Good morning. Here is your briefing. Let’s start with some news.
That odd rattling sound you heard last night was Swansea desperately rolling the dice again and hiring Francesco Guidolin to ‘work alongside’ interim manager Alan Curtis. The Italian is a highly experienced football manager, but it’s an increasingly confusing set-up at the Liberty Stadium now.
Arsene Wenger was entirely unamused by Stoke City’s supporters on Sunday, who sang mean songs about Aaron Ramsey and booed him throughout the game. Stoke fans insist that they’re not booing him because he broke his leg, they’re booing him because he refused to accept the subsequent apology from Ryan Shawcross. So essentially, this is a dispute about etiquette.
What next for Jose Mourinho? Danny Taylor suggests that it might be a long holiday and a chance to catch up on his correspondence. No-one wants him.
Football 365 spit on the floor when you talk about Five Things You Learned. Five? Five is for part-timers. They have SIXTEEN conclusions from Liverpool’s defeat to Manchester United. We have one. Never, ever go to Anfield without a wooly hat when it’s so cold that there are penguins on the roof of the club shop.
Paul Hayward has a thought about that game. Klopp is certainly the right man for Liverpool. But are Liverpool the right club for Klopp?
And finally, Andi Thomas has been watching Mike Dean in awe for SB Nation.
ON YOUR TELLY THIS WEEK (Assuming that you live in the UK)
You can find out how Swansea get on with their new sort-of-manager when they play Watford tonight on Sky Sports 1. It could be a difficult night. Watford are upsettingly well organised, they leave barely any space, they fight for every ball and they have two strikers in exceptional form. Swansea are…well…none of those things. You can watch Eibar vs Granada on Sky Sports 2 though, if that’s what floats your boat.
Tuesday is a cup replay day. Pick of the bunch is probably Napoli vs Internazionale on Sky Sports 2, but you may prefer Bristol City vs West Bromwich Albion on BT Sports 2. Perhaps, though this is the longest of long shots, you’ll go for Inverness Caledonian Thistle vs Stirling on Sky Sports 1. I did a story on Stirling once and stood in the dressing room while manager Jocky Scott bollocked his players. If you’re one of the 17 people to read Johnny Cook: The Impossible Job, you’ll see that it had a lasting effect on me.
Traditionally, there should be a classic switcheroo here as I ask if plucky Liverpool and their madcap manager can get a result against the odds when they play Exeter on Wednesday, but I’ve got more respect for you than that. You can watch the game on BT Sport 2. You might not want to though. You might want to watch Leicester vs Tottenham on BBC1. After all, they hardly ever play each other. Perhaps you’ve had enough of the FA Cup and you want to watch the Italian Cup. Well, in that case you can watch Lazio vs Juventus on Sky Sports 1. What’s that? You like Italian football, but you think domestic cup competitions are for losers? Sassuolo vs Torino awaits in Serie A on BT Sport Europe.
There is no football on Thursday. Nothing.
But there’s plenty of football on Friday. There’s Rennes vs Gazalec Ajaccio om BT Sport ESPN if you….NO, WAIT! COME BACK! There’s Sporting Heehon vs Real Sociedad on Sky Sports 3 for those…I CAN DO BETTER. There’s Hamburg vs Bayern Munich on BT Sports 2. Yeah, that got your attention. And there’s Aberdeen vs Dundee on BT Sport 1 as….oh, you’ve gone.
Full TV listings can be found over here on the Live Football on TV page.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
Right, so here it is: There was every intention of reading a football book this week. The Eibar one, in fact. It was in my bag. I’d finished Mort, I’d finished Jingo, I had Sourcery on my phone, but that’s for bookless emergencies and it doesn’t count. And then I made the mistake of wandering past the bookcase and noticing Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch. It was given to me several years ago by someone who said, “This is right up your street,” and I always feel under pressure when people say that and that’s why it ended up on the bookshelf. But then it came off the bookshelf and now I’m angry with myself for not reading it sooner. If Aaronovitch had called it ‘Wizard Detectives’, it would have been a different matter. Because that’s what it is. It’s London, but London with a shadowy supernatural underworld and one small department of the Metropolitan Police to deal with it all. So far, so been-done, but it’s all executed with such flair, pace and humour that you don’t mind that it’s an old idea. I read it, I finished, I instantly downloaded the sequel. I will read a football book in 2016, I promise.
FROM OUR VAULT
We had that Des Lynam on Vox in the Box last year. He was great. He spoke to us about the golden age of Match of the Day with Jimmy Hill and Terry Venables bickering on the sofa and he spoke warmly about Gary Lineker’s stewardship of the show. It was lovely stuff. Have a read of it here.
BEST NON-FOOTBALL THING
Watch Sir Alec Guinness talk about new science fiction film ‘Star Wars’ with Michael Parkinson in 1977. “The dialogue’s a bit ropey.”
If you’d like to recommend something for next Monday’s briefing, get in touch by emailing [email protected]
