The Warm-Up: A time-traveller's guide to Liverpool being excellent
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Updated 05/04/2018 at 07:48 GMT
Jack Lang enjoys some inspired overhead kicks and marvels at Kevin De Bruyne's freestyle handwriting...
Liverpool-Manchester City (3-0)
Image credit: Eurosport
THURSDAY’S BIG STORIES
Painting the town red
2016. A pub in south-east London. After a mysterious flash of light and a puff of smoke, one reveller gets a tap on the shoulder from a visitor from the future.
2018 Warm-Up: Greetings, friend.
2016 Warm-Up: I know you! You’re… me! But you look old and miserable.
2018: Yes. A lot will happen in the world in the next two years, and journalism is knackering. But I’m not here to complain about that. I have an important message for you.
2016: OK, but make it quick. The second half of Arsenal vs Liverpool is about to start.
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Jürgen Klopp und Roberto Firmino
Image credit: Getty Images
2018: It’s about that, actually. I know you have spent many an afternoon espousing negative opinions about two players on that field, and I have come to save your future blushes by telling you that you are wrong about them.
2016: Theo Walcott? I mean, I suppose I can see…
2018: It’s not Theo Walcott. He actually is a bit crap. I’m talking about James Milner and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
2016: [Dramatically spits out drink]
2018: To you, naive 2016-dweller, they may look like – respectively – the patron saint of joyless toil and the living, toothless embodiment of Arsenal’s malaise. But by April 2018, they will have morphed into players capable of dominating a Pep Guardiola midfield in a Champions League quarter-final.
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La joie d'Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Liverpool) face à Manchester City.
Image credit: AFP
2016: I don’t believe you.
2018: Then come, hold my hand. I’ve got this little trick…
2016: Woah. This is… the game you were talking about.
2018: The very same. We’re just going to skip to the opening goal. Don’t worry, this all happens very quickly.
2016: Is that… Mo Salah?
2018: Yep! That’s his 9000th goal of the season. I’m exaggerating, of course, but not by much. Ah, here we go: Liverpool’s second. See how City are rattled?! They’re the best team in Europe, by the way, but… here comes Milner now… BOOM! And now Oxlade-Chamberlain…
2016: OH MY GOD, NO. He actually had the confidence to try that? And then the skill to actually pull it off? This can’t be the same guy.
2018: It is. And both he and Milner will spend the next 70 minutes harrying and haranguing City, helping Liverpool secure one of the most stunning results in recent memory.
2016: OK, OK. This is all good to know. I’ll direct my ire elsewhere. Now tell me: in this bright future, do people still call him The Ox?
2018: A few idiots do, yes. Why?
2016: Just checking this isn’t all some unrealistic utopian dream. Thanks.
‘Own goal’ misses out on Camp Nou hat-trick
If there’s one thing this current Barcelona side doesn’t need, it’s a helping hand from their opponents. But Roma obviously didn’t get that memo and handed out post-Easter treats to the tune of TWO own goals as they fell to a 4-1 defeat at the Camp Nou.
There was also an overdue Champions League goal for Luis Suarez, who had last notched in the competition in that madcap defeat of Paris Saint-Germain, over a year ago. Perhaps someone fancies a Liverpool reunion in the semi-finals.
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Barcelona's Luis Suarez celebrates scoring their fourth goal
Image credit: Reuters
Ray of light
Football lost one of its good guys yesterday, with Ray Wilkins tragically passing away at the age of 61. Wilkins was a great footballer but arguably an even better person, as countless former players and associates have attested over the last 24 hours.
For The Warm-Up’s money, it’s this story from Nigel Quashie that best sums up what Wilkins was all about, and why he’ll be so sorely missed:
IN OTHER NEWS
That Cristiano Ronaldo goal on Tuesday night has predictably generated some debate about the greatest overhead kicks ever, with Wayne Rooney’s Manchester-derby stunner and Trevor Sinclair’s long-range missile for QPR very much in the conversation.
This being the internet, though, there has also been a good deal of silliness, too. Like this:
One of the all-time great first touches there, but that is actually a pretty successful overhead kick compared to this Nicky Butt effort. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you make an immediate impact after coming off the bench:
HEROES AND ZEROES
Hero: Kevin De Bruyne
The Belgian star had a rare off-night at Anfield, but still won a chunk of The Warm-Up’s affections with his voting slip for PFA Player of the Year. No tactical voting here, just a nomination for his biggest rival – and, let it be said, an adorable refusal to use capital letters only at the start of words.
Zeroes: Liverpool’s rowdy bus attackers
It’s all very well creating an atmosphere, but in light of what happened to Borussia Dortmund last season – and its lasting psychological effects on their players – we could really do without football fans targeting opposition sides as they arrive at stadiums in their team buses.
“I did not expect that from the Liverpool side, their people,” said Guardiola after the City convoy was pelted with missiles. “The bus is destroyed but I did not expect a prestigious club like Liverpool doing this kind of thing.”
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Liverpool fans set off flares and throw missiles at the Manchester City team bus outside the stadium before the match
Image credit: Reuters
HAT TIP
Over here, the sports pages have earnestly contemplated what the fallout from the deployment of nerve agent on British soil means for Gareth Southgate’s squad as Russia 2018 looms into view, with much made of an intervention last month by one security expert. The Russians could insert contamination into the England side’s doping samples, Edward Lucas told the Jeremy Vine show, and they could nobble the referees and linesmen. They could also drug England players to slow them down. (Leave it – it’s too easy.)
The Guardian’s Marina Hyde, there, on what the Salisbury poisoning scandal means for the England football team. Also good: this long backgrounder on Casemiro.
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Gareth Southgate, pictured, always intended to start Jack Butland against Italy (Adam Davy/PA)
Image credit: PA Sport
COMING UP
What takes a while to warm up, happens on Thursday nights and (nearly) rhymes with ‘elope fatigue’? It’s the Europa League, of course, and thankfully now, after literally almost a year of matches between teams with names like ZZN and Dynamo Nowhere, we’re at the juicy good part of the competition.
There are four games tonight, and while Arsenal vs CSKA Moscow will probably be the focus for the British audience, The Warm-Up will be going all continental pseud and plumping for RB Leipzig vs Marseille. It’s a Florian Thauvin thing; you either get it or you don’t.
Friday means one thing: Tom Adams ushering you into the weekend like an usher listening to Usher.
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