The Warm-Up: Seasons 2-3 Moments (Full Time)
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Updated 09/04/2018 at 07:48 GMT
Adam Hurrey observes the fallout from the Premier League party that never was...
Manchester United's Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, Manchester United's midfielder Scott McTominay, Manchester United's English defender Chris Smalling and Manchester United's Argentinian defender Marcos Rojo
Image credit: Getty Images
MONDAY’S BIG STORIES
45 minutes of schadenfreude undermine seven months of glorious football
For better or worse, you can’t fit seven months into a tweet. No title-race mathematics were of much comfort for the blue half of Manchester yesterday as they woke up with the red half’s gleeful cackling ringing in their ears.
Football fans, especially those with Twitter accounts, will always try and rationalise events the best way they can. Manchester City will win the Premier League. But the cruelty of recency bias means that their astonishing second-half collapse against Manchester United will sit higher in the collective memory than City scoring 26 goals in September and not losing anything more than a Champions League dead rubber until mid-January.
The spiteful schadenfreude pantomime of this particular derby began with Pep Guardiola choosing his moment on Friday to reveal that Paul Pogba had been offered to City by his agent in January – and was (un)tidily bookended late on Sunday night with Ander Herrera denying having deliberately spat on the Manchester City crest as the players went in at half-time at the Etihad.
In between was a classic footballing two-parter that neither set of fans will forget. What this really means long-term for either side is open to knee-jerk debate, but that it threatens to overshadow what could be a record-breaking title win says a lot for the power of moments over seasons.
Harry Kane vs The Dubious Goals Panel
Just how much does Harry Kane want that Golden Boot? Does he want it enough that he’ll appeal against the Premier League experts’ decision to award a goal to Christian Eriksen that might have brushed Kane’s shoulder on the way in? We’re about to find out.
“I swear on my daughter’s life that I touched the ball, but there’s nothing I can do,” Kane said after Spurs’ win at Stoke, in which he failed to make ground on top scorer Mohamed Salah, before producing the most footballer-was-philosophical quote possible:
If they turn it around, they turn it around. If they take my word, they take my word. It is what it is; the most important thing is that we won the game.
If you want that Golden Boot, mate, you’re going to have to beg for it. And that’s what all true strikers would do.
England’s World Cup opponents hit by injury blow
The Panini sticker book’s loss appears to be England’s gain. It feels a little cheap to be treating a Tunisian player’s injury blow as good news for the Three Lions’ chances of progressing from the World Cup group stages, but…well, this is where we’re at nowadays.
The Eagles of Carthage (still the best nickname at the tournament, at least) have been rocked – ROCKED, I tell you – by the news that Youssef Msakni, their creative heartbeat, has been ruled out of Russia 2018 with a rupture knee ligament.
That still leaves them with Sunderland’s Wahbi Khazri, though, so England shouldn’t get too cocky.
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: Dirk Kuyt
Sure, “ex-top-flight player comes out of retirement for boyhood club” stories are always minor hits, but you wonder just how much persuading it took for Dirk Kuyt to pull on his pair of trusty old Adidas World Cups and get back out on a football pitch.
A shade under a year since he rounded off his top-flight career by scoring a hat-trick for Feyenoord to secure the Eredivisie title, the 37-year-old was trotting out for his boyhood club in Katwijk aan Zee, the excellently named Quick Boys.
Despite coming to the rescue during his club’s striker shortage, Kuyt’s rugged nous wasn’t enough to avoid defeat against FC Groningen II. He’ll be available for the rest of the season, though, so the Derde Divisie will need to stay on its toes.
Zero: Edinson Cavani
In keeping with the weekend’s theme of runaway league leaders making fools of themselves, here’s Edinson Cavani – back in those innocent times that were Friday night – reminding us of his ability to pepper the sublime with the ridiculous.
Has any striker scored so many goals and yet managed to produce so many glaring misses in the process?
HAT TIP
It was funny because on the Friday – and I’ve never done this before – somebody had got me a video for Christmas of own goals and gaffes, and I said: ‘I am not watching that.’ But on the Friday, for some reason, I put it on and my wife Linzie came in and said ‘I can’t believe you’re watching that before the game’, but I was like ‘nah, I’ll be alright’ and then I actually did one.
Manchester City have been shooting themselves in the foot for as long as most can remember, so here’s Jamie Pollock being forced by the Guardian’s Will Unwin to recall his infamous own goal against QPR in 1998.
RETRO CORNER
It’s a very happy 43rd birthday to Robert Bernard Fowler: please enjoy some highlights from his early Premier League days, as a special treat.
COMING UP
Two mid-range Continental offerings tonight: RB Leipzig entertain Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga while, over in Spain, its Villarreal vs Athletic Bilbao.
Tomorrow’s edition will be brought to you by Nick Miller, who is not eligible for a Tunisia call-up
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