CITY SLIPPERS
The Fiver doesn’t really do empathy. A largely inadequate teatime email, devoted exclusively to the satisfaction of our grubby urges, we usually couldn’t care less about anyone or anything else. You may have discerned as much from our increasingly half-ar$ed, will-this-do, is-it-do-1-o’clock-yet output. So imagine our surprise when we found ourselves feeling both empathy and sympathy for Manchester City over the weekend!
On Friday evening, mercifully after The Fiver had done one for the weekend, it was announced that City had been banned from European competition for two years for assuming the rules of Financial Fair Play only applied to nouveau pauvre clubs. The subsequent reaction has brought back chilling memories of The Fiver’s school days: being pinned down on the football field at lunchtime, hearing the clarion call of “BUNDLE!”, and solemnly closing our eyes as the collective weight of an entire year descended on our pre-pubescent bones. City have had to endure a similar pile-on: jokes about Storm Dennis forcing the next two years of European games to be postponed; pious debate about whether they should be stripped of all their recent titles; and, most humiliatingly of all, ostensibly sympathetic comments from José Mourinho.
But there is some good news for City. Even if their ban is upheld, they might not lose Pep Guardiola after all. It was widely assumed that he would do one at his earliest convenience, citing a wish to manage another plucky minnow in a new country, but that might not be the case. According to Fiver Sources, also known in some cultures as the BBC Sport Website Citing Unnamed Friends of Pep, he intends to stay with City next season. “I have always loved a little teatime email called The Fiver,” said Guardiola at an impromptu press conference. “From The Fiver I learned many things. How to repeat the same jokes again and again, whether they are funny or not. That, at any given moment in time, there will always be 1,057 pedants in the football-watching world. And most of all, that you must show loyalty, no matter what – even when the world is against you, when the magic has gone, when you have been phoning it in for 10 years, 15 if you’re completely honest with yourself, when the ship is about to hit an iceberg the size of the Etihad Stadium. You must show loyalty and carry on.”
OK, the first time Pep will actually speak in public is on Wednesday, when Manchester City play against West Ham. Premier League clubs are not obliged to put on a second pre-match press conference for a rearranged game, an insult to dogged hacks who were hoping to ask Pep the same question in 47 subtly different ways before accepting defeat and adjourning to the buffet to tell the nearest person that pressers ain’t what they used to be. If the ban is eventually upheld, City will be left to look back to the golden age of 2019, when their only problem was VAR ruining their hopes and dreams at every turn. The Fiver has no idea whether they are guilty or not. But we are at peace, because we know the correct verdict will eventually be declared by the team of legal experts at leading law firm Social Media Disgrace Twitter Inc.
More importantly, this ongoing story will keep us in Fivers for another few months. We may have spent our childhood at the bottom of a bundle, but who had the last laugh, eh? Eh? Ah.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Harry was a fantastic goalkeeper, but more importantly he was an incredible human being. I was proud to call him a teammate. For all the matter-of-fact things Harry said about that night in Munich, for me he will always be remembered as a heroic figure” – Sir Bobby Charlton leads tributes to Harry Gregg, the Manchester United and Northern Ireland great, who has died aged 87. Brian Glanville on the air crash hero in this obituary.
FIVER LETTERS
“As a long-time admirer of your ability to Stop Football, I must congratulate your exceptional ongoing efforts in managing to sidestep any coverage of AFC Wimbledon’s fight to return home to Plough Lane. Lest your other reader forgets: club rising from the ashes via open trials on Wimbledon common, to self-funding a new stadium via fan bonds all within 15 years” – Joe Birch [here you go – Fiver Ed].
“Re: the travails of watching pre-historic TV football coverage in the UK where goals and vital passages of play would be missed (Fiver letters passim). The Republic O’Ireland’s early highlights packages included one particularly head-spinning sequence of a green-shirted player taking possession of his own throw-in” – Justin Kavanagh.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Justin Kavanagh.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
The president and prime minister of Portugal have joined the widespread outcry after Porto’s Moussa Marega walked off against Vitória after apparently hearing racist abuse. “No human being should be subjected to this humiliation,” wrote PM António Costa. “We cannot just stand by.”
The BBC has said it will no longer use pundit Craig Ramage after the former midfielder criticised Derby County’s “young black lads”, saying they needed “bringing down a peg or two”.
Spanish football suits have – preposterously – given Barcelona the green light to make an emergency signing due to Ousmane Dembélé’s hamstring-twang, despite them loaning out fellow forward Carles Pérez on deadline day and [Fiver checks notes] them having a B team.
Former Spain keeper Iker Casillas is to run against current incumbent Luis Rubiales for the Spanish Football Federation presidency.
Aston Villa boss Dean Smith is still in a VAR-spiked funk after his team lost 3-2 to Spurs, with Stockley Park weighing in with a penalty for the visitors. “42,000 people in the stadium did not have a problem with [the referee’s] decision,” he sniffed.
And having returned for a fourth spell in charge at Stevenage on 15 December, Graham Westley has left the club for a fourth time after one win in 13. Alex Revell has taken over at League Two’s bottom club.
STILL WANT MORE?
“Make no mistake, the drily legalistic statement Uefa released on Friday evening announcing Manchester City’s two-year ban from [Big Cup] for breaches of FFP legislation could destroy the confederation and change utterly how football is run” – Jonathan Wilson will see you now.
It’s your weekly talking points, a maverick seven of them.
“Liverpool have those perros de presa [hunting dogs] in the middle who run, press. They do things that aren’t normal and it looks disordered but it’s ordered, mechanised.” Sid Lowe sits down with Atlético’s Saúl Níguez.
Andy Brassell on Jürgen Klinsmann, Hertha Berlin and why the future could be brighter under ‘Negative Nouri’.
Simon Burnton on Odion Ighalo, and his journey from Lagos (via Lyn under Henning Berg) to Watford, China and Manchester United.
It’s a proper title race in Serie A. Nicky Bandini on Lazio rising to second and why they could win their first Scudetto since the days of Sven.
PSG have a European dream and this could be the year they realise it. Again.
Has MLS become too big for its own good?
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
