YOU KNOWS WE LOVES HIM
Come on then, what’s José Mourinho up to? What’s his angle? He has spent most of his career buying ready-made players, and The Fiver fully expected him to celebrate his first transfer window at Spurs by signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Samuel Eto’o and Ricardo Carvalho’s dad. Instead, he’s brought in three players whose combined age is only just older than Ibrahimovic. Gedson Fernandes, 21, joined on loan from Benfica with a view to a permanent move; goalscoring winger Steven Bergwijn, 22, is on the way from PSV; and Welsh comedy hip-hop group Goldie Lookin’ Chain, 23, have made their loan from Betis permanent. Eh? What do you mean GLC stands for Giovani Lo Celso?
Doesn’t matter. Point is that Mourinho has grudgingly conceded that, at the age of 41, Didier Drogba’s trophy-lifting days are over. Either that or – and this is The Fiver’s preferred theory – he knows he’ll be back in the studio with Graeme and Roy before the end of the season and is stealthily plotting to take credit for his successor’s success by buying so many young players that at least one of them plays a significant part in Spurs’ future. Next up: a £20m bid for Max Ibrahimovic.
“It’s not an obligation, it’s an option,” cheered Mourinho of Lo Celso’s permanent signing, before humbly awarding himself only 97% of the credit for the Argentinian’s recent form. “I think the boy is earning the decision. He’s making an easy decision for the club to execute the option. [He has shown an] incredible evolution since I arrived … he earned it.” In a different way, mainly by doing eff all since his noggin’ went south sometime last season, Christian Eriksen has earned his move to Internazionale. It was finally completed on Tuesday, with Eriksen joining Antonio Conte’s band of Premier League geriatricos. When the dust settles, however, Eriksen deserves to be remembered as the creative hub of the best Spurs team in decades.
Another January signing, Mbwana Samatta, is expected to make his Aston Villa debut in their Milk Cup semi-final second leg against Leicester later. Villa, who drew the away leg 1-1, are aiming to reach their first Worthington Cup final since 2010, when they had no answer to a match-winning performance from referee Phil Dowd. Leicester last won it in 2000, when Matt Elliott’s two goals took care of Tranmere. Elliott is 51 now, which in previous years might have made him a prime target for Mourinho. Not anymore. This is a new phase. The Special One is dead; the Happy One can no longer be bothered to pretend he doesn’t hate almost everything about the modern world; but he still has enough joie de vivre to teach the life-changing magic of the low block to a group of willing students. Long live the Mouharishi!
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Is [Diego] Simeone the best manager in the world now? For me, personally, yes. When people actually play for him they realise how good he is. Obviously you’ve got some good managers: [Jürgen] Klopp, [Pep] Guardiola, Sean Dyche. You’ve got quality managers out there but he’s certainly up there” – Kieran Trippier elevates Burnley’s boss into the rarified air of modern greats.
FIVER LETTERS
“Regarding Anne Francke (yesterday’s Quote of the Day), does The Fiver know how long it takes VAR chat to turn into talk of bedroom conquests? Just that a couple of lads who sit near me at work have been talking about VAR for the last two years and I’d like to know when they will change the subject” – Gareth McCann.
“Re: yesterday’s last line about the ubiquity of Right Here, Right Now as pre-match hype music. I’ve been at many different sporting venues over the years where the soundtrack has been restricted to a low-budget dad rock compilation or worse, Queen’s greatest hits. Be careful what you wish for” – Ed Taylor.
“Rochdale have been coming on to Stone Roses’ This is the One for a long time now – although I suspect this is because the PA system can’t handle new-fangled tunes like Fatboy Slim” – Nick Livesey.
“Further to the ongoing red-hot squirrel pronunciation chat (Fiver letters passim), it is not just those abroad that have issues. Often in my beloved Dublin, it is a word that gets pronounced with an extraneous ‘d’, sounding like ‘squirdel’ or even ‘squiddle’” – Derek McGee.
“Re: Robi Polgar (yesterday’s letters). Consider this your first purchase. I felt it necessary to reward such bravery for writing a football-themed murder mystery and therefore putting yourself up against that literary (and perhaps literally) behemoth of Bernard Cribbins” – Nick Dent.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day is … Gareth McCann, who wins a copy of the Blizzard’s: The Best of the First Five Years, signed by editor and Fiver colleague Jonathan Wilson. And if you like what you see, you can buy or subscribe to it here. We’ve more to give away all week.
RECOMMENDED LOOKING
David Squires on … football’s fixtures wars. And you can buy it here.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Get your ears around the latest Football Weekly. Tickets are also on sale for the next live show in London.
FA Cup review, the Moyes Effect and a big result in Scotland
RECOMMENDED BUYING
Buy a classic sport photograph. This week, it’s a cracking Tom Jenkins snap of magical Messi after the 2009 Big Cup final.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Espanyol will ban 12 supporters for racially abusing Athletic Bilbao’s Iñaki Williams after an analysis of video footage led to their identification.
No amount of verbal pelters will make Jürgen Klopp field a team of grown-ups for Liverpool’s FA Cup replay with Shrewsbury. “I have to make decisions that aren’t popular,” he blathered. “No one wants to take money away from smaller clubs but replays are not solutions.”
Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, is still digging.
West Ham’s accounts describe Premier League survival as a financial “necessity”. No pressure then, Moyesy!
Ole Gunnar Solskjær reckons Manchester United have to be “perfect” to overturn a 3-1 deficit against Manchester City in the Rumbelows Cup semi-final. “We have got to go into the memory bank and think about PSG, and the game in December gives us hope [too],” cheered Solskjær, quickly emptying said bank.
The FA Cup fifth-round tombola has given crass betting gimmick Wayne Rooney the chance to face Manchester United if Derby can get past Northampton.
And after six months of doing absolutely nothing, Hatem Ben Arfa has got bored and signed up for six months of fun and games at Real Ronaldo-owned Valladolid.
STILL WANT MORE?
From a Danish dinner to Inter move: how Spurs lost control in the Eriksen saga. By David Hytner.
The racist abuse directed at Iñaki Williams suggests racism still isn’t being treated seriously enough in Spanish football, reports Sid Lowe.
Gary Lineker talks Brexit, VAR, the boys of 1990 and much more as he gets his chat on with Donald McRae.
Talking of Brexit, or its opposite, Scott Murray tells a cracking tale of Wembley’s Common Market match, to mark the UK’s EEC entry in 1973. More fun than anything Mark Francois has up his sleeve, even if it’s a low bar.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!
