.
“Now, if Swansea had lost their first two games, won the third, then had a mixture of defeats and draws with a postponement and an abandonment chucked in, David might have been on to something. LLWDDALLPDLL sounds like the sort of place David is thinking of, especially given that it resembles a bad translation into Welsh of Liverpool. Given the many connections between Abertawe and Lerpwl, this rather more correct wordplay would have been worth giving David Football Manager 2016 for, I think” – Barrie Francis.
• 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 … Rollover. Monday’s winner will receive two copies of Football Manager 2016, courtesy of the very kind people at Football Manager Towers. We’ve got plenty more copies to give away, so if you haven’t been lucky thus far, keep trying.
JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES
Chances are that if you’re reading this tea-timely football email, you’re almost certainly single. But fear not – if you’d like to find companionship or love, sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly folk who would never normally dream of going out with you. And don’t forget, it’s not the rejection that kills you, it’s the hope.
BITS AND BOBS
Honduras international midfielder Arnold Peralta has been shot dead in a shopping mall parking lot in his home town of La Ceiba.
Michel Platini has failed in a bid to have his 90-day Fifa suspension lifted by the court of arbitration for sport, but is still claiming it as a win. “Michel Platini notes with satisfaction that Cas partially granted his request when it demanded that Fifa not extend his ban,” cheered his lawyer Thibaud d’Alès.
As what can only be a reward for their swashbuckling brand of scintillating football, Manchester United will be broadcast live on TV for the 48th FA Cup tie in a row, against Sheffield United. Liverpool’s Friday night tie at Exeter also means no return public transport, with the last train back to Merseyside leaving 90 minutes before kick-off. Well done all!
Good news! AFC Wimbledon have been granted permission to return to Plough Lane and build a new stadium. Bad news! What now for Kingstonian?
The Everton Farm Shop in Nottinghamshire has launched a legal counter-action against Everton FC after the club objected to its name being used. “The name Everton, in terms of our village, is derived from Anglo Saxon and translates as Wild Boar Farm,” Gyles Brandrethed owner Daniela Troop. We have begun farming organic pigs and I think it would be great for Everton FC to taste some real Everton.”
Swansea City don’t impress David Moyes much, uh, uh, uh-uh. “I let that be known earlier in the week that it wasn’t for me,” he sniffed.
Wales manager Chris Coleman hopes to avoid England in Saturday’s Euro 2016 draw. “That would be viewed as a battle of Britain and there would be a lot of things that go with it that could make it a distraction,” he trilled.
And Partizan Belgrade’s entire board has stepped down after they crashed out of Big Vase. “We don’t want to blame the players but had they got the result they needed, we wouldn’t have had to resign,” fumed club suit Milos Vazura.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
Fun and games in South America dept: Uruguayan goalkeeper scores audacious solo goal.
STILL WANT MORE?
Ten, that’s the magic Premier League things to look out for this weekend number.
Gary Neville, dodgy technology and religion all feature in You are the Ref No352.
Gary Neville and the pitfalls that claim young English managers feature in this Richard Williams piece.
Paul Wilson recalls Bournemouth’s 1984 FA Cup upset of Manchester United.
Underwhelmed with Overtown? How Miami made David Beckham work for his MLS stadium dream.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
SIGN UP TO THE FIVER
Want your very own copy of our free tea-timely(ish) email sent direct to your inbox? Has your regular copy stopped arriving? Click here to sign up.
FAREWELL TO OUR VERY OWN PROFESSIONAL DAVID SILVA-ALIKE. VIEL GLÜCK IN DEUTSCHLAND
