IN THE DO ONE DEPARTURE LOUNGE …
With its finger firmly placed on the beating pulse of piping hot football news, The Fiver has never been a daily football email that’s been easily overtaken by events, but staying ahead of the chasing posse of imminent managerial sackings in the Premier League that are currently snapping hungrily at our heels could prove trickier than usual today.
With his job at Everton currently hanging by a thread [subs please check thread hasn’t snapped], Marco Silva is one of several top flight gaffers expected to be handed his P45 in the coming minutes, hours or days [subs please check current whereabouts of Silva’s P45], following his side’s latest risible capitulation, this time at home to a team wearing red shirts, shorts and socks but purporting to be league strugglers Norwich City. In a state of affairs that suggests Silva isn’t only one who appears clueless about what’s going on at the club he manages [subs please check he still manages the club], there seems widespread confusion regarding the identity of his successor.
Some say the club are inclined to go homegrown and “give it back to Moyesey til the end of the season”, while the scourge of referees that is Ailsa from Home and Away has also been linked with a job that has sadly proved too difficult for one fancy dan continental manager – Bobby M, Ronald Koeman, Sam Allardici and now Silva – after another, despite the enormous amounts of transfer funds most have been given to waste.
Whoever replaces Silva, his dismissal is likely to be greeted by high-fives, honks and hoots from Sky Sports pundits Paul Merson and Phil Thompson, who were widely derided as dinosaurs by The Fiver and other younger football media hepcats when they had the temerity to publicly question the Portuguese manager’s Premier League credentials upon his arrival in Hull two years and three high profile failures ago.
While he may be closest to the sack [subs please check he hasn’t been sacked], Silva is just one of no less than five Premier League managers currently sizing up boxes for their workplace possessions as none of Arsenal’s Unai Emery, West Ham’s Manuel Pellegrini, Watford’s Quique Sánchez Flores or Southampton’s Ralph Hasenhüttl are expected to last too long in their current roles [subs please check etc, and so on and on and on and on and on]. With so many managerial opportunities arising even Harry Bassett is rumoured to be updating his CV. After all, his old club Sheffield United won’t manage themselves if Chris Wilder ups and leaves [subs please check Chris Wilder hasn’t upped and left].
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Join Simon Burnton for hot Monday night MBM action of Aston Villa 3-2 Newcastle.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It was one of the most unsavoury times of my career. I thought it was a ball to begin with, it was a big old thing … it didn’t miss be my much. The fans can throw some things but a cabbage?” – Newcastle boss Bernard Cribbins recalls his close encounter with a flying brassica before he was bundled aboard the good ship Do One by Aston Villa, where he returns this evening.
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Football Weekly, featuring the debut of Jonathan Liew, will be here shortly.
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FIVER LETTERS
“Cheers Antonio Conte – at 43 years of age I’m one step closer to being a professional fitba player” – Paul Dunlop.
“So if Antonio Conte is coaching his players’ $ex lives, would that be called an Inter course?” – Daniel Doody.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is … Daniel Doody, who bags a copy of The Overcoat Men. We’ve got more prizes to give away, so get scribbling.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Sergio Agüero will miss next month’s Manchester derby after being ruled out for “a few weeks” with the thigh-knack he suffered during Manchester City’s 2-1 defeat of Chelsea.
Ole Gunnar Solskjær was hardly c0ck-a-hoop with the point Manchester United took away from Sheffield United, despite having battled back from 2-0 down to lead 3-2 before conceding a last-minute equaliser. “It was a very, very poor performance,” sighed Solskjær. “The boys will have learned a lesson but they had the character to stay in the game.”
Roman Abramovich has rejected bidders who think they can buy Chelsea for peanuts and remains just as involved in the club as he has ever been, according to chief suit Bruce Buck. “There are people who think they might want to buy Chelsea football club at a bargain [price],” blathered Buck. “We do get inquiries and we really have nothing to say to these people.”
Flamengo’s boisterous Copa Libertadores celebrations came to an abrupt end in Rio when some fans took it upon themselves to start pelting Brazilian fuzz with rocks and Tin.
And Zinedine Zidane wants Real Madrid fans, who jeered Gareth Bale against Real Sociedad, to leave their white hankies and entitled attitudes at home for the Big Cup match against PSG. “We all need our fans and so does Gareth,” roared Zidane. “They’re a big plus and if they’re with us the players notice it on the pitch.”
STILL WANT MORE?
It’s Monday, so here’s your 10 talking points from the weekend’s Premier League action, and Rachel Brown-Finnis is right on time with the weekend’s WSL talking points to boot.
Unai Emery, Manuel Pellegrini and Marco Silva are clinging on. Should they stay or should they go? Our writers channel their inner Joe Strummers as they make their cases here.
James Milner is right – it would be much easier for a gay player to come out now, writes Sean Ingle.
Gonzalo Higuían and Paulo Dybala made Juve party like it was 2016 against Atalanta – and that gave Maurizio Sarri a Ronaldo-shaped problem, writes Nicky Bandini.
Barcelona are top of La Liga but they’re a bit bobbins, argues Sid Lowe.
Lucien Favre is hanging by a thread after Dortmund’s horror show against Bundesliga whipping boys Paderborn, reckons Andy Brassell.
In praise of Saint-Étienne’s Stéphane Ruffier, the most underrated goalkeeper in Europe.
And if you prefer your weekend Premier League action rounded up in pictures rather than words, get your peepers on the Dozen.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
RECOMMENDED ATTENDING
Tickets are still available for the Football Weekly Christmas Special [on 27 November! – Fiver Grinch Ed], live in London. Get them here.
