by FACTS ARE SACRED … WEATHER OPINIONS?
Bob Mortimer hates comments. The introduction to his (excellent) autobiography, And Away … includes the important point that the book contains “little opinion or advice”. And yet he loves football, a sport in which it is almost impossible not to have an opinion. And he has a football-related podcast, Athletico Mince, where he is forced to give his two cents. “I’ve spent 50 years making sure I don’t have any opinions,” he explained to Adam Buxton in 2018. “And then I signed up for a football opinion show, so I had to change that quickly.” Football will do that for you. Referees, managers, comments and emails related to tea are paid to get an opinion. And thank God for that. It would be boring to death if everything in the beautiful game was a statement of fact. If everyone agreed that Alejandro Garnacho’s volley was better than Wayne Rooney’s volley, or that José Mourinho is a better manager than Pep Guardiola, then the world, the pub, the pillow-talk – we accept it – and would be the poorer group chat.
One of life’s great joys is reading L’Équipe comments, especially after a PSG game. After Newcastle’s visit to Paris, Big Website’s cousins across the channel did not disappoint with their famous ratings: Ousmane Dembélé was awarded 6/10 despite wandering around the right wing with a threat and a Geoff Shreeves inquiry at a restaurant Indian. Tino Livramento and Anthony Gordon, both excellent on the night, only got 5/10, while Lewis Miley got 4/10, despite the 17-year-old’s impressive display on his first Major Cup start. Comments are fun, even bad comments… sometimes.
There are a few things in football, however, that are not up for debate. We can all agree that Frank Lampard’s shot against Germany crossed the line, a binary decision. We can all agree Arsenal’s fluorescent tiger kit belongs in the bin. And, like Eddie Howe, we can all agree that PSG should not have been awarded a penalty in injury time against Newcastle. There are many reasons why Livramento should not have been penalized (the ball was initially defined from the Newcastle defender’s chest, as well as his proximity to Dembélé, and the fact that his arm was in a running position). There is probably a wider discussion about VAR being fit for purpose, whether getting the right decisions is more important than taking the fun out of the game, whether we should care about the plight of two teams backed by the wealth of Saudi and Qatari.
But two important consequences have emerged from the fiasco. The first is that the VAR, Tomasz Kwiatkowski, who recommended a review of the decision on the pitch, has resigned from Wednesday’s Grand Cup duties; as close to a Uefa admission of guilt as Howe and co will get. The second is that one Newcastle fan, Carl, called up TalkSport to say that he was going to turn off his Christmas lights after the game because it hurt him too much, and the second caller had to , Peter, fighting back tears, his. a high northeast accent that sounds like a character Mortimer would be proud of. Fully electric festival entertainment. Comments are fun, even bad comments… sometimes.
LIVE ON A BIG WEBSITE
Join Barry Glendenning at 5.45pm GMT for hot minute-by-minute updates on Galatasaray 2-1 Manchester United in the Premier League, while Rob Smyth brings you Arsenal 3-1 Lens from 8pm.
STATEMENT OF THE DAY
“That’s the best goal I’ve ever scored! They were getting slow with the ball, wasting time. The boy has gone down from the corner – the keeper – when no one touched him. Then the ref is giving him the ball back and he’s waiting for me to come up to him … so I probably bumped into him, yeah. There is a little bit of contact but nowhere near enough for the ball to drop and fall to the floor. I was desperate for that first goal … so there was no way I wasn’t putting the ball in the back of the net. Keepers get a lot more decisions, but in a situation like that there’s no need for him to go down and drop the ball – thanks to the ref for spotting that and working out the balance of play that wasn’t there. dirty” – if you see a stranger goal this season and Sam Cosgrove’s injury time winner for Barnsley against Wycombe last night (Gary Crosby for millennials?) Football Daily will be happily eating their own socks off – and we’ve been wearing them for at least a week.
DAILY FOOTBALL LETTERS
An unfortunate incident with a Video Assistant Referee in Paris? But let’s not forget the real winner – the petrochemical industry” – Darren Leathley.
Although technically brilliant for him, Alejandro Garnacho’s overhead kick against Everton resulted in a hopeless cross, as many of these goals do. I prefer a team goal with lots of passes (Barry Glendenning and I agree on the beauty of Ethan Pinnock’s goal against Liverpool) or a blistering counter-attack. I plan to separate the over-hyped overhead kick from the real goal of the season contender” – Tony Wilson.
A mention of World In Motion (yesterday’s Memory Lane, full email edition) reminds me to share this. If you’ve never heard of it [we have, but others might want to feel our pain – Football Daily Ed], I can only apologize, but I’ve suffered long enough and now it’s your turn. Yeah, it’s Peter Beardsley doing rap music” – Mike Slattery.
Send any letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winning letter is … Darren Leathley, offering a copy of Woman Up, by Carrie Dunn. We have more to give, so keep typing.
WHEN IN ROME
The famous Brendan Rodgers went to Rome to see the Pope ♪ ♬ ♪ The famous Brendan Rodgers went to Rome to see the Pope ♪ ♬ ♪ The famous Brendan Rodgers went to Rome to see the Pope ♪ ♬ ♪ … and gave him a personalized Celtic shirt because they were dumped out of Europe again.
CAM-BRIDGE Far
14 September: “We are all delighted that Mark has signed this new contract. He is [a] a very talented coach and a great leader of this football club – someone who has been a very important part of our lives recently and has a big role to play in our future” – Cambridge United majority owner Paul Barry trumpets the new deal given to the manager Mark Bonner.
November 29: “In football, sometimes you have to make the decisions that you believe are right for the long-term future of the club” – that role is not as big as one might think as Barry Bonner walks through the Abbey Stadium door marked Do One.
MOVE THE TARGET POSITIONS
The latest edition of our weekly sister email is here, get the lowdown on what’s left to play in the Women’s Nations League finals. And you can register here.
NEWS, YEAST AND BOBS
Union Berlin’s Marie-Louise Eta will make history when she takes her place in the dugout in Braga on Wednesday to become the first female assistant manager in a men’s Major Cup match.
Erik ten Hag has channeled his inner Yoda, telling Manchester United players to be cool like Jedis in Galatasaray’s new version of hell. “You have to stay calm in your head and not get too emotional,” he said. “Control emotion, don’t give them anything.”
Jürgen Klopp has confirmed that Alisson will be sidelined by a hamstring for two weeks while Diogo Jota’s unspecified knock will keep him on Liverpool’s physio table for “a bit longer”.
Manchester United’s Millie Turner is as excited as Bez’s peak after her “quite unexpected” England call-up. “I think my neighbors hated me at first because I was jumping around my house,” she said. “For me, it’s what I’ve always dreamed of, what I’ve hoped for.”
Exeter’s egg hunt director has warned football to be careful what it wishes for over plans for sin bins. “I’ll be honest with you, I’m very surprised that football is doing it,” Rob Baxter said. “I was surprised when football went to VAR, and I’m not sure how much they realized they were letting the genie out of the bottle.”
And maybe it was the full moon that is creating even more strangeness in the Football League. In League Two, veteran Charlie Austin put Swindon 4-0 up against Accrington in the 90th minute. The remaining moments were a joyous cruise to victory then, weren’t they? It’s not. Nine minutes of injury time later, it was 4-3 and the Robins were hanging on for dear life, only to see it through.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Max Rushden and the pod squad dive into handball law again and talk more VAR as they look back on the fun and games in Paris and west London.
STILL ABOUT MORE?
Before VAR dealt with a late scare at Parc des Princes, 17-year-old Lewis Miley put in a statement on Eddie Howe’s side’s Big Cup performance, as Jonathan Liew explains.
There are great things that never happened and long chains of endless reps in this week’s Info.
And after a torturous start, André Onana is finding his feet at Manchester United, according to Ben McAleer. So expect to read this in our MBM report later … “Target! Galatasaray 1-0 Manchester United (Zaha 2 mins): Onana tries to turn Cruyff in his own box but gets it wrong. He slips trying to scramble back to the back and falls over. Gala scoring. Oh dear!”
MEMORY LANE
Temperatures are expected to drop for games across the UK this weekend, particularly in Manchester, where Pep Guardiola’s City host Tottenham on Sunday. Here’s a wintry scene from that same game in December 1967, when City ran out 4-1 winners amid heavy snow showers at Maine Road. Same score again?
IN THE FLUBS shamelessly
