Scott Murray's Blog, page 210
January 11, 2014
Hull City v Chelsea – as it happened | Scott Murray
Minute-by-minute report: Eden Hazard was the star turn as Chelsea moved to the top of the Premier League with a comfortable win at the KC. Scott Murray was watching
Scott Murray
January 10, 2014
The Fiver | At least someone at Old Trafford has been pulling their finger out
EXCLUSIVE: MANCHESTER UNITED LATEST!It's been a slow news day, folks, even by the standards of a Friday afternoon in January. So what's going on at Manchester United? We've not heard much about them in a while. Someone should write a blog about them. Hey, maybe the Fiver should try to address this egregious oversight. OK, let's do it. And wait until you hear this! It seems things aren't going too well under this new chap David Moyes. It's not far off a complete disaster, in fact. They're through to the knockout stage of Big Cup, are one game away from a League Cup final, and are only 11 points off the top of the league with half the season remaining, 10 if you factor out Arsenal for whom the wheels are guaranteed to come clanking off somewhere down the line. What a business! What a shambles! Oh David! How could you!
It's such a sorry state of affairs that everyone at Old Trafford appears to have completely given up. Rumours that the club is to be shut down permanently in disgrace next week are as yet unconfirmed. We tried ringing United's PR department, but the bloke who runs it, Mr Kruger, has gone home early for the weekend, and may not be back until February. February 2015. But there are other signs. Wayne Rooney, for example, has gone on a "hot weather break" with a "fitness coach" who has been tasked to ensure the striker performs 10 sit-ups for every item ordered from the bar and grill by the pool. Or maybe five if he goes easy on the mayo. He'll not be available for tomorrow's match against Swansea City. "Hopefully we will get him fit for Chelsea," shrugged Moyes, idly filling in a medium-hard sudoku.
Robin van Persie is also still absent, presumed lounging. He'll be away for "a little while", according to his absent-minded manager, who has been charged by the FA for banging on about refereeing decisions, but doesn't really care, what difference does it make, and in any case he's mainly thinking about whether he'll pop down the shops in a bit for a pint of milk, mainly for a stretch of the old legs and to kill time really, though only after Deal or No Deal's been on. But at least someone at Old Trafford has been pulling their finger out and doing something! The new head of the marketing department, Shortbread McFiver, has signed a deal with Aperol Spritz, the popular orangey-red beverage becoming Manchester United's Official Spirit That By The Looks Of It Is Basically Turbo Irn-Bru (and therefore Shortbread's second-favourite refreshment after Fistfight, the 75.8% ABV supermarket-whisky-flavored turps beverage).
"United is the strongest sports franchise on a global basis," said chief suit of booze shillers Gruppo Campari, Bob Kunze-Concewitz, a man whose monicker is best not attempted after the 20cl Spritz threshold has been passed. "It has a very strong and loyal fanbase and that attraction doesn't alter. Once you are a fan of a club, it is for life. Ours is a mid- to long-term partnership, so we are very comfortable. We see it as a perfect combination. We share the same values. It is about success. It is about winning. It is about celebration." A load of marketing gibberish which can be loosely translated as: lissen, United, lissen, here lissen, you're m'besht friend, yer me besht fffarckin mate ya bassa. Honestly, the state of this club now Fergie's gone! Someone should look into this.
QUOTE OF THE DAY"We regret the trouble, no one wanted it, but it just happened. Regardless, I liked that the team is beginning to have a face for competition" – fun and games in South America dept: Marília coach Luis dos Reis reflects on the all-out brawlfare between his team and opponents Tupã during a friendly in Brazil.
FIVER LETTERS"When Big Sam finally gets the big heave-ho from Gollivan, at least he's got something to fall back on. Doubtless at some point there'll be a remake of Return of the Jedi, in which case – based on Wednesday night's evidence – he'll be a shoo-in for the role of Emperor Palpatine" – Nick Payne.
"Rather than using Big Sam's masticated chewing gum as a shield across the West Ham goal (yesterday's Fiver letters), could they not instead arrange a sponsorship deal with Hubba Bubba and give some to Adrian to chew during the match? Any time their opponents have the ball all the keeper need do is stretch the gum across his teeth and blow, thus forming a temporary barrier betwixt goal and opposing forward. At least this way all that time West Ham spend blowing bubbles would actually be of some use to them. And if that doesn't work, they could at least use it to fashion makeshift air-bags when they inevitably crash back into the Championship come May" – Enna Cooper.
"Is it a coincidence that Manchester United would announce an official 'spirits' partner at a time when Lord Ferg seems hell-bent on being a haunting spectre over David Moyes's managerial tenure, instead of spending his days in Tuscany drinking wine like he had planned?" – Saurav Samaddar.
• 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: Nick Payne.
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RECOMMENDED VIEWINGHampshire cricketers putting their off-season training time to good use … with bubble football.
BITS AND BOBSRadiohead, The Blizzard … and now Albion Rovers. Fans of the Scottish League Two side have been asked to 'pay what they can' for tomorrow's home game against Montrose. "I'm expecting quite a lot of people will pay just the £1, we're kind of budgeting on that basis," admitted chairman John Devlin.
Jermain Defoe will leave Spurs at the end of February to join Canadian MLS soccerballers Toronto FC. "I will play my heart out for the team and the fans until my last kick for the club," sobbed the 31-year-old.
Fulham have told Bryan Ruiz – eight goals in 68 appearances – that he can leave the club, having bought him for more than £10m in 2011. "I wouldn't call his signing a mistake," claimed boss René Meulensteen.
Arsenal boss Arsène Wenger wants to see less of Roll-up Man and Chopper Jim in January. "The transfer market is a distraction that for me is not welcome," he killjoyed. "I think it would be much better that there is no transfer market at all in January and the team starts and finishes with the same players."
Big Sam is hoping the PA man plays some One Direction before Cardiff v West Ham tomorrow. "We've got to get out there, face the music and use it to anger us, if you like, make us mad," he growled.
And in a surprising turn of events, December's Premier League player of the month award went to goal-plundering Luis Suárez and not red-card plundering Kevin Nolan.
STILL WANT MORE?In a Stars in Their Eyes tribute blog, Michael Cox runs through the chances of Andros Townsend, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Raheem Sterling, Aaron Lennon, James Milner and Ashley Young getting to be Theo Walcott at the World Cup.
Meanwhile, Jan Aage Fjortoft wants to be Stuart James, which is why he's written this piece on what deep-thinking and flexible Ole Gunnar Solskjaer can bring to the Cardiff table.
Scott Murray and Daniel Harris want to tell you what to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. So they have done.
After 36 years of wanting to touch the ball at Ibrox, Pope's O'Rangers fan Alex Anderson finally did. And he was so excited he wrote about it.
Oh, and if it's your thing, you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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'I'M CONTROLLING MYSELF …'Scott Murraytheguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend
West Ham's crunch game at Solskjaer's Cardiff, Liverpool's road awareness, Pulis' Palace security and much more besides
1) Will West Ham show the stomach for battle?"It's not a good time for us to lose 6-0 but it's not like they haven't done it to anyone else. They've done Manchester United [4-1], done Tottenham [6-0], Arsenal [6-3] and we have to face the fact that they're miles better than us." As abject defeatism goes, Sam Allardyce's response to West Ham's humiliation in the League Cup semis is right up there. Manchester City might be nudging perfection at home this season but consider this: both Liverpool and Crystal Palace have run them close at the Ethiad recently and, while there may be pretty much a whole division between the Manchester giants and the Hammers, last season Bradford City had the desire, gumption and wit to plot their way to the final past opponents three divisions their senior. West Ham's display was nothing short of pathetic and, having shipped 13 goals on the road since the new year, they really owe their travelling support a little something. Here's an opportunity: they've got the sign over Cardiff, having won the last five matches against the Bluebirds, a run which includes two wins in the Welsh capital. A sixth win on the spin in this sequence might be pushing it right now, the way West Ham are playing at the moment, but a rare display of staunch defensive coherence would not go amiss and would prove they have at least some stomach for the upcoming relegation battle. SM
2) Solskjaer's first league game• West Han fans call on Allardyce to go after thrashing
• Video: Allardyce reflects on 6-0 defeat at Manchester City
The problem for West Ham is, Cardiff have their tails up after a display of futile bravery at Arsenal and a superb smash-and-grab cup win at Newcastle. They'll be taking succour from those performances and hoping to raise their game at home, where they have recently been battered by Southampton and robbed of points by Sunderland. It's crucial they get their act together on their own turf: upcoming home matches against Norwich, Aston VIlla, Hull and Fulham are full of possibility, visits to Manchester City, Manchester United, Swansea, Tottenham and Everton less so. Much will depend on whether the new signing Magnus Wolff Eikrem is able to bring calmness and assurance to the midfield – he was the playmaking fulcrum of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's title-winning Molde side. The parachuting in of tried and trusted favourites doesn't always work for new managers – witness Marouane Fellaini's struggles for David Moyes at Manchester United, or the travails of Paul Konchesky and Christian Poulsen when Roy Hodgson was flailing around like a bipolar gibbon at Anfield – but if Solskjaer's judgment is sound, one decent debut performance from Eikrem in this relegation six-pointer could give Cardiff crucial momentum in their quest to stay up. SM
3) Liverpool's road awareness
Few at Liverpool would make serious noises about winning the title but, while they're still within striking distance at the top, they might as well give it a go. But if they're to maintain their position on the fringes of the title race, they'll need to sort out their away form and quickly. Their record on the road – that five-goal shellacking of a Spurs side which had all but given up under André Villas-Boas apart – is the worst of the division's top-10 teams bar Hull City. Three wins is a poor return compared with Arsenal's and Tottenham's seven. Even Manchester United, a club on the verge of being shut down in disgrace if all these blogs are to be believed, are still managing to grind it out away from home in their time-honoured title-winning style; six wins already. Liverpool's malaise seems mental as much as anything else: at Swansea, Newcastle, Everton, Manchester City and Chelsea, they've started on the front foot only to retreat into their shell when their hosts applied a first sustained bout of pressure. It's time to show some grit. Easier said than done: Stoke, who should have taken a point away from Anfield on the opening day, won this fixture with embarrassing ease last season and have to varying degrees troubled Manchester City, Everton and Chelsea during this campaign. They're without the in-form Oussama Assaidi – ineligible against his parent club – which tilts the balance towards the visitors. But if Stoke still manage to deny Liverpool – old boys Peter Crouch and Charlie Adam are both in good nick, cheap headlines waiting to be written – Brendan Rodgers and his team may be forced to scale down their ambitions for the rest of the season. SM
4) Tigers look to give Chelsea a scare• Rodgers fined £8,000 for comments about officials
• Agger ruled out for four weeks with calf problem
• The Gallery: Philippe Coutinho gets the readers' treatment
Who knows, Hull City may still go down. The Tigers have suffered dismal second-half-of-the-season collapses before. But the evidence suggests that's unlikely. Hull start the weekend in the top half of the table and so far this season they've beaten Liverpool and given Manchester City, Everton, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Manchester United all good games. Whether they'll have enough to shock in-form Chelsea on Saturday lunchtime is a moot point, but their home form is good – they seriously unsettled Manchester United by going two up, then thrashed Fulham 6-0 – and, with goals suddenly not a problem, they could give José Mourinho's side, still not quite operating at full capacity, a test. Steve Bruce has bought well and his team play in an honest, determined and occasionally attractive style. Should the Moyes experiment at Old Trafford fail, Manchester United could do worse. SM
5) Everton's Norwich complex
On the face of it Everton should pick up three points at the weekend. Roberto Martínez's stylish team have lost only one of their last 14 games and are in the mix for the Champions League, while Norwich are in a rare old state, six games without a win and plummeting down the table. But teams develop complexes. Everton haven't beaten Norwich since 2005, the clubs drawing four times since the Canaries returned to the top division in 2011, City winning the other one. Chris Hughton's team held Everton on the opening day, and will go into battle with the knowledge that the bottom club Sunderland left Goodison recently with three points. So why not them? Everton have lost a little of the fluid brilliance they were showing in late November and early December, when Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal were all frustrated. With a few difficult fixtures on the horizon for Everton – Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea – they will be desperate to buck the recent trend against Norwich and regain momentum. SM
6) Manchester United's less than trivial pursuit
Manchester United have endured a spotty period and a miserable week, but with one upside: the feverish pursuit of late goals has returned. United have been beaten eight times so far this season, the losses to West Brom, Everton and Newcastle characterised by supine subsidence after falling behind, which, when added to the late goals conceded to Southampton and Cardiff, suggests vanishing equilibrium as well as technical incompetence. But in the last two abject defeats, at Swansea and Sunderland, they have at least chased an equaliser with some of the old indignant entitlement, the inspired signing of a spirits partner lifting theirs already. If it can only fortify them to muster suitable concern from the start, they might find that things quickly improve. DH
7) Pulis providing Palace security• United players raise concerns over Moyes's credentials
• Daniel Harris: Ferguson should take some United blame
• Smalling branded 'thoughtless' for 'suicide bomber' outfit
• Video: Laudrup anxious ahead of Old Trafford return
• The internet reacts to Moyes's troubles with United
The standard at the top of the Premier League has fallen in the last few years, in near enough inverse proportion to the rise through the rest of the table. This season, with the teams at the bottom replete with even more television money than before, it's not easy to predict who might go down – almost every team have individuals good enough to keep them up, with a bank balance to match. And yet Crystal Palace, the only one of whom this is not so, are arguably the most likely to survive, and for one reason alone: the presence of Tony Pulis. In the eight league games since his appointment, Palace have won three – once more than in the preceding 12 – and drawn one, also performing creditably in narrow defeat at Chelsea and Manchester City. And when, in that context, you consider the changes at both Manchester clubs, Everton, Liverpool and Southampton, it becomes clear that if this season is highlighting anything, it is the primacy of the manager. DH
8) City's visit to Newcastle• Video: Pulis expects tough 90 minutes against Spurs
• Palace part company with veteran striker Phillips
In 2011-12, Manchester City almost lost the league title and then, in 2012-13, did lose the league title – both times to Manchester United. It wasn't that United had a superior team; demonstrably they did not, as the games between the sides showed. But they were able to overcome this partly by virtue of a broader and more varied squad, which, despite lacking any semblance of a midfield, had viable alternatives in the centre of defence, and, most crucially, on the wings and up front – the areas most important when seeking to settle a tight encounter. Then, last summer and for the first time, City bought sensibly; not the best players in the world, nor a swathe of the biggest names available to them, just precisely the players that they needed. And this is precisely why, at their best, they are the country's best team, and by significant distance – but if they cannot find that form away from home, the title may still elude them. DH
9) Gnabry and Oxlade-Chamberlain's time to shine
Arsène Wenger's two great Arsenal sides were characterised, if not defined by pace; when defending corners, they would sometimes pull all their men back, so that when they countered, each would be unmarked. But in the last number of years that focus has changed, the squad densely populated with clever, skilful midfielders, forced to wander inside in search of space and frequently neutered in the process. So the injury to Theo Walcott is a particular blow, his value measurable not solely in his increasingly accomplished finishing, but in opening up space for others and forcing opponents to contemplate a different threat. His absence, though, gives both Serge Gnabry and the returning Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain the opportunity to play – they do not have long to persuade Wenger that he need not sign a replacement. DH
10) Sunderland mixing it with their fellow strugglers• Oxlade-Chamberlain hopeful of World Cup place
• Villa fans vent their anger at Lambert after defeat
Sunderland are not as terrible a team as might be supposed. They have nous and violence in defence, Lee Cattermole can play as well as clatter, Adam Johnson is dangerous when it suits, and Stephen Fletcher and Jozy Altidore are proven goalscorers. And we know this not just from that inventory, but from what we've seen: so far this season, they have won against Newcastle, Manchester City and Everton in the league, and Chelsea and Manchester United in the League Cup. But in order to stay in the top division – and they certainly can – they must bother to beat those teams around them, starting on Saturday at Fulham. DH
Premier LeagueWest Ham UnitedCardiff CityLiverpoolStoke CityHull CityChelseaEvertonNorwich CityManchester UnitedSwansea CityCrystal PalaceTottenham HotspurManchester CityNewcastle UnitedArsenalAston VillaSunderlandFulhamScott MurrayDaniel Harris• Johnson puts league survival ahead of Cup glory
• Fulham look to reinforce by signing Chelsea's Bertrand
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Football transfer rumours: Ilkay Gundogan to Manchester United?
Today's gossip is, it just is, there's no point asking why
Morning! Chelsea are banging on about Wayne Rooney again.
They're also interested in Internazionale's Fredy Guarín, but the Italians are going to offer the midfielder to Southampton in an attempt to sign striker Dani Osvaldo. José's not going to be happy, but then again, when is he? Not often, if his self-consciously grim coupon is anything to go by, is the unnecessary answer to that rhetorical question.
Everton are in the market for the Spartak Moscow winger Aidan McGeady. They also want Blackpool's Tom Ince, purely to annoy everyone at Liverpool you would have thought, and why not.
Should Everton replenish their attacking stock, they may allow Hull to make off with Nikica Jelavic, who older readers may remember from Rapid Vienna, Rangers and 2012.
David Moyes is also interested in Jelavic.
OK, no he's not, but we suspect Manchester United fans were perfectly willing to believe that could be the case. Instead, he's after the Juventus midfielder Claudio Marchisio and Ilkay Gundogan of Borussia Dortmund.
Sunderland want the Estudiantes defender Santiago Vergini, the Catania goalkeeper Mariano Andújar, and Internacional midfielder Ignacio Scocco. If this was 1969, Vergini would be the sort of bloke who takes to the pitch wearing knuckle dusters made out of bent paper clips and drawing pins, but times change, and it isn't, he isn't, and he doesn't.
Sam Allardyce could be sacked, but really, is this news? Meanwhile another former West Ham United employee, Jermain Defoe, could bodyswerve Toronto and join QPR instead.
Liverpool might allow Iago Aspas to move to Valencia on loan, now he's finally started scoring. It's like Robbie Keane all over again, only without celebrations that resemble large transparent sacks of uncooked sausagemeat flopping down a flight of stairs. They'll replace him with Dynamo Kyiv's Andriy Yarmolenko and Real Madrid's Alvaro Morata, neither of whom are like-for-like, admittedly, but they attack the goal and that's good enough for us.
Arsenal might have something to say about Morata, mind you.
And apologies to Manchester United supporters who may now be suffering from respiratory difficulties – that Jelavic thing was cheap, unnecessary and cruel, we shouldn't have done that to you.
Transfer windowManchester UnitedScott Murraytheguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
January 9, 2014
The Fiver | Sam Allardyce and his signature style
SERENITY NOWLast night didn't turn out to be the best evening for future multiple La Liga winner Sam Allardyce. There he was, standing on the touchline at the City of Manchester Stadium, trying his best to look agitated for the gallery as a shower of chancers, frauds and competition winners claiming to be West Ham United made a royal show of themselves in the League Cup semi-final, but not quite managing it. His best effort at theatrical rage was a brief frown which suggested the first rumblings of mild irk, and at one point he blew a bubble which popped in a slightly snappy manner, but other than that, nothing. Watching him, you could be forgiven for thinking he simply doesn't give a flying one any more. But that can't be the case. All very strange.
After the game – which Manchester City won 6-0, Edin Dzeko so bored we later found out he'd lost count at five – Allardyce let out an elongated yawn, in the style of someone who has just woken up from a seven-year coma and can't quite yet summon the energy to scratch their arse or get up to go potty. But listening carefully to the tape again, the reflex in fact turned out to be his post-match press conference. "What do you expect when you've got lads on free transfers playing against players that have cost hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds?" he drawled. "We are not the first team to get beat here by many goals and we won't be the last." Fair points both, until you remember Crystal Palace managed to hold City to a single goal a fortnight ago, while League Cup semi-finals of the past have seen the likes of Bradford City win at Aston Villa, Rochdale beat Blackeye Rovers, and Walsall hold the old, good, 80s Liverpool at Anfield. In other words, there's no need to be shipping six goals in a major semi-final, at all, ever, no matter how you spin it.
West Ham fans have never been collectively convinced by Allardyce and his signature style of soccer, which might be good enough for the likes of Real Madrid but doesn't cut it at the Academy of Football. So it was little surprise that the club's travelling support, witnessing last night's debacle a mere 80 hours after watching their team get hammered by five at Nottingham Forest, broke into a chant which featured repeated uses of the word eff in a percussive style and detailed the quickest routes away from the Boleyn Ground if one is driving a removals van during rush hour. Allardyce insists he is going to dig in and fight, and he still has the backing of Gollivan, but a fourth consecutive loss on the road at Cardiff on Saturday could convince the club to let their manager go, with the odds on his being the next sacking now down to a pointless 1-5. With the big man odds-on to be back on the market very soon, poor Carlo Ancelotti will already be suffering sleepless nights.
QUOTE OF THE DAY"His contract will be changed and wages will be reduced by 50%. We would be delighted to get rid of him, but a football player with his reputation, there are no offers. He should play football and work hard, like his team-mates, but he clearly misses the Belgian cafes … Logically, football clubs don't generally offer contracts to players who love liquor and drive under the influence" – Terek Grozny president Magomed Daoudov unloads both barrels on Belgian player Jonathan Legear – who once crashed his Porsche into a petrol station – after he recently whinged about life at the Russian club in a magazine interview.
DOCTOR'S ORDERSNew Morton boss Kenny Shiels claims he has been advised to give up post-match interviews … by his doctor. "Every decision I make must be in the best interests of Morton and I'm very susceptible to being controversialised and it's happened to me in the past," he, er, raged. "I'm not going to go down that road anymore. There's a name for it – you can't help it. If someone asks you a question, you're emotionally imbalanced at that time and you feel an urge to tell the truth."
FIVER LETTERS"Are West Ham missing a trick? With the amount of gum Big Sam chews, could he not chew enough to fashion a cover to stick over the West Ham goal, thus freeing up their goalkeeper to single-handedly take on opponents, much the same as he did last night?" – Chris Chadwick.
"Re: David Moyes's comment about referees: 'We're actually beginning to laugh at them' (yesterday's Bits and Bobs). What wasn't reported was that he added 'they'll soon know what it's like being Manchester United nowadays' …" – Tony Timms.
"At a time when you seem to be short of correspondence and I don't run the risk of winning any computer games, I'd just like to say how nice it is to be back, having been unsubscribed for several years. Comforting to see so many of the same jokes, stories and buzzwords still fighting fit. Regards" – Larry.
• 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: Chris Chadwick.
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RECOMMENDED VIEWINGOverhead futsal brilliance from way downtown.
BITS AND BOBSManchester United defender Chris Smalling has been described as "thoughtless" by a survivor of the 7 July London bombings after he dressed up as a 'suicide bomber'. "I do not think people who do these things mean any harm but unfortunately the effect it has on people like me and people who are in a worse position – those who lost loved ones – is hurtful," said Jacqui Putnam. Smalling's management said he had intended to make a pun on Jägerbomb by strapping bottles of the drink and Red Bull to his body.
Not content with signing their rivals' best players, Bayern Munich have upped the smug-o-meter by offering to subsidise their fans' £62 Big Cup tickets for the match against Arsenal. "This is intended to represent a small thank you for the great support of the followers," Bayern holier-than-thou'd.
Former Stoke City defender Danny Higginbotham has retired after revealing that life at Skrill North side Altrincham failed to live up to the heady highs of captaining invincible Gibraltar. "I always said I would play for the club I have always supported and I genuinely hoped it would prove the catalyst for firing me up again and getting me back to how I used to be. But the harsh reality is, it didn't," he parped.
Skrill Premier side Nuneaton have put their entire squad up for sale, believing it's in the best interests of the play-off-chasing club to sell all their players. "We should look to maximise the return to the club … none of this is rocket science," sniffed club owner Ian Neale.
Good news for Mr Roy dept: Switzerland coach Ottmar Hitzfeld has taken on the task of trolling World Cup venue Manaus. "I find it almost irresponsible that one has to play football in such a place, in the middle of the jungle, in the middle of the Amazon region," he growled.
Racing Santander fans stormed club president Angel Lavin's box and threw drinks at him after the club's players refused to kick off in their Copa del Rey match against Almeria in protest at not being paid.
Crystal Palace have parted company with Kevin Phillips, 89. "He wants to get closer to home, which is the Midlands," cheered Tony Pulis.
St Mirren's Paul McGowan has been sentenced to 130 hours' community service, rather than receiving a prison term, after admitting a double assault charge. "I would have taken that if you'd have asked me beforehand," said McGowan.
Brendan Rodgers has been handed an £8,000 bill for getting one or two things off his chest about ref Lee Mason after the 2-1 defeat at Manchester City.
And Lord Walton of Detchant has spoken against a government proposal under which courts could stop people being annoying in public, by pointing out that it would stop him from taunting Sunderland fans. "My friend Lord Shipley … is for reasons best known to him, … a Sunderland supporter. If I were to chide him and say that he is foolish to continue to support that team, which has been absolutely hopeless all season … he would reasonably regard me as a confounded nuisance. If one looks at this clause and interprets it in a strictly literal sense, I would potentially be in breach of this statute."
STILL WANT MORE?Raphael Honigstein interviews Thomas Hitzlsperger, who tells him: "I preferred living with a man".
Neil Jones digs out the forgotten story of the death-cheatin', riot-survivin', Vietnam war-defyin' Dallas Tornado's 1967-68 world tour.
DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! DOWNLOAD FOOTBALL WEEKLY NOW! etc.
Eusébio's greatest hits and Belgium's version of the Soccer Sixes star in this week's Classic YouTube.
Find out how each of the Premier League's clubs have fared in the first half of the season, on one handy page of infographics.
Tenth in the Championship and the fact that home fans have stopped demonstrating so much outside the club ranks as something of an achievement for Blackeye Rovers this season, reckons Paul Wilson.
Oh, and if it's your thing, you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace.
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January 8, 2014
Football transfer rumours: Arsenal to sign Jackson Martínez?
Today's gossip has been specifically designed to be immediately printed out and used as tomorrow's chip wrapper one day ahead of schedule. Just add chips!
Theo Walcott is off sick, and Arsenal have the fear. They're prepared to offer Porto £33.2m to trigger a deal for the Colombia striker Jackson Martínez, and are willing to go as high as £33,200,001.01, even if it means they're told to bugger off and come back when they've stopped being so bloody childish. If these high-level negotiations don't work out, it's Real Madrid's Alvaro Morata for them on loan, though nobody's ruling out the Gunners throwing in some non-patronising chocolate coins to sweeten that particular move.
Kyle Walker is a target for Paris Saint-Germain, Monaco and Manchester United, who respectively have more money than sense, don't have to worry too much about tax thresholds, and are absolutely not panicking, no they are not, no they are not.
And no amount of rumours linking Joleon Lescott with a move to Old Trafford suggest otherwise! Fulham are stepping in here to save everyone's embarrassment.
In other Craven Cottage news, Bryan Ruiz is off to Real Betis, leaving Dimitar Berbatov (Glenn Ford) in sole charge of the wonder.
Loïc Rémy is at Newcastle United, but not *at* Newcastle United. Queens Park Rangers manager Harry Redknapp has all the receipts and guarantees, they're in the glove box of his Reliant Regal van. He's revving up that van and threatening to do one, taking all the papers with him! Oo-er, Newcastle! You'd better cough up before Harry wheelspins off!
Aston Villa need to do something, and Norwich City midfielder Wes Hoolihan is a start.
Does anybody remember Spangles, Chopper bikes, Space Dust, Mike Yarwood, and football gossip columns featuring Tom Ince? The Rumour Mill is now in its dotage and struggling, to be honest. Blackpool winger? Denis Healey? Crystal Palace? Eddie Waring? It's coming back to us in fits and starts, though to be honest we're having a job piecing it all together.
Crystal Palace also want Everton striker Nikica Jelavic. Now we're totally stumped.
Cardiff City manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer wants former Manchester United striker Mame Biram Diouf, now at Hannover, and current Red Devil Wilfried Zaha on loan. Is he doing this to impress his old club or show them up? Difficult to say, it's hard to read the man, he's accepted a job from Vincent Tan after all, he could be up to anything.
And Sunderland want Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Liam Bridcutt, who fancies moving nearer Scotland, hooking up with his old boss Gus Poyet, and getting out of the road of ageing media types from London making a loud song and dance about enjoying the sea air, eating fish and chips, not being in London etc.
ArsenalScott Murraytheguardian.com © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
December 20, 2013
The Joy of Six: unsung sporting heroes of 2013
From a boxing journeyman to the sporting year's most famous image, we pick half-a-dozen trumpets that deserve blowing
1) Olivier MorinWhether Usain Bolt is posing for or with a camera, there's rarely a dull moment when the world's fastest man has won a race and in the mood for some fun. He celebrated his London 2012 100m final win by throwing shapes for the camera with the Swedish handball team, then followed up after his 200m by borrowing the Nikon D4 of sports photographer Jimmy Wixtrom and proceeding to take a series of snaps of Wixtrom's colleagues, as they simultaneously scrambled to get their shots of him. But unless he manages to feature in a selfie alongside the entire female population of Scandinavia, the likeable Jamaican is unlikely to appear in a more famous photograph than that captured by Agence France Presse snapper Olivier Morin at the World Athletics Championships last August, in which our hero was pictured winning gold against the backdrop of a lightning bolt flashing across the Moscow night sky.
"It is of course the lightning that makes the photo because we're talking about Usain Bolt here. Without the flash in the sky it wouldn't really be anything that special," said Morin, who admitted he initially missed the lightning bolt when he viewed a thumbnail of his photograph. "This was, I think, a once-in-a-lifetime moment. In my 25 years as a photographer, I've never had an uncontrollable external element make a photo like this and I imagine if I tried again for a similar result for the next 50 years, it wouldn't happen again. So, I only really give myself credit for one per cent of this picture."
Despite Morin's modesty, I asked award-winning Guardian Sport photographer Tom Jenkins, who sometimes works with the Frenchman, to nitpick the photo to within an inch of its life from his position as bitterly jealous colleague. Initially reluctant to do so, he quickly warmed to his theme. "Well it's a bit dark, isn't it?" he said. "And the lightning isn't even forked, which would have greatly improved the shot; as bolts of lightning go, you'd have to say this is a pretty rubbish one. And ideally, Usain would have done his trademark Lightning Bolt celebration and Olivier would have got a shot that made it look like the actual lightning bolt was emerging from his finger, possibly electrocuting Bolt's rivals. So I think you have to say this was an opportunity missed." No matter, the man who got the sporting money-shot of 2013 still makes our list. Barry Glendenning
2) Inbee ParkIt's been some year in golf. Jason Dufner, The Somnambulist, the noctambulist knocker, trudged around Oak Hill in the second round of the PGA, having not quite broken out of the slow-wave sleep stage, and found himself still dreaming: he was in the centre of the 18th green, 15 feet below the hole, having taken a mere 61 strokes for his round. A simple putt uphill, and he'd be the first man ever to shoot 62 in a major! Sadly, this was the point at which he woke up with a start. Panic set in. Shaking like a leaf, Dufner underhit the first putt, ensuring he'll die wondering, then nearly missed the tap-in to equal the existing record of 63! Fortunately that one dropped, and he drifted back off into the land of nod for the rest of the week, serenely sealing his first major title.
Hats off also to Phil Mickelson, whose final-day 66 to win the Open at Muirfield was a round of golf deserving of a place in the pantheon; to Adam Scott, who bounced back from disaster at Lytham to storm Augusta; to Justin Rose, whose iron into 18 at Merion invited comparison with the great Ben Hogan; and to Shawn Stefani, who was +13 through the first 10 holes of his third round at the US Open, carded a dismal 85, then made a hole in one at 17 during a final-day round of 69. Stefani made no concessions to cool, celebrating in the Tigger style, which is exactly how it should be. His 48 rollercoaster hours stand as testimony to the reasons we love and hate golf, and like and dislike ourselves, in equal measure.
But the player of the year was surely Inbee Park, who won the first three majors of the year on the LPGA tour, equalling a record that has stood since the great Babe Zaharias won all three available back in 1950. Park has a swing best described as philosophical - OK, in aesthetic terms her stuttering, hesitant, careful backlift makes Jim Furyk look like Fred Couples - but it's a rock-solid, straight-down-the-middle action, and one which took her to the Kraft Nabisco, LPGA Championship and US Open. An unprecedented business, and it says something about the strength of the women's game at the moment that Suzann Pettersen, after finishing the season strongly by tying fourth at the British Open and winning the Evian, nearly gained enough points to pip Park to the Rolex Player of the Year title and the world No1 ranking. But Park held firm. Three majors on the bounce, though. This might never happen again in our lifetime. Scott Murray
3) Johnny GreavesNot all sporting heroes are good at sport. Occasionally one comes along who draws admiration not because of their skills or the accolades they have collected but because they hung in there when others would have bowed out, with the primary goal being to benefit others. Johnny Greaves is one of those heroes.
Up until he retired in September, Greaves was a boxer and, by his own admission, not a talented one. In a career spanning six years and 100 fights, the light welterweight won just four times, losing all of the other 96 bouts and suffering a knockout on 12 occasions. He was the classic journeyman, the guy put up to hone the skills of prospects or to give winning fighters a low-risk contest, often at short notice and for very little money. It is an existence low on glamour and high on personal danger and given Greaves stuck at it for so long, one could justifiably question his sanity. Yet the 34-year-old's motive for taking beating after beating is as laudable as it is straightforward.
"I kept on fighting to put food on the table, to provide for my family," said Greaves after hanging up his gloves for good, with the excellent documentary Cornered, which tells the story of the east Londoner's life and tracks him ahead of his final fight, showing him to be a man utterly devoted to his young children. The film also shows Greaves to be someone haunted by dark thoughts – a "half empty" person as his older brother and one-time manager-come-trainer Frank put it – and offers the sense that he chose boxing as a means of finding acceptance from others as well as from himself.
Whatever the case, Greaves is a respected figure within British boxing, and rightly so given the readiness with which he accepted his role as target practice. The Forest Gate southpaw once took on a bout with just an hour's notice and while in the midst of his usual diet of beer, burgers and fags. Naturally tough, Greaves – whose first taste of boxing came in childhood and from being pitted against Frank by their father – was able to take a punch despite being in less than tip-top shape and, in return, provided entertainment with the odd Ali shuffle and what he described as a "bit of fun." "I'd spin them [his opponents] around, hit them in the bollocks," explained Greaves. "That type of thing."
Having lost to the likes of Gavin Rees, Jamie Cox and Anthony Crolla, it ultimately ended in glory for Greaves with a points victory over fellow journeyman Dan Carr at York Hall on 29 September. The east London scrapper bowing out at east London's most iconic boxing venue, in his 100th fight – a scriptwriter's dream, some might say, with the central character a hero who took a beating so his children could eat and he could find a sense of humble self-satisfaction. Sachin Nakrani
4) Sarah ElliottIt's the prerogative of the sport fan to pick and choose which events to blithely ignore and which results to crow about. So never mind what's been going on down under over the past month. England are still holders of the Ashes, the women having seen off Australia back in August. So there you have it. The signature moment of their series victory was written by wicket-keeping genius Sarah Taylor in the third ODI, one of the catches of 2013 without question.
But as the menfolk have been finding out to their cost, you can't keep a good Aussie quiet for long. And perhaps the most stunning achievement in world sport this year belongs to Australia's Sarah Elliott, who might have ended up on the losing side in the series, but compiled 95 runs on the opening day of the only Test, having been up four times the previous night to breastfeed her nine-month-old son Sam. The little lad also got fed while everyone else was replenishing themselves with cucumber sandwiches during lunch and tea, though Elliott's husband Rob looked after him the next night so his wife could get as much rest as possible with a view to completing a maiden Test century.
Elliott calmly made it over the line the morning after, finally losing her wicket for 104 before modestly telling the world's press that it felt "great to make the most of what might be my only opportunity". A feelgood story from the top drawer – she had to battle to regain her place in the national team after pregnancy, heading to the gym six weeks after Sam's birth - and her colleagues back in Victoria beamed with pride. "She's very gracious," explained Kelly Applebee, her club captain." I don't think I have ever heard her sledge. She might sometimes disagree, but in all the years I've been playing alongside her she hasn't said a bad word about anyone." Who could learn a thing or two from this, do you think? SM
5) Brent HillsWomen's football in this country enjoyed/endured unprecedented scrutiny this year, as more of the nation's reporters than ever before deigned to pay attention to the European Championships at just the same time as England, who had reached the final four years earlier and seemed to have acclimatised to the upper echelons of the game, fell apart. People who had not previously heard of the manager, Hope Powell, could not only name her, but also tell you exactly why she ought to be sacked. HOPE OUT! Five months later England are top of their World Cup qualifying group having yet to concede a goal, and things are looking rosy again, but there hasn't been the same bulging cuttings file for the caretaker, Brent Hills. Now's the time to remedy that.
For Hills, England's assistant manager for more than 10 years, has done a wonderful job in impossible circumstances. One might argue that it is easier to take over from a manager who has been chased out of town, especially on a caretaker basis; expectations are forgivingly low. In this case, however, expectations of the squad barely dipped, so badly was Powell felt to be at fault for England's performance in Sweden. And the really difficult thing for Hills was that his desire to take on the role full-time – even to be properly considered – was always going to be frustrated. Such was the taste for change at the FA (and infamously among much of the squad) after 15 years under Powell, that her assistant's job aspirations were doomed to be the stuff of fantasy.
No doubt Hills figured as much, but you would not know it by England's performances under his charge. First Belarus and then Turkey were the recipients of 6-0 and 8-0 thumpings, though that word is at odds with the fluidity and unpredictability with which England played; perhaps it is better to say that Belarus and Turkey were drowned, swept under by wave after wave of England attack. Toni Duggan and Natasha Dowie, who had struggled to get in to Powell's plans, were prominent and a move in to the hole had Karen Carney fizzing. Gemma Bonner, the Liverpool defender overlooked in the summer, made her long awaited debut.
A third home tie against Wales was a tougher proposition, a proper Home Nations encounter, but Hills's England prospered, winning 2-0. Away to Turkey at the end of October, England cemented their lead at the top of the group with a 4-0 win. At every turn Hills was respectful to his predecessor, referring positively to the past and offering context for the summer's events that few reporters were in a position to recall. Though he didn't hide the fact that he wanted the job permanently, he professed only to have made "tweaks" since taking over, and gave much of the credit to the players.
He was, then, the model caretaker, fulfilling the role with sign-me-up enthusiasm despite the predictability of his disappointment. Hills was duly thanked by Mark Sampson, finally named as Powell's permanent successor earlier this month, but will have to settle for a mention in the footnotes of England's 2015 World Cup campaign. This week Hills was rewarded by the FA with the appointment to Head of Women's Elite Development, giving him responsibility for the Under-15 to Under-19 age groups and England's centre of excellence. Barely any of the news outlets who loudly gnashed their teeth in Powell's direction during the summer have bothered reporting it, mind. Out of sight, and all that. Let's hope his achievements in the role are sufficient to be recognised with more than an asterisk. Georgina Turner
6) Jack HoffmanYou'd have a heart of stone not to shed a tear of happiness watching this unfold. But don't let that blind you to the actual sport. Be honest, you thought he was going to run that to the left, didn't you? Yep, Jack bodyswerved us too. There's a proper player in that little lad. Touchdown of the year. SM
BoxingUsain BoltGolfEngland women's cricket teamEngland women's football teamUS sportsBarry GlendenningScott MurraySachin NakraniGeorgina Turnertheguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Football transfer rumours: Manchester United or Liverpool in for Ivan Rakitic?
Your favourite chatfest will be back on 30 December, indeed it has already done one in mind and spirit. Merry Christmas, everyone!
Dear Santa, please make the last gossip round-up of 2013 really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good!
Ever yours, hoping for the bestest-ever Christmas,
The Rumour Mill
[SANTA reads letter]
[SANTA yawns and scratches arse]
[SANTA knocks back half a pint of cooking sherry, rummages around in his sack, and finally meets his NUJ-stipulated contractual obligations by muttering ho ho ho]
[SANTA leaves parcel by RUMOUR MILL's fireplace and shambles off to do some heavy morning drinking]
[RUMOUR MILL excitedly opens parcel]
Tottenham Hotspur want Ajax boss Frank de Boer as their new manager.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is being considered for the manager's job by both West Bromwich Albion and Cardiff Franchise.
Arsenal and Manchester United are looking at Basel defender Fabian Schär.
Chelsea, Manchester City and Barcelona are all interested in Villarreal defender Mateo Musacchio, as none of them have an original idea in their head.
Manchester United and Liverpool want Sevilla captain Ivan Rakitic.
Stoke City want Manchester United's Nick Powell on loan.
Fulham fancy Valenciennes defender Benjamin Angoua.
[RUMOUR MILL stares at present]
[RUMOUR MILL looks up and stares into middle distance]
Santa, you gin-soaked piece of work!
[RUMOUR MILL puts on CD by Joni Mitchell, skips to Both Sides Now, allows one lazy tear to fall from its eye, and stands around feeling very sorry for itself for 10 days]
Transfer windowScott Murraytheguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
December 19, 2013
The Fiver Christmas Awards 2013
Welcome to the 14th Fiver Christmas Awards. Or is it the 15th? Oh, we don't know. We've certainly disingenuously pretended to forget how many times we've held these awards at least a dozen times, so there's a starting point for anyone who cares enough to tot it up. Furthermore, it's now more than a decade since we awarded Bayer Leverkusen an unprecedented Fiver Christmas Awards quadruple, and in honour of their legendary coach Klaus Toppmöller (kids, ask your grandparents) we declare that now is a time for cigarettes and booze. And curly hair, with locks springy enough to hold a lit cigarette, just in case you have a can of Purple Tin and a quadruple gin on the go at the same time. But as well as it being time for cigarettes and booze, and hairstyles specifically designed to assist in the consumption of cigarettes and booze, it's also time to dole out a few awards. Mainly because we sense you're losing interest already, and if we don't start soon, the Fiver will be in your bin folder quicker than we can say "Gah!", "Wah!" and "Oh reader! How could you!"
THE BLOKE FROM STOKE STANDING IN THE BACKGROUND AND WINCING AT THE NEWS WILSON PALACIOS COULD COST £8M AWARD FOR BEST FOOTBALL FANAngry Shouty Pointy Arsenal Man, who announced that "either the board must go or Wenger must go" in the wake of his team's opening-day defeat at the hands of Aston Villa. Angry Shouty Pointy Arsenal Man's team currently lead the Premier League and are safely through to the knockout stages of Big Cup.
THE JIM WHITE AWARD FOR PLAYING IT DOWN IN A QUIET VOICELuxuriously moustachioed Sky Sports News reporter and silent-movie pastiche act Nick Collins, for falling off a ladder and out of shot while reporting from outside Wembley Stadium. "Now that's the kind of thing that you hope never happens to you on live television," announced Jim White, back in the studio and for once not making a ludicrous song and dance about the smallest thing, heroically managing not to guffaw in the face of his fallen comrade's bizarre slapstick showcase. Rumours that Collins was later spotted wearing brown overalls and a bowler hat while trying to push a piano across a busy North Circular were never confirmed.
THE NANI STATUE FOR SELF-AGGRANDISING FALSE IDOLATRYIn the wake of his strikerless West Ham side's 3-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur, Big Sam Allardyce blew a long and lengthy solo on his own trumpet of such tonal clarity that you could have been forgiven for thinking it had been scored by Gil Evans and produced by Teo Macero. The tactical mastermind proved it was no fluke by sending his team out to win one of their next nine Premier League games.
Honourable mention: Mike Phelan, for claiming he was effectively United manager for the last five years of Lord Ferg's reign. If this really was the case, David Moyes owes him a proper shoeing in the 'Glasgow Didact' style. Look at the state he left the gaff in!
THE DAVID BENTLEY AWARD FOR MOST OVER-HYPED YOUNG PLAYERAn eye-catching 20-minute spell on the wing for Manchester United against hopeless Sunderland was enough to earn Adnan Januzaj a nomination for BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year. It also had the FA, various pundits and lots of football writers falling over themselves in their efforts to get the 18-year-old into an England shirt. The only small problem? Januzaj is not English and has not spent anywhere enough time in England to qualify to play for them under residency rules. Perhaps most pertinently, he has never expressed the slightest interest in playing for England. As difficult as some of our more jingoistic tabloid johnnies might find it to believe, there's really no earthly reason why he would.
THE MATT LE TISSIER AWARD FOR FOOTBALLER WHO FAMOUSLY NEVER MISSES A PENALTY MISSING A PENALTYMario Balotelli, who is obviously not eating enough pre-training Bacon & Egg McMuffins to keep up his energy levels like the great man did.
THE LORD FERG MEMORIAL MANAGER OF THE YEAR AWARDPaolo Di Canio. Just like the quaaludes necked by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill in upcoming Scorsese debauch-fest The Wolf of Wall Street, fitness regimes sometimes take a while to kick in. And look! There's Sunderland beating Chelsea to the tape right at the end of 120 minutes of Rumbelows Cup quarter-final action! Turns out banning coke floats made with frozen mayonnaise instead of ice cream wasn't such an outlandish plan after all. Well done, Paolo! (Hey, if Roberto Martínez gets all the credit for Brendan Rodgers winning promotion at Swansea, and Phelan cops all the flak for leaving Moyes a task and a half, then everyone's pal Paolo should get props for Sunderland's first cup semi in 14 years.)
THE ROBERTO DI MATTEO AWARD FOR REPLACING TACTICALLY INTRANSIGENT MANAGERS WITH ONES WHO KEEP IT SIMPLE BY STANDING ABOUT LOOKING A BIT MOODYScotland, who went on an unprecedented streak of two wins in a row this year, having got shot of confused chalkboard scribbler Craig Levein in order to replace him with the perpetually irate Gordon Strachan. Ruling by fear clearly works wonders.
Honourable mention: The Republic O'Ireland, who borrowed the fear idea but may have taken it a bit too far.
THE TOM DALEY AWARD FOR SERVICES TO DIVINGEither of his spectacular tumbles against Crystal Palace (forward somersault in the pike position) and Real Sociedad (reverse one-and-a-half somersaults followed by two-and-a-half twists in the free position) would normally be enough to win Ashley Young this gong. But the two combined make it no contest! Truth be told, he should get an extra shiny award for having the sheer brass neck to hold referees responsible for his issues with gravity. "The referees are giving decisions and that is where I think it lies," he told reporters, before accusing the police of encouraging a crime pandemic by wearing uniforms, and Lord Justice Leveson of tapping his phone.
THE SIR TIM BERNERS LEE AWARD FOR SERVICES TO THE INTERNETFormer Sheffield United midfielder-turned-boxer Curtis Woodhouse. A day or two after losing a fight, he offered £1,000 to anyone who could help him identify a Twitter troll, then jumped in his car and drove around to the bloke's street, while keeping his followers updated on his progress as he zeroed in on his online abuser. Upon seeing Woodhouse tweet a photo of his street sign, big, brave 'Jimbob' simpered pathetically for mercy and admitted what he had done was wrong. Having whipped Twitter into line, hopefully Woodhouse will go one better in 2014 and deal with the entire internet once and for all, pulling the plug out with his big fists, packing it away in bubble wrap, and storing it under the stairs until somebody works out a way for it to be used sensibly.
THE LASZLO KUBALA AWARD FOR CLEARLY-DEFINED FIFA REGULATION REGARDING INTERNATIONAL REPRESENTATIONUnion Jack Wilshere, who had some explaining to do after taking to the world wide web to tell followers that "the only people who should play for England are English people". We think we know what he meant, but that didn't stop the inevitable angry mob, led by over-sensitive former cricketer Kevin Pietersen, taking up their cyber-pitchforks and rattling the gates of Wilshere Towers.
THE CRAGGY ISLAND CHINESE COMMUNITY AWARD FOR MAN IN A POSITION OF RESPONSIBILITY BEING ACCUSED OF RACISMMr Roy, for his concise way of making points to his team of international footballers in an asphyxiating finite period of time.
THE JOCK WALLACE AWARD FOR BATTLE FEVERThe toys came flying out of das bundeshipsterpram in September after Borussia Dortmund goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller was sent off at Napoli in Big Cup. All of a sudden, Jürgen Klopp began dancing around in scenes reminiscent of the time George Costanza was denied the nickname T-Bone by a fellow worker at Kruger Industrial Smoothing. And in one fell swoop, cracks began to appear in Klopp's painstakingly constructed facade of supercool. Could it really be that he's Just Another Manager, prone to irrational and childish touchline tantrums like Fergie, Mr Roy, Big Sam and the resolutely unfashionable rest of them? Surely not! Across the continent, hipsters circled the wagons and haven't spoken of this since.
THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE FOR BEST WORK OF CONTEMPORARY FICTIONAlways Managing: My Autobiography by 'Arry Redknapp, an account of one man's life that couldn't contain more made-up cobblers if it featured a man with a big beard and sandals on the cover and was called The Holy Bible.
THE TONGUE-IN-BUTTOCK-CLEFT AWARD FOR EXTREME SYCOPHANCYThe British football press pack, for collectively burrowing their way up Lord Ferg's colon upon his retirement, despite the big bully's barely disguised contempt for them over 20 years. They were at it again upon the publication of his latest memoirs, a tome in which the former Manchester United manager made it clear in no uncertain terms how little he thinks of a media he found ridiculously easy to manipulate.
THE SPANISH INQUISITION AWARD FOR BEST INTERVIEWChannel 4 newsreader and journalist Jon Snow, who showed the football writers how it's done by reducing Lord Ferg to a squirming, jibbering, quietly seething wreck with his intelligent line of questioning on the day of Ma Bookie Wook's release.
THE MICHAEL CARBERRY AWARD FOR KEEPING A STRAIGHT BAT WHILE ALL AROUND HAVE TOTALLY LOST THEIR NOGGINSPerhaps mindful that he wouldn't presume to embark on a tour of newspaper offices with a view to teaching journalists how to copy and paste things off Twitter, Big Sam Allardyce is clearly not particularly open to the media lecturing him about tactics. Quizzed over his team before West Ham's game against Manchester City, his one-line response was a correspondence-ending work of malevolent beauty: "Well, it hasn't got a false nine, that's for sure." It was delivered with a thin-lipped smile followed by a gorgeous hanging silence, and you didn't have to squint too hard to read between the lines: mention a 4-2-1-3-0 formation to him once, just once, and 4-2-1-3-0 will be the number of times he will toe-punt you squarely on the trouser zip. That's a lot of punts on the zip! Hats off to the man for drawing a line in the sand.
THE 'GREAT BRITAIN' AWARD FOR OXYMORONIC PREPOSTEROUSNESSFootball hipsters. It's time to stop now, you've had your fun, but you're killing football. Nobody's asking for a return to the days of A-jacks and Joo-ventus, of smashed-up train carriages, or of Saint and Greavsie's funny old game. But we've got to the stage where match reports read like the program code for Jet Set Willy, discussions in pubs are increasingly sounding like an audiobook of the program code for Jet Set Willy, and more television time is set aside for Eintracht Braunschweig than Nottingham Forest. It's all very clever, but then so was Tales from Topographic Oceans and Never Mind the Bollocks is 10 times the LP. The Fiver's simple folk, and we'd love a bit of old-school three-chord thrash, some witless long-ball fun (remember fun?) with maybe a brawl thrown in, preferably involving 21 Arsenal and Nasty Leeds players. Where are the Charles Reeps and George Grahams when you need them?
THE JOHN INVERDALE AWARD FOR SERVICES TO BRAIN-IN-NEUTRAL BROADCASTINGJoe Kinnear. The Newcastle director of football gave an idiosyncratic interview to TalkSport in which he claimed responsibility for signing Tim Krul (a Graeme Souness signing) and James Perch (Chris Hughton); got Derek Llambias's name and job title wrong (calling him Llambeeze and failing to realise he's in charge of cleaning the bogs); and mispronounced the monickers of Shola Ameobi, Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa. It was the start of a difficult summer for Kinnear which ended with the poor bugger getting more pelters, this time for not lining up any signings other than the season-long loan for QPR's Loïc Rémy. But who's laughing now, huh? Rémy has scored eight goals in 14 appearances for the Toon, who are looking good at the moment, unlike say Spurs, who disrupted their entire team with 987 needless new signings. Wise old Joe! Also, as regular Sunday morning listeners will attest, there hasn't been anything quite as entertaining or erudite on TalkSport since.
THE NASTY LEEDS, NOTTINGHAM FOREST, BLACKEYE ROVERS, DERBY COUNTY AND LIVERPOOL AWARD FOR TAKING LEAVE OF ONE'S PERCHManchester United. It's over. (OK, they're going to put together a 19-game winning run in the new year and retain their title; of a prediction the Fiver has never been more certain. But let us take this opportunity while it presents itself, huh?)
BUMPER ONE-OFF FESTIVE TV & RADIO SPECIAL: ALL THE HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR PERIODRight, aye. You are joking, aren't you?
MAIL! MAIL! MAIL!Send your emails, presents and Christmas cards to the.boss@theguardian.com.
HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR, WE'LL BE BACK ON MONDAY 6 JANUARYBarry GlendenningScott Murraytheguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
December 18, 2013
Stoke City v Manchester United – as it happened
Minute-by-minute: An easy win for United at the Britannia sets up a semi-final showdown with Sunderland. Scott Murray was watching
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