Scott Murray's Blog, page 233

Arsenal may have no cups but leave fans with rich memories to drink in | Scott Murray

1-0 to the Arsenal they used to sing. Now you have to go back 90 years to find an Arsenal side as freewheeling as this one

At the start of the 1925-26 season, Arsenal lost at home to Tottenham Hotspur, then soon after travelled to Newcastle United, where they were pummelled 7-0. Their new manager Herbert Chapman's response to these setbacks was to think "bugger this". Shouting "bugger this", he sat down with his star signing Charlie Buchan to concoct a ground-breaking tactical scheme designed to stop the side shipping goals.

Chapman and Buchan's genius back-of-an-envelope solution — an extra defender — took a while to implement successfully. The offside law had just been changed, and the befuddled pros of the time were primarily preoccupied with frowning, slowly raising their index fingers to their bottom lips, and scratching their pomade-polished pates in dizzy confusion. But both new rule and new formation eventually sunk in, and the sort of crazy scorelines so prevalent in the early days of football – 8-2, 3-5, 5-2, 5-7 — slowly became rarer and rarer, until one day they were almost completely a thing of the past.

Having erected one of the major staging posts along football's long and arduous journey from Carefree Fun Pastime to Needlessly Complicated Tactical Grind Which Fans, Paying Good Money To Be Entertained After A Hard Week's Work, Are Forced To Dissect And Analyse Like Naughty Schoolchildren Set Extra Mathematical Problems For Homework, it could be argued that Arsenal owe everyone a mindless goalfest or two.

Well, if the club's recent tumultuous AGM taught us anything, it's that the Gunners like to keep a careful eye on the balance sheet. All of which may explain why, rather honourably, the team appear to have spent the last year or two settling a few karmic debts.

One-nil to the Arsenal, they used to sing. Since the start of last season, Arsenal have reached the six-goal mark on four occasions, twice going on to score seven. They've been skelped 8-2 at Manchester United; won 5-3 at Chelsea; hammered their arch rivals Spurs 5-2; and failed by a whisker to overturn a 4-0 deficit against Milan in the Champions League. Then on Tuesday night they came from four goals down to win 7-5 at Reading, a monumental recovery which handsomely paid back their travelling support for that 4-4 capitulation at Newcastle not so long ago.

There are memorable matches, and then memorable matches. And Arsenal have been involved in some seriously memorable matches. Their fans may wish a couple of them were not so – the unprecedented eight-goal collapse at Old Trafford last August, the surreal second-half shame of St James' back in January 2011 – but some of these recent comebacks are results for the ages. André Villas-Boas's brief reign at Chelsea might not look so clever these days, but his side were playing some freewheeling football until Robin van Persie spectacularly dismounted them.

Later in the season, Spurs were positively humiliated at the Emirates, checked by Theo Walcott as they threatened to break into a hubristic strut towards Europe's top table at Arsenal's expense. Even the one that didn't quite come off – the near-miss against Milan in the Champions League, three goals in 45 whirlwind second-leg minutes – arguably stands as their most outrageous performance in Europe's premier competition. Just a shame they ran out of puff during the second half.

In qualitative terms, those were all better performances than the jaw-dropping 7-5 victory at Reading, a game which could only have got more farcical had Adam Federici accidentally locked himself in a wardrobe without any trousers on. But you can't get too picky with a 12-goal thriller, and given how the League Cup has acted as a harbinger of good times for Arsenal in the past – those 1987 Littlewoods Cup wins over Spurs and Liverpool which laid the foundations for the George Graham era, of course, but also the two near-misses in the late 1960s, finals lost to Leeds and Swindon, experiences which readied Bertie Mee's team for double success in 1971 – this could end up being one of the most pivotal results in Arsenal's history.

Arsenal's cupboard has been bare since 2005. On the one hand, that's a sorry state of affairs for one of English and European football's giants, and most fans would understandably be perfectly content to sit through three turgid 1-0s, the sort the club was once so famous for, in order to raise the Capital One Cup, and lift what's beginning to feel like a curse. But it's also ironic that since the heat's recently been turned up on Wenger – patience an increasingly rare commodity after failure to land the 2011 Carling Cup made it six barren seasons on the bounce – his side have been at their most entertaining for years.

Football, that chap down the other end of the Seven Sisters Road would be distressed to discover, really is first and last about winning these days. But while Arsenal's roll of honour hasn't lengthened for quite a while, they've recently presented their fans with more than a few moments of glory. That might not be enough for some, but then nobody's been dying of boredom. For that, Wenger should be afforded plenty of slack. And whatever happens, they'll always have Reading.

ArsenalScott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The Fiver | Arsène Wenger's polished and buffed Big Persuasive Shoes | Scott Murray

Click here to have the Fiver sent to your inbox every weekday at 5pm, or if your usual copy has stopped arriving

MADEJSKI MADNESS LEADS TO MCDERMOTT MADNESS

Last night, the Madejski Stadium was the scene of some unforgettable football, the like of which will probably never be played again. So all hail Arsène Wenger, who during half-time of Arsenal's League Cup match at Reading, managed to hoof Damián Martinez, Carl Jenkinson, Johan Djourou, Ignasi Miquel, Laurent Koscielny, Theo Walcott, Francis Coquelin, Emmanuel Frimpong, Serge Gnabry, Andrey Arshavin and Marouane Chamakh around the dressing room, in perpetual motion off the walls, ceiling and floor, all 11 at once, non-stop for 15 minutes, issuing snippets of beneficial advice as he did so. That takes some doing, even when the funk-o-meter's cranked all the way up to Bootsy. Yep, unforgettable football.

So well done, Arsène, and well done to Arsenal's players, who pulled their effing fingers out after their seminar with Prof Wenger and his Educational Hobnails, and put in a shift for at least the second half. Admittedly Reading assisted them by capitulating in the abject fashion, and Theo Walcott's regulation-time equaliser was scored in the 63rd of the four extra minutes added on by the referee, but a four-goal recovery is a four-goal recovery is a four-goal recovery. "That's the first set to us," quipped Wenger after the eventual 7-5 extra-time win, as he polished and buffed his Big Persuasive Shoes, although that's technically the second set, because Arsenal beat Coventry 6-1 in the previous round. Celebrity fan Andy Murray, a gentleman tennis player who keeps an eye on the Gunners in order to ease the pain of supporting 1902 Scottish Cup winners Hibs, will probably not be particularly interested in that small statistical quirk, but let's say that he might be, because he does tennis and that.

As for Reading, well, everyone has their off days, like Arsenal did when shipping eight at Old Trafford last season, or like Arsenal will when shipping eight at Old Trafford this coming Saturday, unless they get their act together sharpish. But nevertheless, having become the first-ever team to score five times in an English domestic cup game yet still lose, the crumbling Biscuitmen could take some time to get over this. "It's embarrassing for us all," stuttered Reading boss Brian McDermott, who has given his players two days off to recover, during which they have been advised to go home and sit in the shower while holding their knees and rocking quite a lot. "I might throw the DVD of this game in the bin," McDermott added, eschewing professional analysis in favour of going home and sitting in the shower while holding his knees and rocking quite a lot.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

7 May: "To take over as a manager in a club with owners like that is madness. There are no real managers with credibility who would accept a job like that. You might end up shooting yourself in the foot" – former Blackeye Rovers defender Henning Berg offers his verdict on the Ewood Park hot seat.

31 October: "This is fantastic news for Norwegian football that we get another coach in England" – Aalesunds FK coach Kjetil Rekdal on the news of Berg's imminent appointment … at Blackeye Rovers.

GET A FREE £25 BET WITH BLUE SQUARE

Step one: open an account with Blue Square and deposit any amount; step two: place a bet of at least £5 on any sport; step three: we will match your bet with a free bet of up to £25.

FIVER LETTERS

"Enough of all this guff surrounding football as it used to be known. Can the Fiver put down its Tin and do some investigation on how Jazz Salt and Bongo Starlet got on with their wedding disco (Fiver letters passim)? I can't be the only Fiver reader wondering how they got on?" – just Simon Toms then.

"Graham Haslam's claim (yesterday's Fiver letters) that the Fiver has been an educational tool for the first time is sadly misguided. Sorry, but I have been drinking from the chalice of learning for many years now thanks to the Fiver [Really? – Fiver Ed]. Furthermore, you may be surprised to hear that the Fiver has not only improved my education, but it has increased my wealth and even helped me get a partner for some bedroom gymnastics. I suggest that you follow my lead and each day completely ignore the guts of the Fiver and simply follows the links to the Knowledge, the betting site, and everyone's favourite, Guardian Soulmates" – Stephen Miller.

"Re: the Fiver being the font of all James Bond knowledge. The same question about how many Bond movies have been made was also asked recently on the Australian 'reality' TV show Beauty and the Geek. Is the Fiver behind this too? And is the Fiver a 'beauty' or a 'geek'? Actually, don't bother answering" – Gary Walsh.

"Either Marc Meldrum (yesterday's letters) has never had kids, or he has just deployed the pedant-bait equivalent of a giant boilie into a lake teeming with hungry carp, ready to sit back and enjoy the 'don't you know anything about making baby formula?' maelstrom he's created. Either way, I salute him" – Owen Knight (and 1,056 others).

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver.

JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES

We keep trying to point out the utter futility of advertising an online dating service "for interesting people" in the Fiver to the naive folk who run Guardian Soulmates, but they still aren't having any of it. So here you go – sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly romantics who would never dream of going out with you.

BITS AND BOBS

Lord Coe has kept a straight face and explained Sepp Blatter's reasons for snubbing England's World Cup 2018 bid. "Blatter once said to me: 'Your game is run by idiots, it's not run by bright people'. I was obviously disappointed, very disappointed," parped Coe.

$tevie Mbe has backtracked on his claims that Everton play like Stoke, admitting he went too far with his comments. "It wasn't my intention to disrespect Everton or Stoke for that matter," honked the Liverpool skipper.

The British government is in contact with its Serbian counterparts to ascertain the full details regarding potential charges facing two England U-21 players and a staff member for those fisticuffs earlier this month.

Mick McCarthy is set to be appointed as Ipswich's next disappointment of a manager.

And the Republic O'Ireland have named their provisional squad to face Greece on 14 November: Westwood (Sunderland), Forde (Millwall), Randolph (Motherwell), Coleman (Everton), O'Shea (Sunderland), O'Dea (Toronto), Kelly (Fulham), McShane (Hull), Ward (Wolves), Duffy (Everton), Clark (Aston Villa), O'Fiver (Fiver Towers), Delaney (Crystal Palace), Andrews (Bolton), McCarthy (Wigan), Fahey (Birmingham), Meyler (Sunderland), Whelan (Stoke), Clifford (Chelsea), Keogh (Millwall), McGeady (Spartak Moscow), McClean (Sunderland), Brady (Man Utd), Hoolahan (Norwich), Doyle (Wolves), Cox (Nottingham Forest), Walters (Stoke).

STILL WANT MORE?

This week's edition of the Knowledge uncovers the teams that played against their reserves in a Cup final.

Have you ever left a match and regretted it? Readers' confessionals ahoy!

Where's the comedy in the Fiv … sorry, in Blackeye Rovers appointing Henning Berg, muses Paul Wilson.

And Daniel Taylor explains why Chelsea the accusers cannot afford to get this one wrong.

SIGN UP TO THE FIVER

Want your very own copy of our free tea-timely(ish) email sent direct to your inbox? Has your regular copy stopped arriving? Click here to sign up.

LIFE LESSONS, STARRING AN UNNAMED MAGAZINE: YOU CANNOT BUY SOMEONE A DRINK AT A FREE BARScott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Saturday football clockwatch – as it happened! | Scott Murray

Minute-by-minute report: Scott Murray had all the action from the 3pm kick-offs, including a belter between Reading and Fulham

Scott Murray

The Joy of Six: memorable British Champions League group performances | Scott Murray

Leeds' coming of age in Belgium, Blackburn's coming apart in Moscow and stormy nights in Glasgow, Camp Nou and Anfield

1) Anderlecht 1-4 Leeds United (February 2001)

Leeds United's first foray into the new Champions League was a bit of a farce. In 1992, they were knocked out in the first round by Stuttgart, only to be reprieved when the German champions fielded too many foreign players, then they were flicked aside by a Rangers side given little hope before the tie. And it looked like more of the same when Leeds drew Barcelona, Milan and Besiktas in the first group stage of 2000-01, then lost the first game at Camp Nou, going behind to a Rivaldo goal after 10 minutes and eventually losing 4-0. The only mark left on the game by a Leeds player was courtesy of Alan Smith, whose crude lunge put Philip Cocu out of the game. "He was far too aggressive and mean," blasted Frank de Boer after the match.

But the result – and Smith's over-exuberance – only told half the story. Leeds were forced to field a makeshift side: Harry Kewell, David Batty, Jonathan Woodgate, Mark Viduka, Eirik Bakke and Jason Wilcox were all out. And David O'Leary could only name an equally threadbare XI for the visit to Elland Road of Milan six days later. But Leeds dug in, and with a minute to go Lee Bowyer – a court case hanging over him and yet in the form of his life – looked for the far-right corner in desperation. Truth be told, his shot was next to useless, straight down Dida's throat, but the Milan keeper gathered with such laboured insouciance that he fumbled the shot into the net. With Barça having their buttocks handed to them at Besiktas, 3-0, it was suddenly on for Leeds.

O'Leary's "babies" grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Besiktas, humblers of Barcelona, were suddenly made to look like a Turkish shower, a bustling Bowyer bookending a 6-0 thrashing with two goals. After a goalless draw in Turkey, Bowyer looked to have taken Leeds into the second group stage with an early goal at home against Barça, but Rivaldo equalised deep into injury-time, a kick in the teeth for young Paul Robinson, just turned 21, who'd had a stormer. No matter; dab hands at this by now, United simply went to San Siro and drew with Milan. Leeds had made it through ahead of the side who had taken them apart in the opening round of fixtures.

The second group stage was even tougher: Real Madrid, Lazio, and Anderlecht, who had topped a first-stage group containing a freewheeling Manchester United after they had effectively wrapped up the title in January. The narrative took a similar shape to the first group, starting with a comprehensive opening-game defeat, 2-0 at home to Real Madrid, before gathering momentum.

Alan Smith secured a late win at Lazio, then Lee Bowyer did the honours in the dying minutes at home to Anderlecht having been in court that day, Leeds coming from behind. That 2-1 win meant Leeds, results pending, could guarantee a place in the quarters with a win in the return fixture with Anderlecht in Belgium. Problem was, Anderlecht had won all 19 of their home games that season, and were hopeful of making the quarters themselves. With a nation expectant – a preview of the game was the lead story on that night's news – Leeds were up against it. "Leeds may be courageous travellers," opined one Belgian paper, "but their hosts no longer fear anyone."

Cue up one of the great English performances in Europe, with Alan Smith outstanding. Smith powerfully sidefooted a Viduka left-wing cross into the net on 13 minutes. Viduka made it two on 34 minutes with a looping header, and then four minutes later, a goal which pre-empted tiki-taka by the best part of a decade – with Smith, Viduka, Olivier Dacourt and David Batty triangulating in the middle, the latter finally released Smith down the inside-left channel to draw the keeper and chip home exquisitely. Jan Koller pulled one back with 15 minutes to go, but an Ian Harte penalty restored Leeds' three-goal cushion soon after. A 4-1 win at previously impregnable Anderlecht – who, to further illustrate United's achievement, then got back on the horse at home with a 2-0 win over Real Madrid.

The Leeds bandwagon ran out of steam halfway through their quarter-final against Deportivo la Coruña – luckily they'd established a 3-0 first-leg lead and could hold on for a 3-2 aggregate win – before finally breaking down in the semi against Valencia. No trophy for Leeds, then, but plenty of glory. Not wholly dissimilar to the classic Revie era side, then. But a European campaign that's strangely forgotten these days. Shame, because it's one of English football's finest.

2) Barcelona 3-3 Manchester United (November 1998)

Only virulent ABU bores would even attempt to deny that the 1998-99 Manchester United side was one of the greatest ever to win a European Cup. Their campaign was certainly as tough as it gets, a comprehensive test at every stage, every one passed, eventually, with flying colours.

United might well have been the best in Europe at the time, and by some distance – just look at that midfield of Giggs, Scholes, Keane and Beckham, all in their pomp – but the opposition they'd face was of the highest stripe. Bayern were on the rise with the appointment of Ottmar Hitzfeld and the return of Stefan Effenberg; Juventus were surfing a high themselves, Zinedine Zidane having just inspired them to the Italian title at a time when a scudetto on the shirt still struck fear into the heart; Internazionale had Roberto Baggio and Ronaldo in their side, for goodness sake; and Barcelona, celebrating their centenary and determined to make the final at their Camp Nou, were on heat.

United's Homeric struggles at the business end of the tournament against Juventus and Bayern Munich understandably live longest in the memory, so much so that it's easy to forget now that Alex Ferguson's swashbuckling team contested a group of death at the start.

"United face battle," trumpeted the Guardian when the group-stage draw was made, David Lacey noting that the English league runners-up had been effectively plunged into "a little quasi-European super league". Lacey noted with a wry eyebrow raised that the club, whose officer classes had been proselytising for such a competition, "had got what they wanted". Luckily for United, their players and manager would walk it like their suits had talked it.

United were simply magnificent in the group, slugging it out, toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball, with the best in the world. They had been humiliated by Barcelona in the competition four years earlier, but this time they saw them off. They drew 3-3 with the Catalans at Old Trafford, Barça requiring two equalising penalties to force the result. They were a minute from victory at Bayern Munich, but had to settle for a 2-2 draw. They humiliated Brondby, 6-2 in Denmark, 5-0 back in Manchester. Other group results meant that when United visited Camp Nou in the fifth round of matches, nothing but a win for Barcelona would keep the home side's dream of a centenary European Cup alive.

United fell behind after a minute, Sonny Anderson pouncing on a poor Denis Irwin clearance to fire past Peter Schmeichel. But they did not capitulate. On 25 minutes, Jesper Blomqvist released Dwight Yorke to slam home an equaliser. "After that, it became a game of snap," reported Lacey. In a 20-minute spell, another four goals would be shared. First Yorke and Andy Cole one-twoed Barça dizzy, the latter putting United 2-1 up on 53 minutes. Rivaldo whistled a free-kick past Schmeichel's confused lugs two minutes later. On 67 minutes, an otherwise quiet Beckham crossed from the right for Yorke, stooping at the near post, to head home. Barça were reeling, surely out, and United were on the verge of their first-ever win on Spanish soil. But Rivaldo bicycle-kicked Barça level on 73, and nearly completed a stunning victory by clipping the bar from 30 yards, and setting up Giovanni with a sumptuous backheel. Somehow, United held on. Barça's dream was over.

Although they didn't know it at the time, with a round of matches still to be played, the result put United into the knockout stage as one of two best group runners-up. Their immediate future was bright. Speaking of bright futures, Ron Atkinson had been impressed by a youngster playing centre midfield for Barcelona that night. "He looks like he could step into Pep Guardiola's shoes," he said of 18-year-old Xavi.

3) Rangers 2-2 Marseille (November 1992)

Of course, right now, Rangers are about as far away from a European Cup final as it's possible to get. But let's remember the good old days. And back in 1993, they were a teddy bear's hair's breadth from reaching the first-ever final of the nascent Champions League.

It's a campaign these days chiefly remembered for their second-round evisceration of a much fancied (in England) Leeds United, and for Scott Nisbet's wholly preposterous and highly hilarious Murali Muralitharan off-break winner against Club Brugge. But the signature performances were two highly creditable draws against a much fancied (in most of Europe) Marseille side. A side that would go on to win France's first-ever European Cup.

The first came at Ibrox in November, a game in which Marseille displayed for 70-odd minutes a superiority David Lacey described as "so embarrassingly clear". Rangers had an excuse in their back pocket: they were without star striker Ally McCoist, who had already scored 32 goals – 32 goals by November! – that season, while Richard Gough would be forced off early through injury.

Alen Boksic drove past Andy Goram to make it 1-0, Rudi Völler pounced on a mistake by the 19-year-old debutant, Steven Pressley, to make it two. But with 13 minutes to go, Walter Smith sent on Gary McSwegan in desperation. Sixty seconds later, he had headed an Alexei Mikhailichenko centre magnificently past Fabien Barthez. Four minutes on, McSwegan sent Iain Durrant clear down the left. The resulting cross was too much for a hesitant Barthez, who allowed Mark Hateley to glance home.

"It's the best comeback I've ever been involved with in view of the fact that so many players missed the game through injury," said Smith after the game. "I thought all was lost."

His opposite number Raymond Goethals was equally effusive: "It was typical of a British team, they never gave up." Rangers never gave up in the group either, pushing Marseille all the way. A win at the Stade Vélodrome in April would have all but guaranteed Scotland her first European Cup finalist since Celtic in 1970, but Rangers had to settle for a staunch 1-1 draw, earned by Durrant's heat-seeking missile of a half-volley. Rangers missed out on the final by a point, but these ties against the eventual champions were ones for the memory bank, and proof that the Ibrox side could, for a season at least, trade blows with the very best Europe had to offer.

4) Celtic 4-3 Juventus (October 2001)

This was Celtic's first foray into the Champions League group stage, and therefore their first official European Cup tie since 1988. In the time-honoured Scottish tradition, they put in a magnificent performance in their opening match, and received bugger all by way of reward for it. Having gone two goals down at Juventus, they hauled themselves level with goalscorers Stilian Petrov and Henrik Larsson, and professional irritant Chris Sutton, all playing out of their skins. Juve however regained the lead in the final minute, tuck axel and salchow specialist Nicola Amoruso converting the penalty he'd very dubiously won himself, the Italians making off with a very undeserved 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0 victory.

Celtic wouldn't go down so easily. They followed up that robbery – Martin O'Neill had got himself sent off complaining – with determined home wins over Porto and Rosenborg. But having then lost the away rubbers against both those sides, Celtic had to win their final game at home to Juve, and hope Rosenborg took something away from their trip to Porto, if they wanted to progress.

Celtic Park would witness arguably the signature performance of the O'Neill reign (though some will no doubt make a case for that 6-2 win over Rangers, or their thunderously unfortunate 2003 Uefa Cup final defeat at the hands of Porto). Juve went a goal up on 19 minutes through Alessandro Del Piero's free-kick, but Lubomir Moravcik soon took hold of the game. His cross was headed home by Joos Valgaeren five minutes later, then on the stroke of half-time his corner was planted into the net by Sutton. David Trezeguet replaced Del Piero at the break, and equalised on 51 minutes, but Celtic soon hit their visitors with a quick one-two: a Henrik Larsson penalty, and a swivelled volley from Sutton, made it 4-2. Trezeguet pulled one back, but it was not enough for Juve. And it was not enough for Celtic, with Porto scraping home by a single goal at home to the Norwegians. "Besides being a strong team," said Juve's coach, Marcello Lippi, "Celtic are creative. And with this crowd, it's very difficult."

5) Liverpool 2-0 Roma (March 2002)

Liverpool's signature performance in a Champions League group has to be – has to be – their extraordinary second-half comeback against Olympiakos in December 2004. Steven Gerrard went off with all the credit, but the real heroes were Florent Sinama-Pongolle and Neil Mellor, both with a goal and an assist to their name. You can't knock Gerrard's spectacular late goal, which was as heroic and dramatic as they come, but Mellor was only on the pitch for 11 minutes, and created twice as much in roughly a 10th of the time. Gerrard's got a few other entries on his CV; let's give the lads this one.

And yet whether that game was as tumultuous as Liverpool's slaying of Roma two years earlier is a moot point. The Gala gala obviously takes precedence in the memory because Liverpool went on to win the trophy that season. Their 2001-02 campaign would end in failure, but for a first tilt at the big prize since 1985, the failure was glorious enough. And the visit of the Italians to Anfield in the second group stage was the moment when everything came together.

Having eased through a first-stage group containing Boavista, Borussia Dortmund and Dynamo Kiev, Liverpool faced Barcelona, Galatasaray and Roma in the second phase. After a 3-1 Anfield walloping at the hands of Barça, they drew four on the bounce, scoring only one goal in the process. It all meant they needed to beat Roma by at least two goals to guarantee their progress. It was a big ask. Roma were the reigning Serie A champions, boasted Gabriel Batistuta, Francesco Totti, Marco Delvecchio and Vincenzo Montella in their ranks, and had won at Liverpool with 10 men in the Uefa Cup the previous year. Meanwhile Liverpool would be without the hamstrung Michael Owen.

No matter. Anfield, buzzing anyway like it always does when push comes to shove in Europe, exploded when Gérard Houllier surprisingly returned for the first time in six months since his brush with the grim reaper. Roma were blown away, partly by the atmosphere, but mainly by the verve and power of Emile Heskey, who put in his greatest performance in a red shirt. Jari Litmanen opened the scoring with an early penalty, won by Danny Murphy, and in the second half Heskey – trouble all night down the right flank – glanced in a Murphy free-kick with his eyebrows. "I've never seen Liverpool play like this," stuttered a stunned Fabio Capello after the game. The Tannoy announcer, reported Michael Walker for this paper, "implored those present never to forget the night they had just experienced".

Phil Thompson, on media duty for Houllier, pronounced the evening as "one of the greatest nights in this football club's history … there is a belief that we can win the European Cup." That wouldn't happen, with Houllier inexplicably choosing to replace Didi Hamman with Vladimir Smicer at Bayer Leverkusen in the quarter-final. Nevertheless, it can legitimately be argued that this was a better vintage – Owen, Gerrard, Henchoz, Hyypia, McAllister, the genuinely world-class Litmanen – than the one which would triumph in Istanbul three short years later. Oh Ged!

6) Spartak Moscow 3-0 Blackburn Rovers (November 1995)

When you boil the bones down, you either win the European Cup or you don't. So if you don't, you might as well try to make things memorable in some other way. And by gum did Blackburn Rovers do that. Their 1995-96 season was a shambles from the off – they lost an unmemorable Charity Shield to Everton, within a month they were hovering around the relegation places, and they concluded the defence of their Premier League title way off the pace in seventh place – and they delivered a European campaign to match.

Their efforts in the Champions League were risible. Tim Flowers made an awful rick in the opening game of their group, at Ewood Park against Spartak Moscow, and the resulting defeat set the miserable tone. They lost at Rosenborg, then at Legia Warsaw, then played out a dismal goalless draw at home to the Poles. It meant that, by the time of their fifth group game, at the Luzhniki Stadium in Warsaw, all that was left to salvage was some dignity. Oops-a-daisy!

They would lose the game 3-0, another footballing lesson at the hands of a very decent side that would top the group with six wins out of six, before crashing out 4-2 on aggregate to Nantes in the quarter-finals (by which time their team had been fatally weakened by the sales of goalkeeper Stanislav Cherchesov, the captain Viktor Onopko, midfielder Vasili Kulkov, and striker Sergei Yuran to glamorous sides in Austria, Spain, Portugal and South Bermondsey). But being schooled at soccer was the least of Blackburn's worries.

After four minutes, Graeme Le Saux and David Batty accidentally ran into each other while chasing a loose ball. After trenchant opinions were briefly exchanged in the freezing night air – much to the consternation of ITV, which was transmitting this live early-evening entertainment from Moscow just after kids' favourite Home and Away – Le Saux swung a haymaker at Batty's adam's apple. The captain, Tim Sherwood, raced in to separate the pair, with the defender clearly in the mood to continue throwing hands, and his midfield pal equally desirous of letting the situation organically develop.

What's often forgotten is that this amusing little episode wasn't the direct catalyst for Blackburn's eventual implosion that evening: Spartak's opening goal, on 28 minutes, came 60 seconds after Colin Hendry and Sherwood had got right up in each other's grilles after the latter had clumsily conceded a free-kick. But it couldn't have helped: Blackburn were three down by the 54th minute, and with all three goals having come from Le Saux's flank, the defender was replaced soon after by Matty Holmes. To put the tin lid on it, Hendry was sent off near the end for a professional foul, while Le Saux later found out he'd broken his hand while punching Batty. "I am not a fighter," he would say years later, while studiously failing to admit that he wasn't exactly a lover, either.

Rather deliciously, the Spartak coach Oleg Romantsev, speaking after the game, explained that he knew there'd be no return from the evening for Rovers the very second he saw Le Saux and Batty get to it. "I felt that a team so badly split could be beaten quite easily. Before the game I told my players they would be playing 11 guys who would be ready to fight for each other for 90 minutes. I didn't think they would be ready to fight with each other."

Champions LeagueScott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Liverpool v Anzhi Makhachkala – live! | Scott Murray

Stewart Downing was the hero, scoring a spectacular winner, as Liverpool revived their Europa League campaign

From the days of Bob Paisley to the era of Rafael Benitez, success in the Uefa Cup - let's not quibble about minor branding issues - has served as a harbinger of things to come for Liverpool Football Club. Paisley's side won the trophy in 1976, then went on to dominate Europe for the best part of a decade. Benitez landed the thing with Valencia in 2004, then went to Anfield where his team regularly made their presence felt at the business end of the Champions League.

His young side being very much a work in progress, and inconsistent as hell to boot, Brendan Rodgers is unlikely to join the roll call of Uefa Cup winning bosses quite yet. Which is not to say he'll not be going for glory this season. Widely expected to name a team of 12-year-olds tonight, with the Merseyside derby looming at the weekend and qualification from Group A a big ask for his thin squad, he's only gone and done this: Jones, Wisdom, Johnson, Agger, Skrtel, Gerrard, Sahin, Shelvey, Assaidi, Downing, Suarez. Amsterdam or bust, then. Amsterdam or bust.

But even if Liverpool aren't quite there yet, this game might still offer some major pointers for the future of European football. Anzhi Makhachkala were purchased by $6.5bn oligarch Suleiman Kerimov in January 2011, and they're quickly making their mark. With Guus Hiddink at the helm, and having signed former Chelsea star Yuri Zhirkov, Christopher Samba from Blackburn Rovers, Lassana Diarra from Real Madrid and Samuel Eto'o from Internazionale, they're already clear at the top of this year's nascent Russian league, and would rather like to become only the third Russian winners of this trophy, CSKA Moscow and Zenit St Petersburg having already done the business in 2005 and 2008. Their ambition, set against Liverpool's quiet rebirth, should make for a fascinating spectacle this evening. It is on!

Kick off: 8.05pm.

That unexpectedly strong Liverpool side again, because let's face it, I've buried it in all that waffle: Jones, Wisdom, Skrtel, Agger, Johnson, Gerrard, Sahin, Shelvey, Downing, Suarez, Assaidi.
Subs: Gulacsi, Henderson, Carragher, Allen, Suso, Sterling, Yesil.

Anzhi Makhachkala, who are giving me a Lady Marmalade earworm: Vladimir Gabulov, Agalarov, Samba, Joao Carlos, Zhirkov, Shatov, Georgi Gabulov, Boussoufa, Carcela-Gonzalez, Eto'o, Smolov.
Subs: Pomazan, Gadzhibekov, Lakhiyalov, Tagirbekov, Logashov, Mukhammad, Traore.

Referee: Bas Nijhuis (Holland)

History will teach us ничто. Нет! ничто! And this is because Liverpool have never played Anzhi before. And Anzhi have never played an English team before. Никто ничего не знал. The last time Liverpool faced Russian opposition, they beat CSKA Moscow 3-1 to make off with the 2005 Uefa Super Cup. Previous to that, they've hosted Russian sides three times, spanking Spartak Moscow 5-0 in the Champions League in 2002, drawing 0-0 with Alania Vladikavkaz in the 1995 Uefa Cup to seal a 2-1 aggregate win, and being skelped 2-0 by the aforementioned Muscovites in the 1992 Cup Winners Cup, that defeat coming off the back of a 4-2 humiliation at Spartak's place. Oh Graeme! How could you!

Recent form's probably a better guide, isn't it? да да да да да. Anzhi are on a four-game winning run; they've only lost once this season domestically, and are unbeaten on their continental manoeuvres. Liverpool meanwhile have are on a winning run of their own, one in a row, having edged past Reading at the weekend. Still, early days for Brendan, and all. Early days.

Rodgers, Rodgers and Hammerstein: After a blast of that showtune, the players and managers take to the pitch. Liverpool in their famous red, Anzhi in neon yellow. Gerry Marsden's in the crowd, by the way, pop kids. Can Liverpool do it for the man who's serenaded them onto the field of play for the last 50 years?

And we're off! A fair old atmosphere as Liverpool set the ball rolling. It's not quite St Etienne '77 or Chelsea '05, but it's a European night at Anfield, so. Anzhi will be kicking towards the Kop in this half, which means Liverpool will be doing it in the second period, just as they like it. Suarez attempts to diddle into the area down the inside left, but gets nowhere.

2 min: It's been all Liverpool so far, in terms of possession at least. They've done nothing with it as of yet, but they'll be pleased enough with the opening 120 seconds. "Well, after my expert jinxing of Sebastian Coates in the last home Europa tie I'll be keeping my optimism firmly under lock and key this time around," promises Phil Sawyer. "To be honest, it doesn't need much damping down. The last time I felt less optimistic about getting a result was when [fellow regular MBM crackpot] Mac Millings set me up with a blind date. I expect lots of dinky passing it around before the new Russian All-Stars exploit our shaky defence to grab a 2-1 victory. And Suarez to pick up an injury. And then we'll lose the derby at the weekend. And then my toffee-nosed mum will be on the phone Sunday night, gloating to the heavens. To be honest, she might be on the phone at 10pm tonight gloating to the heavens. She's never really forgiven me for supporting the Reds." And there you have it, a nervous breakdown in 136 words. Is Millings reading this, I wonder? If you are, do you fancy popping round to check on him? Confiscate all sharp objects, shoelaces, gin, etc. And perhaps fiddle around with his browser settings to block this website.

4 min: "Is it true that Downing is at or near the top of the Europa League assists list so far in this campaign?" asks Peter Oh, and let's hope he expects me to ignore rather than answer that question. "I can't decide if that says more about Stewart's improving form, or the abject lack of quality in EL opposition. In any case, wasn't he demoted to left back, fourth choice goalkeeper, or water carrier? He's in the starting XI and it has four recognized defenders already, so he must be out of the doghouse and back on frenetic, aimless winger duty?" I can indeed report that he's patrolling the right wing at the moment, and he has in fact managed a pass. But it was Wisdom who had to take the initiative and attempt to fire a cross into the area. Still, plenty of time for him to get his act together and utilise some of that talent. He's only 27.

5 min: My mistake, he's 28.

6 min: A decent run by the ever-lively Suarez down the right. He twists and turns Samba as he reaches the area, but attempts one dropped shoulder too many - a third, naturally - and the ball's bundled away.

7 min: Assaidi wins a corner down the left, off Samba as the big man comes across to cover. Assaidi takes it himself, hits it too long, then Gerrard fires the ball out of play on the right.

9 min: Skrtel has just booted Smolov up the arse. It's a proper comic-book punt, a clumsy load of nonsense. The Anzhi man's down injured, and no wonder, he's just had a load of studs pressed into his left buttock. He gets up, and he's got a face on, as the ref's done nothing. Expect more developments.

11 min: Plenty of space for Suarez down the left, but he overcooks the cross. No matter, the box was hardly loaded with red shirts anyway. The camera pans to the crowd, where $6.5bn oligarch Suleiman Kerimov is watching his team. He's dressed in a trucker's cap and checked shirt. He's dressed like the lead singer in Lambchop, or perhaps someone signed to Sub Pop in 1989. $6.5bn!

12 min: Suarez is looking lively, almost as though he's been told to go hell for leather for 45-60 minutes before being wrapped in cotton wool for the Everton game on Sunday. He dances along the edge of the Anzhi area, and upon reaching the left-hand edge of the D, hits a weak shot straight at Vladimir Gabulov, who gobbles up the ball.

15 min: Eto'o shows for the first time. He offers it to Agger down the inside right, lets the defender slide in to commit himself, then nudges it right to Smolov. Eto'o continues his run into the box, but the return pass is overcooked and useless. Eto'o looks extremely displeased with this turn of events, and looks at his team-mate like that.

18 min: Liverpool aren't quite clicking yet, but both Suarez and Assaidi are jigging around at high pace down either flank. A sense one of them might showcase a routine just so, and create themselves a chance. But nothing more than a sense as of yet.

21 min: Well, here's Assaidi dancing clear down the left, reaching the byline and pulling one back for Johnson, whose attempt is blasted straight at the keeper. Liverpool are slowly turning up some heat. "If ever there was a Lambchop song that typified Liverpool last season, it's Life's Little Tragedy," croons Graeme Neill, quietly, with jazzy guitar flitting in and out, unobtrusively. "Slightly more optimistic about this season, thanks to the excitability of Virility's Raheem Sterling and the rampaging yellow card machine that is Jonjo Shelvey."

22 min: Samba is booked for coming straight through the back of Suarez. The Anfield faithful cheer in the ironic fashion. Gerrard takes the free kick, 35 yards out, and blasts it witlessly at the wall. The Anfield faithful moan, but this noise is telling it straight, no need for analysis of subtext.

24 min: This should have been the opening goal. A long ball down the inside right is misjudged awfully by Joao Carlos. Suarez tears clear, and is within his right to shoot once he reaches the area, but instead unselfishly slides a pass inside for Shelvey, who leans back and blooters an awful effort miles over the bar. Shelvey's the joint leading scorer in this competition - or at least he was before the start of play today - and therefore the crowd were expecting better.

27 min: Smolov and Skrtel come together in the Liverpool area down the left, the former running and then falling over the latter, who is sliding across the turf. Smolov was never really in control of the ball, but then neither was Skrtel of himself. The referee doesn't care, and neither do Anzhi really, though they make half-arsed claims for a penalty. "I'm now an MBM crackpot?" cries Phil Sawyer (2min). "Does one have to obtain a certain number of MBM mentions to attain this status or is it down to the tenure of the comments? If the former, how many more is it to the next level? And what is the next level? MBM loser? MBM basket case? MBM exile?" The next level of social ineptitude? MBM writer, probably.

28 min: Johnson riffs down the left, and is stopped in the area by a little tug from Agalarov. Johnson elects the non-cynical approach, staying up and pulling the ball back for the impressive Assaidi, who nudges the ball forwards then pelts a low shot towards the bottom left. It's not hit with much venom, although keeper Gabulov makes a meal of dealing with it.

32 min: The impressive Assaidi. That's what I just said. So here he is, overhitting a hilariously inept free kick straight down the keeper's throat from the right touchline, with the box loaded with team-mates. Thank you, my Guardian Sport!

34 min: Agalarov makes a dangerous run into space down the right. Boussoufa hits the worst pass in the history of All Football, about 20 yards behind his overlapping team-mate and out of play. Liverpool off the hook. That passage of play came after an Anzhi free kick deep in Liverpool territory down the right, which was so bad it defies description. So I'll not try.

35 min: Chasing after a clever Suarez pass, Johnson finds himself in space down the inside-left channel, closing in on goal. He makes it to the six-yard box, then takes a fresh-air swipe with his right peg. Oh dear. He claims a penalty, with Agalarov behind him, but it's out of embarrassment more than anything else.

36 min: Corner to Liverpool down the right. Gerrard takes. Sahin, on the penalty spot, gets his eyebrows to the ball, but can't keep it down and on target. "I guess Stewart Downing will be dressing up as a footballer for Halloween," writes Ciaran McGowan. Does he not scare you enough already? "Surely it is time he came out and confessed that it was an April Fool Joke that got out of hand and that he is really a librarian by trade."

39 min: Anzhi have been very quiet. Eto'o feeds Carcela-Gonzalez down the right, but the Moroccan falls onto his face. "Samuel Eto'o is not getting much service but he's acting like it should be delivered on silver platter," opines Gene Salorio. "Highest paid player in the world looks like he's somewhere in Europe on an austerity budget because he's being very economical with his efforts."

41 min: Agger has had enough of this nonsense, and decides to go on the rampage down the inside-left channel. He hits a shot of extreme violence towards the top-left corner. The ball rises too quickly, but that wasn't a bad effort at all, and had Gabulov scrambling across with furrowed brow.

42 min: Agalarov is booked for tugging Assaidi's arm in a very cynical fashion as the winger looks to slalom down the left. He looks decent enough, does Assaidi, direct, purposeful and skilful, the Bizarro Downing. "Great effort by Agger," writes Matt Dony. "Shame the camera missed him giving Roberto Carlos on the Anzhi bench a quick wink just before he hit it."

45 min: Anzhi put a lovely smooth passing move together down the left, Shatov spreading it wide, Zhirkov the pivot, then Smolov cutting in to fire a fizzer across Jones and out of play on the right.

HALF TIME: Liverpool 0-0 Anzhi Makhachkala. And that's that for the half. Hmm. Not a whole lot to say about that, really. And there's no point me droning on.

HALF-TIME ENTERTAINMENT: Liverpool haven't served up much of it so far, so here's some alternative scouse-based amusements to while away the time.

Run it up your mast nine times, it'll get you through this second half.

Here comes entertainment! The second half's starting, and Raheem Sterling has come on for Glen Johnson. That means the woeful Stewart Downing has been pushed back to left-back - and while we're hearing Johnson has a minor knock, there's also a suggestion Downing's just had the gauntlet thrown down at his feet by Brendan Rodgers. Has he entered the last-chance saloon?

47 min: A quick bellow from the crowd as Anzhi get the second half underway, and then we quickly fall into relative silence. An appropriate time for this email, then, and Ciaran McGowan's comment on 36 mins has reminded one of our readers of their favourite librarian joke. "It doesn't really work on the page, but here goes. Man walks into a library, goes up to the counter and says 'Can I have a pint of lager and a packet of crisps please?' Librarian replies, 'I'm sorry but this is a library.' Man says again (this time in a whisper) 'Can I have a pint of lager and a packet of crisps please?'" Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Simon McMahon. He's here all week, try the lamb and vegetable stew.

49 min: This came from nothing. Eto'o fannies around in the middle of his own half as he receives a pass. Skrtel comes bombing in, races off with the ball, and blasts a shot at goal. A really decent effort, but the keeper's behind it. "Stewart Downing is surely nothing as exciting as a librarian," insists J Willoug. "A chartered accountant, perhaps? Or a real estate salesman? Apologies to those chartered accountants and real estate salespersons out there who enjoy their jobs - I know a librarian who enjoys her job, but none from your professions."

50 min: How about this for an aerial match-up: Sterling v Samba? Sure enough, having introduced the concept, it's the tiny Sterling who wins it, flicking the ball on for Shelvey down the inside left. Shelvey reaches the area and lifts the ball into the centre for Gerrard, who running into the box at pace guides his header well wide left of goal. If that had been on target, the keeper, rooted, wasn't getting there.

53 min: YOU KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN... Liverpool 1-0 Anzhi Makhachkala. Stewart Downing has just scored a magnificent goal. He cuts inside from the left, looks lost for a couple of seconds, then decides TO HELL WITH IT, and hammers a gorgeous screamer into the top right corner. He races off with a huge smile of relief, more than anything, playing across his face. On the touchline, Brendan Rodgers points at him, smiling broadly too. If he has had a kick up the shorts, it's really worked. And look what happens, Stewart, when you take a chance.

55 min: Suarez welts a vicious drive towards the top left corner from 30 yards. Half the ground think it's gone in, and scream accordingly, but it's just wide left. Liverpool have woken up alright, and credit where it's due, it's all down to Downing. "Stewart Downing scored?" asks Hubert O'Hearn. "That explains it. My dog has started woofing in perfect iambic pentameter."

57 min: Assaidi scampers down the left and slides the ball inside to Suarez. The pass doesn't come off, but the ball falls to Shelvey, who bumbles through a challenge down the inside left and attempts a shot from a tight angle. It's deflected and blocked, and easily picked off by keeper Gabulov. "Can a chartered accountant do THAT?" asks Matt Dony, not unreasonably. "Always liked the boy."

60 min: Liverpool look a totally different team in this second half. A hearty chant of "There's only one Brendan Rodgers" from the Kop. They're still furiously scribbling down a Downing chant on the back of an envelope, presumably.

62 min: Logashov replaces Agalarov.

63 min: Suarez slides Shelvey clear down the middle. A heavy touch allows Shatov to cut across the midfielder as he shapes to shoot from the edge of the area, whip the ball from his toe, and hack clear for a corner. The set piece is a waste of time and energy.

64 min: Smolov is replaced by the 6ft 8in figure of Lacina Traore. Beating Samba in the air's all good and well, but let's see Sterling go up against him.

67 min: A slight lull in proceedings at the moment, allowing the stadium to stand in memory of the 96 who died at Hillsborough.

70 min: "To be fair," begins Jon Rushton, "there's still plenty of time for Liverpool to create four or five more gilt edged chances, and then concede in the 90th minute. Downing own goal?" Almost perfect timing there, Jon, as Downing, near his own corner flag, plays a pointless square pass through the Liverpool area. That's beyond foolish. Luckily he's still in credit tonight, as Liverpool swarm around Eto'o, who's picked up the loose ball. And though the striker gets a shot away on the turn, looking for the top right corner from the penalty spot, Jones is able to claim without fuss. Downing has the good grace to look sheepish.

73 min: Anzhi are beginning to make Liverpool anxious. A long ball down the inside right channel. Traore, on the edge of the area, is this close to taking the ball down and shooting from the edge of the box, but can't control. There is an obvious joke to be made here about erstwhile Liverpool left back Djimi, but let's show a little respect to a guy who, in fairness, has cleared a ball off a line in a European Cup final.

75 min: Assaidi is sent scampering towards the area down the left, released by a lovely diagonal spray from Gerrard. He enters the area and is nudged to his knees from behind by Logashov, but there's no penalty. You'll have seen them given. Suarez, the heat descending, is booked for attempting to engage the referee in a Hegelian dialectic.

77 min: Zhirkov aims for the bottom-left corner from the edge of the area. His shot is deflected off Wisdom, and parried round the post by Jones. Before the corner, Lahiyalov replaces Boussoufa. Then Shatov takes the corner, and it's plucked from the air by Jones, who has looked as solid as Pepe Reina, which admittedly isn't saying much these days.

79 min: Allen replaces Shelvey.

80 min: Anyone remember Gary Crosby and Andy Dibble? From a Liverpool corner, Agger heads towards the top left. Gabulov claims. The players stream upfield. Gabulov balances the ball on the platform of his right hand. Agger comes up from behind, heads it off the keeper's palm, and hoicks the ball into the empty net. The goal, miserably, is disallowed and Agger is booked.

Football is supposed to be fun, remember.

83 min: A couple of close shaves for Liverpool, who may yet regret not getting a second goal. First Carcela-Gonzalez cuts inside from the right and sends a low, dangerous fizzer goalwards. Jones and Skrtel combine to clear. Then Traore nips in at the left-hand post, poking just wide. Anfield is tense. But with Young Boys winning 3-1 in the other game, as things stand, Liverpool will be leading the group tonight.

86 min: Assaidi romps down the left, checks, and rolls the ball inside to Gerrard, who lumps over from 25 yards. "I'm a (qualified) librarian and I enjoy it a lot more than I've enjoyed being a Liverpool supporter in recent times," notes Ned Potter.

88 min: Downing has certainly been trying his hardest to undo all his good work. Twice in the last couple of minutes, he's played needlessly jazzy passes near his corner flag, inviting pressure on his defence. This time, something nearly comes of it, Carcela-Gonzalez looking for the bottom-right corner from the edge of the box, Jones behind it all the way.

90 min: This is better from Downing. Carcela-Gonzalez, who is ending this game strongly, gets the makeshift fullback one on one, racing towards the area down the right. Downing clatters him to the ground like Mark Dennis, then wanders off with the ball, wearing a look of beatific innocence. The referee waves play on. Stewart Downing: hard man.

90 min +1: This is the first of three added minutes, and there's nearly been a goal at each end. First Sterling goes on a freestyle run through the Anzhi area from right to left - imagine the shape of a treble clef. He eventually falls to earth with a big bass thud. No penalty. Anzhi fly upfield, Carcela-Gonzalez wheeching a low shot across the face of goal and inches wide of the left-hand post.

90 min +2: A lot of misplaced Liverpool passes, but Anzhi aren't taking advantage.

FULL TIME: Stewart Downing 1-0 Anzhi Makhachkala. A free kick for Anzhi down the right. They load the box - then fail to hoof the ball into it. Dear me. And that's it! Liverpool win a tight match, deservedly so mind you, and top their group. Downing is ushered towards the Kop by his manager, where he's greeted by a warm round of applause. There's nice! Remember how it feels, Stew. Remember how it feels when you roll the dice.

Europa LeagueLiverpoolAnzhi MakhachkalaScott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 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: Juventus in for Theo Walcott?

Today's gossip was also a fan of Bamboozle with Bamber Boozler, especially during the era when quizmaster Bamber hit the bottle after his wife Bambette left him

Good morning, readers! Good morning! But is it? But is it a good morning? No, it isn't. It isn't a good morning at all. It's the first morning since 23 September 1974 that Ceefax doesn't exist, that's what sort of morning it is! And a morning without an analogue version of the world's first – and finest – teletext service is no sort of morning at all!!!

Maybe you used to gather in the back of your local branch of Dixons to watch the scores come in of a Saturday afternoon. Maybe, like the Mill, you used to rise from your bed every day and religiously tap P302 into your television set to receive the latest football news and gossip rendered in the sort of blocky graphics that would put a Commodore VIC-20 to shame (as you fiddled with a Rubik's Cube while listening to Easy Lover by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins on your Sony Walkman and thinking improper thoughts about Molly Ringwald). Maybe you probably definitely did that. Oh Molly! Oh Erno! Oh Philip and Phil!

So in memoriam of the passing of our youth, and the greatest ever medium of football news, today's rumours are presented like they would have been on page 302 of that basic, clunky, wonderful, beautiful, gorgeous service. The new swish digital version that doesn't take 10 hours to load simply isn't the same. You have to wonder whether the mandarins at the BBC are taking their eye off the ball here. As if they've got anything more important to worry about at the moment! Oh BBC! How could you!

Oh Molly.

Anyway, here's our interactive Ceefax tribute. Tap in P302 on your PC/phone/tablet and we're off. Done that? Great. Here we go!

P302 CEEFAX 302 Wed 24 Oct 09:49/41

JUVENTUS WANT THEO WALCOTT AND FERNANDO LLORENTE 303

TOTTENHAM Spurs interested in Shakhtar Donetsk playmaker Willian 304

CHELSEA Santos to move for Florent Malouda 305

BURNLEY Clarets in for Wigan assistant Graeme Jones 306

BLACKBURN Rovers cool interest in Fulham coach Billy McKinlay 307

BIRMINGHAM Blues want Barry Ferguson back 308

GUARDIAN Rumour Mill has thundering nervous breakdown 309

EVERTON Landon Donovan may turn down third loan move 310

NEWS IN BRIEF Rumour Mill admits interactive Ceefax tribute not actually interactive; Mill holds knees, rocks, cries quite a lot 312

Scott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Tottenham Hotspur v Chelsea – as it happened | Scott Murray

Chelsea - and Juan Mata in particular - were superlative as they took Tottenham apart

"It's Tottenham v Chelsea, it's not about me, says André Villas-Boas." Fair enough, we'll take you at your word. You just stand there and look pretty in your coat.

It is about Villas-Boas, though, isn't it. The young man's clearly already one of the best managers in Europe - look at the pots on the table - though things never quite worked out for him at Chelsea. He'll surely be looking for a modicum of revenge over Roman Abramovich today - "It's highly unlikely that [Abramovich] will be allowed into the dressing room or the tunnel," says AVB - while Spurs will be desperate to avenge their 5-1 humbling in the FA Cup semi-final last season.

It'll be a tough ask, though: Spurs have only won three of their 40 Premier League games with Chelsea. Oh dear. Still, the way the White Hart Lane fixture has panned out lately will give them a little hope: they've won three of the last six league encounters, drawing the other three. Chelsea haven't won here in the league since 2005, although they belted Spurs out of the cup two years later.

Recent form is probably more relevant, isn't it. And the league leaders Chelsea have won five on the bounce. As a result, they're favourites with the turf accountants. I would tell you the odds, but let's not encourage betting.

Kick off: 12.45pm.

Tottenham Hotspur, who are without Gareth Bale, who is off to witness the birth of his first little bundle of joy, taking a large bundle of Tottenham's hope with him: Friedel, Walker, Gallas, Caulker, Vertonghen, Huddlestone, Sandro, Lennon, Sigurdsson, Dempsey, Defoe.
Subs: Lloris, Adebayor, Naughton, Dawson, Falque, Livermore, Townsend.

Chelsea: Cech, Ivanovic, Luiz, Cahill, Cole, Ramires, Mikel, Oscar, Hazard, Mata, Torres.
Subs: Turnbull, Romeu, Lampard, Moses, Sturridge, Azpilicueta, Bertrand.

Referee: Mike Dean (Wirral)

PRE-MATCH LONDON SING-SONG:

With the greatest respect to Haringey and Hammersmith & Fulham, neither are God's own borough. All together now... "Ya won't be sorry that ya breeeeezed in..."

A rare old atmosphere at White Hart Lane. The crowd are giving it plenty. And here come the teams, Spurs in their trademark white with blue trim, Chelsea in their equally iconic blue, with gold flashes. Or they might be silver. My eyes are going. I probably shouldn't admit that, should I? "Let's not encourage betting, by, say, putting an advert on the bottom right of the screen for Blue Square?" tut-tuts Jonathan Leeuwenburgh. Erm. Hey, we're a broad church of opinion. Anyway, I can't control the whims of the marketing department. They're feral, I tells ya. Feral.

Andre Villas-Boas is a class act. He goes over to the Chelsea bench and shakes hands with as many of his old charges as he can reach. It's a lovely moment. Then a warm handshake with Roberto di Matteo, a gent himself. And, after a wee bit more faffing around, we're off! Both teams take turns to stroke it around a bit. Nothing to report yet.

2 min: Can you have a lull in the first two minutes? Why not. A lull. A pantomime moment when Cole fails to control a pass down the left. Roy Hodgson's in the stand. He looks depressed. Does someone want to go over and give him a hug?

4 min: The fans really are belting out their songs at the moment. This is a magnificent atmosphere. The players respond by battling over the ball in the middle of the Chelsea half. It's a free kick to Spurs, 40 yards out, just to the left of goal. Sigurdsson lifts a ball into the area down the channel. Chelsea are snoozing, allowing Gallas to swing a leg at the ball from six yards. He doesn't connect properly, the ball wafting out wide on the left. But that was half a chance.

5 min: Better from Cole down the left this time; he wins a corner. The set piece is an egregious disgrace, a waste of energy and time.

7 min: Mata dances dangerously down the inside-right channel. Just as it looks like he'll be breaking into the Spurs area, Sandro sticks a toe in to nudge the ball away. But all of a sudden Chelsea look up for this, with Hazard coming straight back at Spurs down the right. His low ball inside is godawful, but that was a decent run. "Champions of Europe, we know what we are," chant the Chelsea faithful. Will this Sloop John B trend ever end? Sail On Sailor is much more tuneful.

9 min: Torres is this close to latching onto a ball rolled into the Spurs area from the right, but Friedel is out quickly to smother, and put a stop to his gallop.

10 min: Hazard is given two chances to find a team-mate from a wide position on the right. He does so with the second, a low fizzing ball which finds Oscar on the edge of the area. Oscar looks to thread a shot into the bottom-left corner, and isn't far away at all. Chelsea have started strongly here.

12 min: Corner for Spurs down the right, after Cole is forced to bundle a low cross from the left out of play on the other side. The set piece is an obnoxious disgrace, cleared easily by Chelsea. Sandro tries to return the ball into the net from nigh-on 40 yards, but his hopeless blooter sails harmlessly into the stand.

13 min: Oscar rolls a sliderule ball down the inside left to release Torres, but the Liverpool Chelsea man is marginally offside.

16 min: A nice end-to-end feel about this now. First Oscar goes on a blithering left-to-right diagonal run and nearly breaks clear into the Spurs box. Then Dempsey rattles down the left and isn't far from skinning Ivanovic, but his heavy touch runs the ball out of play at the last.

18 min: WHAT A GOAL THIS IS!!! Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Chelsea. A corner down the left for Chelsea. It's swung to the far post. Gallas heads clear to the edge of the area. Cahill runs in from the left and meets the dropping ball with his right peg, sending a thunderous volley straight into the net. It's straight at Friedel, but hit with such screeching power that the keeper had no chance. Possibly a slight deflection too, but take nothing away from the violent beauty of that strike. Wow.

20 min: Spurs respond brilliantly. Defoe makes good towards the Chelsea area, skittering down the inside-right channel. He skelps a low shot towards the bottom right, which Cech does well to parry. Dempsey gets on the end of the rebound, but can't guide the ball over the keeper and the ball's bustled out on the right for a corner. From which nothing comes.

23 min: Spurs are stroking the ball around quite a lot, but mainly in their own half. Chelsea are quite happy to let them do this, and look extremely comfortable at the moment. Mikel and Torres cause a wee kerfuffle in the Spurs area, though it's easily dealt with by Vertonghen and Gallas. "Jonathan should count his blessings, advert wise," writes Ryan Dunne. "Surely I can't be the only one wondering if those omnipresent Guardian Soul Mates adds are, rather offensively, assuming that MBM-haunters are painfully single?" I think they're aimed towards the staff, Ryan. State of us.

25 min: Ivanovic is booked for diving as he goes past Sigurdsson. There was no contact, so fair enough. But all this fuss about diving is manufactured outrage about bugger all, if you were to ask this scribe. But then I'm simple folk, so don't be listening to me. "Spurs must bring back Gareth Bale with an ambulance from the hospital!" cries Gokhan Evci. What do you want him to do with it, Gokhan? Doughnuts in the centre circle, with the siren on?

28 min: Another lull. But it's been a very entertaining game so far, so can't complain. "I'm pondering the really crucial question of the day," claims Gary Naylor, who as we shall see is doing nothing of the sort. "Is AVB a handsome man who, somewhat unluckily, is a bit ordinary in photos; or is he an ugly man who, somewhat luckily, is a bit ordinary in photos? I suspect we might need Hadley Freeman's judgement on this one." Hadley, I would hazard a guess, has a life, and is therefore not glued to either this match or this MBM report. My opinion will have to do, Naylor. And I'm saying he's a handsome chap. He certainly looks that way from my position, as a gent who somewhat unluckily photographs like a scuffed boot.

30 min: Spurs are coming back into this. Sigurdsson has a dig from a free kick. But he's nearly 40 yards out, so come on. Then Lennon drives down the right and chips a ball across into the middle. Sigurdsson takes up possession ten yards out, and swivels a shot goalwards in one smooth movement. It's not far off, fizzing inches wide of the left-hand post. Chelsea escape. The White Hart Lane faithful turn up the volume.

33 min: It's high-paced stuff, this, and Chelsea are again having the better of it. Oscar is close to breaking free down the left, but Sandro scuttles back to rob the ball from him. Torres dances down the right, and flicks a little pass forward with a view to releasing Mata, but Vertonghen is solid and staunch. "We need more like Luiz and Vertonghen, centre backs who will drive forward," writes Ben List. "I'd love to see a back four of Luiz-Vermaelen-Agger-Vertonghen. They'd leave some gaps." Aye. To hell with locking things down. And balls to tactics. Goals are underrated.

36 min: Huddlestone strokes a delicious diagonal ball to the left for Sigurdsson, who curls a deep cross towards Dempsey. Cole is forced to head out for a corner down the right. But nothing comes from Sigurdsson's set piece, and Chelsea stream forward, breaking upfield, winning a corner themselves down the left. And from that, Spurs stream upfield! They look very dangerous, until Dempsey checks, turns, and loses the ball, much to the crowd's displeasure. This is end to end alright.

38 min: What a miss by Mata! Ramires sashays down the left, cuts inside, and feeds Mata, who takes a low shot from the edge of the area. Friedel parries. The ball comes straight back to Mata, who is under pressure but has an open goal ahead of him with Friedel prone on the floor. He sidefoots powerfully over the bar. Highly profligate. The whole thing came seconds after, down the other end, Luiz left a ball to bounce through to Cech without looking, so nearly letting Defoe in. He's a slack sod sometimes. But, yep, this is end to end alright.

39 min: Gallas is booked for a crude slide from behind on Torres. It's the second booking in a couple of minutes, Huddlestone having gone in the referee's notebook for... I'll be honest, I have no idea. It might have been for a cheeky obstruction as Chelsea stormed upfield on 36 minutes, but don't bet the farm on that being the case.

42 min: Spurs instigate a couple of scrambles in the Chelsea area. First a low cross from the left isn't dealt with convincingly by Cech, and is hacked away. Then Defoe takes a whack from short range. Corner. From which Dempsey tries to guide the ball home from eight yards, level with the right-hand post. But he's bustled out of it. Spurs are turning up the heat on the leaders here.

44 min: Torres looks to break into the Spurs half with the home side light on defenders. But Luiz has been clattered on the noggin in the Chelsea area by Sandro, and the play is stopped. Torres has the face on. The Chelsea support isn't altogether pleased either. Luiz is fine, though, after a couple of minutes with a sponge.

45 min: Defoe tries to curl one into the top right-hand corner after cutting inside from the left. It's a great effort, but Cole is on the line and heads clear. Chelsea stream upfield through Ramires, looking dangerous as they do so. Walker slides in to send Ramires skidding across the turf on his face. He's booked for his trouble. No complaints, and nor should there be.

45 min +3: Ramires, having taken notes from Walker, executes a similar trip on an in-full-flight Lennon. He's booked too.

HALF TIME: Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Chelsea. And that's that, the end of a highly entertaining half. Chelsea deserve their lead, and it should be a two-goal advantage, Juan Mata having missed that superb chance towards the end of the half. But Spurs have had their moments as well. Should be a cracking second period. Don't go flipping and flicking.

HALF-TIME ADVERTISEMENT: Some of our older readers may recall books, and the concept of paying for content, and of not expecting everything for nothing like a small, grizzling, entitled child. Those good, good people, these fans of the written word, should get on this: The Shape of Shit to Come, a hilarious new book by Steve Lowe and Alan McArthur, authors of the bestselling Is It Just Me or Is Everything Shit?

Once, we were promised a sci-fi future that never arrived. But what if it really is on its way now?

The Shape of Shit to Come takes a funny tour of the future taking shape before our eyes - a future of sex robots, hotels in space, kids making their own pets with gene-splicing kits and people planning, for real, how they can turn themselves into hyper-intelligent genetically enriched cyborg immortals of the future.

Because these things are happening. As of yet only the geeks are talking about this stuff. But is that wise? Shouldn't we all be getting with the programme? Otherwise we're leaving the future of humanity in the hands of people who ride scooters indoors.

And we're off again! No changes. And no change in the atmosphere, either, which is still a belter. "With that Sideshow Bob mop of hair, how could Luiz actually suffer a head injury?" wonders Benoît Rivard. Split ends? Thinking too hard about positioning? No, it's got to be split ends, hasn't it.

46 min: GOAL!!! Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Chelsea. Fifty eight, maybe 59 seconds of the half have elapsed, and Gallas makes good his mistake for the Chelsea goal. Luiz clatters into Dempsey down the right. Huddlestone swings a ball towards the far post. Vertonghen heads the ball back across the goal, allowing Gallas to bundle home from a yard or so. That was a wicked free kick, but Chelsea were still in the dressing room. What a start to the half!

48 min: There's an atmosphere at White Hart Lane now, alright.

50 min: Lennon dances down the inside-right channel and stands one up into the centre for Defoe. The ball balloons out left to Sigurdsson, who ten yards out in space should really volley home, but hammers a shot straight at Luiz. The resulting corner - the ball having sailed over the bar - is a nonsense. "Your half time advertising waffle," begins Matt Dony, clearing his throat. "You may laugh about youngsters not being familiar with 'books', but I recently had to show an 18 year old how to use a tape deck."

51 min: Wow, Spurs have really come out all guns blazing. Sigurdsson powers in from the left, takes a touch inside to skate past Cahill, and hammers a low shot straight at Cech. The keeper snaffles. Chelsea are rocking.

54 min: Vertonghen makes good down the left and smacks a ball straight at Cech. Spurs definitely have the upper hand here. Anyway, to hell with this football. Some breaking news: Hadley Freeman does not have a life! "And, as it happens, I was pondering this question earlier this morning as I read my trusty Saturday Guardian sports section," she begins. "After much musing on the matter I have decided that, yes, M Villas-Boas is a handsome chap - but in a very Euro way. There's just a bit too much care in the wave of the hair, too much sculpting in the stubble, too much handsome twinkle in the eye for my grubby New York / London tastes. Everything is clearly in the right place (on his face, anyway, I have no insight on further detail), so much so that he looks a bit like a Disney Prince. And I'm no royalist. Sorry to break your heart, AVB." Oh dear. But at least he doesn't look like a scuffed boot, the favoured style of the craggy MBM hack. So he's still got that.

55 min: GOAL!!! Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Chelsea. Spurs have the upper hand here, that's for sure! Lennon skates down the inside-right and shoots for goal, but drags his shot diagonally across the box. The ball flies towards Defoe, eight yards out, the striker sidefooting powerfully past a helpless Cech. What a turnaround! Spurs have been superlative since the restart!

57 min: A couple of questionable refereeing decisions in the space of 30 seconds, Chelsea coming out evens pretty much. First Cole goes down in the box as he looks to break down the inside left. He's nudged by Gallas. There's not much contact, but you've seen them given. Clumsy defending. And then from the resulting corner, Torres swings a haymaker at Sandro! He doesn't connect. Hmm, perhaps it's more of a petulant waft, but you're still not permitted to act like Ali. That could easily have been a sending off, were the referee so inclined.

60 min: This game is belting along at 100mph, good old-fashioned Premier League fare. Mata looks to break up the right but is robbed by a thundering challenge from Caulker. Spurs break upfield, Sandro coming in from the right and hammering a low shot straight down Cech's throat. This really could go either way. It's a very entertaining, open game played out by two attractive (if you don't count AVB, let's listen to Hadley) teams.

63 min: Oscar scoops a pass down the right for Torres, who goes racing into the box before falling to the ground. There are the usual pious screams for a dive, but the guy clearly just lost his balance while racing at full pelt. The referee, thankfully, takes no action. "As I sit pondering your MBM on my ownsome indulging in a bargain all you can eat buffet at the Jade Palace, a Chinese restaurant in Crouch End, I can't help but reflect the coverage of this game is one mass advertorial or product placement," writes James Randolph. "It rather makes me glad I'm following on my iPhone not my Sony laptop." Ah the Jade Palace. A fine establishment. It's no La Bota, though, the tapas place a few doors down. Kidneys in sherry, chorizo, and espresso with Spanish booze in it. It's healthy and hearty. They can have that slogan for free.

66 min: GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 2-2 Chelsea. Vertonghen goes on a sortie upfield, but is stopped abruptly in his tracks. He's jogging back shaking his head, having demanded a free kick, but he was fairly robbed. And he really could have done with picking up his legs, because he's left a massive gap down the right. Oscar screams into it, then wheechs a low ball into the centre. Gallas hacks clear, but only to Mata on the edge of the area. Mata takes one touch, and passes powerfully into the bottom right. Friedel was planted. A magnificent finish.

68 min: Defoe has an ambitious hack from 30 yards, just to the left of goal. It may or may not be going into the right-hand corner, but Cech takes no chances, and palms out on the right. The corner's wasted.

70 min: GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 2-3 Chelsea. What a match this is! First Torres tears down the inside-right channel. He's clear on goal, but hesitates, allowing Vertonghen to come back and nick the ball away from him. No matter, though. Chelsea come straight back at the home side within 30 seconds, Mikel cutting in from the left and sliding the ball to Hazard, who strokes a delicate first-time pass down the inside-left to release Mata into the area. Mata has the confidence Torres doesn't, and steers the ball past Friedel with power and precision. This is a marvellous game of football.

72 min: What a response by Chelsea, who were all over the show at the start of this half. Now it's Tottenham's turn to show us what they've got. In fairness, they've done that once already. Can they do it again? let's see. (By the way, they've replaced Huddlestone with Livermore.)

73 min: Mata is once again found in space down the left. He tries a first-time dink over Friedel from a tight-ish angle, but doesn't get any power on the effort. No hat-trick for him. Yet.

74 min: Dempsey is replaced by Adebayor.

75 min: Oscar, tight on the left, one-twos with Mata and advances on the Spurs box. He lashes a low shot towards the bottom-left corner. Friedel does well to parry clear. Chelsea are playing some marvellous stuff at the moment. Way to early in the season to say, but they've got the swagger of title-winners right now.

76 min: Spurs aren't out of this by any means, though. Adebayor wins a towering header to send Sigurdsson into the area down the inside-left channel. Sigurdsson juggles the ball a couple of times, then larrups a decent effort just over. Two of the best teams in the league, going at it in the swashbuckling style. The Premier League at its best.

79 min: Mata sliderules the ball down the inside right and is this close to releasing Hazard into the area. Nearly, but not quite. "As a 40 year old Scot who has been known to eat and drink a bit too much at times, I'm not really qualified to comment on the physical appearance of young, wealthy, successful European football managers," admits Simon McMahon, "but looks aside, there's a lot to like about AVB. He's no Sergio, though, is he?" Yes, but who is? Even Sergio struggles to live up to the beautiful concept of Sergio.

82 min: Spurs triangulate awhile, then Defoe is upended by Mikel as he looks to break into the area from the left. That's a free kick to the home side, just to the left of the D. Sigurdsson looks for the top-left corner, but his effort is obvious. Cech's got it covered, and anyway the ball flies over the bar. "Apparently the key question about the scuffed boot is whether you are deliberately scuffed in a euro way," writes Robin Hazlehurst. "Do you look like distressed leather that has had sandpaper carefully applied to artificially age it to make it look authentic and experienced, or do you just look, y'know, haggard, knackered and suffering the after effects of last night's gin? Hmm, I'm suspecting I can guess the answer here can't I." Yep. Here, rather deliciously, you've misspelt your own name as "Robin Hazlehurts". Very apt, seeing you're riffing and scatting on my pain!

83 min: Oscar, who has been excellent, is replaced by Sturridge.

85 min: Lennon juggles the ball to the right of the Chelsea D, eventually making enough space to whack a looping shot goalwards. But it's straight at Cech. Chelsea haven't looked too troubled since going in front, but Spurs aren't taking this lying down by any means. "Hadley Freeman has been on the cricket OBO at least twice before," reports Niall Mullen. "I think mentioning her name on the sports pages is like the Batman sign in the sky summoning her to help fashion troubled men too bashful to contact 'Ask Hadley'." Maybe we should see if Pamela Stephenson Connolly's about, too. Does anyone have any, y'know, ahem, problems they'd like to talk about?

86 min: Torres should have wrapped this up. He's released into the Spurs area down the left, but overcooks the low curler towards the bottom-right corner, and the ball slides out the wrong side of the post. Not far away by any means, but not particularly good with only Friedel to beat.

88 min: Chelsea are spurning chance after chance now. Hazard's in acres down the right, and racing into the box, but his ball across for Torres is hilariously useless, the clank of a lummox. The ball's recycled, and Mata's sprung clear down the right, but his touch is heavy and Friedel claims. Chelsea really should have four goals by now.

89 min: And are Chelsea going to pay for their profligacy? First Cech fumbles a low cross from the left, nearly gifting a close-range chance to Adebayor before snatching the second chance. Then Walker sends a daisycutter towards the bottom right from nigh on 30 yards; Cech does wonderfully well to palm round for a corner. The set piece is a nonsense.

90 min: Lampard replaces Hazard. There will be four adde minutes of this.

90 min +1: GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 2-4 Chelsea. This is it now. Walker fannies around down the Chelsea left. Looking to usher the ball out of play, he's shoved off it by tiny Mata, who diddles into the area and rolls the ball across the face of goal, allowing Sturridge to tap in.

90 min +2: On the touchline, Andre Villas-Boas wears a haunted look. Mouth agape, a thousand-yard stare. He's aged about 40 years! I'm surprised his hair isn't falling out in clumps. Oh dear. Hadley Freeman was well ahead of the curve on this one.

FULL TIME: Tottenham Hotspur 2-4 Chelsea. And that's that. Villas-Boas regains his composure to shake hands with his successor Roberto di Matteo. No revenge for him today. But he shouldn't take this too badly. Spurs gave it a real go, playing some very nice stuff at times. But Chelsea were simply superlative. They've now won at Arsenal and Spurs, two huge results. It's not too early to talk of a proper title challenge. It'll take some team to beat them over the season, with the only question being their slightly shaky defence. But with that front line, they'll not need too many answers to that one.

Premier LeagueChelseaTottenham HotspurScott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

El-Hadji Diouf: officially 11.5% hot air

Click here to have the Fiver sent to your inbox every weekday at 5pm, or if your usual copy has stopped arriving

PREMIER LEAGUE MEDALS: NONE. THANKS: NONE

Poor old $tevie Mbe! There he goes, tirelessly running up and down the pitch, as he's done for the past 14 lung-busting years, demanding the ball, powering through midfield, sending 45-yard blooters over the heads of infinitely better-placed colleagues, and on the rare occasion one whistles past a surprised keeper's lugs and finds its way into the net instead of the top corner of the stand, bombing off towards the touchline, pushing aside and shrugging off any team-mates desirous of celebrating Liverpool's goal in order to ostentatiously point at the name emblazoned on the back of his shirt. All that effort, and for what? To stand accused of being a crass egotist, that's for what!

"I respect [$tevie Mbe] as a footballer, but there is nobody more egotistical than him," announced El-Hadji Diouf today, in an interview with le rag française L'Equipe. Now, we're assuming this particular parlez was conducted with one of Diouf's eyebrows twanging up and down like the tremolo arm on Duane Eddy's guitar*, because in a robust 165-word rant, the former Liverpool waste of space used the words "I" or "me" 19 times, meaning that 11.5% of the hot air coming out of his mouth was directly self-referencing. "I leave my mark wherever I go," he boasted, presumably in reference to one of his spitting controversies or perhaps that time he was photographed stepping out of a vehicle which made Chris Eubank's truck look like a Fiat 500 wearing what appeared to be a onesie made out of terry towelling, because the Fiver will be jiggered sky high if it can remember him doing anything else of note while at Liverpool, Bolton, Blackburn, Sunderland, Rangers or Doncaster.

But anyway, when the striker, currently at Dirty Leeds, wasn't patting himself furiously on the back for having "never been to prison" or having "never injured anyone on the pitch" – well done, El-Hadji, well done! – he was getting stuck into his old captain at Anfield. "He does not care about others. I spoke to the major figures at Liverpool and nobody can stand him. And I am not talking about Jamie Carragher. I was in Pele's 100 players of the century! Not him!"

Whether any of this is true or not, the Fiver has no idea. (Even Pele can't have been that bloody daft, for a start. Eh?) But the Fiver also doesn't care. Consider this: even if $tevie Mbe is as self-absorbed and unpopular as Diouf insists, does it make any difference to how his Liverpool team-mates interact with him on the pitch? No. You don't have to like everyone you work with, after all. Take the Fiver's relationship with The Man, for example. He's a terrible sod, who keeps thrashing us on the bare buttocks with his golf club for little or no reason. But that doesn't stop the Fiver regularly penning articles which are both funny and illuminati … actually, this is a bad example, isn't it?

* Hey kids, we hope you enjoyed another of the Guardian's bang-up-to-date pop references! [writes Ms Dynamite] They're rad, Dad! For the record, this one was a goody, registering 9.5 on our patented Beth Ditt-o-meter.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"The jolly green giants are coming to play against us tomorrow. Michael [Owen] is not allowed to play unless he brings a ladder. They are the biggest team in Europe. You can get yourself all in a fangle about that … but you can't make a terror for yourself" - If only all Lord Ferg's pre-match pressers read as if he'd been on the gin since 10am.

GET A FREE £25 BET WITH BLUE SQUARE

Step one: open an account with Blue Square and deposit any amount; step two: place a bet of at least £5 on any sport; step three: we will match your bet with a free bet of up to £25.

FIVER LETTERS

"If the Fiver thinks that by conning me into trying to make my abs harder (yesterday's last line) and my posture better I will have better success on guardian soulmates it's got another thing coming … let me tell you … arrrrrrgggghhh … this, I will no more buy … ooooooooooofff … expensive and cheap tat to work out in than … write emails while working out …" – Joe Noori.

"Aren't speed limits in Spain (yesterday's bits and bobs) set in kilometres per hour rather than mph?" – Graham Kerr (and no others).

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver.

JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES

We keep trying to point out the utter futility of advertising an online dating service "for interesting people" in the Fiver to the naive folk who run Guardian Soulmates, but they still aren't having any of it. So here you go – sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly romantics who would never dream of going out with you.

BITS AND BOBS

Lord Ferg has made Jason Roberts the 43245235324562421905542345423523487th person on his to-do list after the Reading striker said he would not wear a Kick It Out T-shirt tomorrow. "I don't know what point he is trying to make," purpled Ferg. "When you do something, and everyone believes in it, you should all do it together. There shouldn't be sheep wandering off."

Sulky teenager Andre Villas-Boas says he is looking forward to his Chelsea reunion tomorrow. "I'm going to see people who mean a lot to me, people who are part of my development as a coach," he mumbled, gazing longingly at a poster of Frank and Jay-T on his bedroom wall.

Hamstring twang will keep David Silva out of Man City's trips to West Brom and Ajax in the next week.

Thomas Hitzlsperger's left foot has signed a short-term contract with Everton. Hitzlsperger, formerly of Aston Villa and West Ham, has been without a club since leaving Wolfsburg in the summer.

Former footballer James McFadden is set to sign a short-term deal with Sunderland.

South Africa's assistant coach Thomas Madigage was killed in the early hours of this morning when his car reportedly crashed into a donkey in the road. He was 41.

And a Romanian press report has alleged that Robin van Persie was among a group of Dutch players celebrating life with working girls until 4am on Wednesday morning at one of Adrian Mutu's special parties.

STILL WANT MORE?

Dust-ups, wallopings and Alan Shearer: Scott Murray on six joyous Tyne-Wear stramashes.

How has the parody Twitter account gained such currency in football, asks someone claiming to be @barneyronay.

Paul Doyle has clambered up the mast, wriggled into the crow's nest and dusted off his binoculars to bring you 10 things to look out for this Premier League weekend.

Poland may as well have been playing with sheets draped over their heads given how haunted England appeared to be by them, writes David Lacey, jumping the Halloween gun by a full five days.

SIGN UP TO THE FIVER

Want your very own copy of our free tea-timely(ish) email sent direct to your inbox? Has your regular copy stopped arriving? Click here to sign up

HOW MANY RACES? BIT LAZYScott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 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's Nani heading to Italy?

Today's rumours love coffee, tea and the Java Jive. A cup, a cup, a cup, a cup, a cup

It's a happy birthday to the respected theatre, film and television actor Sir Michael Gambon, who if we ignore the Harry Potter movies is best known for his role as Philip Marlowe in The Singing Detective. He's 72 today. One of the songs on the soundtrack of the fondly remembered Dennis Potter serial is a version of Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. The thrust of that song's lyric is concerned with eliminating the negative, latching on to the affirmative, spreading joy up to the maximum, bringing gloom down to the minimum, and not messing with Mr In-Between, who sounds like a right rum sod and no mistake. So if it's a good enough philosophy for Jonah in the whale and Noah in the ark, it's good enough for the Rumour Mill. Let's have faith!

Radomir Antic, who won the 1996 Spanish league with Atlético Madrid, is in the frame to be the new manager of Blackburn Rovers. That'd be a great appointment. Ian Holloway of Blackpool is also being considered. And quite right too, he seems like a stand-up guy.

Juventus and Milan both want Nani. It'd be a shame to see the talented Portuguese winger leave these shores, but hopefully he'll entertain supporters of Soccer Game in Italy. Manchester United will only get £12m for him, instead of the £20m they're after, but they intend to splash whatever cash they get on a replacement in the Porto winger James Rodríguez, so if that happens everyone's happy. Except possibly fans of Porto, but it's a bit early to be thinking this through.

Liverpool are interested in the PSV Eindhoven striker Jürgen Locadia. The 18-year-old recently scored three goals in 11 minutes on his league debut against VVV Venlo. What a debut. And what a great rumour, one of the best in a rare old while. Southampton are also looking to jigger PSV by making off with their attacker Jeremain Lens. Poor old PSV! Po' Philips Sport Vereniging's a-cold! But the £5.5m they'll get for the winger-cum-striker will buy them an awful lot of CD players, plugs and lightbulbs, which they get on discount anyway, so there's that.

Arsenal are planning a £15m bid for Atlético Madrid striker Adrián López, but that doesn't rule out bids for Fiorentina's Stevan Jovetic or Athletic Bilbao's Fernando Llorente. Juventus might queer the deal for Llorente, but look at it this way, if it happens, it happens, and if it doesn't, well it's only football, so pipe down.

And this conceit hasn't been worth it at all, really, has it. But at least we didn't attempt to riff on There's A Fellow Waiting In Poughkeepsie.

Scott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

The Joy of Six: Tyne-Wear derbies | Scott Murray

Unlikely wallopings, a bittersweet farewell and plenty of dust-ups; we pay homage to this most topsy-turvy of rivalries

1) Sunderland 2-3 Newcastle United (Division One, December 1898)

The Football League had been going a decade before the north-east's two big boys met up. Sunderland had become the first new team to win admission to the league in 1890, replacing Stoke, and were three-time champions by 1895. Newcastle took a little longer to get going, joining the newly minted Second Division in 1893, then taking five seasons to haul themselves into the top division. Finally, on the day before Christmas 1898, it was on!

"The game was not of any importance from the championship point of view, for the United are next but one from the bottom of the table and Sunderland below the halfway line," reported the Manchester Guardian. "There is considerable local rivalry between the teams, however, and it was not surprising to find an immense gathering. This match evoked great enthusiasm in the rival towns." A crowd of 30,000 gathered at Roker, twenty special trains having been run to ferry Newcastle's support south.

The game didn't disappoint. Sunderland's Jim Leslie – who had the distinction of scoring the first-ever goal at the brand-new Roker Park earlier in the season, against Liverpool – also became the first man to trouble the scoreboard attendant in a Tyne-Wear derby. He slotted home on 13 minutes, but the home side's lead would last barely 240 seconds, Willie Wardrope equalising for the Toon.

On 28 minutes came the first great cock-up in a Tyne-Wear stramash. The Newcastle forward Jock Peddie – a man variously described in contemporary rags as "highly praised", "roundly abused" and "aggravatingly slow" – advanced on the Sunderland goal from the halfway line. He sent a blooter rising towards the goal, only for the half-back Matthew Ferguson to divert it into his own net with his head. Whether the shot was going in or not is a moot point – some reports have Peddie as the scorer – but the Manchester Guardian points an accusing finger at the Sunderland player, so own goal it is.

"The teams put more energy and a little roughness into their play after this," reported our Victorian Guardianista. At no point did the match degenerate into wanton hoodlummery, though tempers do seem to have been on a rolling boil. After the break, Peddie made it 3-1 to Newcastle after being set up by Wardrope, whereupon "Fouls became frequent." Sunderland came back at their visitors, Leslie hitting a daisycutter which the Newcastle keeper Matt Kingsley – an ample gentleman carrying 14 of the cuddly stones – tried his best to save with a Big Daddy bellysplash, but let slip under his voluminous gut. "Newcastle afterwards confined themselves to a more defensive game, and indulged in a good deal of kicking out."

And with that, the Toon held out; it would be a happy Christmas on Tyneside. But the boot was on the other foot exactly 12 months later. It was Newcastle's turn to host the shebang on Christmas Eve – and they threw away a 2-1 half-time lead at St James' Park to lose 4-2.

2) Newcastle United 1-9 Sunderland (Division One, December 1908)

There wouldn't be a home win in the derby until February 1902, when Newcastle beat Sunderland by a single goal in the FA Cup. A home league win was another 14 months away, when Newcastle repeated the 1-0 scoreline. Sunderland wouldn't win one of these things at Roker until Christmas Eve 1904. In the first 10 seasons of league combat between these two armies, 10 of 20 skirmishes were won away from home. There had only been five home wins. Truly this was a topsy-turvy rivalry.

With an unfeasibly silly opening decade in the bag, the two teams decided to really up the ante in the 1908-09 season. At the start of December, Newcastle were in the title hunt, two points behind the leaders Everton. Sunderland were comfortably ensconced in sixth place, but well enough off the pace.

In what would be described by the Manchester Guardian, somewhat conservatively it can be said, as "a remarkable game at Newcastle", Sunderland ran in nine goals. Their 9-1 victory – still a record away win in the top flight to this day – was Sunderland's eighth triumph in 11 league visits to St James' Park.

The Observer takes the story up: "Newcastle not only enjoyed the advantage of playing at home, but placed in the field the team that only a week previously had gained a brilliant victory over Notts (sic) Forest at Nottingham. Thus everything pointed to the probability of a win for Newcastle, and though Sunderland had rather the best of the opening half, the interval found the game standing at one goal all.

"To the amazement of a crowd of 50,000 people, Sunderland on crossing over carried all before them, Holley and Hogg each putting on three goals and Bridgett two, with the result that Newcastle found themselves compelled to admit defeat by 9 to 1. The extraordinary nature of the breakdown on the part of the home club can to some extent be understood when it is mentioned that in 15 previous matches this season Newcastle had only 13 goals registered against them. Until yesterday, indeed, fewer goals had been scored against Newcastle than any other team in League 1."

The second-half flurry of goals had brought joy to all Sunderland supporters bar one. While the match was taking place at St James', the reserve teams were going at it at Roker Park. One chap was charged with the duty of keeping the crowd up to date with the latest goings on in Newcastle. But when the goals started flying in, the crowd began to murmur in disbelief. Upon registering 5-1 on the scoreboard, the poor gent was attacked by several members of the crowd and beaten up, convinced that he surely must be taking the piss.

It was the sort of shellacking which would send any team with title pretentions off into a flat spin. But this is not your common-or-garden rivalry. Newcastle bounced back majestically, winning nine of their next 10 games, and only coming a cropper again when – you guessed it – Sunderland completed the double over their rivals at Roker with a 3-1 victory. But by the time of that defeat, in mid April, Newcastle had covered all the hard yards in the race for the championship, and went on to lift the title, seven points clear of Everton, and nine clear of Sunderland.

It's a story which betrays logic, completely and utterly. Incidentally, the two teams also met in the FA Cup. Sunderland having won by an aggregate score of 12-2 in the league, we don't have to tell you who triumphed at Roker Park. The way this rivalry was panning out, there was only ever going to be one victor there. (It was 3-0 to Newcastle, though we know you'd already worked that out for yourselves.)

3) Sunderland 1-6 Newcastle United (Division One, December 1955)

Coming into the Christmas '55 period, Sunderland were hot on the heels of the league-leading Busby Babes. They sat in sixth place, but were only four points adrift of Manchester United, and had two matches in hand. "Sunderland's Chance of Progress!" trumpeted the Guardian ahead of the festive programme. "Shackleton will be back in the side, and they should improve their league position over the holiday."

Oh Len! Oh Guardian! You know what's coming. Yes, a thoroughly miserable chain of events which very much put a hearty bellow of CHRIST into Christmas on Wearside. Sunderland lost 4-0 at Huddersfield on Christmas Eve, then faced two games in two days. Two games in two days – and both against Newcastle United. There's old-school football for you. In the time-honoured tradition of the derby, the first match was an away-day beano, Newcastle travelling to Roker on Boxing Day to hand out a 6-2 skelping, Jackie Milburn, Vic Keeble and Bill Curry each helping themselves to two goals.

Sunderland responded to the humiliation by immediately entering the transfer market, paying "a big fee" to Burnley for their England B centre forward Bill Holden, who was immediately plonked into the team for the reverse rubber at St James' 24 hours later. The gambit looked to have paid off after five minutes, when Holden helped himself to a debut goal. But Newcastle came back in the second half through Keeble, Milburn and Len White to record a 3-1 win. They had beaten their neighbours by an aggregate score of 9-2 over a 26-hour period. Sunderland were suddenly 10th in the table, while Newcastle had leapfrogged them into sixth.

Sunderland's title challenge – which in retrospect should have been taken with a bigger pinch of salt seeing they had already lost 7-3 at Blackpool and 8-2 at Luton – was over. But the Tyne and Wear derby isn't anything without a bit of tipsy and topsy. Sunderland still ended the season above Newcastle, by two places and two points. And the two met in the sixth round of the FA Cup. At St James'. You know by now, yes? "Newcastle United, the holders, can scarcely be excelled in cup football, especially at home," we wrote. "They have played 13 ties without defeat and are confident of completing the hat-trick of successes over Sunderland, whom they humbled twice during the Christmas holidays." Sunderland's two-goal hero in a 2-0 win? Holden, naturally.

Oh, and Newcastle then knocked Sunderland for six again the following Christmas, a black-and-white-clad Santa arriving three days early with a 6-2 victory in his bag. It's not even mildly surprising any more, is it.

4) Newcastle United 0-2 Sunderland (Division Two Play-Off Semi Final, May 1990)

Newcastle were looking to bounce straight back to the First Division after the previous season's relegation, while Sunderland were hoping to put an end to a miserable five-season stretch away from the top flight which had included a dip into the third tier for the first and only time in their history. Both made the play-offs. Newcastle ended up in third position, thanks mainly to the 61 goals of Micky Quinn and Mark McGhee, but with a nod to the defensive capabilities of Roy Aitken, the manager Jim Smith's marquee signing from Celtic. They would play sixth-placed Sunderland, Marco Gabbiadini getting most of the attention up front, Paul Bracewell pulling most of the strings from the middle.

The stakes were high, and the two matches would not disappoint. And now to repeat using the international language of self-righteousness: the two matches would disappoint. In the first game, at Roker Park, Newcastle picked up five bookings in the opening 45 minutes. Jim Smith was apoplectic, ludicrously arguing that Sunderland's predilection for going to ground easily – "I think Gordon Armstrong, Gary Bennett and Eric Gates have been training in a swimming pool" – unfairly caused his team to resort to fouling. "Most of the bookings on our side were for unprofessional tackles. One of the things we couldn't afford to do, and they were trying to make us do, was to lose our heads."

Newcastle might have been rope-a-doped into several cautions, but it was Sunderland who would see a man sent off. In the 90th minute of a game which failed to produce any shots on target whatsoever, Sunderland were awarded a penalty when Mark Stimson tripped Gabbiadini. Paul Hardyman hit a lame effort straight at John Burridge – then followed up and kicked the 38-year-old keeper straight in the head. A not-particularly-early bath for you! Mackem boss Denis Smith insisted he would not be punishing his captain Hardyman for attempting to decapitate a fellow human being. "The lad is distressed enough as it is," reasoned Smith, both managers having now proved to us that 1990 was indeed a foreign country with a different set of values.

Newcastle, with home advantage in the second leg, were favourites to make it to the Wembley final. But it was not to be. Sunderland boasted the second-best record away from home in the second tier that season, and had won six of their last seven on their travels. It would become seven from eight, as Gates slammed home a low cross on 13 minutes, then set up Gabbiadini on 86 to seal the win. Five hundred fans from the Gallowgate End invaded the pitch, holding up play for 20 minutes. The referee George Courtney took the players off, then came back on to complete the game, the final four minutes lasting all of 30 seconds as players on both sides, clearly unwilling to continue in such an atmosphere, clustered around the tunnel in the hope of a quick exit. Sunderland went on to lose the final to Swindon Town, but went up anyway as the Wiltshire club had just bodyswerved the taxman with the Starbucks Shuffle.

5) Newcastle United 1-2 Sunderland (Premiership, August 1999)

Upon sashaying into St James' Park in August 1998, Ruud Gullit promised the Newcastle faithful "some really sexy football". And what kind of saucy soccer did they get? Sexy after 12 bottles of Broon, maybe. Newcastle were eviscerated 4-1 at home by Liverpool in his first match, and ended the season four points from the relegation zone. It wasn't much of an entrance. But as for his exit? Wow-ee. Biblical, epic, shot in glorious widescreen technicolor … yep, the guy sure knew how to make an exit.

Newcastle and Gullit were on the ropes by the time newly promoted Sunderland came to town not long after the start of the 1999-00 campaign. They'd lost their first three matches, a sequence including proper stuffings at Tottenham and Southampton, and then managed to throw away a 3-1 lead at home to Wimbledon, although the eventual grim 3-3 result did at least give them their first point of the season. Sunderland hadn't started a whole lot better – their readmission to top-flight football had been marked by a 4-0 skelping at Chelsea – but they had subsequently managed a win over Watford and a creditable draw with Arsenal. Perhaps more significantly, they weren't weighed down by expectation.

The weight of the world was on Gullit's shoulders, though. After the defeat at Spurs, the manager had alienated the dressing room. "There was no commitment and I blame the players for that. It was nothing to do with me." Even his attempt to subsequently backtrack was slightly half-arsed: "When I was in Italy I took the blame when I played badly. So did Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard and Franco Baresi. That's because we were the most important players. That's why the players have got to look at themselves and ask if they have done enough or not."

The remarks caused irreparable damage in an already fractious relationship with star striker Alan Shearer. Shearer had got himself sent off in the opening match of the season, and had been suspended for the Wimbledon game. He would not regain his place automatically for the derby. Gullit picked a team which featured neither Shearer nor Duncan Ferguson – and didn't bother to tell either player, the pair only finding out they were on the bench for the big game when a lackey pinned the team-sheet to the dressing-room wall.

The resulting game was one for the ages. Played out in the midst of a tempest, Gullit's gambit looked like paying off for a while. On 27 minutes, Paul Robinson, the 20-year-old he'd asked to lead the line alone – and a Sunderland season-ticket holder who still lived in the city – split the visitors' back line to set up Kieron Dyer, who chipped over the advancing Thomas Sorensen to put Newcastle in front.

But it was otherwise all Sunderland. Quinn went close twice in the first half, as did Stefan Schwarz. Quinn missed a third opportunity on 55 minutes, planting a close-range header wide, but it was fourth time lucky in 64 minutes, when he equalised with a glancing header from Nicky Summerbee's free-kick. The crowd bayed for Shearer, who was thrown into the fray. But his first and only meaningful act was to be clattered by Gavin McCann. As a brouhaha developed on the halfway line, Summerbee made off down the right with the ball and crossed to Kevin Phillips who, after two attempts, scooped a strange yet clever shot into the net from a tight angle on the left.

Newcastle plunged to joint bottom of the Premiership, while Sunderland serenely rose to mid-table. Gullit was unrepentant, and metaphorically squared up to his striker, who had departed the scene dripping wet, with a face on, in the post-match press conference: "No-one complained when we were 1-0 up. When we put him on in the second half, we lost. What conclusion do you draw from that? You saw what happened when Shearer and Ferguson went on. That's when the game slipped away from us, so make of that what you will."

Even so, few expected Gullit to be relieved of his post. "The directors are prepared to swallow defeats in Newcastle's next two games, at Manchester United and at Chelsea, although the board will not tolerate five-goal thrashings," reported the Guardian. Manchester United would indeed stick five past Newcastle at Old Trafford in their next game, but it made no difference. Gullit had already gone, resigning in breezy fashion three days after the Sunderland game, in a valedictory performance which saw him repeatedly refer to the press pack as his "lovely boys" in the style of his favourite sitcom character, Sgt Major Williams from It Ain't Half Hot Mum. Whether he ever referred to his Newcastle players as a "bunch of lah-di-dah poofs" is not recorded.

6) Sunderland 1-4 Newcastle United (Premier League, April 2006)

Since Newcastle's aforementioned double-six special in 1955 and 1956, the two clubs have tried to keep it civil in terms of scorelines: there are only three instances of a team racking up more than three derby goals in a match during the last 57 years.

Sunderland have managed it once, a 4-1 win at St James' Park in February 1979, the high point of a Division Two campaign which saw them win promotion while their neighbours languished in second-tier mid-table obscurity. Gary Rowell was the hero that day, scoring what remains Sunderland's last hat-trick in the derby.

Newcastle meanwhile have forced the scoreboard operative to earn their money on two occasions, and both relatively recently. The most recent came in October 2010, when Kevin Nolan's hat-trick inspired the Toon to a 5-1 victory at St James' Park, a rare example of humiliation being meted out for the benefit of a home support. Nolan's three-goal haul was the first Newcastle hat-trick in the derby since Peter Beardsley managed one on New Year's Day 1985 (in a game which also saw the wee man miss a penalty).

Newcastle's other big haul came in April 2006, a 4-1 victory at the Stadium of Light which saw the career of Alan Shearer extinguished. It was a bittersweet way for the legendary striker to go out. Bitter, because he limped off with knee ligament damage, falling awkwardly after a challenge by Julio Arca. Sweet, because 10 minutes before the fateful clatter, he'd slotted home the penalty which put Newcastle 2-1 up, and sent them on the way to their biggest derby win since that 6-2 victory in 1956. "That's it for me," he said after the game, surveying the glorious wreckage of his career. "It's not a bad way to go."

Newcastle UnitedSunderlandScott Murray
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds