The Warm-Up: Harry Kane out for a month? No problem. No problem at all...
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Updated 15/01/2019 at 09:29 GMT
Plus: David Wagner gets mutual'd, Yaya Toure as a manager sounds fun and Raul Meireles lives his best life
Harry Kane suffered a late injury in Tottenham's loss to Manchester United
Image credit: PA Sport
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Harry Kane is out for a month – nobody panic
If you look deep into the eyes of any Tottenham fan this morning, you might see a look familiar to anyone who has underprepared for an exam. Wide-eyed and terrified, but desperately trying to pretend they aren’t.
Because Harry Kane could be out for a month. A month! O woe! O calamity! O a lack of reliable goalscoring option at a crucial stage of the season! Kane limped off at the end of Tottenham’s defeat to Manchester United at the weekend having gone over on his ankle, and while that same ankle is currently too swollen to properly assess the damage, the fear is that he will spend four weeks on the sidelines.
Not ideal at the best of times, but when you consider Son Heung-min will be absent too, this time at the Asian Cup for his third international tournament in the space of about nine months, suddenly things are looking a bit sketchy in Tottenham’s attack.
Perhaps the most worrying thing is that this has become a theme. This is the fourth season in a row where Kane has missed time with an ankle problem, and further emphasises the problem Spurs are in: they don’t have a convincing specialist alternative, but can’t really recruit one either because he would know he’ll be on the bench most of the time. For now though, Spurs are just hoping he’s back soon.
Wagner leaves Huddersfield, and this time it really is mutual
So, farewell then, David Wagner. All we really knew about Wagner when he arrived at Huddersfield Town was that he was Jurgen Klopp’s mate, but having won promotion to the Premier League with a squad that probably should have finished mid-table, and them kept them there with a squad that probably should have finished in about 25th place, we know more about him now.
From a romantic point of view it’s a shame he’s gone. This was a man who achieved the implausible twice, but in the last few weeks it has looked as if a light has gone out before his eyes. There’s only so much a man can do with players that frankly aren’t quite good enough, and after nine straight defeats (the gloom lifted about an inch by their draw with Cardiff at the weekend), they took the mutual decision that it’s probably best for someone else to have a go.
When clubs insist that ‘no, really, mutual consent really does mean mutual consent this time’, they always sound like those boxing promoters who tell you ‘no, really, these two fighters just don’t like each other’ before they hug and drown themselves in mutual backslapping and bonhomie when the fight is over and there’s nothing left to promote.
However, Town chairman Dean Hoyle said:
I had no intention of sacking David this season. Subsequently David – being the great man he is – came to us and made it clear that he needs a break from the rigours of football management. We discussed making that change immediately, but he also made it clear that he would give his all for the rest of this season before departing in the summer if we preferred. After a long discussion we all felt that David staying at the club until the end of the season was best, but we’ve kept discussions open and we all now feel that the time is right to part ways.
Manchester City reel in Liverpool. A bit
For those of us who enjoy an upset and revel in some (relatively minor) drama, the prospect of Wolves playing Manchester City was quite an enticing one. After all, they had troubled their illustrious opponents a fair amount earlier in the season with an aggressive and proactive style of play, earning a draw at home, but this time there was no such luck.
The game was basically over after 19 minutes, by which time Gabriel Jesus had given City the lead and Willy Boly had been sent off, and eventually City strolled to a 3-0 victory.
But was Pep Guardiola happy? No! Of course not!
We have played a lot of time with ten against 11 and we should be more aggressive in our attacking play, but we have a lot of matches in our minds and our legs.
Still, City are now back to within four points of Liverpool, and the title race is very much still on.
IN OTHER NEWS
Going simply on his dream team of colleagues, we’re desperately hoping Yaya Toure goes into management at some stage.
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: Raul Mereiles
We’re sure you ask yourself this daily when you take your leisurely morning browse of the Warm-Up: what’s former Liverpool and Chelsea midfielder Raul Meireles up to these days? Ask no more. Here he is having an absolutely glorious time on the Portuguese version of Lip Sync Battle. There’s far too much to unpack in this for us to take a proper deep dive here, so just enjoy it, as he is enjoying himself.
For reference, here’s the original version of the song – ‘O Corpo E Que Paga’ by António Variações. You can see why Meireles makes a good fit.
Zero: Anyone who makes fun of Raul Meireles
Look at how much fun he’s having. Would you deny a man that?
HAT TIP
Were Ramsey, as seems most likely, to accept the invitation of Juventus’s current chairman, Andrea Agnelli – Umberto’s son – to join the club this summer, no doubt he would be shown around the fine museum in the club’s stadium. As a Welshman, he will already know a great deal about Charles. But in Turin he would see for himself the veneration extended towards Il Buon Gigante in a city whose culture and language Charles embraced – and which embraced him to the extent that he was invited to make records in Italy, applying his strong Welsh tenor voice to romantic ballads.
In the Guardian, Richard Williams writes about Aaron Ramsey’s proposed move to Juventus, following in the footsteps of another Welsh great, John Charles.
RETRO CORNER
Martin O’Neill is expected to be named the new Nottingham Forest manager at some point today. Here he is explaining why he rejected the self same job, nearly 26 years ago when Brian Clough retired.
COMING UP
We go again in the FA Cup, with three replays tonight and allow us to tell you, they’re absolute rip snorters. GASP! as Stoke taken on Shrewsbury. CHEER! at the second attempt of Luton v Sheffield Wednesday. SOIL YOURSELVES! after Blackburn and Newcastle try again.
If for some reason those aren’t entirely your bag, you can watch loads of Australian Open tennis with Eurosport. We’ve thought of everything for you.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by the most thoughtful of men, Alex Chick.
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