THE 27 CLUB
There’s no need here to reel off the names of all the rock heroes who sadly lost their lives at the age of 27 – your Jimi Hendrixes, your Jim Morrisons, your Alan “Blind Owl” Wilsons and your Ron “Pigpen” McKernans – because as the Premier League prepares to enter its 27th season since creating English football, there’s absolutely no sign of it succumbing to its excesses. No siree! A division can only be in rude health if Aston Villa are willing to pay £26.5m for Tyrone Mings while Manchester City spend the price of a hospital wing on a reserve right-back. With the Big Kick-off coming barely 24 hours after the climax of Transfer Deadline Day, the Fiver could almost barf with all the excitement!
Nine months of dramatic twists and turns await, during which answers will emerge to the great imponderables of the moment: who is most likely to stop City from winning a third title on the trot: Liverpool or John Stones? Which bright young gaffer is more likely to last beyond Christmas: Frank Lampard or Ole Gunnar Solskjær? Who will go down with Mr Roy’s Crystal Palace? Did Arsenal really sign David Luiz to bring calm to their defence? Must we talk about West Ham?
Appropriately enough, the season begins at the scene of some of English’s football most memorable clashes: Millwa ... no, sorry, Anfield, where Liverpool hope to welcome Norwich to the top flight with a ferocious thrashing. But last season’s Championship winners are undaunted: “You won’t see us park the bus,” stormed their manager, Daniel Farke. “Our approach will always be to attack and be proactive.” Farke, like Jürgen Klopp, was at Borussia Dortmund so, inevitably, he was asked whether he has met his compatriot to exchange ideas. “You don’t have time in this business to sit and talk about philosophy,” replied Farke, who is not scheduled to meet Brendan Rodgers until December. Answers such as that won’t cut it in the Premier League so Farke was invited to try again and was even given a prompt: if Klopp preaches “heavy metal football”, he was asked, what do Norwich play? “Rock‘n’roll, if you like,” obliged Farke. Truly, the Premier League ain’t noise pollution.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Paul Doyle from 8pm BST for hot MBM coverage of Liverpool 3-0 Norwich.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I am very happy, like I told you before I was happy with my squad and now to add some more players. I am so happy with the way the squad. I was happy before, I am happy plus. I am a happy man” – Mauricio Pochettino’s repeated insistence that he is satisfied with Tottenham’s transfer dealings makes the Fiver wonder whether the opposite is in fact true.
FIVER LETTERS
“As the new season begins, so too does Fifa 19 fade into irrelevance and Fifa 20 swing ominously into view. Before Fifa 19 becomes just another, well, Fifa 18, I’d like to nominate my favourite misheard commentary from Tyler and Smith. Alan wins with what I first heard as: ‘There’s a huge golfing class out there, Martin.’ As for my least favourite Tyler evocation of a player’s name when shooting for goal, to the point that I can’t actually have the player in my squad, it has to be: ‘Gabriel jeSUUUS!’ Other nominations gratefully received” – Kevin McKee.
“Daniel Kennedy – if you are referencing Golas (Thursday’s Fiver Letters), I humbly submit that your age teetered over golden some time ago. Did you ever work for the drug squad police in the car park outside Kinetic in Stoke? For some obscure reason they thought they blended in wearing Gola – they were wrong” – Nick Livesey.
“Player with bad attitude criticises player with bad attitude (with a toilet seat) about a player with a bad attitude (who also probably has a toilet seat but I can’t confirm it)” – Noble Francis.
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 prize is … Noble Francis, who gets a copy of Football Leaks. Send us your address and we may even get it in the post to you. We have copies of 50 Years of Shoot! to give away next week, so get scribbling.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Pep Guardiola fears Leroy Sané will miss up to seven months with the knee knack he suffered in Manchester City’s Community Shield win over Liverpool last Sunday. Meanwhile Ilkay Gundogan has scribbled his name on a new four-year contract because of his love of winning lots of trophies and being paid for doing so.
Steve Bruce has attempted to soothe Newcastle fans who are every bit as underwhelmed by the return of the 53-year-old Andy Carroll as they were by the manager’s arrival. “He was desperate – a bit like myself, I suppose – to come back,” babbled Bruce. “He’s not young Andy Carroll any more, he’s at that veteran stage. But when the club sold him for a record fee, he was the best pound-for-pound centre-forward there was in the country.”
Southampton have announced the season-long loan signing of the Augsburg defender Kevin Danso despite the transfer window shutting on Thursday, the rule breakers. Elsewhere Shinji Kagawa has decided the Spanish second division is the one for him, joining Real Zaragoza.
After some cause for concern it has been confirmed Bolton’s first home game of the League One season will go ahead after they finally started selling tickets for Saturday’s match against Coventry.
And Bayern Munich have continued their preparations for the season with a 23-0 win – yes 23-0 – over FC Rottach-Egern, who might not actually be as good as Borussia Dortmund.
STILL WANT MORE?
The Premier League is ruddy brilliant, according to Barney Ronay, who’s also quite excited about David Luiz joining Arsenal.
A rather less chirpy Daniel Harris bemoans Manchester United’s transfer dealings.
How many things are there to look out for in the Premier League this weekend? Ten is the (predictable) answer.
Sid Lowe explains why Manchester City’s Rodri is great.
Want a verdict on how every top-flight club fared in the transfer window? Sure you do.
Jacob Steinberg previews West Ham’s season before the wheels fall off when they host Manchester City on Saturday. Meanwhile Paul Doyle is the man to look at Wolves.
And Richard Foster takes a trip down memory lane to remember players who have scored hat-tricks on the opening weekend of the season.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
