THE VILLANS OF THE PIECE
When Jamie Carragher appeared as a pundit on Sky Sports Super Sunday, Football Daily was surprised he didn’t have a solicitor sitting alongside him, occasionally jotting notes on a pad or leaning over to give whispered instructions and answer “no comment” to any leading questions about Trey Nyoni starting ahead of Ryan Gravenberch. On Friday night, the former Liverpool defender was subjected to a threat of legal action from Aston Villa, who took such grave exception to some “unacceptable insults” he had rained down on them from his podcast pulpit, that they were ready to call in the heavy legal artillery and stop him from preventing their “ascension in English and European football”. Taking a leaf out of the tried-and-much-ridiculed Nottingham Forest playbook, Villa chair Nassef Sawiris appears to have eschewed contacting Carragher through the usual formal channels and instead cajoled some unfortunate junior comms staffer to make the portentous announcement on their Social Media Disgraces.
Villa’s threat came on the back of some fairly obvious observations he made on Stick To Football, when he pointed out that English football has a food-chain and despite their commendable successes in recent seasons, Villa aren’t quite as high up it as the richest man in Egypt might like to think. During a debate about the likelihood of Unai Emery leaving Villa to take over the soon-to-be-vacant head coach’s job at Manchester United, Carragher had said the Spaniard would “want that opportunity to manage a giant again”, before pointing out “there is a chain in football, whether you like it or not”. As controversial footballing takes go, it was right up there with pointing out that bears defecate in the woods and Pope Leo XIV wears a funny hat. “So shut the [eff] up Aston Villa fans,” honked Carragher, hitting his stride. “Aston Villa will never be Manchester United.”
Of course, with this being football, there is always a danger that explicitly signposted and totally anodyne badinage will inevitably be misinterpreted by thin-skinned folk who are desperate to be offended. But it is usually self-professed terminally-online superfans, not multi-billionaire club chairs whose hands instinctively reach for their pearls. While it remains unclear what exactly it was he said that was actionable, Carragher subsequently apologised for his comments. “I’d like to apologise to Aston Villa, the owners & their fans,” he trumpeted from his soapbox in the digital town square. “My language this week was clumsy & wrong. I can assure Villa fans it was tongue in cheek but I can understand it’s not come across that way, so apologies. Good luck today UTV!”
It has now been widely reported that Villa have dropped their threat of unspecified legal action against Carragher but it remains to be seen if Fulham can look forward to hearing from their lawyers after helping to prevent their ascension up the league after [Snip! Snip! Snippety-snip! – Football Daily Lawyers] at Villa Park on Saturday night.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Daniel Harris from 8pm GMT for hot minute-by-minute updates from Newcastle 2-1 Everton in the Premier League, for which Jack Grealish will again be absent from.
RECOMMENDED SUBSCRIBING
Sport in Focus picks out the best images from the past week and delivers them, along with the stories behind them, to your inbox every Friday. It’s great and well worth your time subscribing to. Right. Here.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I’m not always showing my emotions, but it’s really touching. So maybe it looks like I’m an ‘ice king’, so to say. Normally in Holland we say ‘ice queen’, but therefore an ice king because I’m not a woman. But for me, it is really important that this happens and it comes close to my heart. Guys who inspire people on the pitch with something people off the pitch and in the stands love to see. That is what football is about” – Hibs head coach Marink Reedijk gets emotional after watching fans’ rendition of Sunshine on Leith, in the wake of their 2-1 Skol Cup semi-final win over Hearts at Hampden.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
OK. I know readers are going to say I’m only writing about this because I’m a Liverpool fan and VAR looked the other way when a clear and obvious shirt pull prevented Alexander Isak from a free header a few yards from goal. But, every week, a different team has a similar beef while commentators debate over whether the shirt was held for long enough, as if there were a time limit stated in the rulebook. And the infuriating thing is that unlike pushing and tripping fouls, no refereeing judgment should be required: it’s either a fist-full of shirt or it’s not. And unlike handballs, shirt pulls are always intentional and always illegal. So, if I had a spare £1.057bn or so and could buy a team, I’d outfit my players in paper-thin jerseys that would tear away without holding them back. Better league-wide solutions would not be hard to imagine or implement, but no, the Premier League must clearly feel that refereeing controversies are one of the sport’s main attractions and probably can point to social media disgraces as evidence. The beautiful game?” – Steve Plever.
Friday’s Football Daily letters gave us offerings from L Json and Stewart McGuiness, which caused me to wonder who would be the recipient of the coveted prizeless prize. Scrolling slowly down, I was shocked. Nothing. Not even a benign ‘rollover’ announcement. Just … nothing. Beyond ruining the weekend for the 1,057 regulars, imagine the pain this inflicted on your contributors all weekend long” – Peter Rehwaldt (and 1,056 others) [our apologies; by way of contrition, we now have prizes all this week – Football Daily Ed].
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day goes to … Steve Plever, who wins a copy of Programmes! by Richard Crooks. It’s out now and available to buy on the Pitch Publishing website. Terms and conditions for our competitions are here.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING/VIEWING
Max, Barry and the pod squad chop it up over the latest Premier League action and more in Football Weekly. You can watch it too.
PLAYTIME
You remember Big Website’s iconic brick-by-brick recreations of great moments in football, such as these. Well, the Bundesliga has only gone and brought live coverage of its biggest game – Der Klassiker – to the world through the medium of Playmobil. Viewers were able to watch Bayern’s entertaining 2-2 draw at home to Dortmund, which featured new men’s Ballon d’Or owner Harry Kane missing from the spot and the visitors twice coming from behind to grab a point. “Today wasn’t my best performance or the team’s best performance, but that’s just life,” sighed Kane. “I probably could have been out there for another hour today and the ball wouldn’t have gone in the back of the net.” You can check out the highlights for yourself.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
A 14-year-old boy has handed himself in to West Midlands police after a video appeared to show a Coventry fan taunting Sunderland with a photo of Bradley Lowery during the Sky Blues’ 3-1 Premier League win.
Dazn has secured an exclusive option over global streaming rights for the Club World Cup in 2029, deepening its partnership with Fifa.
Declan Rice says Arsenal are ready for more grinding wins after hailing their 1-0 win at Liverpool as the performance of champions. “Results like this one just make it that extra bit special so we are delighted,” he whooped.
Manchester United will keep Michael Carrick in the firing line for their Bigger Cup game with Roma, despite the 2-0 defeat at Chelsea extending their winless run to nine games and making it their poorest start since 1988. 1988! High in the charts then: The Only Way is Up, by Yazz and the Plastic Population [not factually correct, mind – Mick McCarthy Ed].
Two home defeats on the spin mean West Ham are considering the future of Nuno Espírito Santo.
Paulo Fonseca is poised to march himself out of Lyon and move to Sporting, who offed Rui Borges at the weekend.
And even in retirement James Milner keeps on running, completing the New York City marathon in three hours and nine minutes.
STILL WANT MORE?
Come get all 10 of your Premier League weekend talking points.
“Here we have another staging point in the progress of the Manchester United ghost ship, where even sacking a manager carries almost zero tension, where it feels like something that has basically already happened.” Barney Ronay digests another dismal result for Michael Carrick.
Should Premier League strugglers stick or twist as pressure on managers mounts? Andrew Beasley crunches the numbers.
Here’s Nicky Bandini on the Milan derby. Look away, Inter fans.
Unai Simón has had quite the week, as Sid Lowe reports.
The Kang dynasty could pose quite the conundrum, while the top two continue to pull clear. It’s the WSL weekend review.
Will Unwin watched Salford City sneak past Exeter and continue their surge clear at the top of League Two, showing that David Beckham’s lofty ambitions there might not be a pipe dream after all.
Will also looks at Jack Grealish and surmises that, while the former England man could have been Everton’s poster boy, his career is now in limbo.
And if there’s anything you’d like to ask Charlie Nicholas, ask away.
MEMORY LANE
To October 2002 and members of North Korea’s 1966 World Cup squad – including Pak Doo-ik in the coat – visit the very spot he scored from during the team’s famous victory over Italy. The spot had become a front lawn of a housing estate, called The Turnstile, when Ayresome Park was demolished in 1995.
