Scott Murray's Blog, page 39

Football Daily | Todd Boehly’s wallet and the current state of this country

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Many years ago, when Viz comic decided the time was right to redevelop its website, it put up a holding page which read, in its own inimitable style, SH!*E OLD WEBSITE *UC%£D. (Our censoring, obviously; Viz has a more liberal and grown-up policy on swearing than progressive broadsheet newspapers, company firewalls, Football Daily’s granny, etc.) We were reminded of that warning sign earlier when the IMF put up a very similarly worded notice regarding the current state of this country, prompting the likes of Rishi Sunak and Jacob Rees-Mogg to jig around in front of it insisting there was nothing to see here and that everything is OK. Sigh. Austerity, myopia and bellicosity have done a proper number on us all.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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Nottingham Forest 0-3 Manchester United: Carabao Cup semi-final, first leg – as it happened

Marcus Rashford, Wout Weghorst and Bruno Fernandes scored the goals that make United super-hot favourites to reach the final

United get the ball rolling as the fans serenade the mist rolling in from the Trent. The City Ground really is in fine voice tonight.

A moment of silence for Holocaust Memorial Day. Perfectly observed.

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Football Daily | A rare instance of everyone at Everton pointing in the same direction

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The last time Everton were relegated was an awfully long time ago. When it happened, back in 1951, they went down in style, their fate sealed by a 6-0 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday, and that august tome, Big Paper, commented thus: “To abuse Everton at this stage,” wrote the legendary Donny Davies, “would be too much like picking up a person badly mauled from a street accident and reading him a lecture on the folly of jay-walking. The very severity of the disaster protects the victim.” The Toffees of today aren’t quite in that state yet, but affairs at Goodison Park have escalated enough for it to only seem right that Football Daily takes a similarly sympathetic view to Donny all those years ago. Evertonians have already suffered enough.

It took me until two weeks ago to realise I hadn’t read this for quite a while. Then two days later I received an email congratulating me on my one year-anniversary at a new job. The penny dropped: I hadn’t updated my email preferences. What had I missed? Not much it seemed. A fortnight had passed without major incident. Perhaps the rebranding had ushered in a new era of professionalism? The days of Tin-influenced copy well and truly in the past. Then you had to go and spoil it all by crediting Darvel’s winner in their historic Scottish Cup victory versus Aberdeen (yesterday’s Football Daily) to ‘Jordan Fitzpatrick’, and not Jordan Kirkpatrick. It’s good to be back” – John Mackay.

Re: yesterday’s Memory Lane picture (full email edition). It’s my pleasure to tell you that the Jewel in the Crown of Swindon fame is still going strong, and there’s a good selection of John Moncurrys to be had” – David Walsh.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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Southampton 0-1 Newcastle: Carabao Cup semi-final, first leg – as it happened

Joelinton scored one, had another controversially chalked off by VAR, and missed a sitter, as Newcastle secured a lead to take back home for the second leg

4 min: So much for that quiet start; Newcastle have made a fast one. They come again, throwing men forward. Trippier can’t get a shot away. The ball’s worked right to Longstaff, who rolls an inviting bundle-me-home low cross through the Saints six-yard box. There’s nobody there to convert.

2 min: A quiet start. Nathan Jones sitting back his dugout chair, Eddie Howe already prowling the touchline and performing some tactical hand jive. But then suddenly Newcastle break from a throw deep in their own half. Almiron races down the inside-right channel and draws the only two Southampton defenders anywhere near the play. Almiron rolls across to the completely free Willock, who … blazes wildly over the bar from 20 yards. An ambitious first-time effort but he had time and space to take a couple of steps.

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Football Daily | Darvel pull off the biggest shock in 150 years of Scottish Cup history

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For many a year, the gold standard in Scottish Cup shocks was generally accepted to be the 1-0 first-round defeat inflicted on Rangers in 1967 by their second-tier namesakes from Berwick. Rangers were the holders at the time, had never lost in the first round, had never been beaten by lower-league opposition … oh, and had three years earlier tried to force through a league reconfiguration that would have jettisoned Berwick back into the non-league shadows from which they had only recently emerged. The fact Berwick are English added a further level of ignominy, although given Rangers see themselves very much as a UK-wide concern, perhaps we’re lending that particular fact more weight than it deserves.

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Liverpool 0-0 Chelsea: Premier League – as it happened

Chelsea had an early Kai Havertz goal ruled out for offside in an otherwise unremarkable mid-table affair

Chelsea win the first corner of the match out left. Gallagher swings it in. Badiashile pokes through to Silva, six yards out. He’s one of two Chelsea men in acres! He slams the ball against the base of the left-hand post. Havertz is first to the rebound and slots into the bottom right. What a start for Chelsea! Liverpool go behind yet again!

2 min: Robertson catches Gallagher late, and hard, an old-fashioned boot on the shin. Robertson is lucky not to go into the book. The fact there were barely 90 seconds on the clock probably a factor there.

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Manchester City 4-2 Tottenham: Premier League – as it happened

City were two down at half-time, but Riyad Mahrez inspired a stirring comeback as the champions closed the gap on Arsenal

2 min: Kulusevski pushes right up on Ederson, but the City keeper doesn’t panic with the ball at his feet and clears his lines. City hearts in mouths for a nanosecond there.

Spurs – who are looking to become the first team to win three matches in a row against a Pep Guardiola side – get the ball rolling. They pass it around the back for a bit, then Son and Perisic nearly make some ground down the left with a crisp one-two. Throw to City, but some very early proactive play from Spurs.

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Football Daily | At least Manchester United can now get back to their day job

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Football Daily is the first to hold its hands up when we get things wrong, and this week our predictions have been signally less than stellar. So far we’ve put forward the theory that Jürgen Klopp will never smile again, suggested that Wolverhampton Wanderers were looking good for a first FA Cup since 1960, and tipped Manchester United for the title. That whopping three for zero was confirmed late on Wednesday night when Michael Olise whistled an astonishing free-kick past David de Gea’s lugs before pointedly not bothering to celebrate, in the manner of a player who had just denied his previous club a couple of precious points and wanted to showcase some maximum respect. You can bet your last penny Wilfried Zaha won’t hold back like that if he ever scores a last-minute zinger against Reading.

Since clubs being in crisis is the favo(u)rite subject of Football Daily, you might want to look over the pond where all five official supporters groups of the LA Galaxy have come together to boycott all games until club president Chris Klein is shown a certain door marked with specific verbiage. We may even march from a tailgate we were already going to, to a match we had no intention of boycotting, in the grand tradition of Manchester United, Everton et al” – Tom Dowler.

Reading about Richard Brind’s hard week (yesterday’s Football Daily letters), demanding diagrams to go with your work, his plea has not gone unnoticed. Watching football on the TV, I see many managers resort to traditional ways (biros, scraps of paper, etc) in noting something or other, hoping to impart half-time flannel to thwart a defeat. Thus, I have begun an art project encapsulating their scribbled jottings. Titled ‘Managers’ Notebooks’ (not digital since that would be a Klopp-out), it is a collection of drawings and prints that attempt to represent the turmoils of watching self-inflicted escapism/optimism. I rely on the hopeless shrug of a Moyes or a Lampard, the panicky Conte Montegrappa or a Rodgers slap and others. These, intertwined with odd numbers, like Neto 13 and diagrammatic representations of a dis-United 5’s elusive defensive runs, should end up as a Picasso-like exploration of the game. Crossings-out will be included. Copies can be ordered in advance but will be delivered later or not at all” – Tim Hall.

The photo of Maximiliano Spinazze’s cornfield showing Lionel Messi’s face (yesterday’s Football Daily email edition) is brilliant and it got me thinking. Couldn’t we have images of our favourites sown into every pitch in the Premier League? Then, when sent off for violent conduct, the perfectly reasonable response of ‘I decked him because he was getting up my nose’ would have a wider and more accurate meaning” – Steve Anniss.

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Crystal Palace 1-1 Manchester United: Premier League – as it happened

Michael Olise’s stunning 91st-minute equaliser prevented Manchester United moving into second place

3 min: A rare old atmosphere at Selhurst Park. Both sets of fans are giving it plenty.

1 min: Before the match, Ten Hag was insistent that United won’t be pumping cross after cross towards the 6ft 6in Weghorst, but within 50 seconds Wan-Bissaka is looking for him with a looper from the right. Palace clear their lines without too much fuss.

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Football Daily | The message that Conte is really trying to get across at Spurs

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Unless Fulham, Brighton or Brentford get a wriggle on, this season’s Premier League top four is beginning to look like a done deal already. A gap has emerged, and we’d like to wish everyone else the best of luck in closing it. Who could bridge that gap? Not Chelsea, who have taken themselves off the gameboard to wait for Potterball to percolate, which it should do by 2029. Not Liverpool, once so entertaining but now such a grind to watch that the BBC has to punch up their tedious shenanigans with an uplifting bongo soundtrack. And not Southampton, who have almost certainly left it too late under self-appointed messiah Nathan Jones with their one-in-a-row sequence of result.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To subscribe to the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

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