Football Daily | The Premier League is back, baby … so where were we then?

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Just 66 days until Christmas. Only 23 until the next international break! So, as the Premier League returns, where were we? In this time of hot takes, and using the weekend’s fixture list as a framework, how are your team doing? The lunchtime Merseyside derby kicks us off. Have Liverpool got over VAR-gate yet? Everton, kept waiting for news of a takeover by those 777 chaps wearing shades, return to Anfield where their only win this century took place in 2021, in front of an empty stadium when, as feels even more distant, Carlo Ancelotti was their manager. Heady days.

Re: Neymar and how football is poorer for the loss of such characters (yesterday’s Football Daily). I would indeed argue that as more money floods into the game, the poorer the game gets. Instead of the local major employer of the town owning the team, we now have private equity firms – whatever they do – and nation states paying the bills. Instead of Jimmy Hill and Brian Moore giving up grainy imaged analysis, we get a plethora of ex-players with giant touchscreens, drawing lines like kids with a fancy Etch-a-Sketch (ask your parents), and us being none the wiser. And don’t even get me started on VAR v the assistant referee. So please, bring back footballers pictured eating fish and chips after a game in the local rag, George Best going on a bender, Shankly’s Boot Room and the groundstaff having to run out and paint a spot in the mud bog goalmouth, so they know where to take a penalty. And bring back the Mitre ball!” – Paul Arnold.

As a Matt Turner supporter from his first days with the Revs, it’s a bit difficult for me to muster much sympathy for Aaron Ramsdale suddenly finding that someone else stands between him and the starting goalkeeper job at Arsenal (yesterday’s Quote of the Day). This is at the very nature of sport, a fact that Ramsdale surely has to understand: when you’re the No 1, there will always be others working to uproot you. What’s difficult is the smile you need to have stapled on your face when it’s one of your own teammates chasing your gig – or whose gig you yourself happen to be after” – Ralph Culver.

I know it’s not the point of the fascinating piece on Pascal Chimbonda but I was staggered to find out that he managed to make the France squad for World Cup 2006 that only lost the final on penalties? I think we need to contact the OED as we appear to have found new dictionary definition of ‘making up the numbers’. PS: half of me is wondering how a France squad containing Thierry Henry, David Trezeguet, Zinedine Zidane, Franck Ribéry, Patrick Vieira, Claude Makélélé didn’t win the World Cup but the other half is wondering how a squad containing Jean-Alain Boumsong, Mikaël Silvestre and the previously mentioned Chimbonda all managed by the infamous Raymond Domenech actually got there in the first place” – Noble Francis.

I’d kick up a fuss about the Rolling Stones logo appearing on Barcelona’s shirts (yesterday’s Football Daily, full email edition), trying to reverse the deal, but it’ll be no good. You can’t always get what you want” – Darren Leathley.

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