‘FIELD OF NIGHTMARES
Another week of embarrassment and desgracia for Manchester United will end at Anfield, an engagement their fans are relishing in the fashion they might anticipate root-canal surgery without anaesthetic. Liverpool giving Erik ten Hag’s men an almighty hockeying is one of the more likely outcomes. Last season, the score was 7-0. It might have been many more, as a result to pr1ck the bubble of United being BACK. The week before, Ten Hag had been recreating the Okocha/Allardyce shuffle with Antony and Lisandro Martínez while lifting the Milk Cup. What followed on Merseyside was less slow puncture than gouging with a rusty spanner.
The last United manager to win at Anfield was Louis van Gaal, who could still teach Ten Hag a thing or two, judging by Ajax’s revival since the Dutch master was taken on as consultant; Brian “Mr” Brobbey is banging in the goals. Van Gaal won twice there but that was a different Liverpool, of the dog days of Brendan Rodgers and the early days of Jürgen Klopp. Nowadays, Klopp is constructing Liverpool 2.0 and it’s all going rather well. His team enter the weekend top of the league, beneficiaries of Aston Villa beating both Manchester City and Arsenal. Klopp isn’t exactly greeting his team’s progress with festive cheer. Instead, he’s been snarling at all-comers, those throaty guffaws at his own jokes in short supply as he takes down hacks for asking him about kick-off times, and celebrates dramatic winners with Pep Lijnders in the style of victorious barbarians, chest-bumping each other and issuing guttural roars into each other’s faces with full alpha-male agitation.
The odd thing about this season is that it’s probably Pep Guardiola who is enjoying himself the most, keeping the “wow, guys” count as high as ever. Crystal Palace and Roy Hodgson, who wrote the literary novel on post-match grumps with last week’s effort, are Guardiola’s guests this week. Mikel Arteta ought to have a smile on his face, an independent adjudication panel agreeing he didn’t know the meaning of a certain word – “I believe this is nothing more than clever representation by a KC than a just outcome,” sighed Ref Support UK chief suit Martin Cassidy. An FA charge skipped, the one-man crusade for better VAR and Arsenal results continues.
Having slipped from top last weekend, the Gunners meet Brighton and Roberto De Zerbi, another regular interlocutor with Howard Webb, fresh off a famous night in Big Vase. There’s a decent likelihood of some touchline verbals. All good, clean fun. But what of the ultimate touchline performer, Unai Emery, whose technical area movements often resemble Roy Castle during a Guinness world-record tap dance attempt? Villa’s crazy train alights at Brentford for a session of hard-pressing, half-spaces and high lines. Keep smiling, everyone. It’s Christmas out there in the world.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It would be foolish to take away a tool that can remove clear errors from the game – almost 40 this season. Usually we have seen around 100 situations rectified through the use of VAR. Why would you want to take that away and leave those errors in the game?” – answers on a postcard to Howard Webb c/o Stockley Park.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
If there are ‘at least 36 Masters degree courses in football management on offer in the UK’ as Mick Beeby suggests (yesterday’s Football Daily letters), then perhaps Todd Boehly should hire all the students, on eight-year contracts so they can amortise something or other (accountancy isn’t my bag, or quite frankly even vaguely of interest), in order to help the club. Although, presumably, the manager would still come back to him asking for even more of them” – Noble Francis.
I really like the idea of posting questions for Masters candidates in football management. Let’s make the next one even simpler to dive into: ‘Handball. Explain …’” – Mike Wilner.
Thanks for reminding this Blackburn Rovers fan about our inglorious Big Cup campaign in finishing bottom of our group in 1995-96 (yesterday’s Football Daily). At least we went out fighting!” – John Myles.
Send any letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … John Myles, who gets a copy of Reign of the Lionesses, published by Pitch Publishing. Visit their brilliant football book store here.
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