Good morning. Here is your Monday briefing.
It’s round three of the Champions League group stages this week, but before all that gets started, there’s a chance to check in with everybody’s pre-season pick for eighth place, Stoke City. Mark Hughes’ refitted and rejuvenated side head to Swansea, who haven’t won a game since they beat Manchester United at the end of August. Xherdan Shaqiri should return for Stoke, who will miss Ryan Shawcross and Mame Biram Diouf. Andre Ayew is Swansea’s only slight concern, but he should have shaken off the knee injury that kept him out of Ghana’s squad last week. Whether or not he’s shaken off the rumours of an impending move to Liverpool are another matter entirely.
Arsenal host Bayern Munich in the pick of Tuesday’s Champions League fixtures and they have it all to do. The Bavarians have won every single game they’ve played since they lost the German Supercup on penalties at the start of August. So, good luck with that. Elsewhere, Chelsea can’t afford a slip up away at Dynamo Kiev, but they may feel that they’ve turned the corner after Saturday’s win over Aston Vil…oh. If you’re keen to go Premier League-free, then Bayer Leverkusen against Roma looks a bit saucy.
While there is obvious interest in Manchester United’s trip to CSKA Moscow and Manchester City’s clash with Sevilla, the game to watch on Wednesday is in Paris where PSG take on Real Madrid. Neither Shakhtar Donetsk nor Malmo have even landed a punch on these two, so it seems unlikely that this will prove crucial in terms of qualification. But it will be a useful indicator as to whether PSG can make a serious challenge in this competition. Alternatively, you can go full hipster and watch Wolfsburg against PSV Eindhoven.
If you’re still not footballed out by Thursday, you can relive memories of 1984 by tuning in for Anderlecht against Tottenham and then you can follow it up with Jurgen Klopp’s Anfield debut against Rubin Kazan. Will Adam Lallana make it to half-time before his lungs fall out of his bottom?
For those of you who aren’t out on Friday night, there are four options for you on your sofa. The best is probably Hoffenheim against a disconcertingly competent Hamburg on BT Sport Europe, though you might feel inclined to see if Lyon can get their season going against Toulouse. Rayo Vallecano against Espanyol is over on Sky Sports’ red button or you can keep it English and see if Sheffield Wednesday can overcome Rotherham on Sky Sports 1.
We should also remind you that the FIFA U17 World Cup is on at the moment. You can watch the games on Eurosport in the middle of the night, if that is your sort of thing.
Full TV listings can be found over here on the Live Football on TV page.
BEST ARTICLES OF THE MORNING
Northern powerhouse, my arse. Middlesbrough’s chairman Steve Gibson is on the warpath. He spoke to George Caulkin about the catastrophic decision to shut down the local steelworks. If you don’t have a subscription, you can zoom in on the tweet below. It’s well worth it.
Under the Skin of the Game: Steve Gibson on #Boro, steel & the "clowns" of government. http://t.co/p5QNmVF7Vd pic.twitter.com/Ps9y1BTPTQ
— George Caulkin (@CaulkinTheTimes) October 19, 2015
There’s some thought-provoking stuff from Miguel Delaney over on ESPNFC. Was Jose Mourinho right to be so open about the dropping of Eden Hazard or is he just making more trouble for himself?
And there are, quite rightly, innumerable articles in praise of Howard Kendall today. We particularly liked Martin Keown in the Daily Mail, who recounts the time his manager turned up on the doorstep with good news and then ordered him to pop open one of his man-of-the-match awards.
GO TO A GAME
If you’re not fussed with the Champions League on Tuesday and you’d like to get out of the house and watch a proper game, you could do a lot worse than take a trip to Oxford. Michael Appleton has lifted his team to third in League Two and there’s a bit of a feel good factor at the club with 1,400 fans taking up the full allocation away at Leyton Orient on Saturday. They take on league leaders Plymouth Argyle, who won again at the weekend, beating Accrington Stanley 1-0. Oxford’s Kassam Stadium is four miles from the train station, which is a bit of a ballache, but there are buses. You can drive there and try to nab one of 2,000 free car parking spaces, but it’s first come, first served. Full travel details are here and ticket prices are here.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
This week, we’ll be reading The Five-a-Side Bible by Chris Bruce. It’s out on Backpage Press, the publishers behind Barca, Pep Confidential and…erm…Football Manager Stole My Life. We’ll have a review up later this week, but if you want to get ahead of the curve, you can buy it now. It looks like fun.
FROM OUR VAULT
We had the great honour of meeting up with Howard Kendall in May (and then going out for many, many drinks later) and we spoke to him about the great Everton side of 1985. You can also find a link here to a David Icke-narrated story of the season as well as the link to his excellent autobiography. He will be greatly missed.
BEST NON-FOOTBALL THING
If the number of articles drops off this week, you’ll know that it’s because we’ve been titting about on Altitude. It’s a classic side-on shooter and it’ll take you approximately 30 seconds to figure out the controls. There are lots of game modes, from ‘destroy the base’ to ‘shoot the arse off everyone’ and you can play them on your own or against complete strangers. In general, online multiplayer gaming can be a demoralising experience thanks to the wide gaps between the abilities of normal human beings and those of pale teenagers from California who never, ever log off. That’s less of a problem with Altitude because it’s all so simple and intuitive. You’ll love this. There’s something very satisfying about filling someone’s fuselage with lead and watching the smoke stream out of the back of them. You can find Altitude through their own site or on Steam and it’s absolutely free.
If you’d like to recommend something for next Monday’s briefing, get in touch by emailing [email protected]
