THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LOUIS LONG BAAL
It’s easy to mock, but statistics can help us better understand the world around us. Here’s one by way of illustration: 57% of the folk who willingly spend more than three seconds per decade analysing data from football, a game conceived back in the 1850s as a fun diversion from the mundanities of work, subsist on a predominantly meat-paste-based diet. Another 26% wear slacks consisting of 70% polyester, 20% cotton, and 10% dried juices from food-flavoured spreads. And 15% are listed on at least one official State Department register, and accordingly monitored by the authorities, for the greater good of society. But a few normal people read stats, too, required to pore over them for purposes of work rather than pleasure. Economists, for example. Or scientists, or structural engineers. Or Louis van Gaal, who needs them for his job at Manchester United, where his chief responsibilities appear to be starting arguments in press conferences, and wearing an affronted look on his coupon in press conferences, if the fruits of the first eight months of his labour at Old Trafford are anything to go by.
So instead of spending the last couple of days doing something constructive – eg coaching his underwhelming albeit increasingly resilient team to make them a little more United-y, in the wake of another workaday performance at West Ham, or double-checking Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao’s birth certificates to make sure the pair aren’t in fact in their mid 40s – Van Gaal has been sat in his office for the past two days seething, simmering and scribbling. He’s got the funk having been mercilessly teased by Hammers boss Sam Allardyce who, having one of his I Am Allardici moments, referred to the revered Dutch tactician’s team as “Long Ball United” and wondered if the press would “criticise Van Gaal for playing long balls as much as I am sometimes criticised for being direct”. Fuelled by pique, Van Gaal’s gone and
produced a bespoke four-page dossier of long-ball stats, aimed at refuting Big Sam’s Big Allegation, but also designed to be easily waved around the head during pressers in an expansive and agitated manner, even if the dossier author is wildly hopping from one foot to the other, shaking a fist, regularly firing hot jets of steam from the ears and nose, etc.
“When a colleague of mine is saying this kind of thing, you have to see the data and you have to put the data in the right context,” insisted a highly indignant Van Gaal on Tuesday afternoon, as he expansively waved, wildly hopped, parped hot jets, etc. “When you have 60% ball possession do you think that you can do that with long balls? Because I expected this question, I have made an interpretation of the data for this game and then I have to say that it is not a good interpretation from Big Sam,” he continued, irritably flicking between pages and running his finger up and down tables in fevered homage to Charles Reep. “It is not so difficult to read. You have to look at the data and then you will see that we did play long balls, but long balls wide, rather than to the strikers. Long balls, in the width, to switch the play. You can copy it and you can go to Big Sam and he will get a good interpretation.” He will indeed. Although if he chooses to interpret United’s “long passes forward” statistic of 49.9% of 83 as impotently hoofing the ball either sideways or backwards once every two minutes – hey, you can prove anything with stats – this particular spat will, unlike the aforementioned Van Persie and Falcao, run and run and run.
BREAKING NEWS
Despite an incident with a sledgehammer and Granny Fiver’s penny jar, The Fiver is again likely to come up short in the bidding for Premier League TV rights, the winner of which
should be confirmed here any time now.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Sky tried to organise the next season’s fixture to be literally a year after the event, almost on the anniversary, but they didn’t quite get what they wanted. I was injured, he was suspended. I try not to hold grudges, you have to get on with your life, I don’t have any feelings towards the player either way now” –
this excellent interview with Tranmere’s Iain Hume, by Paul Wilson, is very much worth your time, as he discusses a return to Prenton Park, playing in India and
that Chris Morgan challenge.
YET MORE OF YOUR MUNDANE ENCOUNTERS WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE …
“One of north London’s best kebab shops was, for me, Sparks on St Paul’s Road (sadly now gentrified into a ‘Pan-Asian’ takeaway). Technically it was Sparks II, but that is perhaps more detail than you need for this story. One night I was in there getting the full ‘mix’ (one of each: shish, chicken and kofte) and pondering whether to have chips when an attractive young lady in a posh frock came in. She ordered two large doners and chips, stepped out with the pair of huge greasy parcels and got into a black Range Rover with tinted windows that was waiting outside. As she opened the door, the light came on and I saw that in the passenger seat was the (then-knacked) flamin’ Nasty Leeds winger Harry Kewell; the attractive lady was none other than Sheree Murphy, making her way home from some kind of soap awards. I often wondered whether it was a love of Sparks that made him sign for Galatasaray, and I still don’t know how either of them kept their figures” – Rob Crouch.
“Many, many years ago I found myself in the players’ lounge at the Boleyn Ground after a game. I don’t really know how I came to be there but that is of little consequence, I guess. Anyway, I was playing run-outs in the bar with the other kids (mostly the children of legendary footballers such as Tommy McQueen and Garry Strodder) when in walked Wicksy of EastEnders fame (you may know him as Nick Berry). I promptly asked him for his autograph, being a truly famous person rather than a distinctly average football player and he just as promptly replied ‘no’. Being quite put out I went to tell my dad, who was stationed at the bar speaking with some permed blonde. The aforementioned blonde said ‘I’m not having that’ and proceeded to march me back to Mr Berry and told him exactly what he thought of him. Needless to say my autograph book was signed, all thanks to the permed blonde from the bar. Thank you Frank McAvennie” – Grant Taylor.
“I celebrated my 10th birthday at London’s Planet Hollywood restaurant, and it soon transpired that a table close to ours was occupied by Paul Gascoigne and his long-suffering accomplice Jimmy Five Bellies. The pair didn’t order any food but kept the waiter on his toes with drink orders (this was late 1993, around the time when Lazio implored him to address his dietary decisions). After Gazza merrily joined in with a rendition of Happy Birthday, I wondered over to his table to get an autograph. He happily obliged and then proceeded to thumb through a huge stack of cash that had been sitting on the table all evening. To my delight, he handed me £10 before sending me on my way. I probably spent it on Pogs” – Ryan Bailey.
“I once went to the gents in the Dog & Fox on Wimbledon High Street and found my self standing next to former Wimbledon striker and father of the better known Jack, Alan Cork. I turned tippsily to him and said ‘You’re Alan Cork?’. He replied soberly: ‘I might be’” – Jason Steger.
FIVER LETTERS
“Elie has never had a chip shop, to my knowledge (yesterday’s Fiver letters). St Monance yes, Pittenweem still and Anstruther several, one of them award-winning. Just saying, I was born there 53 years ago and still have family in The East Neuk of Fife as it’s known, even though I moved away” – Grant Taylor.
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BITS AND BOBS
Brentford have refused to deny reports that Mark Warburton will be taken out to dinner at trendy west London eaterie Do One, even if he guides the Bees into the Premier League. “Football is sometimes called a village, and in any village, gossip and rumours can spread like wildfire, whether or not such rumours are true,” Eric Cantona-ed a club statement. “As with every other sensibly run club, we plan for various possible eventualities.”
José Mourinho is unsurprisingly surprised that Robin van Persie escaped FA sanction for flinging an elbow at West Ham’s James Tomkins and is whining that it’s drawn less scrutiny than Diego Costa’s stamps. “The same people who suspended my player didn’t want to suspend another player this weekend, and a player could have been suspended this weekend and he wasn’t,”
he mused. “I’m still processing that information.” As is The Fiver.
Blackpool owners Owen and Karl Oyston have launched a libel case against a supporters’ online forum
and are seeking £150,000 of damages for derogatory comments about the pair. “A message board is perhaps the greatest bastion of free speech and that is a right that can never be threatened,” read a statement from the forum’s organisers.
Fresh off their one-game unbeaten run, Marco Reus has pledged his future to Borussia Dortmund until 2019. “Dortmund is my home town and Borussia simply my club,”
he cheered.
And West Ham are hoping to sign Lassana Diarra, last seen leaving Lokomotiv Moscow after a bust-up with their coach. “Once we have him fit he will be a very good addition based on his previous record,”
parped Sam Allardyce, helpfully adding: “As a footballer.”
STILL WANT MORE?
Will Kaká really take debutants Orlando City to the Major League Soccerball playoffs?
Simon Veness reports.
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