The Warm-Up: Silva services no longer required at Watford, plus The Festival of Backheels
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Updated 22/01/2018 at 08:52 GMT
Adam Hurrey tries to keep count of the ex-Watford managers and six-foot future Chelsea strikers...
Marco Silva has been sacked by Watford (EMPICS)
Image credit: PA Sport
MONDAY’S BIG STORIES
Marco Silva’s Premier League career crashes and burns
Maybe, various sarcastic wags floated, Phil Thompson and Paul Merson were right after all. Marco Silva – who was either 1) the enemy to young British managers, 2) an overearnest analytical-young-football-gunslinger-by-numbers who came across like a character from Dream Team or 3) just a promising manager worth keeping patience with – has been sacked by Watford.
A run of eight defeats in 11 Premier League games was enough to get Silva the Generic Corner Flag Image + Ominous-Sounding “Club Statement” headline combo, but Watford’s parting words were not quite cut from the usual amicable cloth.
The Club is convinced the appointment of Silva was the right one and had it not been for the unwarranted approach by a Premier League rival for his services we would have continued to prosper under his leadership. The catalyst for this decision is that unwarranted approach, something which the Board believes has seen a significant deterioration in both focus and results to the point where the long-term future of Watford FC has been jeopardised.
Within hours, Silva had been replaced. The new man, and the 10th to settle into the Vicarage Road hotseat since 2012, is former Malaga boss Javi Gracia. Tactically savvy, with a grasp of English and a middling previous record in European domestic football? Sounds familiar.
Gracia’s first job will be to refocus a dressing room whose collective mind had wandered along, supposedly, with their previous manager’s after he’d missed out on the Everton vacancy. Achieve that, and he might just make it to next August.
Chelsea’s striker hunt takes a more believable turn
Last week began with a stern test of our credulity and the reported interest from Chelsea in signing Andy Carroll to solve their striking problems. Once that had been digested, the rumour mill came up with former Stamford Bridge ball-boy Peter Crouch – who turns 37 next week. And, finally…
Just as Chelsea fans were beginning to question whether the Matrix was broken or something, up popped a solid-sounding story from Italy that a £44m offer had been made to Roma for Edin Dzeko and left-back Emerson Palmieri.
Dzeko, whose sumptuous volley earned Roma a Champions League point at Stamford Bridge earlier this season (which also means he’d be ineligible for Chelsea’s comprehensive upcoming aggregate defeat to Barcelona), represents a sound short-to-medium-term solution up front, where the increasingly timid Alvaro Morata sorely needs a competitive kick up the backside.
Where does this leave Michy Batshuayi? Judging by last week’s developments, you shouldn’t rule anything out.
IN OTHER NEWS
We’ve all seen a goalkeeper score from a hoofed clearance upfield by now, but have we ever seen one scored so emphatically?
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: Backheels
An unnecessary flourish? A party piece? Showboating? Backheels perhaps don’t get the full recognition they deserve, but this weekend they provided some substance to go with their inherent style.
In the Premier League, we had Mesut Ozil providing the final, gorgeous touch before Alexandre Lacazette thumped in Arsenal’s fourth against Crystal Palace. Xherdan Shaqiri’s similar nonchalance set Mame Biram Diouf free to double Stoke’s lead over Huddersfield. Down at Brighton, Chelsea tore through the home side with a double-backheel treat from Eden Hazard and Michy Batshuayi before Willian gleefully thumped home.
Not to be outdone, Bayer Leverkusen’s Leon Bailey demonstrated that backheels needn’t be a dainty starter – his was more of a meaty main course:
All hail the heel – it’s the new toe.
Zero: The Guy Who Urinated into a Goalkeeper’s Water Bottle
Not much of a moral quandary here, but let’s just re-establish the facts in case the headline wasn’t clear enough:
Urgh.
HAT TIP
Football reflects life, some pseudophilosophers claim, and it can also be shoehorned into topical news stories. In that spirit, here are some exquisitely-created riffs on the ol’ Bayeux Tapestry, whose January loan switch to the UK was reportedly sealed last week.
Greate worke, that manne.
RETRO CORNER
Manchester United secure an expensive signing from an underachieving rival, but the title is destined to go to their well-backed near neighbours instead. For 2017/18, Alexis Sanchez and Manchester City, read 1994/95, Andy Cole, and Blackburn Rovers.
Plus ça change, Rodney, plus ça change…
COMING UP
The Premier League’s most in-form side take on the basement boys at Anfield. Once you’ve figured out who is Liverpool and who is Swansea in that scenario, make plans to watch the odds-on thrashing unfold tonight.
Tomorrow’s edition will be brought to you by Nick Miller, who is about five inches away from being linked with Chelsea.
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