A CAVERNOUS TANK OF OXYGEN
Television, we have been told before, is a dying medium. Fizzling out. Kneeling in tribute to the good lords YouTube, Vine and whatever else the youngsters avoid eye contact in favour of today, only to get Joey Bartoned in a sensitive area when it makes to get up again. Who really needs the telly? José Mourinho decided that he did on Saturday night, dialling up the begetters of football as we know it and requesting
a place on the following day’s Goals On Sunday sofa.
The tears of joy wept by whoever answered the phone were presumably matched in grief by those who had been looking forward to a few sepia-tinted reminiscences from James Beattie. Out went the ex-Accrington Stanley manager, in came the current Chelsea supremo and with him came a cavernous tank of oxygen to feed a debate that tends to leave you colder than a February night in Stoke. Mourinho cut a brooding figure for the show’s duration but the headline event was a 27-minute tranche in which, virtually uninterrupted, he catalogued the litany of perceived injustices to have gone against Chelsea this season and questioned the standard of refereeing in the Premier League – prompted by the “criminal” tackle by Ashley Barnes, who may just have thought he was passing the football, which led to Nemanja Matic’s red card on Saturday.
The excitement in witnessing this apparent persecution complex unravel was probably dwarfed by that of Sky executives watching the clock to see whether this portion of box-office candy might just overlap with the Spurs v West Ham game on BT Sport. It did not, although if anyone else in the studio had displayed the temerity to challenge one or more of Mourinho’s opinions we might have been detained for far longer. Anyway, the damage was done in those 27 minutes on Speakers’ Corner. Any fair points that Mourinho made – and he has a point about video technology, of course – tended to be offset by paranoid statements of the “I would say that another club maybe would have the power to appeal [against Matic’s card]” variety.
He has never been afraid to suggest that
others like to cry and it all felt rather thickly laid on here – almost as if he was installing insulation against the stuttering form shown by his side, who will probably still win the league but are looking particularly leggy in central midfield and up front. What we are faced with now is a question about the whole nature of discussion where referees’ decisions are concerned. They are not permitted to speak in public and nor, usually, are managers allowed to launch into lengthy tirades about their competence.
But this 27-minute saturation has done the job of making sure that every angle of every Chelsea game is analysed to the tiniest of degrees, based entirely on a manager’s appetite for giving opinions clothed as fact. How will that impact upon future decisions, for or against? When every Premier League manager agrees to air his views this way, and gets half an hour of his own airtime, perhaps this is OK – but what we are left with is a feeling that perhaps it would not hurt for referees to be granted five minutes post-match to say what they will, to nobody bar a lone camera and a few awkward silences if necessary. If nothing else, it might be the kind of pre-emptive strike that evens out the playing field a little.
In this particular event, Barnes has not been charged by the FA and, whatever you think of that,
their slightly tardy five-part Twitter-hosted clarification fell on the wrong side of the fence between “well intentioned” and “generic guff”. It doesn’t seem at all sufficient in the light of Sky and Mourinho’s unfortunate willingness to let the genie out of the bottle.
QUOTE OF THE DAY 1
November 2014: “Steven Pressley is here for the long-term, it is about the Academy, the infrastructure and Steven is part of our long-term plans … There is one other point I would like to mention: change. The club is historically short-terminist, we’ve had more managers than you’ve had hot dinners ... but we have to keep a long-term vision” – Coventry City chairman Tim Fisher makes it clear that the club’s manager Steven Pressley will be at the helm for a long time to come.
February 2015: “Thanks to Steven for his efforts over the last two years ... Neil MacFarlane and Dave Hockaday have been placed in temporary charge” – that long-term vision:
three months.
QUOTE OF THE DAY 2
“Don’t think I’ll be sleeping tonight!! Hazard a guess most of them w*nk players with hearts the size of a pea will be soundo #nopride” – Sacked Peterborough goalkeeping coach James Walker leaves the club with his head held high.
FIVER LETTERS
Oh Ian!
“Got to take issue with Ben Graham (Fiver letters 20 February 2015) and his assertion that George Reilly was the ‘Peter Crouch of the small shorts era’. No way. The original prototype Peter Crouch, as everyone knows,
was Ian Ormondroyd” – Paul Snowdon.
“Does Brendan Rodgers list his religion as Jedi on the national census? I’m not sure how else he could claim much influence over Coutinho’s 30+ yard blinder that most would attribute to the player’s skill alone but Rodgers called a ‘wonderful goal in terms of the system of how we play’. He needs to work on the Jedi mind-trick though, not even the interviewer was fooled by his claim that referee ‘Kevin Friend was excellent and I think all his decisions were right’, and ‘these aren’t the droids you’re looking for’” – David Wall.
“I remember very little of the Daily Fiver and I am sure that is your intention. I do, however, distinctly remember you saying that Phil Coutinho can’t shoot, or words to that effect. I was in whole hearted agreement with you at the time but have since reviewed my opinion given he has since been able to shoot (emphatically) on at least two occasions. Please can you say that Stewart Downing/Carlton Cole/Mark Noble can’t shoot either” – Colin Cole-Johnson.
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RECOMMENDED LISTENING
BITS AND BOBS
Proud to be a football fan dept Part 2,598,908: West Ham United have warned any supporters alleged to have chanted antisemitic songs on the way to
Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham at White Hart Lane that they will be banned for life if they are found guilty.
Roma’s former club quack reckons rumoured Manchester United target Kevin Strootman’s knee is jiggered because surgery did not go well. “His Cyclops syndrome results from a problem in the ligament’s position,”
he over-everyone’s-head-ed, parping for good measure: “The cartilaginous damage is determined by the extensive deficit.”
In other Serie A news: Lazio midfielder Antonio Candreva was subbed off with knee-knack after celebrating his winning goal against Palermo
by running into a wall.
James Milner is 100% fit and can be returned to the Manchester City starting lineup for just long enough to convince him to sign a new contract, allowing him to then resume bench-warming duties thereafter.
After Big Sam sportingly pointed out that the last gasp point that Tottenham earned against West Ham “was more luck than talent”, Spurs’s Nabil Bentaleb did the metaphorical equivalent of winding one hand round and round while pretending to winch up a middle finger. “He can say whatever he wants,” Bentaleb raspberried.
“We scored a penalty in the last minute.”
STILL WANT MORE?
Weird Uncle Fiver was a bit disappointed that curvy calculators didn’t feature in Sean Ingle’s tale of “mathematical modelling” in Denmark and
how it bodes well for Brentford. Football stattos enjoyed it, mind.
Ten Premier League talking points and a gazillion comments
right here.
Manchester City are in danger of suffering Big Cup-ouch if Barcelona’s deadly trident gives them a three-pronged jab to the jacksy tomorrow night,
warns Sid Lowe.
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