IT ENDED MUCH TOO SOON
There’s been much talk in recent years about moving Premier League games to various parts of the world that do not boast Premier League teams – Sheffield, Miami and so on – with the stated aim of spreading the gospel, had the gospel been stolen from Jesus and the Four Evangelists, to be bastardised and defiled, to be converted into folding green and then into geopolitical power and influence. By way of total non-sequitur, this year’s Geopolitics World Cup will be held in Donald Trump’s America. There was, of course, much anger at this ludicrous plan for many righteous reasons, then we all got back to enjoying the football as the ignoramiti knew we would, the game too chaotically, joyously puerile and affirming for its own and our own good. How can we possibly excise it from our souls when it bestows upon us the unbridled wildness of Wednesday’s behaviour, as it also did during the last round of midweek fixtures? The campaign for a fully night-time Premier League begins here.
But in the meantime, let’s look back at what came to pass and, given no one ever starts with Everton, let’s start with Everton and their two red cards – one for backchat and sarcasm, the other for hair-pulling – pompously issued as though 100 lines and standing in the corner haven’t been invented, to the glorious chagrin of David Moyes. Oh, and Mateus Mané scored another nice goal – as did Antoine Semenyo, whose injury-time winner in what might be his final game for Bournemouth reminded us that Spurs, the club on the wrong end of it, enjoy perhaps the greatest difference between their self-perception, as aristocrats, and, well, their public perception.
Elsewhere, Keith Andrews continued his one-man crusade against age-appropriate hairdos, victimising Régis Le Bris and his brush-forward Beppe di Marco tribute as Brentford walloped Sunderland – who’d have been better off giving Enzo Le Fée’s hilariously-taken penalty to the mythical Morgan. Meantime, Darren Fletcher finally answered the question he thought he never would – which is your favourite twin? – by picking Jack, not Tyler, as if he’d not made obvious his preference on the day he named them. After which his new-look Manchester United side did what they usually do, finding a way to avoid victory against the relegation fodder of Burnley, to the amusement of all.
Which leaves us with a wild game at St James’ Park, where plucky PIF scored twice in injury time to devastate Leeds in a 4-3 snorter and more dropped points for Aston Villa, Chelsea and Manchester City, who will presumably retaliate by negotiating 115 new sponsorship details, before spending £115bn on 115 new players. And that, in a way, brings us back to where we started, and the desire to take Premier League games out of England – an idea that, on reflection, the Daily is now fully behind. Provided the destination is northern Greenland, where Trump is unwelcome and darkness reigns from October to February.
TERRY YORATH (1950-2026)
Terry Yorath, the former Wales captain and manager, has died at the age of 75 following a short illness. As part of Don Revie’s formidable Leeds team in the 1970s, the midfielder whose life would later be deeply affected by personal tragedy became the first Welshman to play in a European Cup final. Although the Yorkshire club lost that final to Bayern Munich, Yorath was an influential, combative, mainstay of the 1974 first division champions. A player who initially struggled to break into Revie’s first XI saw his intelligence and professionalism win new friends at Coventry, Tottenham and Vancouver Whitecaps before becoming player-coach at Bradford. Yorath would later juggle club management at Bradford and then Swansea with managing Wales. “To most he was a revered footballing hero but to us he was Dad; a quiet kind and gentle man,” read a statement from his children. “Our hearts are broken but we take comfort knowing that he will be reunited with our brother, Daniel.”
MARTIN CHIVERS (1945-2026)
Martin Chivers, who has died at the age of 80, will be remembered by Tottenham as “one of the all-time greats”. Chivers was a prolific centre-forward who sits fourth on the club’s all-time scoring chart with 174 goals in 367 games – but he brought far more than goals. Having arrived from Southampton in 1968, Chivers had to shake off an injury setback and hefty price tag to win over Bill Nicholson, but the bond between them would last for decades. According to Nicholson, Chivers had “the build of a boxer but the heart of a poet” – a duality that was reflected on the pitch. ‘Big Chiv’ combined physical presence with instinctive touch and movement and scored crucial goals to deliver two League Cups and a Uefa Cup to White Hart Lane. He also scored 13 goals in 24 England appearances before becoming a popular club ambassador at Spurs. “He was like a Rolls-Royce, so smooth in his movement,” wrote Steve Archibald. “But on top of all of that, he was a really nice guy.”
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Rob Smyth from 8pm GMT for hot Premier League minute-by-minute coverage of Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I hope the players sleep as well as I do, which is to say that they don’t sleep at all. That’s what I wish for them. That they don’t sleep and instead think a lot, like I’m going to think” – José Mourinho is clearly taking Benfica’s 3-1 defeat to Braga in the Portuguese League Cup semi-finals well, with his players staying at the training ground for the next few days.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
As the collective football world unites to send warmest good wishes to Kevin Keegan, I’d like to share my own little KK story. Many years ago (circa 1980), I stayed for a while in a flat in SW1, where my on-site landlady was a friend of my uncle. She told me that she had once seen Keegan at a sports club in London, where he was playing squash with a friend, and my landlady was watching on from the public viewing area above the court. During the game KK missed a shot and cursed – ‘[essing] hell!’ before noticing the viewers above. After his game he sought out my landlady in the cafeteria to personally apologise for his language. ‘That’s ok, Kev!’ my landlady assured him. Class act. Class man” – Allastair McGillivray.
As someone who sat through the last couple of seasons of David Moyes’s reign at West Ham, I cringe every time I hear ‘be careful what you wish for’ trotted out by people with a passing interest in the club (yesterday’s Football Daily). As much as I admired Moyes for turning the club around and bringing us European glory, his record of 15 wins in his last 76 games was terrible (20% win ratio on a par with Graham Potter and Avram Grant) and the football was rarely inspiring. I wish him well at Everton but his time at West Ham was up. Please retire this hoary chestnut (the lazy phrase rather than Moyes)” – Gary Arnold (and others).
How wonderfully appropriate for Fifa to add cheery new avatars to the ‘semi-automated’ offside technology at the GWC. This past weekend, after waiting almost five minutes for the technology to produce an obviously wrong decision, a lifelike avatar – perhaps depicting Florian Wirtz’s disappointed face knowing he was offside when he scored – would have been a great addition to the graphic shown when wrongly allowing the goal (and I’m a Liverpool fan)” – Steve Plever.
If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Allastair McGillivray. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we have them, are here.
This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
