MOYES WILL BE MOYES
With his Sunderland squad shuffling towards relegation like a gang of reanimated corpses from The Walking Dead who’ve been thrown a football, David Moyes could have been forgiven for being less than enthused about facing the press on Monday morning. His players haven’t managed a goal between them in 405 minutes of football and with a trip to the resurgent Premier League champions coming up things don’t look like improving any time soon. Luckily, Moyes was able to put such trifling matters behind him when the focus of his interrogation turned to a different kind of shambles: the aftermath of an interview he conducted with a BBC reporter before the international break.
On that particular occasion, following a chat with Vicki Sparks in which she’d quizzed him on the amount of pressure he was under, Moyes proceeded to put himself under even more of it by saying her line of questioning had been “getting a wee bit naughty” before warning her to “watch yourself … you still might get a slap even though you’re a woman”. While his remarks were undeniably sexist, completely dunderheaded and staggeringly unfunny, it should be pointed out that Moyes seemed to be attempting a lame joke, but did not make his comments in the form of a “chilling threat” as has been reported in certain quarters. In the recording, Sparks was heard laughing and did not, on the face of it at least, appear to feel in any way threatened or offended. Perhaps she was too busy having to force an awkward giggle at the tragic inability of a 53-year-old Proper Football Man to communicate with an actual woman in his predominantly male work environment without sounding like a complete tool.
“In the heat of the moment, I made a mistake in my comment to a BBC reporter which I profoundly regret,” said Moyes, by way of explanation. “I was disappointed with myself for it. I subsequently phoned the reporter and apologised, which she accepted.” And in an interesting twist on a classic argument, Moyes went on to claim he’s not that kind of manager: “It’s not my character, it’s not my type, as most people know,” he said. “Once again, I apologised for it.”
While Moyes is probably hoping that’s the end of the matter and he can get on with the job of steering Sunderland into the Championship, this looks likely to run and run. His comments have been described as “disgraceful” by shadow sports minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan and “inexcusable” by Gary Lineker. “Moyes incident highlights a tendency for some managers to treat interviewers with utter disdain,” said the Match of the Day presenter. He’s not wrong. After years of being patronised and leered over, female journalists are also now being treated with the same contempt as the men.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
16 September 2016: “[Big Vase] is not a competition that Man United wants” – José Mourinho’s focus is squarely on the league.
3 April 2017: “It’s possible that you see me play in the Premier League with a team where I’m going to protect the players that I consider fundamental for [Big Vase]” – ah.
SUPPORT THE GUARDIAN
Producing the Guardian’s thoughtful, in-depth journalism – the stuff not normally found in this email, obviously – is expensive, but supporting us isn’t. If you value our journalism, please support us by making a one-off or recurring contribution.
FIVER LETTERS
“Re: humankind’s major advances so far this century (Friday’s Fiver), the next major breakthrough must surely be to grow a rat (or rodent of choice) on a human ear; in an instant making tattoos, luminescent boots and haircuts with built-in hieroglyphs utterly so yesterday for your trending footie professional” – Kevin McKee.
“Congratulations to all at Fiver Towers for this innovative, and accurate, system of score prediction – the numbers on the red and blue doors (photo from Friday’s Fiver). For complete accuracy you could ask No-mates, Acne-faced, Teenage Nerd Fiver to flip the photo and indicate that the game was at Anfield” – Declan Houton.
“About Brian Kilcine owning a Dacia Duster in the early 1990s (Friday’s Quote of the Day). Clearly the man was way way ahead of his time, or else had access to the Tardis, as the Dacia Duster entered production in about 2010. I think we should be told” – Liam Hamilton.
“The interview with Brian Kilcline reminded me of the time he played in ‘The Entertainers Reunited’ charity game in Newcastle in 2011, and we bumped into the whole squad on the Toon the night before. As the team got off the party bus, my mate nudged me and jokingly said: ‘Hey look, there’s Robbie Savage’, to which Killer squared up to him and threatened to ‘lay him out’ if he said it again. It’s reassuring to discover now, six years later, that Kilcline was simply providing my mate with ‘a good tale’ to tell at the pearly gates” – Brian Saxby.
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 … Kevin McKee.
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.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Get your podcast kicks with AC Jimbo and co in this here edition of Football Weekly.
BITS AND BOBS
You know you’re in trouble when Gaël Clichy has to pipe up in an attempt to get your critics to pipe down. “[Arsène Wenger] does not really deserve what he is getting,” he squeaked. “What you get is probably most of the time not better than what you have, so you have to be careful what you wish for,” said the player who got exactly what he wished for when he did one from Arsenal to win the Premier League with Manchester City.
England boss Mark Sampson’s most controversial decision was to omit Chelsea striker Eniola Aluko from an experienced squad for the Euro 2017 shindig in the Netherlands this summer. Here’s our player-by-player guide.
Dejan Lovren has still got a simmering funk on with Ross Barkley for introducing his studs to his shin in the Merseyside derby dust-up. “It will be headlines if I show you my leg,” roared Lovren. “He didn’t apologise and that is the only thing I do not like.”
Even though they were their usual bobbins at Anfield, Everton aren’t totally getting it in the neck from Ronald Koeman. “The team was not good enough but I was really proud,” he tooted. “You need to look at the progress of the club and the team over the whole season, not just one game.”
It’s been at least five minutes since Luke Shaw was given a verbal or physical beat-down so here comes José Mourinho to remedy that. “It’s difficult for him to be on the bench. I cannot compare him with Ashley Young, with Darmian, with Blind. I cannot compare the way he trains, the way he way he commits, the focus, the ambition. I cannot compare. He is a long way behind.” Oof!
And after being warned that it was in danger of losing £30m of public funding unless it modernised and became more inclusive, the FA has shown uncanny timing by unanimously approving a package of reforms that will lead to more women appointed to the board.
STILL WANT MORE?
Talking points are back, back, back! Ten of them! Right here! Including Pep being weirdly conservative and Luke Shaw’s future looking bleaker than the Yorkshire Moors in mid-winter.
British managers are overrated by English clubs – and the stats back it up, roars Sean Ingle. Hear, hear, squeaks Pepe Mel, somewhere far, far away.
Hats off to Brendan Rodgers, he has taken the Queen’s Celtic to another title – and level, cheers Ewan Murray. No he hasn’t say people below the line who probably didn’t read the piece.
Like Weird Uncle Fiver after a weekend on the Tin in Blackpool, Leverkusen and Wolfsburg continue to flirt with oblivion, writes Andy Brassell.
Juventus may be slowing down at the wrong time of the season, surmises Paolo Bandini in his Serie A blog on a rather round-looking Gonzalo Higuaín’s underwhelming return to Napoli.
Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City was utterly shapeless and Kevin De Bruyne’s positional control was about the only thing that Michael Cox didn’t have to scratch his head to make sense of.
And Bastian Schweinsteiger was all fist-pumping business on his Major League Soccerball debut – he even scored, cheers Gideon Nachman.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
