The Warm-Up: The Spurs guide to making Lionel Messi feel at home
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Updated 04/10/2018 at 11:18 GMT
Jack Lang brings cabbage-based conspiracy theories, Roy Keane rants and some classic open-goal misses...
Lionel Messi
Image credit: Getty Images
THURSDAY’S BIG STORIES
Continental drift
From:
To:
Subject: Master plan
To:
Subject: Master plan
Hi guys,
As you know, it’s a big game on Wednesday. We have injuries and our form has not been great, but this is a massive opportunity to show what we can do. I will discuss all this in more detail before kick-off, but here’s a rough plan, just for you to look at now:
(1) Hugo: neck a bottle of wine one hour before the match. I know, I know… you’re sorry for the whole drink-driving thing, but I think we can really get into their heads if you stagger down the tunnel stinking of booze. I’m sure it won’t impair your decision-making in the first five minutes at all. Remember, only God can judge you.
(2) Ground staff: make sure the pitch looks like my local village green looks after a weekend-long asado. I have some gas burners if you need them.
(3) Play out from the back, almost exclusively through Victor and Davinson. It probably won’t do us much good, but it’ll confuse the hell out of them.
(4) Harry: score a nice goal and then spend the rest of the match doing that weird deep-lying totem pole impression you like so much. Do not enter the box after your goal. Repeat: do not enter the box after your goal.
(5) Finally, and most vitally: repeatedly allow Lionel Messi time and space on the edge of the box and sometimes inside it too. He is past his best and I see weakness in him. There is a famous Napoleon phrase: “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” We must allow them to pass to him often.
Thanks, and see you at Wembley.
Mauricio
PS – Maybe some of you haven’t heard of Napoleon. He was a small, clever French man. Like Didier Deschamps, but with epaulettes. Further reading available from me if you want it.
Red in the face
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Napoli's Italian forward Lorenzo Insigne celebrates after the UEFA Champions League group C football match between Napoli and Liverpool on October 3, 2018 at the San Paolo stadium in Naples.
Image credit: Getty Images
Who’s that flickering the dial of the Warm-Up’s patented Crisis-o-Meter? Why it’s Liverpool, now on an unforgivable TWO-GAME winless run after going down to a spirited Napoli side last night. We jest, of course, but Jurgen Klopp looked genuinely miffed at his side’s performance at the San Paolo.
“The timing for our defensive movements was not good enough,” the German lamented.
I have to accept that a big part of that performance was my fault. It was intense, but we caused the intensity of the game ourselves.
Still, at least they have a nice, easy fixt… oh, hang, on… ah yes, sorry. It’s actually Manchester City at the weekend. All together now: “Crisis-stricken Liverpool plumbed new depths as…”
Bruce axed by Villa’s top brass(ica)
There are certain things a manager will always struggle to come back from. A thrashing in a derby, criticism from club legends, mutiny in the squad… these are all signifiers that things have reached the point of no return.
And now, thanks to Aston Villa, we have a new entry on the list: the use of a cabbage as a projectile. For less than 24 hours after his savoy savaging, Steve Bruce was shown the door by Aston Villa.
“We would like to place on record our gratitude to Steve and his team for their hard work and commitment,” said a club spokesperson. “We wish them well for the future.”
Reports that the statement was actually prepared by the cabbage, now rigged up inside a human body like Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, remain unconfirmed at this stage. But quite likely, let’s be honest.
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Steve Bruce had been in charge for almost two years at Villa Park
Image credit: PA Sport
IN OTHER NEWS
If there’s one thing we can say about Roy Keane, it’s that he’s a competitor. Perhaps no surprise, then, that one day after Paul Scholes made headlines with his attempted kneecapping of Jose Mourinho, Keano came to the table with a few hefty opinions of his own.
Oh, and the Count of Contrariness thinks that the players, not Mourinho, are mainly to blame for Manchester United’s current predicament.
“I don’t care what fallout you’ve had with your manager,” said Keane. “I don’t care if you’ve been at each others throats. That is part of the industry. People do fall out.
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Republic of Ireland boss Martin O'Neill expects assistant Roy Keane, pictured, to return to club management
Image credit: PA Sport
“If you’re a footballer for Manchester United, you put that jersey on, you walk out and you don’t give 100 per cent because you might be upset with somebody… then good luck to Mourinho with this stuff.
“I’m not talking about Pogba. I’m talking about players in general. Players who get upset with a manager or a [member of] coaching staff and think ‘I’m not going to train properly because somebody upset me.’
“There’s a lot of cry babies out there.”
Strong stuff, although The Warm-Up finds it tough to shake the suspicion that he wasn’t talking exclusively about United. Maybe it was the Jonathan Walters voodoo doll he was kneading into oblivion with his hands as he spoke.
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Antonio Valencia insists he is fully behind manager Jose Mourinho (Martin Rickett/PA).
Image credit: PA Sport
RETRO CORNER
A very happy Warm-Up birthday to Tomas Rosicky, pint-sized conductor and the kind of player you would always pay to watch. Here’s a nice little interview with Arsenal’s in-house TV channel, with a few goals thrown in for good measure:
It’s also Ronny Rosenthal’s birthday, so we’re contractually obliged to throw in a video of football’s most jaw-dropping misses:
HAT TIP
Attack, attack, attack! roared Old Trafford, but Manchester United did not attack. Perhaps they tried to attack. To be honest, it wasn’t easy to know what they were trying to do. It is possible it was attacking. But they did not attack.
That’s Jonathan Wilson with a fairly comprehensive take-down of Manchester United’s current form.
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Romelu Lukaku (Manchester United)
Image credit: Getty Images
COMING UP
In the Europa League, it’s Chelsea vs Vidi, aka the artist formerly known as Videoton. And if at least two tabloids don’t go with “VENI, VIDI, VICI” on Friday morning… well, The Warm-Up will fear for the future of the obvious pun.
Elsewhere, Arsenal play Qarabag (“whaddya yet if you cross a caravan with a handbag?” etc etc) and there’s a Scotland vs Austria double bill, with Rangers vs Rapid Vienna and Red Bull Salzburg vs Celtic. Spicy.
Oh, and Gareth Southgate will name his latest England squad later. Phil Foden o’clock, anyone?
Tom Adams will be here tomorrow to dissect Danny Welbeck’s glorious second-half brace from Qarabag 3-7 Arsenal.
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