Ah, good old 2014.
Photograph: Ina Fassbender/Reuters
A CHAIN IS ONLY AS STRONG AS ITS WEAKEST LINK
In an interview with the BBC some years ago, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang said that growing up as a child playing football he used to pretend to be Jean-Pierre Papin, then Sonny Anderson and then the real Ronaldo. Soon after that, he no longer had to pretend to be anyone, because it turned out he was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and as good, if not better than all his childhood heroes. The Borussia Dortmund striker has since moved on to imitating superheroes, famously donning a Spider-Man mask after scoring against Bayern Munich in the 2014 German Super Cup. What is less widely known is that after an exhausting night out web-slinging and taking on Electro, the Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus, Peter Parker invariably curls up in bed wearing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang jim-jams.
All going well, lots of Junior Gunners will soon be following suit if reports are correct that Arsenal have finally agreed a deal to sign the bad-boy striker for about £55.5m, which will turn out to actually be a whopping £500m or mere 27p depending on which obsessive, one-eyed and mouth-foaming fanboy account you happen to be looking at on social media disgrace Twitter. Suffice to say, the Gooners will be paying a record fee for a striker who happens to play in the same position, in much the same way as the player for whom they paid their previous record fee only last summer. Oh, Arsenal! It seems that even when they’re pulling off what looks like a shrewd bit of business for a 30-goal-a-season striker, they just can’t help Arsenaling themselves in the foot.
“We are ready to realise a transfer under certain parameters but only if these are fully met,” trousered Dortmund suit Michael Zorc, whose employers are unprepared to sell Aubameyang unless they get a replacement in first. Arsenal’s Olivier Giroud has been mentioned as one possibility, although it is believed he is overcome with ennui at the prospect of leaving that there Big London. Dortmund are also reported to have enquired about taking Michy Batshuayi from Chelsea, for whom Giroud fits the bill in their ongoing quest to sign Somebody Tall. The problem there, of course, is that the handsome Frenchman would almost certainly improve Chelsea’s chances of keeping his old team out of the end-of-season Big Cup places, a state of affairs suggesting once again, that even when they’re pulling off what looks like a shrewd bit of business, etc and so on.
With so many players involved, this apparently interminable saga now resembles a property chain – a series of linked purchases in which the success of each is dependent on the others. News of each new development could scarcely be more stressful for all the parties involved, or more boring for everyone else.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’ve done all of my qualifications, I cannot be more qualified for this job than what I am” – Phil Neville adopts the Trump approach to accusation denial when asked if he’s really the most appropriate manager for the England women’s team.
Phil Neville in front of some graffiti. Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images via Reuters
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FIVER LETTERS
“On Friday, Rafa Benítez stated he wouldn’t allow the sale of any of his Newcastle players to a Premier League rival. Surely a better tactic would be to sell all Newcastle players to Premier League rivals?” – James Christopher.
“I was reading Friday’s Fiver when when my wife – not a natural Fiver reader or football fan, but reading over my shoulder – leaned across, frowned, and said: ‘That’s wrong.’ I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone has said this while reading your email, but I was still a touch surprised. It turned out that she thought ‘Bits and Bobs’ was a specific headline for the story about Yorkshire FC and, as any denizen of that county knows, the appropriate phase would have been ‘Bits and Bats’. Even after I pointed out the subhead is the same every day, she still wasn’t really appeased” – Rich Cairns.
“Regarding the article link to shoppers across the Channel brawling over cut-price Nutella (Friday’s last line), is this not just a case of the French doing what the French do best? Fighting with themselves and losing? It bodes well for the World Cup” – Greg Patrick.
“If you want a nickname for the trophy that will accurately reflect how most fans are likely to perceive the relative importance of the Uefa Nations League (Fiver letters passim), surely it has to be Euro Thimble?” – Nick Payne.
“The new trophy should be referred to as Euro Pan and its theme tune as the Euro Paean” – George Paterson.
Send your letters to [email protected]. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Rich Cairns.
THE RECAP
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BITS AND BOBS
Pep Guardiola wants protection for his Manchester City team after they were hoofed about while beating Cardiff. “The players are the artists and you have to take care of them,” he cried. Neil Warnock retorted: “He is in England. What do you expect?”
Knacked for a month, earlier. Photograph: Harry Trump/Getty Images
West Brom are recruiting five new physios to cope with an expected increased workload following news that Daniel Sturridge is expected to join the club on loan.
José Mourinho has opened Manchester United’s door marked Do One and dared Zlatan Ibrahimovic to step through. “If he wants to move to another club we will try to help him,” parped Mourinho.
Arthur Masuaku’s expectoration aberration has landed him with a six-game naughty step vacation. “I am very sad,” sobbed the West Ham defender.
Leicester City’s Leonardo Ulloa is, like a boomerang-shaped seagull, heading back to Brighton and Hove Actually on loan.
And Sam Allardyce has got the hump that he’ll have to go back into the office after Everton’s match against Leicester to deal with deadline day. “You can do it at home if you wanted to but it is probably better to be at the club,” he said in a comment that could apply to any number of things.
STILL WANT MORE?
You love a talking point, right? Particularly on the FA Cup games from the weekend, yes? Well how about 10 of them? Ten times as good!
Quite possibly based on the logic that if they didn’t show a bit more spirit then they would get a thick ear, Milan are showing a bit more spirit under Gennaro Gattuso. So says Paolo Bandini.
First Real Madrid, then the world. In his latest dispatch from La Liga, Sid Lowe writes about how Leganés have gone from nothing to beating the world’s biggest.
Happy Leganés fans there. Photograph: Shot for Press/Action Plus via Getty Images
The latest stop in Kevin-Prince Boateng’s roaming career is Eintracht Frankfurt, and for the moment at least he’s doing very nicely indeed, thank you.
Liverpool in 2005. Obi Wan Kenobi. Lazarus. Great comebacks all, but they might have nothing on Metz, who lost 11 of their first 12 games and still might stay up.
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