Good morning. Here is your Monday briefing. Let’s start with the news.
After the vivid difference of opinions on the back pages of the Sunday papers (He’s out! He’s in! He might be out or in!), we have unanimity on the back pages of the dailies. Jose Mourinho is IN. For now. The word on the street is that he has at least the rest of this chunk of domestic football to turn the ship around before the axe swings in the next international break. Here’s what Mirror Football says.
Aston Villa are set to announce that Remi Garde is their new manager. He’ll be at White Hart Lane tonight to watch his new side play Tottenham Hotspur. We’ve got a fiver that says he’ll kick out the toilet window at half time and make a break for it.
Vincent Kompany has given UEFA the public kicking they deserve over their infantile threat to fine Manchester City because their fans booed their stupid Champions League anthem. “It’s a joke,” he raged.
ON YOUR TELLY THIS WEEK
As we’ve already mentioned, it’s Tottenham against set-to-be-managed-by-Remi-Garde Villa tonight on Sky Sports 1 at 2000, but is this more of a Spurs story? After all, they’re unbeaten in the league since their opening day defeat to Manchester United and they could get within five points of leaders Manchester City with a win here. If you’re not fussed about that, how about a Serie A double bill on BT Sport Europe? Run home from work and you can watch Chievo against Sampdoria at 1800 and then Palermo against Empoli at 2000. And it’s the quarter-final stage of the U17 World Cup too. Catch Ecuador vs Mexico and Belgium vs Costa Rica on Eurosport from 2000.
It’s matchday four in the Champions League this week and, as always, you can watch all the games across BT Sport or take in the excellent live goals show with James Richardson and co. It’s sort of like Soccer Saturday, but you can actually watch the football and no-one shouts, “BEANS ON TOAST, JEFF!” at inopportune moments. On Tuesday night, Manchester United host CSKA Moscow, Manchester City go to Sevilla, but we’ll probably watch Real Madrid vs PSG on the basis that it can’t be any worse than their last meeting.
The fun continues on Wednesday as Arsenal go to Bayern Munich, who failed to score on Friday night which, by their standards, indicates a crisis and warrants a cracked badge across the back pages. Jose Mourinho will be fighting for his job at Stamford Bridge, dropping first teamers at random in the hope that he excludes the one who would rather lose for him than win. If you’re not keen, you may recall that we told you to watch Leverkusen vs Roma last time around. Maybe that’s worth a look. It’s all on BT Sport.
You can take in a Europa League double bill on Thursday night, if it tickles your fancy. Jurgen Klopp’s suddenly energised Liverpool go to Russia to meet Rubin Kazan at 1800 and then it’s Spurs vs Anderlecht at 2005. Catch them both on BT Sport Europe or take in the U17 World Cup semi-finals on Eurosport from 2000.
Got children? Want to earn brownie points? Tell the other half to go out to play with their friends on Friday, stick the kids to bed and watch Nottingham Forest vs Derby on Sky Sports 1 at 1930. Known as the ‘friendly derby’ this game is renowned around the world for the good natured banter between opposing supporters who sit unsegregated and often hand-in-hand throughout the stadium. Classy. Nice touch. Not interested? What’s wrong with you? You’d prefer Angers vs Rennes on BT Sport 2 at 1930? Hannover vs Hertha Berlin on BT Sport Europe at the same time? Las Palmas against Real Sociedad on Sky Sports 2? You disgust me.
Full TV listings can be found over here on the Live Football on TV page.
BEST FEATURES OF THE MORNING
Are Manchester United the most boring team ever? Are they more boring than ironing? Are they, in fact, more boring than Avram Grant performing a live reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses? Alistair Tweedale answers only one of those questions here.
It’s not you, Martin Samuel tells Jose Mourinho. It’s them. What if last season was a blip and Chelsea are actually crap?
And as Remi Garde prepares to take over at Aston Villa, Stan Collymore says that the club are making yet another mistake. They should have hired David Moyes.
GO TO A GAME
The much mourned football magazine ‘90 Minutes‘ once described Coventry City as ‘the single brown sock in your drawer, the bottle of Lea & Perrins Worcester Sauce in your cupboard,’ such was their stubborn refusal to be removed from the top flight. And then, in 2001, their 34 year stopover in the top flight came to an abrupt end. It has been a throughly miserable exile, but for the first time in ages, things are on the up. Under Tony Mowbray, Coventry are riding high in fourth and are unbeaten at home. So why not go see them play Barnsley on Tuesday? It’s only £18 a ticket if you book online, which is £7 cheaper than Bradford’s game against Blackpool the same night. You can book a car park space on their website if you drive, or get the train to Coventry and the bus from the station.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
The first casualty in the war between analytics and proper football men was not innocence, it was psychology. It’s a curious thing that the same people who fight so hard for the recognition of statistical analysis can be so dismissive about psychology, about issues like confidence and momentum. Bill Beswick’s One Goal: The Mindset of Winning Soccer Teams is a sturdy riposte and a useful reminder that if you haven’t got it right between your ears, you’ll find it harder to get it right between the white lines. It’s not a particularly vibrant read, being packed with key word filled, bullet point lists, but there are some nice anecdotes here. Apparently the All Blacks, who we believe had quite the weekend, clean their own locker room after matches. There’s also the interesting suggestion that Roy Hodgson, knowing that England were going to get tonked in Brazil in 2014, deliberately picked a young side as part of a brave, far-sighted strategy. Visualisation is key, as is positive thinking, so if you coach at any level, this is well worth a read.
FROM OUR VAULT
In 1981, Ipswich Town nearly won the title. The actual league title. Ipswich Town. How could you not want to know more about that? Nick Ames told the story for us and it deserves another airing.
BEST NON-FOOTBALL THING
We searched high and low for something to keep us going as we waited for Football Manager 2016. We chanced upon something nearly as addictive. Pixel Piracy is a stupid, simple, infuriating and all-consuming bastard of a game. You’re a pirate. You have a little boat. You sail off, plunder, and then return to spend the money on a couple of members of crew so that you can plunder bigger prizes. But now you need a bigger boat. So you plunder more, get more money and make your boat bigger. But now your pirates have defecated all over your ship and no-one will clean it up. So you spend more money teaching one of them to clean. But now you need to feed them, and so on and so forth. As with all of these things, the real joy comes in quickly editing the names of the pirates. On my game, I had a ship full of football writers. Miguel Delaney had a flintlock pistol. Jonathan Wilson had a cutlass. They were evil, but then Wilson died of scurvy and I was sad. Then I realised I’d be playing for four hours and it was nearly 2am. And I’m 37.
If you’d like to recommend something for next Monday’s briefing, get in touch by emailing [email protected]
