MADD MEN
The last time Tottenham Hotspur fans organised an official protest to voice their contempt for the manner in which Daniel Levy is running their club they occupied 11th place in the top flight and were still fighting on three other fronts. A few months, two predictable cup exits and with their team in freefall down the Premier League they decided it was time to highlight their displeasure again. While Football Daily has long questioned the effectiveness of the kind of protests that involve people walking from a pub they were almost certainly going to be in anyway to a stadium they were already planning to attend, Sunday’s march did at least serve to raise awareness of the frustrations that come with being a high-spending fan who unconditionally loves a football club that doesn’t love you back. And while it is almost certainly fair to say that Levy was already under no illusions about the low regard in which he is held by most Spurs supporters, news of the protest did at least spook club suits into sending out a pre-emptive email containing the usual bland and detail-free platitudes about “the need to be united”, etc and so on.
While fans are well within their rights to feel aggrieved by Levy’s apparent determination to provide them with whom they view as lemonade footballers on a budget that really ought to stretch to the finest champagne, at least they can have no quibbles about the opulence of the cathedral in which they regularly convene to cheer on (or lament) the trophy-dodgers who habitually line up for their team instead. And while it must be infuriating for them that, in terms of peak performance, Beyoncé remains the benchmark since the magnificent Tottenham Stadium first threw open its doors, at least on Sunday Spurs got to welcome opposition whose club is even more of a bin fire, with even more unlikable owners and whose once great stadium is now a complete dump. In a match that was in direct contravention of its Sky Sports Super Sunday billing, Spurs took advantage of extremely profligate Manchester United finishing to take all three points, their winner coming from James Maddison, one of the five players to return from knack that unsurprisingly improved their team.
While it would be naive for anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Tottenham’s work to read too much into this victory until we see if they can escape from Ipswich without blunderbussing themselves in both feet later this week, Ange Postecoglou was visibly relieved by his tactically inflexible team’s win, lifting them up from 15th in the table. In stark contrast, Ruben Amorim, his even more stubborn opposite number, spent the closing stages of the game hunched over in his touchline seat staring mournfully at the floor as they assumed the position. Having been the subject of criticism bordering on outright mockery by Roy Keane in the build-up to this match, Maddison’s celebratory “shush” to the cameras following his uncontested tap-in was widely interpreted and subsequently confirmed as a genuinely amusing riposte. Sadly, Keane wasn’t in London to give his thoughts on the matter, presumably because he was busy polishing his vast collection of medals at home.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I think with Bellingham’s red card, [the referee] didn’t understand the English well … I don’t think it’s something offensive” – yes, it’s the big semantical discourse of the weekend: Jude Bellingham getting sent off for effing and jeffing during Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw at Osasuna. “He said ‘[eff] off’, not ‘[eff] you’ – that’s way different,” added the Italian, although that didn’t stop Hansi Flick, from old rivals Barça, wading in. “It is disrespectful, but I’m not the one who should comment on it,” tooted Flick, commenting on it. “That’s what I’ve always told the players. Why waste time and energy arguing with the referee regarding the decisions he makes?”
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Mikel Arteta started Mikel Merino on the bench for Arsenal’s match at Leicester. After 69 minutes he brought the midfielder on to play in attack and Merino scored the goals to secure victory. Was this woolly thinking on Arteta’s part?” – Ed Coutts.
Re: Noble Francis’s evidently prize-worthy letter in which he quotes Tom Lehrer (Friday’s Football Daily letters), I would like to be among the 1,057 Tom Lehrer aficionados who consume your semi-humorous daily missive to point out that, while the man is certainly ‘great’, it may come as somewhat of a surprise to the 96-year-old to learn that he is ‘late’” – Mick O’Regan (and 1,056 other Tom Lehrer aficionados).
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Ed Coutts! Terms and conditions for our competitions – when we have them – can be viewed here.
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