SALES OF NIK NAKS ROSE BY 32% WHEN THEY DITCHED SCAMPI ‘N’ LEMON BECAUSE OF THEIR SMELL? MONSTERS
Friday night football – it works for American high schools, so why not the Premier League? That was presumably the gist of a series of long lunches that led to Sky announcing the extension of their talons into the last unsullied corner of the weekend. Aston Villa and Manchester United are first under the lights, a season before everyone else – but for once this isn’t entirely TV’s fault.
Indeed, your answer to the 2025 quiz question ‘which forgotten far-right political group accidentally brought about the collapse of the Premier League by forcing a successful trial of Friday night football?’ is the EDL, whose march in Walsall has led the match to be moved from Saturday tea-time to Friday evening, when The Fiver would normally be out and about, snaffling the best bargains from Tesco’s reduced section while all the suckers are still at the pub. With Club Brugge rolling into Old Trafford on Tuesday, the powers that be have been left with simply no choice but to play the fixture in the exact time slot Sky want us to start watching football, giving a deeply unpleasant cause some free publicity into the bargain. For armchair viewers and away fans alike, Friday night football is here, and you’d better get used to it. Bournemouth fans might have thought it couldn’t get any worse than a Monday night trip to Liverpool. They’ll beg for relegation before the end.
David de Gea hasn’t busted out of the Premier League just yet, but Louis van Gaal has been busy pinning the goalkeeper’s dirty laundry up all over town. “[He] remains out of the squad,” straight-batted LVG, before offering to spill the beans in a “more intimate setting”. Having slipped into a smoking jacket and arranged himself seductively on a chaise longue, LVG tearfully whispered into The Fiver’s ear that De Gea doesn’t want to play for him any more. In all likelihood, he’s off to La Liga, where they just make up the kick-off times as they go along.
Meanwhile, Tactics Timothy has been consulting his Friday Night Lights box set, in search of a few nuggets of coaching wisdom. He’s had a go at confidence building, comparing new teenage signing Adama Traoré to the world’s two finest players. “He’s played a lot of games for someone so young because he’s physically a man. He’s been a man for a long time now. He’s a big, powerful boy, very quick, dynamic, maverick-type player. You never know what’s going to come out next … a bit of Messi and [Him]”.
Villa could use both, with a recent home record against United that’s somewhere between appalling and obscene; their last win came in 1995, when Traoré wasn’t even born and The Fiver spent Friday nights eating Rib ‘N’ Saucy Nik Naks and learning the words to The Outhere Brothers’s ‘Boom Boom Boom’. How times have changed. Villa’s record since those halcyon days is a tasty DLDLLDLLDLLLLLLLLLDLLLLLD – coincidentally, that’s also the thrust of the incoherent chants you might hear in Walsall on Saturday.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE TONIGHT
Join Niall McVeigh from 7.45pm BST for MBM coverage of Aston Villa 1-2 Manchester United.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“If, in years to come, Terminators take over the world and people ask me ‘where did it all start?’ I will say it was when Cameron Jerome’s goal for Norwich was disallowed on the opening day of the 2015-16 season” – Ian Wright brings some much-needed perspective to his BBC column.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re: Claudio Ranieri’s ‘everything is OK’ comment after Jamie Vardy’s racial slur (yesterday’s Bits and Bobs). Is this Claudio passing Nigel Pearson’s head-in-the-sand test?” – Louwrens Botha.
“Football’s smallest players. Discuss” – Paul Buller.
“Following the magnificent er, success with your STOP FOOTBALL campaign, would it be possible for you to lend your support to the STOP CORBYN campaign” – Rob Graham [too late – Fiver Politics Ed].
“I placed ‘The Fiver’ into my browser to look for previous tea-timely articles, and to my horror … The Fiver has a Wikipedia page [still – Fiver Ed]! Alas, like The Fiver, it is stale, devoid of humour and in serious need of freshening” – JJ Zucal.
• 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: Louwrens Botha.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
The edit wasn’t here in time on Thursday, but never fear, here’s your latest dose of AC Jimbo and co on Football Weekly Extra. And tickets are still available for Football Weekly Live in Manchester on 3 September, plus another date in Brighton on 16 October.
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BITS AND BOBS
Far be it from The Fiver to say it told you so, but IT TOLD YOU SO.
Did José Mourinho apologise? What do you think? “Dr Jon Fearn and Dr Eva Carneiro will not be on the bench but doesn’t mean for the rest of the season,” he trilled. “My decision does not mean they won’t be on the bench in the future. If you want to speak to me about football, I’m here. If you want to ask about other things, I’m not here.”
Meanwhile, Arsène Wenger struggled to hold back the great big guffaw that was building up inside him as he pointed out that the row bubbling over at the Bridge probably isn’t helping José much. “It is a problem inside the club that if you are not united it is more difficult. It is the trust and unity that makes the strength,” he snickered through the hand he was holding over his mouth.
Vincent Kompany horrified hacks by making them spell something really difficult in the build-up to Manchester City v Chelsea on Sunday. “You’d almost hope that Eden Hazard would have diarrhoea,” he honked, in a loss of self-control not seen since his performances in Big Cup last season. “Now let’s be serious. You can’t underestimate the impact he has on Chelsea.”
Fenerbahce have paid for five-year-old Louis Diamond to visit Istanbul and meet Robin van Persie after the boy’s father posted a video online of his son sobbing inconsolably after the striker left Manchester United, instead of just being a top, top dad and giving him a big hug.
In news that will thrill Liverpool fans, Mario Balotelli is due a six-figure ‘loyalty bonus’ from the club should the striker still be loitering around Anfield when the transfer window shuts.
Ashley Cole failed to make Roma’s 26-man squad for the pre-season trot out against Sevilla. Here’s hoping he wasn’t driving when he heard the news.
Financially knacked Parma are auctioning off eight trophies, including three Coppa Italias and two Big Vases, in a desperate attempt to raise some cash so they can try to haul themselves out of Serie D. Help them out by getting your bid in here.
And Big Sam reckons Gollivan want the moon on a stick and more at West Ham, which is why he is now unemployed and propping up bits and bobs. “The West Ham way is obviously not winning every week, like I tried to do,” he whined. “I did everything they asked for and they wanted more, and I found that extremely ungrateful in terms of what I’d done for them. They thought we could get into [Big Vase] and thought they might be able to get to a cup final, and that wasn’t in the format of the job description when I started.”
STILL WANT MORE?
One thing to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Two things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Three things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Four things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Five things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Six things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Seven things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Eight things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Nine things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. Ha ha ha! Ten! Ten things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend!
If at the end of the season you see someone chained to the railings at Upton Park, it might well be Brian Williams.
The Bundesliga is back, baby! Raphael Honigstein marks your card for the season ahead.
This is a very enjoyable piece from Amy Lawrence on Watford’s Quique Sánchez Flores. Read.
Who is the best American soccerballer in Europe? Terrance F Ross has the answer in his power index.
There be gold in this here collection. Nigel Clough on a rubber ring!
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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