The Fiver | Pressing the red button of idiotic title-chance self-destruction

If last season taught us one thing, it was to stop speculating about the next occupant of the Arsenal hot seat. There will be no next occupant. The job is Arsène Wenger’s in perpetuity. He, very much unlike his side’s title prospects, will outlive us all. He is the only managerial creature able to survive the footballing equivalent of nuclear fall-out. Every season someone – usually Wenger himself – presses the red button of idiotic title-chance self-destruction and once the denizens of the Emirates Stadium have self-combusted in righteous fury he heads back out of his dugout and sets to work constructing yet another pretty but lightweight midfield. He will still be there in millennia, as London lies ruined around him, recruiting Skynet T-800s – the outdated model unable to dissolve into a pond of mercurial silver and regenerate as whatever they like – to lumber inefficiently around the weed-infested remnants.
But we digress. For Ian Wright has not learned the key lesson of last season, and has thus been speculating about the next occupant of said hot seat. And he thinks Sean Dyche might be the man for the job. There is a certain logic to it. Glasses, recently-combed hair, a foreign accent, a CV stuffed with international experience, a fancy-dan footballing philosophy and 68 candles of the birthday cake he’ll be cutting into in a couple of weeks: these are all things Dyche lacks, which in the extraordinarily unlikely event of Wenger ever being lured out of his heavily-armoured Islington-based panic room could work to his credit. As, indeed, would the impressive work he has done at Burnley, which is what has got Wright all excited. “I believe he is somebody that needs to go, at some stage, to the next level, in respects of a club who can play in Europe on a regular basis,” blathered the former Arsenal striker. “He’s done his groundwork with relatively smaller teams and got them set up well.” Pressed on whether this meant that Dyche might just be Wenger’s ideal notional replacement, Wright was enthusiastic. “Yeah,” he said.
Arsenal are, of course, used to their team displaying a particular kind of eye-pleasing va-va-voom, and perhaps this is where Dyche and Wenger are just a little bit too different. It might be unfair to highlight the fact that, with 2,346 passes this season so far, Burnley are already 1,971 behind Arsenal’s running total, which amounts to 282 extra passes per match, or 3.1 per minute, or an extra pass per 19 seconds of play, or that no team hits more than Burnley’s 23.58% of all passes long. After all, they’re Burnley, and must fight each week against the manifest injustices created by football’s failing systems of wealth redistribution, as well as the modern footballer’s ignorance of Lancashire’s natural beauty.
But it would probably be reasonable to point out that even when Burnley rocketed to the Championship title two seasons ago both their possession stats and passing success percentage were the sixth-worst in the division. Plus there’s the inevitability that the Arsenal board, should they ever be faced with the need to replace Wenger, will recruit Bloke Who Just Took That Spanish Side to the Big Vase final. “He’s obviously got acumen, but will he get a job like that?” Wright went on to ponder. “I don’t think he will.” So, in short, as you were.

“What a guy. He was probably looking and thinking ‘who is this wee guy sitting with the packet of crisps’ but he changed my diet and really helped me that way. He made sure I would get up, I didn’t like breakfast, but he would wake up at eight o’clock in the morning, open the curtains and sit on the edge of the bed and make me get up, put my gear on and make me have breakfast. He was a great, great guy, and probably the best, or one of the best players, I ever played with. He was top notch … he was like a second dad” – Barry Ferguson on why everyone should befriend former Pope’s O’Rangers left-back Arthur Numan, because he really does seem like the best person ever.
Twenty of the best young footballers at Premier League clubs who, lucky for them, weren’t even born when Westlife were No1 with Fool Again – yes, it’s our Next Generation class of 2017. And see if our 2016, 2015 and 2014 picks were actually any good or not by checking on their progress here.
Producing the Guardian’s thoughtful, in-depth journalism – the stuff not normally found in this email, obviously – is expensive, but supporting us isn’t. If you value our journalism, please support us by making a one-off or recurring contribution.
“Thanks must go to The Fiver for the couple of paragraphs of support you gave us flamin’ exiles Down Under (at the start of the season) in our plight to restore coverage of a weekly diet of Championship delicacies. A deal must have been struck as normal service was resumed this past weekend” – Brian Dawson.
“What’s with Tony Pulis moaning about the lack of penalties West Brom get? Please tell him you have to get into the opponent’s penalty area first” – Martin Smith.
“Further to yesterday’s Bits and Bobs and your picture of Steve Cotterill: when exactly did Johnny Marr join the Birmingham backroom staff? Your other reader may want to suggest the most appropriate tune to deal with this, but I’ll open the bidding with ‘Panic’, ‘Nowhere Fast’ and ‘Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before’” – Harkarn Sumal.
“Re: Rob Tyler’s incorrect correction of Bob Zoellner’s correct statement of the uncertainty principle in yesterday’s Fiver letters. That will put Schroedinger’s cat among the pigeons” – Jon Kirby (and others).
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Harkarn Sumal.
Ukip’s traumatised lion and Richard Scudamore’s accent steal the show in David Squires’s latest brilliant scribblings.
Join Max Rushden and the pod squad for some red-hot Fabian Delph chat and more in Football Weekly!
Chelsea’s Alvaro Morata has scoffed at suggestions by medical bods that he may be out for six weeks having suffered myofascial-ouch, which appears to be a form of hamstring-twang. “I have no time to lose! Working hard towards recovery! Crystal Palace,” he roared on social Media Disgrace Twitter.
While giving his opinion on concussion in football, Roy Keane has displayed about as much consideration for the plight of former team-mate Kevin Doyle as he did for former team-mate Alf-Inge Haaland. “If you’re worried about the physical side of any sport, then play chess,” he blootered.
The echoes of cheering in Dublin could be heard in Cardiff after Gareth Bale was ruled out of Wales’s World Cup qualifiers against Georgia and the Republic O’Ireland with calf-gah!.
Leroy Sané has set a new record for running fast in a football match, having been clocked at 22.05mph in Manchester City’s 1-0 win over Chelsea.
And yes, it’s international fortnight.
Sign up and receive the best of Big Website’s coverage, every Friday, it says here. Seems to be a curious lack of mentions for The Fiver …
Half the people who have seen the FA’s proposals for the women’s game are delighted! The rest reckon it’s written its plans in the dark, with its eyes clothed, wearing a blindfold, writes Suzie Wrack.
Sean Maguire – not that one from Grange Hill – could be the Republic O’Ireland’s next (first?) superhero, cheers Paul Doyle.
Everton were right to give Ronald Koeman a vote of confidence – who else is going to clean up the mess he’s made, asks Andy Hunter.
Marcus Rashford: good footballer, reluctant interviewee, reckons Daniel Taylor.
After flicking through his Spiritualized, Blur, The La’s and Black Grape lyric books in search of a Britpop [The La’s Britpop? – Fiver Culture Ed] drug reference for his Dejan Lovren piece, Gregg Bakowski ultimately decided to keep it simple instead.
Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!

SOURCE : GUARDIAN SPORTS
posted by CAMPUS94