Glory supporting in 2015 is a nightmare

Gianni Infantino at the Round of Arsenal draw, earlier. Photograph: Laurent Gillieron/AP

ROA

Being a glory supporter used to be so simple. The Fiver could simply turn up on the first non-uniform day at school donning the latest Manchester United merch, whistling a glory-based tune, and then watch that weekend, probably on Teletext, as the points and prizes rolled in. When a certain Frenchman turned up in north London, all The Fiver had to do was scrawl ‘Arseneal shirt’ on a scrap bit of paper, wait for late December and hey presto! Back on top again, baby. When a certain Portuguese turned up in south London in 2004, all The Fiver had to do was … you get the gist. Life was good. Freddos still cost 10p, you didn’t have to take your own carrier bag to the supermarkets, and Saturday mornings were full of wonderful wholesome, analogue things such as Subbuteo, Weetabix, and fashioning walking sticks out of driftwood, not hangovers, trawling through last night’s WhatsApp thread and Soccer AM.

How the times change. Glory supporting in 2015 is a nightmare. United, condemned to Big Vase duty, are now having shade thrown all over them by unpronounceable Danish champions; Midtjylland’s Twitter page excitedly tweeting their reaction – “MANCHESTER UNITED!!!!!!!” to drawing LVG’s sorry army in the round of 32. “We can beat United” roared their man-bunned chairman Rasmus Ankersen, coincidentally around the same time that The Fiver dropped its Red Devils stationery set off at the nearest bin.

Chelsea, so long the darlings of 21st-century glory-supporting, didn’t fare much better, drawing PSG in Big Cup’s last-16 draw, the third season running they’ve faced Zlatan and co. One London club, currently one point clear of the Premier League relegation zone facing a Parisian one, currently 17 points clear at the top of Ligue 1 with more than half the season still remaining. Should be a cracker. As for Arsenal and their eponymous round … “It’s not going to be easy but the draw has given us Barcelona and it’s up to us to give a good fist of it,” club suit David Miles confidently asserted after the draw. “I was told by my family, ‘if you bring back Barcelona don’t bother coming home’”, he honked.

Manchester City probably look the best British bet to piggy-back at present, drawing Dynamo Kyiv, but scraping a 2-1 win over the managerless, bottom-of-the-form-table Swans at the weekend hardly got the blood pumping. Nope, The Fiver is going back to basics: plumping for Real Madrid. The money, Him, Rafa, the fact they have drawn Roma in the last 16 – who scraped through by winning just one of their six group-stage games. It just seems … right. Real’s No7 shirt is in the post, and should be here in time for Christmas. Now how did they get on in La Liga on Sunday? Oh.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I know I look crazy but I am not! It is just hair … Yes, my father is bald. But I found a way to save my hair. I met with a doctor in Brazil, who has developed a special treatment. It takes some cells from here [your hip] and then relocates then. I will do it. In 10 years it will be the solution for people who have lost their hair. You should try it” – David Luiz reckons he’s found a cure for baldness and plans to stay spectacularly coiffed for many, many years.

WIN! WIN! WIN!

We’ve a bumper (of sorts) crop of (home) Premier League tickets up for grabs, including Southampton v Arsenal, Tottenham v Norwich and Sunderland v Aston Villa.

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FIVER LETTERS

“Louis van Gaal insisting that his team can still win the Premier League. Is this the earliest use in a season of the concept of success being mathematically possible? I mean, Aston Villa could still win the Premier League” – Darren Leathley.

“It’s not surprising that the Tony Pulis hand was deemed unshakable by Jürgen Klopp after Sunday’s tempestuous 2-2, the two of them inhabit the two polar opposite points of the hipster football axis. It seems surreal to actually see the two of them in close proximity at Anfield, a bit like watching Neu! collaborating with The Wurzels onstage at Field Day, but at some point football hipsters will surely embrace Pulis in an ironic fashion and Kingsland Road will be awash with ill-fitting tracksuits and baseball caps (if it isn’t already)” – Matt Leuw.

“First they came for our Stilton cheese, and now (Friday’s Still Want More) they’re coming for our farm shops. I know football is notoriously insular, and it’s unlikely anyone from the Toffees will have heard of the village of Everton, but this is ridiculous. What worries me is that this might be the start of a series of namesake lawsuits in Nottinghamshire – former Southend United striker Freddy Eastwood and Tactics Tim Sherwood share their name with a town and district respectively, while in Mansfield Woodhouse, the Bramble Academy must be a little bit nervous about receiving a letter from solicitors instructed by Titus” – Ed Taylor.

“Surely the bigger issue with David Hunter winning the letter of the day (Fiver letters passim) is the fact that his joke was blatantly ripped off from this banner made by Newcastle fans over a year ago? I guess the club formerly known as Jongleurs FC is a good place to start if you’re going to pilfer jokes, though” – Mark Jelbert.

“‘Hi, Injury? This is Insult. Insult, Injury.’ About this time last year, I ‘won’ a letter o’ the day with a magnificently eloquent piece of writing, and was promised a copy of Football Manager 2015. I’m still waiting. Then, on Friday, my letter was printed (Friday’s Fiver letters) on a day when none of your contributions were deemed worthy of a prize, so some mug today will win two. Now, it might be that many people feel I’m banging on about history and past victories, rather than focusing on more recent mediocrities. As a Liverpool fan, I can say I’ve built up an immunity to such accusations” – Matt Dony.

• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winners (we changed our minds over giving one copy to one reader) of our letter o’the day are … Matt Leuw and Matt Dony, who receive a copy of Football Manager 2016, courtesy of the very kind people at Football Manager Towers. We’ve got plenty more copies to give away, so if you haven’t been lucky thus far, keep trying.

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BITS AND BOBS

Neil Lennon is worried that his Bolton players may see themselves out of the door marked Do One if the club fails to pay them again. And just before Chrimbo too! “Obviously at this time of year it’s a huge concern if they’re not getting paid. We need something done very, very quickly,” he yelped.

Espanyol have kicked coach Sergio González to the kerb and installed Constantin Galca in his place.

Neymar is likely to miss Barcelona’s 6-0 victory against Guangzhou in the Club World Cup after failing to recover from groin-gah.

José Mourinho reckons Diego Costa is not about to hot-step it back to Atlético Madrid anytime soon and is very happy at Chelsea despite his mournful mug telling a different story. “I see him staying at Chelsea for three more years, no problem,” barked Mourinho, who might not be able to say the same for himself.

And critics of Argentina in South America have got Lil’ Lionel Messi’s gums flappin’ in the furious style. “We are still hearing these criticisms, people killing us. P!ss off, we got to the World Cup final and the Copa. We didn’t win them but we didn’t lose in the quarter finals.”