MONSTER, MONSTER
Talking before Liverpool’s match against Chelsea, everybody’s favourite charismatic and trendy foreign Premier League managerial genius was asked for his thoughts on his predecessor in the role. “If you are not a journalist or a referee, he can be a nice guy,” said Jürgen Klopp of José Mourinho, as Dr Eva Carneiro, Rafa Benítez, the late Tito Vilanova, Arsène Wenger, Juan Mata, Iker Casillas, Pep Guardiola, Sergio Ramos, Manuel Pellegrini, Karim Benzema, assorted ball boys and Johan Cruyff, among others, raised quizzical eyebrows. “I’m neither of those,” added Klopp. “He is a nice guy. He is emotional, I am emotional.”
Lunchtime on Saturday will see the latest instalment of a fixture that has brought out the best and worst of Mourinho during his two spells in charge of Chelsea and, despite all available evidence to the contrary, Klopp was eager to point out that Chelsea’s players haven’t actually turned into the kind of shuffling re-animated corpses that keep harshing Egg from This Life’s mellow on The Walking Dead, but are in fact still quite good at football. “Do the Chelsea players not know any more how to play football?” he enquired. “No, of course not. It’s difficult to play against Chelsea. I’m not sure it is easy to play against Chelsea. They were full of self-confidence last year so maybe that makes a difference now but to be wounded, sometimes that makes you stronger too.”
With the media, his own backroom staff, that pesky fluoride in the water, various referees and the suits from the Premier League all out to get him, Klopp’s opposite number has been looking and sounding seriously wounded this season, at times resembling an ever so slightly more unhinged version of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. Free, for the time being at least, to oversee his team’s latest ordeals from the technical area despite last week’s alleged unpleasantness in the referee’s room at West Ham, the Chelsea manager repaid the compliment to his colleague, telling reporters that Klopp is “a guy I like a lot” and “one of the top managers in Europe” before announcing that he’d had enough of all this Klopp talk and wouldn’t “speak any more about” the German.
José went on to say that he “cannot promise” Chelsea will qualify for next season’s Big Cup, but made the salient point that other big English clubs have coped without it in recent years. “Last season Liverpool won nothing and didn’t qualify for [Big Cup] and they are still a big club. Two years ago United didn’t qualify for [Big Cup], not even [Big Vase], won nothing and they are still a monster club.” A monster club that was quick to shed the manager responsible for their year-long exile from European competition, not that José’s boss has any previous to suggest he might do the same.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’m losing my balls. Ten years ago, I had more balls, but since I came here it’s been a nightmare. Now I have a low quality of life. I feel shame when I walk to the shop to buy cigarettes if we lose a game. I convinced my family to come here and they have run away. It’s like being at a party where you’re not welcome. It’s killing me. Every night I lie awake, asking myself, ‘am I good enough?’” – Massimo Cellino on the dramatic withering effects of running Nasty Leeds in the slapstick fashion.
STEVE EVANS OF THE DAY
“It’s very evident whether you’re Steve Evans or José Mourinho that we need to get better players in. I think five or six to turn it round” – Nasty Leeds manager Steve Evans after watching his team extend their winless Elland Road run to almost eight months, with a hapless 2-0 home defeat against Blackeye Rovers.
FIVER LETTERS
“I would just like to be one of the many pedants to point out that it wasn’t just three England internationals who missed in the Manchester United v Middlesbrough shoot-out (yesterday’s Fiver). You forgot David Nugent. Tsk” – Nick Jeffery (and no others).
“I found the photo of Wayne Rooney’s green face and the link to David Icke quite surprising (yesterday’s Fiver). I mean, I got the reptilian link, but when I saw the photo I thought of Willie, Robert Englund’s character in V, the mid-1980s TV miniseries, rather than Icke. Regardless I think we can rest assured that whatever reptilian is the right one, they’ll have everyone’s best interests at heart. Just like they did in V. Hey, maybe we could convince them to go for the top banana job at Fifa?” – Grant McPhee.
“Both Norrie Hernon and Daniel Solomons (Fiver letters passim) have overlooked the far more appropriate sibling of Musa Bility for Fifa presidency: Denia” – Robert Young.
“Surely daughter Lia would be the best member of the family to reflect Fifa in all its glory?” – Ian Moran.
“The daddy of them all, Irasci, would probably have the right kind of fire in his belly” – Justin Kavanagh.
“The relative they really need is Iain Dowie’s old mate, Bouncebacka” – Matty Weir (and 1,056 others).
• 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: Robert Young.
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BITS AND BOBS
Turkish FA suits are investigating the decision by Trabzonspor to imprison referee Cagatay Sahan in a dressing room for just the four hours after the 2-2 draw with Gaziantepspor which involved a late, controversial non-awarding of a penalty to the home side. “If we’re going to die, we’ll die like men; we won’t live like women,” chimed club president Ibrahim Hacıosmanoğlu, digging a deep hole. “No one has the power to make us live like women.” Aylin Nazliaka, a legislator for the main opposition Republican People’s party, retorted: “I guess what he understands about manhood is only threats and contempt. He doesn’t have neither the honour nor virtue to live like a woman. He could not even be the fingernail of a woman.”
Louis van Gaal has delved into his weird box-of-things-that-even-a-five-year-old-wouldn’t-say to pluck out a response to Paul Scholes’ criticism of him. “Sticks and stones can break my bones but names never hurt me,” parped the Iron Tulip.
Uncle Sepp reckons attacks on him and Fifa have been motivated by USA! USA!! USA!!! companies, who should, presumably, be more enthusiastic about sponsoring such morally adept football organisations. “The other companies haven’t said anything,” sniffed Blatter.
Theo Walcott can look forward to up to four weeks’ more painful small talk with Arsenal physios after his calf-ouch was upgraded to calf-aaaargh! “It is post-international games [when] we get all these [knacks]. Is it linked with that?” Poiroted Arsène Wenger.
Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas has potentially knacked Aston Villa’s chances of landing Remi Garde by refusing to release his former assistant coaches at the club from a big sleeper hold. “Remi, I hope, will go to Aston Villa, he deserves a big English club. But an assistant under contract cannot leave. And a deputy cannot ask that,” he honked.
And Portland Timbers manager Caleb Porter has credited The Almighty for helping them advance in MLS playoffs after a penalty shootout that was wilder than Weird Uncle Fiver’s Kays Catalogue collection. “Something kept that goal out. I don’t know what it was; maybe it was the air from them [the fans] yelling so much. It was either them or God because the thing [Saad Abdul Salaam’s penalty] bounced twice, and I don’t how it didn’t go in. But it didn’t,” he hallelujahed.
STILL WANT MORE?
One, two, three, four, five once we made a blog go live. Six, seven, eight nine, 10, it was full of stuff again. Why did we launch it so? Because our readers want to know. What do they want to know? Ten things about the weekend yo!
What do you get when you cross Bury, Limerick, the dirtiest ever player, Cowdenbeath, Paul Doyle and Nick Miller? No, not a Still Want More to the tune of a nursery rhyme. This Joy of Six on unglamorous clubs, that’s what.
Paul even found the time to sit down for a chat with Southampton swoon-machine Graziano Pellè.
Big Website shamelessly followed The Fiver’s lead by asking readers for their stories of random encounters with footballers. They were still good though, featuring Graeme Souness getting a slap and John Barnes at Center Parcs.
“Signing the Duck, or rather panic-signing a recuperative mid-season Duck is such a Premier League thing to do it already feels oddly inevitable: confirmation once again that in English football money is there simply to be hurled, randomly at the most attractive object flashing past outside of the train window.” Barney Ronay on why Alex Pato should swerve the pantomime.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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