CRUNCH TIME
After three solid years of careful expectation management, the quality of which will be seen in years to come as having been well ahead of its time, Mr Roy could have been mistaken for assuming that the England job was his for life and that no one was going to snatch away the keys to his precious FA-mobile, which achieves a steady but exhilarating pace of 45mph if you really hammer down on the accelerator and blasts out the smooth sound of Greg Dyke shouting about League Three being the key to World Cup glory in 2022 when you press the horn. Life was good! Company car, plush office, the public’s hopes and dreams of brave exits in the quarter-finals of major tournaments downgraded to cheering on magnificent qualifying wins over Slovenia and celebrating England going a whole season unbeaten, a spurious measure of success in the context of international football.
Time for Mr Roy to put his feet up. What more could he do? After all, if a manager as talented as him could not get more out of England’s players, who could? “Of course, my track record, if people bothered to study it, would put me in the same category as [Lord Ferg] enjoys today, but people don’t talk about what I’ve done outside England,” Mr Roy once said with a straight face, cheerfully likening his achievements at piffling little clubs like Malmo, IK Oddevold and Liverpool to Ferg’s at Manchester United. It was just plain rudeness from everyone else that meant he was so unappreciated, but that was nothing a meek first-round exit at the 2014 World Cup couldn’t turn around! Just making it to Brazil was an achievement in itself; expecting England to do anything once they were there was akin to asking Mr Roy to solve the Middle East crisis and come up with a reason for the enduring fascination with the Great British Bake Off.
But things are about to change now that Martin Glenn, the FA’s new chief suit and formerly a head honcho at United Biscuits, has revealed that Mr Roy will lose his job if England fail to at least do a goal at Euro 2016. Yikes! What if it was all for nothing? “I have spoken to [Mr] Roy,” Glenn said. “The air didn’t really need clearing to be honest. I had a cup of coffee with him, which turned into a few drinks. We are all on the same page. [Mr] Roy is a really good manager and he would be the last person in the world who if – and I don’t think it will happen – but if we had a bad Euros, he would not expect to be kept on. He is a proud man.” These biscuit people. They’re worse than doctors. They know nothing about the game at all.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“He doesn’t have to talk. He is showing it by his actions that he is willing to back this football club” – Tactics Tim shows that not only does he have no time for worrying about modern football’s preoccupation with organisation and strategy, he also gives short shrift to net-spend nerdism after praising Aston Villa chairman Randy Lerner for digging deep to fund a generous off-season spending spree of £38m, just the £2.5m shy of the cash they got for Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph.
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BITS AND BOBS
Costa Rica coach Paolo Wanchope is now former Costa Rica coach Paolo Wanchope after admitting that having that straightener with a steward while watching an U-23 match probably wasn’t such a crash-hot idea. “A thousand apologies to everyone in Panama for this incident … I have always been known for defending my country, and behaving in the best possible way. We’re human beings and I reacted in a way that was wrong,” he sobbed.
Real Madrid reckon their €9m-a-year deal should do the trick when it comes to twisting Sergio Ramos’s arm enough to get him to stay at the Bernabéu.
Expect more pictures of David de Gea looking pensive in the stands on Friday after he was left out of Manchester United’s squad for the trip to Aston Villa.
Sunderland are ready to put Fabio Borini and Adnan Januzaj out of their respective miseries by taking the unwanted Liverpool forward and Manchester United winger to, erm, the jaunty pleasure-dome that is the Stadium of Light.
Jamie Vardy is unlikely to be sacked by Leicester for making a racial slur at a casino. “The situation is everything is OK, Jamie apologised to everyone, it was a mistake,” chirped Claudio Ranieri.
Reading have tried to fill the fun-void at the Madejski Stadium by signing zippy Peru winger Paolo Hurtado on a three-year deal. “He is a creative player who can play off either side of the pitch,” trilled manager Steve Clarke, while juggling three footballs.
And Everton boss Bobby M has got John Stones in a Big Daddy-style bear hug and insists he’s going nowhere – especially if that nowhere is Chelsea. “I have said before the player is not for sale and that is the end of it … we are not a selling club who will lose our best performers,” he honked.
STILL WANT MORE?
Blackpool and a battle for the heart and soul of the knacked club. By Andy Hunter.
Alan Smith spends a night at the Saudi Super Cup. In Shepherd’s Bush.
Why is a scruffy nod into the net this week’s Golden Goal? Because Angelos Charisteas’s header sealed an unlikely Euro 2004 victory for Greece – and it still resonates through the national team’s struggles today, writes Niall McVeigh.
The Turkish league is growing in financial muscle and tippy-tappy quality but a recent shooting is kind of putting a downer on any feelings of great optimism, reports Emre Sarigul.
Ed Aarons answers the questions you may have had about Chelsea doctor Eva Caneiro’s demotion so that you don’t have to bother asking them.
The top 10 goals from this year’s Copa Libertadores and fan renditions of random pop songs feature in this week’s Classic YouTube.
Get them while they’re hot: tickets for Football Weekly Live in Manchester on 3 September, with AC Jimbo, Barry Glendenning and co, plus another date on sale at the Brighton Comedy Festival [? – Fiver Ed] on 16 October.
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