BREAKING NEWS
The Saudi-led takeover of Newcastle United is … off.
NOT THE CRUELLEST MONTH
July has been good to Manchester City. Since the turn of the month, Pep Guardiola’s side have stuck four goals past the new champions Liverpool, four past Watford, and five past Newcastle, Brighton and Norwich. Their lawyers have tutored Uefa in basic manners, while everyone else at the club can also bask in the satisfying glow of righteousness, having made one of the greatest good-Samaritan gestures in the entire history of spiritualism, selflessly revitalising the reputation and career of David Luiz, the poor man having been in a right old state before that FA Cup semi-final. A most generous and humane act that reflects extremely well on everyone involved.
This already stellar month just keeps getting better and better, too, with the club squeezing in a couple of big signings before the calendar flips over. Utilising £24.5m of their newly Cas-approved coin, City have agreed a deal for Valencia winger Ferran Torres, who will fill the Leroy Sané-shaped hole in the squad that did more to scupper their title chances than Aymeric Laporte’s knack, if you were to ask us. And now they’ve landed Bournemouth defender Nathan Aké using another chunk of cleared-by-independent-arbitration change, meaning they’ve already taken care of most of their essential business with the transfer merry-go-round yet to fully start spinning.
Aké will cost City £41m of their time-lapsed treasure, no small sum for the lynchpin of a defence that conceded 263 goals in the last four seasons. But to be fair, as The Fiver never tires of saying, statistics are only any good for identifying, then subsequently avoiding, the dull and slow of thought. The 25-year-old is a cultured centre-back who represents the Netherlands, is comfortable on the ball, scores the odd goal, and can’t be any worse than John Stones. All plus points which round off a glorious month for City … and we haven’t even mentioned the hellish draw that gifted them a ready-made excuse when they fail to win Big Cup yet again. July just kept on giving!
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’m like Benjamin Button, except I’ve always been young, never old” – the curious case of Zlatan Ibrahimovic not being like Benjamin Button, then.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
The men’s summer transfer window tracker is now up and running to go alongside our women’s interactive.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Football Weekly Extra will be in this general vicinity.
FIVER LETTERS
“As an ageing Arts graduate, I was pleased to see I could follow the basic maths used by former Athletic Bilbao head of talent ID Ignacio Palacios-Huerta to illustrate his claim that increasing the number of substitutes available does not favour the bigger (richer) clubs. But his analysis does seem to miss the obvious point that richer clubs can hold on to even more of the best players if they can guarantee even more of them some playing time. And amassing these higher-quality players means the quality reduction he identifies by making substitutions may actually produce a quality increase (especially when the change results in a silky winger coming on for solid midfield holding player if they are chasing the game.) And the more changes a team can make allows the bigger clubs more chances to repair whatever damage has occurred by underestimating their plucky opponents, and playing some kids in the cup games that they refuse to take seriously until it becomes the job-saving lunge for a domestic trophy. But he’s the expert and I am just an Arts graduate who is still smugly pleased to finally have been able to follow an argument with numbers in it” – Colin Reed.
“There’s something about watching Jack Grealish play that makes me feel like a kid again. I thought it was the impish playfulness of his movement or his boyish locks flapping in the wind. But this photo made me realise that it’s mostly down to his choice of shin pads” – Peter Oh.
“I loved the Sids and am especially intrigued with the quote: ‘Iago Aspas can start a fiesta in an empty stadium.’ Is there any chance you can send him here, because I’ve got a non-running MkII Cortina in a barn out the back that I’d appreciate him taking a quick look at?” – Tony Crawford.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Colin Reed.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
The Swiss special federal public prosecutor has opened criminal proceedings against Fifa president Gianni Infantino.
Brentford will make the short [but oh so miserable – Fiver Ed] trip around the North Circular to Wembley after booking their place in the Championship play-off final, beating Swansea 3-2 on aggregate in Griffin Park’s final game. “It’ll be sad not playing at this place again but we went to the new stadium the other day and it looks unbelievable,” cheered Ollie Watkins.
How The Fiver scoffed when Liverpool hired freelance throw-in coach Thomas Gronnemark in 2018, but who’s laughing now? Gronnemark has signed a lucrative contract extension with the champions. “Looking forward to help more teams with The Long, Fast and Clever Throw-in,” he Dave Challinor-ed.
Richarlison reckons he’s likely to stay at Everton unless some big cash comes their way. “It’s all been talked about, [Carlo] Ancelotti’s already told me he’s counting on me for another season, he asked me to hold on for a bit,” blurted the Brazilian. “It all depends: if a good offer were to come in, we sit down and talk, that’s part of football.”
And Brighton are continuing to do some highly efficient business, adding Ajax’s Dutch international defender Joël Veltman to Adam Lallana’s free signing for the princely sum of £900,000.
STILL WANT MORE?
“Lots of people pay more attention to footballers than to presidents”: Paulo Dybala gets his chat on with Simon Burnton.
Goldilocks or just a bloody good goalscorer? Nicky Bandini profiles Ciro Immobile, one short of breaking the all-time Serie A goals-in-a-season record.
What if fans stay away once the pandemic is over? Barry Glendenning thinks clubs might just have to rethink their relationship with those coming through the gates.
World Cup winner Kelley O’Hara speaks to Suzanne Wrack about podcasting, activism and a return to the playing field.
Proper Journalism’s David Conn drills down through the finer details of that Cas judgment on Manchester City and Uefa.
It’s only Ray Parlour and Peter Osgood is good: Arsenal v Chelsea memories, plus some of Jürgen Klinsmann’s greatest hits and Branislav Ivanovic’s smashing of the Russian Cup in Classic YouTube.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
