CAUSING A STER
Back in the summer of 2016, when Mr Roy was floating down the Seine, his players were Englanding up the Euros, and national newspapers were running campaigns to have Raheem Sterling beaten up for inserting coins into a parking meter – the flash git – one man was being lionised for his visionary man-management. Pep Guardiola had not yet taken charge of a single training session at Manchester City but already he was wowing a nation with his otherworldly wiles. When Guardiola sent a complimentary text to Sterling to cheer the player up, it was as if Herbert Chapman, Bob Paisley and Brian Clough had all returned to earth in the form of one deceptively casually-dressed Catalan wizardgod.
With Guardiola by his side, one of England’s most exciting young talents seemed sure to fulfil his undoubted potential. And he was indeed one of the better players last season in a City team that featured several members whom Guardiola made perform like Weird Uncle Fiver at a disco, attempting moves they had no realistic chance of pulling off with dignity intact. Sterling has made a strong start to this season, too, saving City from embarrassment in each of their last two matches. And yet what do we see today? Reports that Guardiola is willing to send Sterling to Arsenal to smooth over a deal for Alexis Sánchez! Perhaps that’s what Sánchez was smirking about at Anfield on Sunday?
Sánchez is currently better than Sterling, that much is true, so it’d be an upgrade, at least in the short term. But what happened to Guardiola the ingenious coach? Has he really given up on the 22-year-old before he’s even got him playing better than he did for Brendan Rodgers? This isn’t John Stones we’re talking about, this is a player of genuine class. Surely that can’t be it? No, it’s got to be another masterstroke by canny Guardiola, a test that Sterling is expected to pass by stepping over the Arsenal trap and staying at City to prove Guardiola both wrong and right.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I fell over laughing. Then I realised I had retweeted it instead of simply ‘liking’ it. For those who don’t understand the humour in the tweet, which is brilliant, because that’s what’s happening in real life ... well, OK, if people are shocked ... I’m sorry to the souls who aren’t shocked by the insults I get all day long. I find it funny. I don’t regret it” – Lyon’s chairman Jean-Michel Aulas defends his retweeting of a picture of a kangaroo pleasuring himself with the caption “Nasser and financial fair play” in reference to his PSG counterpart.
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RECOMMENDED VIEWING
David Squires produces the goods yet again with his take on that meme, Arsenal v Liverpool and chairmen with itchy trigger fingers.
FIVER LETTERS
“It’s easy to mock Arsenal (again) but then I suppose that’s no reason not to (again). In the very long list of defensive strategies that would have worked better than having your last man Héctor Bellerín halfway inside the Liverpool half but unable to get ball or man (or both), up against the quickest attack in the Premier League, I give you this” – Noble Francis.
“Just seen Raheem Sterling get sent off for celebrating with the fans. What are we doing? Where are we going as a sport? Do we want a sterile product with no passion? We seem to. Obsessed with goal mouth technology and post match juries picking apart footage, we are now sending off young lads for getting the winner in injury time and having the temerity to celebrate with some of the fans who go without in other areas of life so they can follow football. Look, I’m not against change, I even bought a smart telly, but I am against ruining a product in the mistaken belief that change is making it better. I like the conjecture and argument about goal line incidents, fouls, diving et al. I like pundits going at it, I like the hyperbole between me and my mates in the pub as we dissect moments of a game. Most of all I like to see players like Sterling roar when they win the day, I love to see the crowd surge and explode with excitement. It’s football, so when positive passions are high and flying then unfortunately negative emotions are the unavoidable flip side of the coin. It’s a passionate, beautiful game that provides wondrous extremes of delight and agony with the delivery of a roller coaster. So lets not be nervous nellies, trying to baby proof the games and the decisions. It’s the fizz that makes it great” – Marten Allen.
“The picture of WBA’s new Scottish wunderkind Oliver Burke in Friday’s Fiver got me to pondering on a couple of levels: Level One - it occurs to me that Oliver resembles the genetic intersection of every Scottish footballer ever since Queens Park first took to a playing field; with a soupçon of Wayne Rooney in the DNA, worryingly. Level Two - not being familiar with the Baggies’ new strip until this point, I wondered whether the Chinese characters 棕榈限份 thereon might not, hopefully, translate as ‘face’” – Kevin McKee.
“In response to JJ Zucal’s letter in Friday’s Fiver, we here in the US have (totally coincidentally) decided to count only the top 1,057 lies and untruths of Chief Cheeto. It’s really now just one big barroom brawl (the best kind of brawl) to figure out which lies are included and which are not. Kind of like how the Fiver has to decide which Premier League teams to mention every day (Arsenal, Chelsea, et al) and which to give a passing glance to once a year or so (Swindon or Burnley, probably)” – Alex Johns.
“OK, there’s something going on here. Not only do you miss Tottenham out of the predicted Big Cup draw (Thursday’s Fiver), but then having had this pointed out by Peter Berlin’s letter (Friday’s Fiver), you respond confirming that a highly suspicious 1,067 other readers pointed this out. Yes, 1,067. Is there a strange anti-Spurs/miscounting pedants conspiracy afoot? Or was it just a couple of slapdash errors due to poor quality journalism? Oh, yeah. Forget I asked” – Tim Clarke.
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.
BITS & BOBS
Jordan Pickford has pulled out of England’s World Cup qualifying matches with Malta and Slovenia with muscle knack.
Stoke City have snapped up Kevin Wimmer from Tottenham for £18m. “Kevin is an undoubted talent and he will significantly add to the quality of the group of players at my disposal,” cheered Mark Hughes.
Frank De Boer and the Selhurst Park suits have agreed to turn over a new leaf after his pretty dismal early showing in charge of Crystal Palace.
Everton are closing in on 19-year-old Hajduk Split winger Nikola Vlasic for £9m, while Ross Barkley and Kevin Mirallas are heading to the door marked do one.
STILL WANT MORE?
You don’t often get a My Sharona reference in the headline of a Proper Journalist David Conn piece, but you do here.
No musical references in the headline of this piece, but then “Mbappé, ba du ba dop, ba du bop, ba du ba dop, ba du bop, ba du ba dop, ba du, yeah” isn’t so easy to work in. Still, Igor Mladnenovic has all you need to know about the £167m man.
Hannover have hit the Bundesliga heights but fan fury means atmosphere is at an all-time low (which probably not a reference to the Jon Bellion song), writes Andy Brassell.
Amy Lawrence takes a look at the state of Arsenal and doesn’t like what she sees.
Lucy Bronze’s hunt for [Fiver straightens bow tie] silverware has taken her to the club that sets the [Fiver raises eyebrows pointedly at the camera] gold standard in Europe, Lyon. She tells Suzanne Wrack about her journey.
Will Juventus rip apart all of Liverpool’s early promise by snapping up Emre Can? That and more in today’s Rumour Mill.
