Vesper

give him time, a decent manager, and a full recovery from COVID-19 he will be a great player for us 100% faith in that

Meslier errors are minimal when you embrace jeopardy like Leeds. Just ask Bielsa https://theathletic.com/2297324/2021/01/03/meslier-leeds-mistake-tottenham/ At the opposite end of the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, 90 yards away from Illan Meslier, was a compatriot of his who knew how he felt. Twenty-nine minutes into Leeds United’s game at Spurs and Meslier’s pass had blown it. Overhit and driven between Kalvin Phillips and Luke Ayling (below), it drew a foul by Gjanni Alioski on Steven Bergwijn and gave Harry Kane a penalty. A goalless scoreline became 1-0 and Tottenham, after a very even start, had the contest they wanted. “An undeniable error,” Marcelo Bielsa called it at the end of a 3-0 defeat but with a sympathetic tone. When Meslier’s mistake was raised with him, touching on the risks Bielsa asks his keepers to take with their feet, Leeds’s head coach cut the discussion off at the head. “What you have to look at is how he performs in all the fixtures, not just one game,” Bielsa said. “You can see how efficient Meslier has been with his feet this season. The question you ask comes from an error in your conclusion.” Just in case anyone wanted to test Bielsa’s confidence in him. Saturday subjected Meslier to hard knocks and Tottenham’s keeper, Hugo Lloris, can relate to them. Every member of that union has experienced the nowhere-to-hide hits, and they land with more force on a player finding his way in the glare of Premier League spotlights. Lloris and Meslier are the book-ends of French international goalkeeping: Lloris as France’s No 1 for more than a decade and Meslier as a prospect who would like to be in the wings if and when Lloris signals a changing of the guard by focusing on club football, his family and everything else a 34-year-old treasures in the international breaks. One is at the start of the road, the other has long since mastered it. The gulf between them is 14 years in age and 120 caps, before even touching on World Cup medals and all-round prestige, but they are like each other in some respects. Lloris will see shades of himself in Meslier, or shades of himself in such a raw player standing in the line of fire. Older age is seen as a virtue in keepers but Lloris was 19 when he became first choice at Nice, a Ligue 1 regular before he had broken out of France’s Under-21 squad. Damien Gregorini, until then a popular figure with Nice’s crowd, was nudged to the fringes and then on to Nancy. Meslier, at present, is on the same trajectory with Leeds, in at the deep end and delighted about it. Leeds have an alternative, Kiko Casilla, who has seen it all in the domestic game, albeit from the vantage point of the bench at Real Madrid. Casilla is 34, the same age as Lloris, but is struggling for traction as Gregorini did. In the longer term he is heading for the same fate as Gregorini, slipping away quietly while the prospect occupies the roost. The tipping point in the fight for the gloves at Leeds was Casilla’s racism ban last season but Meslier stepped into the breach with the agreeable arrogance that coaches like to see in keepers. What might have been a short-term chance became a full-time shift in the club’s pecking order, to the extent that Casilla has become an expensive weight on the wage bill at Elland Road. In contrast, Meslier’s form for much of the past nine months begged the question of why Lorient were happy to flog him for £5 million and why no other club was as alive to his situation as Leeds. The rarity of a 20-year-old playing regularly in the Premier League, or any major league, cannot be overstated. Across Europe’s top five divisions — the Premier League, Serie A, the Bundesliga, La Liga and Ligue 1 — Meslier is the youngest with 10 or more appearances this season. He is something of a freak by English standards too. Since the Premier League’s conception in 1992, he is fifth in the list of starts made in a single term by a keeper under the age of 21. Nine more appearances would beat the record of 25 set by Paul Gerrard at Oldham Athletic in 1993. It is 12 years since anyone else (otherwise known as Joe Hart) appeared more than Meslier at a comparable age. That would be a feather in Meslier’s cap were he merely being asked to pose as a last line of defence. But at Leeds, and with Bielsa, no keeper has the luxury of hiding in their own box. One of the things that brought Meslier on to the radar of Victor Orta was his readiness to pass short and long, and to do so confidently without complaint. Bielsa never panicked about the impact of Casilla’s eight-match suspension because he already saw Meslier as No 1 material. There was no discussion about signing someone else for the Premier League either. For Meslier, first choice under Bielsa meant being exposed. To date, he has shipped 33 goals in the Premier League, more than twice as many as Lloris, and he is one of the most tested keepers in the competition: 3.94 saves a game, which somehow keeps him busier than Sheffield United’s Aaron Ramsdale. There are next to none in the Premier League who face more shots or have pulled off more saves in total. His job is both a test of technical aptitude and a test of conviction, in the face of stats which could rapidly deflate a mentally-delicate player. From front to back, Bielsa’s team embrace jeopardy. There have been errors from Meslier, like the misplaced pass to Grady Diagana which almost presented West Brom with a consolation goal last Tuesday and the misplaced pass to Spurs’ Harry Winks which did exactly that on Saturday, inviting Winks to look for Bergwijn and tempting Alioski to bring Bergwijn down. Meslier is out in front in the tally of goalkeeping mistakes leading to opposition shots but the weight, range and difficulty of his passing heightens the chances of trouble; a case of risk versus reward, very much like Bielsa’s selection of the 20-year-old itself. Bielsa’s defence of Meslier’s distribution stands up to scrutiny. In among the odd hospital pass, Meslier maintains a long accuracy of just over 70 per cent. At shorter range (the range at which it went wrong against Tottenham) his completion rate is just below 98 per cent. Leeds try to dominate possession religiously and play with a high line but they still look to Meslier for 30 passes a game, the first base in all of Bielsa’s play. “If the keeper receives the ball and kicks it long, he can’t make an error,” the 65-year-old said after Saturday’s defeat. But a keeper like that cannot provide rhythm either. And so the gambles are taken and encouraged. Spurs doubled their lead on Saturday with a beautifully crafted chance which Kane set up and Son Heung-min finished off with a deft finish to Meslier’s left. They scored again early in the second half when Toby Alderweireld’s header from a corner slipped over the line while Meslier tried to palm it clear. In Leeds’ previous two matches, Meslier had tried to be proactive at set-pieces, intervening in scenarios where they had become weak. There were more clearing punches from him in those fixtures than the rest of the season in its entirety and it made a difference. But this corner he left and Alderweireld scored after nudging Patrick Bamford from his path (below). When Alderweireld’s finish reached him, Meslier was caught a little behind his goalline, just as he had been when West Ham United equalised from a corner during their 2-1 win at Elland Road last month. The shortcomings remind people that Leeds are breaking from convention by fielding a fledgling keeper at such a high level of the sport and attempting to turn an obscure face into more of a household name before his 21st birthday. But then there are the exceptional saves, the undoubted potential and the thought of the keeper he could become in time. Some might say Bielsa is asking for trouble. Lloris would not be one of them.

good thing we didn't pay £89m then

Roman Abramovich is a model of consistency at Chelsea which is bad news for Frank Lampard Frank Lampard watched on as his Chelsea side lost their fourth game over the past month and pressure is mounting with Roman Abramovich's patience notoriously thin https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/chelsea-frank-lampard-roman-abramovich-23261049

City’s destruction of Chelsea had been weeks in the making https://theathletic.com/2299098/2021/01/04/de-bruyne-foden-city-chelsea/ Pep Guardiola says Manchester City have got their tempo back. And as he discussed his side’s improvement following their dismantling of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, he namechecked three sides that City cannot emulate in the counter-attacking stakes: Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool. City can’t do what they do, he said, they have to play their own game. The problem this season is that it has taken quite a while to work out how to do that while times are changing. While City have not looked themselves for one or two glaring reasons this season (such as the absences of Fernandinho, David Silva and Sergio Aguero) they were also trying to play a more circumspect style, to adapt to the defensive shortcomings that were evident throughout 2020. “We are a team that has to play in a certain rhythm, we can’t play when everything is up and down, up and down, up and down,” Guardiola said on Sunday evening. “We have to play our rhythm, a thousand passes, passes, passes and at the right moment attack. That’s why we won the Premier Leagues, with more patience, more calm, and (recently) we missed a little bit — for many reasons — of this tempo, and today we got it.” It’s been a fairly long road to finding the right balance, and they will be hoping it stays, but they are only four points off top with a game in hand, so things may be looking up. DEFENSIVE IMPROVEMENT Guardiola could have probably added Leicester to his list, given it was Brendan Rodgers’ side that laid bare City’s problems with fast transitions early in the season, and games against those four teams can act as a roadmap for their season so far. Leicester exploited City’s issues early on (in a game before Ruben Dias was signed), Liverpool flooded through the middle but came up against a stubborn backline, Spurs exploited errors and were ruthless with their breaks, while United just could not get going at all. That United game, perhaps more than the others, told us plenty about how Guardiola saw his team at that point. While fans felt that the game was there for the taking in the final 20 minutes, as was the case against a tiring Liverpool in November, Guardiola’s focus was on not losing. He did not gamble, he kept the game closed — by choice. It may not have been pretty, but he showed that he knew how to keep City stable. That was exactly what us onlookers demanded of them earlier in the season (and exactly what they’ll need in the Champions League). After that Tottenham game, they kept eight clean sheets in 10 games in all competitions. John Stones’ good form in the cup competitions earned him a place in Guardiola’s most important games: the league ones. Full of confidence and alongside Dias, a natural leader, the City defence found its voice. The games, though, were often cagey, with City generally not exactly at their flowing best, and they didn’t come up against especially challenging sides. That’s why the United game was such a good bellwether: this was a side that beat City three times last season by exploiting their weaknesses on the break. So to shut them out, and for Stones to pass another test, was a huge positive. When Guardiola talks about a thousand passes and avoiding 40-metre transitions, he needs his players to be close together and of course to keep the ball. But perhaps they went too far, becoming too safe in their choices and too slow in their execution. It helped keep things tight, but they stopped creating. City couldn’t play like that forever. Guardiola, the high priest of attacking football, couldn’t go on like that. The only way that that new-found defensive solidity would count for anything when the trophies are handed out would be by finding a better balance between defence and attack, to be able to venture forward as regularly as the old days without being terrified of what the opposition might do to you. RESTORING THE ATTACK The stodgy draw against West Brom a few days later was not an ideal reaction, but Guardiola did at least show that he was trying to force the issue (as you would expect against a team in the relegation zone). The wingers played on their natural sides to preserve a bit of width and when the dreaded double pivot was in place it was because City had pushed both full-backs forward to support what was often a front four including Kevin De Bruyne. As the game went on, Ilkay Gundogan pushed further forward as well. It was a poor team performance, but the intention to take off the shackles was there. The Southampton game was an important win and also one that spelt out how City’s strengths and weaknesses had flipped: they were robust defensively but wasteful in attack. Indeed, were City more clinical then there would not have been any cause for alarm against United and West Brom, and City would be top of the table by now. If my aunt had wheels she’d be a bicycle, and the problem was that there were not enough of those chances for a team that wastes as many as City do. At the moment, they need to create a hatful of chances and hope they take enough of them to win the match. Last season it was the same, but because the defence was weaker, they would lose the games that they couldn’t kill off. This season, with the stronger defence, they are drawing them, but it still means they need plenty of chances to win. The indecision and imprecision in front of goal has still been evident in their last two games, but they are creating more and, crucially, Guardiola thinks things are looking up. “I think our momentum started against Newcastle,” he said on Sunday of City’s Boxing Day win. “I remember in the press conference I had the feeling that we played the way we have to play, it’s not about winning or losing by one action, so I had that feeling.” He hailed the 2-0 win against Steve Bruce’s side as their best performance of the season and again there were clear signs that he knew they needed to generate more chances. He kept men in midfield to protect the defence, but this time it was Nathan Ake who came in from left-back. Joao Cancelo was not only allowed to get forward from right-back, he was pushed on into something like an attacking midfield role, where he combined with De Bruyne and the more advanced Gundogan. The front three switched continuously and it promised better things. That’s why the Chelsea game, given the postponement against Everton, promised to be so key. Were City really improving or did they just beat Southampton and Newcastle? Well, we got our answer. Chelsea are not in the greatest form and their last-minute goal dents the defensive statistics somewhat, but City very rarely looked troubled and their stand-in keeper, Zack Steffen, barely had anything to do up until Callum Hudson-Odoi’s consolation. Guardiola’s side pressed well and blocked off passing lanes into midfield, meaning Chelsea could not play out from the back. When crosses went into the City box, the entire back four stood up to the challenge. And when in possession they were adept at drawing Chelsea in and playing a pass that set them free into space. So what’s changed? Too often this season City have been cumbersome. The focus on defence has hampered the attack, with not enough men pushed forward. In recent weeks they have attacked in greater numbers and with greater variety. “Maybe my approach, maybe I didn’t communicate well to them what we have to do or choose the right way to play to be able to do it,” Guardiola admitted, perhaps not seriously. “We need to play with one type of tempo, there are teams who play incredible transitions like United, Liverpool, Tottenham, we cannot play that way, we are not good in that way. No player is slow, absolutely not, no player is lazy, absolutely not, but we have to play another type of tempo, at the right moment run, at the right moment do it. “I think our success in the past was done in this way and always we try it, it doesn’t matter the set-up, if it’s 4-4-2 or five at the back or seven at the back, this is not important, it’s the idea, to start from the keeper and arrive to the wingers and strikers always through the passes, and at the right moment punish them, and today we were able to do it.” Guardiola played down the importance of tactical tweaks, but after all this is a man who famously makes them for every game, and Phil Foden, unwittingly, shot down that suggestion anyway. “He always has great tactics coming into big games like this, he’s a genius at things like this,” the youngster said afterwards. “We did them by staying high and wide down the flanks so it’s something we did well.” There was a big change through the middle, too. De Bruyne dropping off the front line as a false 9 created City’s second goal, and also allowed Bernardo Silva to be restored to a No 8 role, which is perhaps his best position. He was paired with Gundogan, who has been one of the stars of City’s recent revival, his forays forward bringing three goals in his last four league games. And note the attacking runs of Bernardo and Cancelo… So, is this a new City now? “No, no, no, it’s the same. Same manager, the players are the same and the idea is completely the same,” Guardiola insists. “When we won the trophies in the past it was because we played like today, it doesn’t matter if a player plays more here or there or a bit more here or there, it’s the tempo, the way we have to play. We missed it in the past and today we recovered it.” Can they keep it? Next up, United.

Lampard deserves more time at Chelsea but knows the drill if slide continues https://theathletic.com/2293057/2021/01/05/chelsea-frank-lampard/ It is safe to assume Frank Lampard knew all this was coming. That if his Chelsea side ever endured a slump in form and slipped off the pace, certainly in terms of Champions League qualification, then the scrutiny would be intensified both from within and outside the club. Retreat briefly to his inaugural press conference as head coach in the summer of 2019 and, with the chairman Bruce Buck, director Marina Granovskaia and the recently appointed technical and performance advisor Petr Cech all listening intently from the front row, he had been asked whether the hierarchy had stipulated the need for a top-four finish. “They haven’t, and I don’t think they need to say that,” offered the new man at the helm. “It is very clear that we are a club that, barring a couple of seasons in recent years, has managed to be top four or winning titles. I know there are standards. One of the benefits is I know the club. I understand what is expected.” So his eyes were wide open coming into the role. He was a player at Stamford Bridge, and a disgruntled one at times, when Luiz Felipe Scolari was ushered out the door after less than seven months in situ, or Andre Villas-Boas dismissed just 256 days into what was supposed to be a long-term project. He saw Roberto Di Matteo, such a popular player in these parts and a manager who claimed the Champions League while in interim charge, summoned to Cobham to be sacked in the small hours of the morning following a flight back from Turin just six months after that glorious night in Munich. On each occasion, the tipping point had been a run of slapdash form which appeared to jeopardise Champions League qualification, and a lack of faith from those in the boardroom that the incumbent manager could arrest the decline. And, given the recoveries that were mounted after each change had been instigated, the owner could easily argue his decision ultimately proved justified. Now we are here again with the modern-day team, far from feeling reinvigorated from a summer of frenzied investment, languishing ninth after four defeats in six league games. Yes, that drop off in results had been sharp, crammed into a little over three weeks and preceded by a 17-game unbeaten run across all competitions. Admittedly, the gap to the top four remains a slender and eminently bridgeable three points, even if all but three of the sides above them boast at least one game in hand. There is also the reality that this is a uniquely congested season which has seen plenty of other top-flight teams endure periods of spluttering form and, as yet, only one manager lose his job. Liverpool’s away form, a trip to Selhurst Park aside, has been far from impressive which was evident once again at Southampton on Monday night. Manchester United, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur have all suffered their own blips. Arsenal are hauling themselves out of theirs. All those clubs have demonstrated it is possible to recover. Yet history shows that, at Chelsea, these spasms of poor results tend to have serious repercussions. When the team look as aimless and accepting of their deficiencies as they did against City on Sunday, or indeed as they were when succumbing so meekly at the Emirates Stadium on Boxing Day, those doubts over Lampard’s coaching credentials tend to rear up. A head coach who seemed to have struck upon a system during that unbeaten sequence suddenly feels more exposed as a stop-gap appointment, a restorative figure willing to take on the role amid a FIFA transfer ban, when his side are wilting. “I know it’s not normal that I’m here after one year in management,” he had admitted in that inaugural press briefing. “But I don’t believe a club like Chelsea are going to make a decision simply because of the transfer ban.” They knew his credentials when they made the appointment. Even so, when the team falter, or the in-game management feels muddled, it must be easy for panic to set in. After all, there is no body of work upon which the hierarchy can fall back for reassurance. Lampard may not be naive on the inner workings of Chelsea, but he is experiencing all this from the dugout for the first time. A season at Derby County in the Championship, when he benefited from the owner’s financial backing but fell just short in delivering promotion, and last season’s fourth-place finish – all the more impressive for the game-time seized by academy graduates – are the extent of his grounding. The problems being flung at him now, with huge sums spent in the market and expectations raised accordingly, represent uncharted territory. The doubters will question whether he boasts the tactical acumen to thrive, or knows how to coax the best from Timo Werner, a player who has flitted from starting berths centre to flank and now gone 12 games without a goal. Can he find a role in which Kai Havertz, an opportunist signing but arguably a luxury when other areas of the team might have been targeted for strengthening, can flourish? Moreover, can he restore some belief and conviction to the collective? His vision was always “a team that is aggressive, full of energy, brave on the ball and who move it quickly”. Chelsea have been far from that of late and have struggled too often to strike the right balance in their approach to games against the better teams, overcommitting at one end and underserved at the other. That may be down to the make-up of the playing staff at the coach’s disposal, or the fact this is still a relatively young side even with Thiago Silva and Olivier Giroud in their number. Alternatively, it may be there is no coherent plan in place to ensure progress. To have reached January and failed as yet to have beaten a side in the current top eight certainly feels damning at a club of these ambitions. All of which might provoke mid-season change, or at least justify the scrutiny now being afforded to potential alternatives in the role. Yet this was supposed to be a new Chelsea. One that recognised the value of its academy and turned to Lampard, after all the rancour and political division of the Antonio Conte and Maurizio Sarri tenures, to heal rifts and offer something refreshingly different. They leant on him at an unsettling time and, while he may not have been ready, he still retained their place in the Champions League and reached an FA Cup final. The landscape has changed since in terms of the squad at his disposal. But in this season more than most, given its grim eccentricities, is there not an argument that the hierarchy should back their head coach and offer him the chance to show he belongs? Lampard has pointed out his is a team in transition, still digesting that lavish rebuild, and there were always likely to be awkward periods en route. Managers backed up with considerably more experience than him might have struggled to secure immediate dividends from this developing side. It took Jurgen Klopp three years to revive Liverpool and, back in September, even he acknowledged that incorporating so many significant signings into a team overnight, regardless of their quality, is no easy task. “They have to fit together pretty quickly,” said Klopp as he considered the challenge Chelsea would pose to claim his own team’s title. “It’s not only about bringing quality in. You cannot bring in the 11 best players in the world and just hope a week later they play the best football they ever will play. It’s about working together on the training ground.” Lampard had no pre-season of note and his team have already played 25 games this term with nine-midweek fixtures inevitably influencing the nature of many of his training sessions. There will have been very little time in which to work on tactical switches, let alone to smooth the basic integration of the new arrivals. Perhaps there should have been better planning how they might have been used from the outset, but if time is the key as Klopp suggested, and the players still buy into his methods, then Chelsea’s head coach – the man who played a part in convincing the new recruits to come by offering a long-term vision of their roles – surely merits longer in the role. After all, would an interim parachuted in from the outside really be better placed, in this most unsettling of seasons, to instigate an immediate upturn? Is it not likelier that Lampard, with his knowledge of the squad, might implement a recovery? The writing, of course, may be on the wall regardless in the long term. It is hard to recall a Chelsea manager from the modern era surviving a run of results as miserable as the current sequence. Antonio Conte lost four out of five league games and Sarri three of four, both in the new year, but limped on until the summer even with their respective relationships with the hierarchy fractured beyond repair and a parting of the ways inevitable. Their teams were still hovering in and around the Champions League places and challenging for honours. Lampard’s may be the same and, in that context, he deserves until the end of the season at the very least. Yet if the owner’s old instincts kick in, nothing that follows will come as a surprise. The current incumbent knows the drill well enough.

An apparently Big Club whose lack of success has spawned 1,000 gifs José Mourinho tries to decide if the 2021 Milk Cup would mean more than the 2008 Italian Supercoppa. Photograph: Ian Walton/AFP/Getty Images Barry Glendenning @bglendenning NO TROPHY FOR OLD MEN Should Tottenham Hotspur win the Milk Cup this season, one suspects José Mourinho will rank the achievement right up there with some of the most mediocre of his glittering managerial career. A four-times winner before it was hijacked by a soft drinks company named after a Filipino water buffalo, one suspects the Tottenham manager would have nothing but sneering contempt for any big name manager heard talking up the importance of winning such a tin-pot competition. Any big name manager, that is, except him. But context is everything and when you’re in charge of an apparently Big Club whose ongoing lack of success has spawned a thousand memes and gifs, any old cup will do. Even one so apparently in need of jazzing up its marketing department attempted to stage a draw in space, before eventually settling for Morrisons in Colindale instead. “I think it’s my biggest game since coming to Spurs,” said Mourinho, ahead of Tuesday’s semi-final against Brentford. “In the perspective of the club chasing silverware for many years I would say so.” José Mourinho typically primed for his 'biggest game' as Spurs manager Read more The competition that no fans get particularly excited about or even count as a major trophy until their team get within a game or two of winning it, the League Cup is famously the only one Spurs have won in the past 13 years. On a famous day in February 2008, Robbie Keane and Ledley King hoisted the trophy skywards after beating Chelsea in the final. It was a victory of considerable global significance, at least until No Country For Old Men stole its thunder by winning best film at the Oscars a few hours later. While Tottenham haven’t troubled a trophy engraver for well over a decade, their opponents, Brentford, have never actually won a major piece of silverware at all. Indeed, tonight marks the first proper cup semi-final in their 131-year history, even if West Middlesex and London War Cup historians might disagree. “It is a massive game for us,” said their manager, Thomas Frank. “We will do our best to try and attack and take our chances against one of the top teams in the world, who have top players and a top manager.” While Brentford are undeniably good enough to trouble Tottenham, their almost comical failure to somehow avoid promotion to the Premier League last season means their bottle – or specifically lack of it – is likely to be called into question. There are likely to be no shortage of on-brand, low-calorie, fruit-based caffeine drinks delivered to their dressing-room ahead of kick-off – here’s hoping the contents give their players some added zip. LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE Join Paul Doyle at 7.45pm (GMT) for red-hot MBM coverage of Tottenham 3-1 Brentford in the Rumbelows Cup semi-final. QUOTE OF THE DAY “I was hurt when, after giving me just eight minutes in a match, he [Antonio Conte] said I was responsible for everything. What could I have done in eight minutes? But I didn’t make a controversy of it then, and I won’t now either” – new Cagliari loan recruit Radja Nainggolan, not making a controversy of a lack of playing time at Inter by giving his former manager both barrels. RECOMMENDED LISTENING Milan! Madrid! Munich! The latest episode of Football Weekly is a veritable Trans-Europe Express. Listen here. FIVER LETTERS “Re: Noble Francis’ letter [yesterday’s Fiver]. As a clinical psychologist by trade, I am familiar with allegiances to the most dubious of causes destined for disappointment and failure. Contemporary perspectives use the term cognitive dissonance to describe holding incompatible beliefs (e.g. I want to root for a winner; I root for Arsenal). As I have come to remark to friends, the pain and woe of people who seek goals that are clearly doomed to failure is what keeps me in business” – Paul Benveniste. “Noble Francis’s idea that there must be some sort of help available for Arsenal diehards reminds me of the end of Dante’s Inferno, where the most vile sinners of all are completely trapped in ice. Since there’s no point in trying to talk to them, Dante and Virgil quickly move on. As an Arsenal fan myself, this seems like an apt metaphor” – Edward Dean. “Liverpool and Manchester United are duking it out at the top of the Premier League, we’re about to get a slow-talking Democrat in the White House, and Jimmy Tarbuck is on the telly. We all wanted to escape from 2020, but surely no one asked to be sent back to the seventies?” – Mark McFadden. “Did anyone else notice a decline in VAR delays over the festive break? I suspect that referees don’t enjoy standing in the wintry rain waiting for another bloke to watch telly. That or they got better presents to play with over Christmas than the VAR armpit-line-drawing machine.” – Mike Wilner. “Re: the list of clubs Ralph Hasenhüttl cut his teeth at [yesterday’s Fiver]. SpVgg Unterhaching, VfR Aalen and FC Ingolstadt sound like the noises Jürgen Klopp will have made when he was as sick as a parrot come full time” – Jon Millard. Send your letters to [email protected]. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day prize is … Paul Benveniste. NEWS, BITS AND BOBS The Premier League has announced that the latest two rounds of Covid-19 testing produced 40 positives. In tests conducted between 28 and 31 December, 28 players and club staff tested positive, with a further 12 in tests carried out between 1 and 3 January. Gareth Southgate believes football remains “in the dark” about the long-term risks of heading the ball and concussions sustained on the pitch. Real Madrid are leading the race to sign Bayern Munich’s David Alaba but Liverpool are rounding the bend and could make a late dash to get his autograph. David Alaba: a wanted man. Photograph: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images A proposed takeover of Wigan has collapsed after claims a Spanish consortium reduced its bid by 50%. “This would result in a 15-point deduction and would effectively relegate the club to League Two,” club administrators said in a statement. Look out Pep! Ole Gunnar Solskjær reckons his Manchester United players will be like turbo-charged Duracell bunnies in the Milk Cup semi-final against City. “We’ve had four days now after Villa so hopefully we’ve got more fresh legs,” he yelped. “We’re going into the game in good form so there’s no excuses.” Bad news for Weird Uncle Fiver’s five-a-side career. And Viking Stavanger forward Even Østensen is doing his bit to STOP FOOTBALL by returning to his old job at a halibut farm. “My motivation was not quite at its peak. This feels natural,” the Norwegian cheered. STILL WANT MORE? Frank Lampard is not on Roman Abramovich’s yacht anymore and can ill afford to sail through Chelsea’s peaks and troughs, warns Jonathan Liew. Richard Foster jumps in his time machine and takes us back to 1942, when Brentford won a Wembley cup final – with help from traffic police. And here’s a piece on why the Bees are more than just a Moneyball operation. Is Shoreditch barista Sergio Ramos taking his magnificent beard and stellar dark arts to PSG or Manchester City? The Rumour Mill doesn’t know, but read it anyway. ‘That’ll be £7.50 please, chief.’ Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Reuters Liverpool look jaded and their knack-crisis may be catching up with them, reckons that man Jonathan Liew again. Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO! ZAZA 2.0

David Squires on … football's festive faux pas Our cartoonist looks back at ill-judged decisions made by footballers, clubs, politicians and more over the Christmas period https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2021/jan/05/david-squires-on-footballs-festive-faux-pas

10 actually, unless you think Burnley will beat Manure (they would be on 36 points after 17 games, we are on 26 after 17 games) we have 11 points less after 17 games than we did UNDER SARRI, ffs (and I am NO Sarri fangirl, as is well known in these parts)

cant see Lamps dishing out a proper hairdryer, lolol

it's fuck up the Russian team time at PGMOL HQ

old school brit superb managers had viscously combative and often fairly dirty (or at least hard as fuck) teams

Kyle Walker-Peters is turning into one of the better RB's in the league and Mou has issues there

he has had many poor games this season and his defence is so poor it doesn't make up when he is off his offensive game Roberston has been the VASTLY better fullback so far

you both are right and that was a key inflection point

Klopp whingeing massively about not getting 2 pen calls so predictable

Hasenhüttl has that fire in the belly

The PGMOL motto quidquid accipit dare mancunian fututorum tropaeum whatever it takes to give those mancunian fuckers the trophy

I will go out on a wee limb and call two pens for manure v the victims

and PGMOL has now more than likely lifted fucking cheating cuntish Manure to the top of the table

yep and those terrible losses (other than Shitty, which I never fancied us) were against shit and damaged teams

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee super win for Hassenhutl

worldie goal by Ings 1 nil saints

2020-21 English Premier League Southampton Liverpool http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2021/premier-league-southampton-vs-liverpool-s1rt/ https://www.totalsportek.com/highlights/arsenal-vs-everton-2016-match/

The long and wide shadow cast by Toni Polster’s luxuriant mane Ralph Hassenhüttl takes a look in the mirror. Photograph: David Blunsden/Action Plus/Shutterstock Barry Glendenning @bglendenning KLOPPELGÄNGER Fiver readers of a certain age will have fond recollections of the legend that is Toni Polster. With his keen eye for goal and smouldering 1980s American high-school yearbook good looks, in his mid-90s pomp the Austrian striker was the proud owner of one of world football’s finest bubble-perm-mullet hairstyles. The poster boy of an Austrian team who helped make up the numbers at the 1990 and 1998 World Cups, he scored 44 goals in 95 appearances for “Das Team” and it was largely his existence which meant his compatriot and fellow forward, Ralph Hasenhüttl, made just eight appearances for his country. Having spent so long in the long and wide shadow cast by Polster’s luxuriant mane, Hasenhüttl set about establishing himself on the global stage, earning his managerial stripes at assorted low-level German clubs: SpVgg Unterhaching, VfR Aalen and FC Ingolstadt 04. A two-year stint at newly promoted Bundesliga side RB Leipzig followed, but it was only after his departure that Hasenhüttl truly made his name. Unveiled as a left-field managerial appointment by Southampton, the man who had spent much of his career in football playing second fiddle to a far bigger name had finally arrived ... only to find himself labelled “the Alpine Jürgen Klopp”. 'It will go to the wire' – Jürgen Klopp predicts fierce Premier League title fight Read more On Monday night in the biting early January cold of Saint Mary’s Stadium, the “Alpine Klopp” will get the opportunity to put one over on his less mountainous counterpart, as Southampton entertain Liverpool in the final game of what has seemed a particularly gruelling festive Premier League schedule. While Liverpool may travel down south as Premier League leaders, they go into this game in what by their own lofty standards is a dreadful run of form, having failed to beat teams as bad as Newcastle and West Brom in their past two matches. Coming up against hosts whose form has been similarly indifferent since their manager was flagged up as a potential successor to Mikel Arteta at Arsenal, Klopp’s side will relish the opportunity to put a stop to the yammering of people who keep erroneously insisting Manchester United are “joint top” of the league by opening up a three-point gap. Having missed his side’s most recent game after being forced to self-isolate, Hasenhüttl is free to return to his technical area. There, he will stand alongside the man to whom he has been long been compared, attempting to show how different he is as he gesticulates furiously, barks orders and occasionally swears in German from underneath his official club baseball cap. LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE Join Simon Burnton for red-hot MBM coverage of Southampton 0-1 Liverpool from 8pm (GMT). QUOTE OF THE DAY “I spent time with families and it was clear they were as reliant on the food vouchers [for school meals] as the food banks. It wasn’t one or the other. They needed both to survive. I knew what that fear felt like. I knew what fear in my mum looked like. I didn’t want that for any child or any parent” – Marcus Rashford, the Guardian’s Footballer of the Year, on the conversations that inspired his extraordinary campaign. Marcus Rashford, the Guardian footballer of the year. Photograph: Manchester United REALITY CHECK OF THE DAY 14 May 2016: “We have this massive problem of producing our own players in this country … it’s probably why we should vote out of the EU! If we can vote out then we won’t have to take Uefa law because that is crap” – Sam Allardyce, then Sunderland manager. 4 January 2021: ”I have found three players already who were capable of coming here and they’re not allowed. It’s a shame. It’s not so much the pandemic, it’s the change of rules because of Brexit” – Allardyce struggles to find foreign imports for West Brom. RECOMMENDED LISTENING The latest edition of Football Weekly has just dropped like it’s hot, with Max and Barry joined by your Ronays, your Murrays, your Brewins. FIVER LETTERS “Happy New Year! Under more normal circumstances I would wish for a Special One, or a Big One. But with all that’s been going on, all I ask for is a more Normal One” – Peter Oh. “In spite of everything that has happened to the world in the past year, the most staggering thing I have read is ‘I am an Arsenal fan. I’ve lived in New York for 25 years and still have my season ticket’. The poor guy. There surely must be some sort of help available for such people” – Noble Francis. “No team can succeed playing like we do. I’m ashamed of supporting Spurs right now. Even if Mourinho’s tactics lead to whatever trophy, certainly the pain that comes along for the fans is not worth it” – Marcio Aquino, moments after Wolves’ equaliser. Send your letters to [email protected]. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day prize is … Peter Oh. NEWS, BITS AND BOBS Joey Barton has bowled through the door marked Do One at Fleetwood Town. “We would like to thank Joey for his work during his time [here] and wish him success in the future,” a club statement breezed. Jamie Carragher has stepped in to sponsor non-league Marine for their FA Cup third-round tie against Tottenham. The Sky pundit’s JC23 Foundation will sponsor the warm-up kits and dugouts at the Marine Travel Arena. Dele Alli might have an eye on a rendezvous with Mauricio Pochettino at PSG, but José Mourinho has other ideas, with the player unlikely to be leaving in January. Former Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher has joined the club’s first-team coaching staff. “Darren has the United DNA running through his veins,” droned Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Rio Ferdinand revealed he played for West Ham at Arsenal in 1996 having just refreshed himself in the players’ lounge after an unexpected last-minute call. “I was on the bench thinking, ‘Please don’t let me come on, three brandy and Cokes, I can’t come on this pitch,’” he yelped. Spoiler: he came on. Nice are going to borrow £27m William Saliba off Arsenal for the rest of the season to see if they can jump-start the sputtering defender’s career again. And Hibs may have to start with goalkeeping coach Craig Samson, 87, in goal at Celtic after QPR recalled Dillon Barnes and Ofir Marciano suffered hamstring-twang. STILL WANT MORE? Start the new year with an old favourite. Ten talking points from the weekend’s action in the Premier League. Look out Lamps, warns floating football brain in a jar Jonathan Wilson, because no Chelsea manager has ever survived with a win percentage as low as FLCMFL’s. Oh Frank! Photograph: Andy Rain/AFP/Getty Images José Mourinho can smell silverware at Tottenham Hotspur, writes David Hytner. Bundesliga upstarts Union Berlin have a clear philosophy – and it’s taken them to giddy new heights, whoops Andy Brassell. Here’s Sid Lowe on Gaizka Garitano, the Athletic Bilbao manager who pulled off so many job-saving wins, they sacked him anyway. Mattia Zaccagni: the scissor-kicking midfielder who will probably be moving on to a bigger club than Verona soon. Nicky Bandini gives us her scouting report. Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO! RIP GERRY