PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS?
For those who don’t believe in the sporting concept of mental scarring, 2022-23 has been a smugness-inducing season. Arsenal, who missed out on Big Cup qualification last year after a shattering collapse, were supposed to start this season with a hangover. Instead they Tiggered their way to the top of the Premier League, staying there for almost the entire season, and ultimately what has happened in the last three weeks has got nothing to do with the narrative we’re peddling! An even more impressive – and sustained – display of bouncebackability, mind, has occurred in League One. A year ago this weekend, a wobbling Plymouth Argyle played their last league game at home to MK Dons, knowing a win would almost certainly ensure a playoff place. They lost 5-0.
While seventh was still higher than Plymouth were expected to finish, it was the kind of setback that could ruin a team, especially as their young manager Steven Schumacher was less than six months into his first senior job. Instead, Argyle have seen last season’s overachievement and raised it. With two games of a pretty remarkable season to go, they (95), Ipswich (94) and Sheffield Wednesday (90) have combined for 279 points, but only two of them can go up automatically to the Championship. In the interests of balance and journalistic integrity, we must acknowledge that the sweet smell of success cannot yet be found everywhere in Plymouth. While Football Daily was reading about the team on the local newspaper website, a domineering breaking-news alert informed us that – and we’re not making this up – “Plymouth Morrisons stinks of ‘raw sewage’ and ‘urine’.”
It’s still possible for both Argyle and Ipswich to reach 100 points, which we think would be an EFL first, and maybe even a Football League first. But all that really matters is promotion, and that can be secured with one more victory. They each have two bites at the cherry – fruits are in aisle 12, you might want to hold your nose though – starting with home games against Burton and Exeter, respectively, on Saturday. Both are lower-mid-table sides with the square root of eff all to play for, while Ipswich’s recent form (P13 W12 D1 L0 F37 A2) makes Manchester City look Spursy by comparison, and it will be a shock if they don’t end their three-year stay in League One at their earliest convenience.
Plymouth’s form isn’t bad either – nine wins in the last 11 league games, and don’t mention the 4-0 LDV Vans final defeat to Bolton in that time. But last season’s denouement means there will be plenty of nerves at Home Park, and a nagging fear that they might once again put the arghhhhhhhhhhh in Argyle. On the plus side, if it does go horribly wrong for the Pilgrims, just watch them come flying out of the traps next season.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Look at the previous results here. I don’t think you understand how challenging it is playing in this stadium with an unbeaten record in the last four years. You have to stay in football matches. I can’t criticise our performance. We’re going out in the competition because of the home leg. Today, I think the better team lost” – Chelsea manager Emma Hayes reflects on their 1-1 draw in Barcelona as they came up just short, 2-1 on aggregate, in the semi-finals of Women’s Big Cup. Next up: the Arsenal v Wolfsburg (first leg 2-2) return game on Monday.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Dear Spurs player committee, please find attached the receipts for my meals, hotel and train tickets for last night’s match. I know it was a home game but I had to travel from Nottingham, where I live. Given the result, maybe I’ll settle on 50% reimbursement of the expenses. For the future, would you mind depositing an advance on my bank account so as to avoid delays in the payment please? Many thanks” – Marcio Aquino.
I found fascinating the AI chatbox output resulting from Robin Hazlehurst’s asking said intelligence ‘… to write a team talk to inspire a football team that is losing at half-time’ (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). Most interesting is that the resulting, admittedly inspiring, pep talk gave no clue as to whether the original instructions were for soccerball football or to gridiron football. It really didn’t seem to matter, in the end. If AI is the go-to intelligence for the 21st century manager, we must admit that Ted Lasso is ahead of his time” – Mike Fichtner.
Can Robin ask his AI manager for an explanation why his team were so rubbish in the first half?” – Brian James.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Marcio Aquino.
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