Slight difference of opinion
‘As Everton’s shell-shocked players trudged off at the end of another crushing derby defeat some of the home fans offered a ripple of polite applause. They felt as though they should show their appreciation for the effort the Blues had put into a blood and thunder game, but etched across every one of their faces was a look of despair’ – Phil Kirkbride, Liverpool Echo.
‘Yes, modern football is goodish, a vast improvement technically and creatively on eras past. Yet the problem __with the skillful yet sanitised world of the Premier League, is the lack of blood and thunder, even when things get gritty and dour. Just look at Everton’s performance in this contest, the one true derby in the English game that means something spectacular, that has passion, history and genuine local pride’ – David Maddock, Daily Mirror.
Either lots of blood and thunder or not enough blood and thunder in the Merseyside derby. But definitely not the right amount of blood and thunder.
Harder, better, faster, stronger
David Maddock’s Daily Mirror piece really is very odd indeed. His general point is that Everton were not snarling enough. ‘But what of Ross Barkley’s challenge?’ you all (don’t) shout in unison.
‘Yet if they had teeth, then there are simply not the conditions any more to unleash Goodison’s fabled dogs of war…or anything akin to the those shuddering, watch through your fingers epic battles of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
‘Yes, there was one naughty challenge from Ross Barkley on Jordan Henderson, but come on. Graeme Souness would have laughed in his face. And Peter Reid would have shown him how to do it properly.
‘And that is the problem. No matter how much is at stake, the nature of the modern game doesn’t allow for bone shuddering, or fist flashing, let alone brawling and bawling.’
So the two problems __with Barkley’s dreadful challenge were 1) that it wasn’t dirty enough, and 2) that there weren’t more of them? Ballsy. Perhaps he should have used both feet, or stamped on Henderson too?
And it’s the fault of the modern game (enter hand-wringers, stage right) that tackles like Barkley’s aren’t allowed any more?
It’s *an* opinion…
Excuse me miss
As a slight alteration to the ‘five things we learned’ staple, MailOnline bring their readers ‘five things you missed’. Change is progress.
‘Liverpool took away all three points in the dying moments on Monday night as Jurgen Klopp’s side won 1-0 at Goodison Park. As always, the television cameras covered every blade of grass but Sportsmail is on hand to cover the things you might have missed. This time there are some absolute crackers that we managed to capture.’
Big talk, so let’s see how many of these things Mediawatch missed while watching on television:
1) Liverpool fans taunted Everton with a banner.
Yeah, we saw that over and over again.
2) The first half was bad.
Erm, you do know how television works, guys?
3) Gareth Barry played.
See point 2)
4) Ross Barkley’s shirt didn’t last long.
Ripped, did it? They only showed it loads of times on TV, so missed that.
5) Boxer Tony Bellew was there
Okay, you got us. Mediawatch didn’t know that Everton fan Tony Bellew was there. We’ll never only watch the match on TV again.
Title tilt
Mediawatch largely agrees that Arsenal are threatening to stuff up their season as only they can, but can’t help feel that The Sun’s Neil Ashton is kicking them a little too hard in his match report from Everton vs Liverpool:
‘Chelsea, with 11 successive wins in the Premier League, are in charge of this title race. Klopp knows that. It is down to Liverpool, City, United and Tottenham to make it interesting. Arsenal, bless them, don’t seem that bothered.’
So that’s Tottenham and Manchester United in a title race but Arsenal not, despite Tottenham and United being one and four points behind Arsenal respectively. Okay…
Get well soon
On Sunday, Manchester City’s players walked out in shirts emblazoned with Ilkay Gundogan’s name, following the midfielder’s serious knee injury. It’s quite a commonplace occurrence abroad (here’s Real Madrid doing it in the Clasico for Jese Rodriguez), but not seen much in England. Arsenal did do it for Tomas Rosicky’s last game last season. Still, everyone has forgotten about those times now, almost as if they were nice gestures with no lasting legacy.
Now, there are four possible reactions to seeing City’s Gundogan gesture:
1) Consider it a pleasant show of support for a teammate whose career is again in danger after another serious injury. City’s togetherness was certainly demonstrated in the second half, and on Tuesday morning it was confirmed that the tribute was the players’ idea, with Pep Guardiola giving his blessing.
2) Be surprised by the gesture, but again surmise that it is a pleasant show of support for a teammate whose career is again in danger after another serious injury. In any case, ‘being nice to friend’ is hardly the crime of the century.
3) Be surprised by the gesture and consider it a bit mawkish, but promptly forget all about it when the actual football starts.
4) Be surprised, and consider it not only worthy of an entire national newspaper column but strong evidence that football is broken.
The Sun’s Dave Kidd is very much your man for the fourth option. His column in Tuesday’s copy of the paper contains each of the following lines:
‘Footbawl’s going soft.’
Because of crying, you see. Which there wasn’t any of at the Etihad but, well, we dunno…
‘The brainstorm which caused every City player to walk out…’
‘The moment when football’s deep-rooted empty-gesture culture finally ‘jumped the shark’.’
‘Heaped merciless ridicule on this nonsense…’
‘This was no cause for black armbands or bouquets on central reservations…’
No, and neither of those things happened, Dave.
‘City ought to be grateful that they won with the degree of manliness apparently needed to stage a comeback.’
Yeah, men. Stop showing emotion.
‘Diana-grade mourning for a bloke with dodgy biscuits.’
‘Diana-grade’. Where’s Elton when you need him?
‘It might have finished off old Pep as he struggles to adapt to life in the Premier League’s anger factory’
Yes, it could have caused Guardiola to be sacked.
‘Football is a contact sport, in which footballers will always get injured’
Does that mean you can’t express sympathy?
The German wasn’t injured by a two-footed tackle.
Does that, too?
‘If the poor lambs still get hurt, it wants to stand as one and grieve in unison – with even the over-sized prosthetic heads of the cartoon mascots bowed in sombre silence’
Again, that didn’t happen.
It’s definitely Manchester City’s players that jumped the shark, though. Definitely.
Popping mad
Writes Charlie Sale in the Daily Mail:
‘The obvious solution to the ridiculous FIFA fine of £35,000 for the FA Poppy remembrance around the England v Scotland World Cup qualifier is for the money to go to the British Legion. But FIFA haven’t the wit for that to happen. A spokesman said: ‘Funds resulting from the said fines are used for FIFA’s social responsibility projects as well as football development activities in general.’
You can consider FIFA’s fine to the Football Association as ridiculous, although the FA can hardly be surprised after deliberately breaking the rules and making it clear beforehand that they were intending to do so.
But is FIFA giving the proceeds from that fine for displaying a political symbol to the one organisation that sells said political symbol really the ‘obvious solution’? No, no it isn’t. Whatever your stance on the debate.
Tactics Tim #1
Slightly late to this, but here’s Tim Sherwood on Aston Villa being awarded a penalty against QPR on Sunday afternoon:
“It’s definitely not a penalty but it is a foul and I can see it being given, I’d say it could be a penalty.”
And you were worried about Bob Bradley struggling to get his message across?
Tactics Tim #2
Slightly late to this, but here’s Tim Sherwood on Jonathan Kodjia having said penalty saved against QPR on Sunday afternoon:
“He’s gotta go the other side there”
That’s quite easy to say after the goalkeeper has gone the right way, Tim.
Even Sherwood might be a decent hindsight manager. Who knew?
Don’t care much about geography
Writes Stan Collymore in the Daily Mirror on Bob Bradley:
‘Who would Swansea fans be calmer with if they were to go down: Bob Bradley or Garry Monk? And I don’t say that because I care that Bradley calls penalties PKs, or about any of his other Americanisms, but because I care about British managers.’
See Bob, it’s not about how you talk, just where you come from. Glad that’s cleared up.
Oh, and this might be of interest to you, Stan.
I watched 4+ hours of Bob Bradley pressers to see how often he uses British vs US lingo. You might be surprised. https://t.co/PeGo3uDZqF pic.twitter.com/IyLO366cmW
— Joshua Robinson (@JoshRobinson23) December 19, 2016
He described it as a ‘PK’ once, and a penalty five times. Perhaps his ‘Americanisms’ aren’t even worthy of mentioning?
Recommended reading of the day
In Bed with Maradona’s complete 100 list.
Nick Miller on David Silva.
Chris Nee on football and mass media.