OLIVER!
Season previews are a funny old game. Think back to the summer, all that hope, those words now coming back to haunt their writers. And the managers, too. Back in August, Oliver Glasner was the adept, urbane, Big Vase-winning, Österreichisch meister of in-game management. He had locked down Crystal Palace’s defence and mounted a canvas for Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise’s artistry. Adam Wharton, meanwhile, was the second coming of Paul Scholes, equally strawberry blonde but better at tackling. The summer’s Euros began with nationwide calls for Gareth Southgate to push the Wharton button. Jean-Philippe Mateta was a goal machine. He showed that off at Big Sports Day, too. What could possibly go wrong?
The answer: if not yet everything, then rather a lot. Olise was flogged to Bayern Munich, leaving Eze to fend for himself. Wharton’s groin-twang has slowed his progress, and he found no place in Lee Carsley’s drone-jazz experimentalism with the England team. He and Mateta, also struggling for fitness, were good only for the bench at Nottingham Forest, where Palace lost listlessly on Monday, although Eddie Nketiah, who replaced Mateta and failed yet again to score his first Palace league goal, may recall it in nightmares. Glasner, usually an animated presence on the sideline, spent much of the evening chewing the ear of Michael Angerschmid, his trusted mate from SV Ried days in the Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga.
Palace are winless and currently hapless, Glasner’s novelty value long lost, the Holmesdale Ultras restless. Still though, safety in numbers. Perhaps the most striking facet in a rather predictable season so far is the continuing inability of four teams to put wins on the board. Starting from the bottom, there’s Gary O’Neil’s Wolves, still seething with injustice after VAR and Bernardo Silva denied them against Manchester City. Perhaps the worst thing to be said of Wolves is that they’re playing well and still losing. O’Neil’s post-match comment that “if I had to upset someone in the street and there’s a big and little guy in the street, I’m upsetting the little guy” is currently under FA investigation. Mind you, nobody confronts 5ft 8in Gal when he wears the Travis Bickle stare reserved for video-assisted officialdom.
Perhaps even angrier is Russell Martin, his Southampton team incapable of protecting a lead. The sight of hangdog Ol’ Russ manning up in the face of his team’s repeated failures in defence has become one of the season’s memes. Ipswich’s Kieran McKenna, a similar evangelist for football played the “right” way, has become rather too accustomed to leaning forward and sinking into his club-issue puffa to deliver an explanation of why his team – well-funded following promotion – cannot repeat their Championship magic. Eventually, probably, the winless wonders will whittle down … though will their managers be whittled down first?
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Out loud I said: ‘Mister! Like, I just did one wrong pass, you know?’ And his reaction was incredible. ‘Oh, OK, sorry, sorry, Mr Zinchenko. Sorry,’ said Pep. ‘OK, guys, thank you, everyone inside.’ And he went in, walked to the changing room. Training over, all because I talked back. I knew I was in trouble” – Oleksandr Zinchenko’s new book reveals how he got benched over questioning Passive Aggression’s Pep Guardiola during training at Manchester City. Read his full interview with Donald McRae here.
While I completely share your cynicism over Inter Miami’s ‘qualification’ for Fifa’s Bigger Club World Cup (yesterday’s Football Daily), I wonder if before you wrote your ‘31 of the best teams in the world and …’ line, you’d noticed that RB Salzburg (one appearance in Big Cup’s last 16 in the last five years) had somehow qualified as well” – Gordon MacLeod.
Yesterday’s Football Daily reported that the MLS Supporters’ Shield is given out to the ‘best team in the regular season’. Alas, no. It is given to the team that accumulates the most points in the regular season. Surely these are the same? Alas, no. A wildly unbalanced schedule in which, for example, Inter Miami play weak teams like Chicago and New England twice while playing zero times against 10 other teams in the league makes it rather tough to say who the best team is. Credit to Inter Miami, they are very good. But the MLS schedule is silly, almost as silly as Gianni Infantino” – Patrick Connolly.
I can’t be the only wearisome old git who read the 25-year-old link from Noble Francis (yesterday’s Football Daily letters) and pined for better days. Yes, we always had irksome gum-flapping, but all of it then – the bleeding David Beckham thing, Alan Shearer trying to recall the steps to ‘Saturday Night’ on Neil Lennon’s head – lack the underlying air of constant crass, commercially-driven connivance we get today. Perhaps the only canary in that coalmine was the mention of Ronaldo being persuaded to play a game after having a fit. Mind you, that was in a Fifa competition, so I’m sure it was all above board” – Jon Millard (and no other wearisome old gits).
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Gordon MacLeod, who lands a Football Weekly scarf. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
