PHIL YOUR BOOTS?
Contrary to recent reports, The Fiver understands that Hull City have not “decided to go in a different direction, fold as a professional football club and turn the KC Stadium into a place where CSI: Miami fans can come and watch old episodes on the big screen”. That would be nonsense. But all is not well on Humberside. Indeed the personnel crisis at Hull has become so bad that they have just appointed Weird Uncle Fiver as their new masseuse. Give it a few more days and he’ll be their new manager. No wonder they’re all looking to jump ship. Bernard Cribbins has gone, miffed at being given the square root of eff all new signings, and now it looks like Mo Diamé is off as well, with Newcastle United meeting the Senegalese midfielder’s £4.5m drop-a-division-for-more-cash clause.
You know the situation’s bad when even Newcastle are making you look incompetent. Diamé was not present as the squad jetted off to a pre-season training camp in Austria and there was a threadbare look to the travelling party, with only 13 fit senior players available for selection and caretaker patsy Mike Phelan rumoured to be giving serious thought to bolstering his options by signing a duck as emergency cover at right-back, a troll doll as a commanding bite-yer-legs presence in midfield and Cavity Sam as an extra forward, assuming the notoriously knack-prone Operation star passes an undoubtedly stringent medical.
To give him his due, Ehab Allam, the vice-chairman who is running the club in the absence of his seriously ill father Assem, has been trying to install a new manager after Cribbins decided to do one the other week. Ideally it will be someone who knows how to clone Andrew Robertson. But it seems unlikely that Bobby Martínez or Gianfranco Zola know how to do that and there was more bad news when the Welsh FA rebuffed Hull’s approach for flavour of the month Chris Coleman.
“Following discussions among leading figures within the association the approach has been rejected,” an FAW statement declared. “Chris Coleman signed a new two-year contract in May 2016 ahead of the European Championship and the World Cup in 2018.” The other candidates for the job are Bobby M, who might be too expensive, and Zola, who was last seen getting the heave-ho by Al-Arabi of Qatar. Hmm. It seems all that effort Hull put into getting promoted might not have been worth it, especially now it’s reached the point where they might be looking back fondly to the time that strange, orange, relentlessly chirpy, chilled out entertainer delivered a half-time team talk on the pitch. Phil Brown, your people need you.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Inside football we are disappointed we haven’t managed to attract the bigger Premier League clubs to the competition” – Football League chief suit Shaun Harvey endears himself to EFL Trophy entrants Chelsea after a host of other top-flight teams opted against putting in academy sides.
FIVER LETTER
“The mention of Marouane Fellaini smuggling Adnan Januzaj out of Old Trafford in his hair (yesterday’s Fiver) reminded me of a question I had: could Fellaini have his hair cut into a nest that the keeper could place the ball into, allowing him to run the length of the pitch straight into the opposition’s goal to score? I am hoping some Fiver pedants can enlighten me” – James Keidel.
• 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 … James Keidel, who’s unlucky, given we’ve got a week of Fiver letters prizes starting tomorrow, courtesy of long-suffering reader Alan Gernon’s new book, Retired: What Happens to Footballers When the Game’s Up. So get tapping.
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BITS AND BOBS
Leroy Sané has finally given the Rumour Mill some respite and penned a five-year contract at Manchester City after Schalke accepted a bid of £37m. “I followed Pep Guardiola at Barcelona and at Bayern,” he cooed. “I think he can make me a more complete player.”
Baba Rahman, meanwhile, is a bit more excited about playing in Gelsenkirchen after agreeing to become the latest name on top of Chelsea’s season-long loanee list.
This was, apparently, lit.
After following a trail of breadcrumbs, or Pokémon – or whatever it is 17-year-olds like these days – to Daniel Levy’s office, Marcus Edwards, Tottenham’s NEXT BIG THING, has signed his first professional contract.
Unable to resist the prospect of partnering Liam Ridgewell in Portland Timbers’ defence, acting’s Steven Taylor has become the latest MLS import.
Everton have picked over the relegated bones of Aston Villa and come away with Idrissa Gueye.
Roma’s Edin Dzeko and Mo Salah did for Liverpool in their final pre-season game in USA! USA!! USA!!! to leave Jürgen Klopp scratching his head. “Nearly every offensive action of Roma was a chance. It makes no sense,” he sobbed.
Sam Allardyce’s grand plan to have somebody, anybody, other than Sammy Lee in his England coaching staff has hit the buffers after Paul Clement confirmed he is staying at Bayern Munich, thank you very much.
And Gylfi Sigurdsson is tied down to four more years at Swansea City. “It’s a place I like to live and play football in,” he clapped.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
Get ready for the Magnificent Seven rocking up at a Premier League saloon near you soon.
STILL WANT MORE?
The Premier League season previews keep coming with No3: Burnley and No4: Chelsea.
Twenty years old, with four international caps, one season of senior football and zero trophies to his name. So why is Manchester City new boy Leroy Sané worth £37m? Alan Smith has the answer.
Actual (former) footballer Chris McCready reckons team talks are just a lot of hot air in this article which gives your Sunday League manager something to think about.
Adebayo Akinfenwa v ‘Big’ Jon Parkin, the returning Iain Moody and … er … Blackpool, League Two really does have it all. Michael Butler explains all, or some, in this handy season preview.
Owen Gibson blinded the Football League’s new chairman Ian Lenagan with a very bright torch before asking him questions about whether the shiny new EFL Trophy revamp is a good idea.
Quizmaster Gregg Bakowski is not scared to ask today’s burning question: how well do you know your Mr 15%s? Bonus points for getting all 10 wrong.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. AND INSTACHAT, TOO!
