The Warm-Up: Unai Emery proud to be jumping the gun

“We thought that would be better to have somebody that comes in that has credit and patience,” Arsene Wenger said on beIN Sports.

“You felt always there was an impatience there, no forgiveness anymore. When you’re such a long time there there’s impatience.

“Even this season we played in the League Cup final, the semi-final of the Europa League and didn’t deserve to go out. Even if we had won the Europa League, I could feel there was an impatience that was definite.”

Well, after failing to act for years as a chasm grew between manager and fans, at least now the suits at Arsenal look set to appoint someone whose personality aligns more closely with the prevailing mood in the stands.

Impatience, you say? You got it, amigo! Look: comes Unai Emery now, off his long run-up, completely ruining whatever cool plans the Gunners had for his announcement by posting this on his official website:

Naturally, The Warm-Up salutes such keenness and dearly hopes it was Emery himself who did the Photoshopping, perhaps having learned the basics of it in preparation for some future dark-web character assassination of his eternal nemesis, Neymar. Bloody Neymar.

Still, you worry that a coach known for his attention to detail is already being touched by a distinct Arsenaliness – that this kind of thing now just comes with the territory at the Emirates. “Somebody coming in and having time will fight for the championship,” Wenger ventured, but he had plenty, even without having to sit through a series of lectures on the importance of internal embargoes.

“Every time I spoke with the owner, Mister Sullivan, I always had the feeling that he wants me,” said Manuel Pellegrini, desperately attempting to blink out the word HELP in morse code.

Sadly, no assistance came and the Chilean really is the new West Ham manager. There’s a certain amount of poetry in the man nicknamed the Engineer being in charge of the Irons, and of course a Premier-League-winning manager is a Premier-League-winning manager.

Yet The Warm-Up couldn’t help but feel West Ham were laying it on a bit thick with mock-ups of Pellegrini’s CV and the like. It was almost like they were trying to convince fans that their third/fourth choice had been first all along, as far-fetched as that sounds.

Great news for the Brazilian advertising sector: endorsement-happy hot shot Neymar is back in training. Three months after absolutely Rooneying up his right foot (that’s a broken metatarsal to those not versed in the semantics of these things), the 26-year-old was put through his paces at Brazil’s pre-World-Cup training camp, showing no visible signs of discomfort.

“We want him to gain confidence without too much pressure over his performance levels,” said Selecao coordinator Edu Gaspar. Brazil? Pressure? Nah, should be fine. Still, at least Ney’s insistence on upstaging Emery AGAIN shows he’s very much back in the game as far as the publicity economy goes.

17 years ago today: Bayern Munich beat Valencia in a game of soooooo many penalties to win the Champions League.

Things that spring to mind when rewatching the highlights: (1) Stefan Effenberg was a scary, scary man; (2) JOHN CAREW; (3) Santi Canizares looks like he walked in from the set of Blade Runnner; (4) How young does Owen Hargreaves look?

11 years ago today: AC Milan beat Valencia in a game of soooooo much Pippo Inzaghi goodness to win the Champions League.

The second goal is sheer perfection in terms of how agonising it is for the goalkeeper. Proper chef-kissing-fingers stuff.

We thought it was an impossible task. The bar was set too damned high. We would have put the houses we’ll never be able to afford on football-writing wages on that Dubai helicopter promo being Michael Owen’s crowning achievement in advertising.

“This is no ordinary chopper. It’s got special powers.” Magnificent. Just… magnificent.

But you know what? He’s only gone and done it again, the boy. Check out this staggering spot for personal-injury lawyers who couldn’t even be bothered to design their own logo, instead settling for a mash-up of The Guardian’s and Google’s.

Michael, if you do happen to be reading this: Do you need money? If so, you probably have just about enough credit in the bank (not literally, sorry) to make a Kickstarter a viable option. It has to be better than this.

Not content with winning the Premier League and reinventing football, the Manchester City man now appears keen to strike a major blow for the nation’s sports subs with a move for Matthijs de Ligt.

According to The Guardian, the City boss sees the youngster as the long-term heir to Vincent Kompany. Which is all well and good, but his footballing ability is surely dwarfed by the world of appalling/amazing puns that a name like De Ligt grants access to.

All together now…

Who’s that? Steve Rider? Biff Tannen? Vince McMahon? Mickey Rooney? Gary Busey? Clare Balding, if we’re being really, really harsh?

No sir: that is double World Cup winner Brandi Chastain, who diplomatically called the plaque “nice”, but who also, more relevantly, looks like this:

Got absolutely nothing in the calendar for you, unfortunately, although there’s probably a fair chance a couple more managers will agree to make their short-term futures considerably more miserable by taking thankless new jobs. Fun!