NORMAL SERVICE RESUMES
Today is Black Friday, a celebration of rabid consumerism which began in the USA USA USA, a means of rewarding citizens for getting through the tedium of Thanksgiving by selling them cut-price electrical goods. A true 21st-century holiday, and the perfect day to welcome back the Premier League after an international break that must have lasted at least six weeks. We’re getting thrown back in at the deep end, too, with Manchester City v Liverpool an absolute door-buster of an early Saturday game. First plays second in a fixture that practically guarantees drama, outrage and title-race repercussions; it’s almost too much too soon, like starting the FD Towers Xmas Party playlist with Mr Brightside.
Yet in the grand scheme of things, the headline event at the Etihad may not be the biggest fixture, or even the most significant Blues v Reds, Merseyside v Manchester clash of the weekend. On Sunday, Everton host Manchester United in their first game since being hit with a 10-point penalty for breaching the league’s profitability and sustainability rules, after posting losses that were £19.5m over the three-year £105m limit. Oh, Everton! No sooner had Sean Dyche’s beleaguered mob started picking up points than the suits snatched them away again. “We’re shocked,” Dyche barked on Friday. “The enormity of it. Disproportionate is a word that has been used by the club.”
The majority of Everton fans don’t intend to take the penalty lying down. Planned protests this weekend include a march on Our League HQ in London, flying a banner over the Etihad on Saturday, before booing the Premier League anthem and holding up red cards that read “Premier League: Corrupt” during the game at Goodison. All of which leaves us with a few questions. 1) Are the travelling Everton fans all crammed on to the same bad-tempered Megabus? 2) There’s a Premier League anthem? 3) What exactly do they mean by corrupt? It’s the buzzword that accompanies every contentious VAR decision these days. With Premier League investigations still ongoing into two other teams in blue, it seems to carry some pretty loaded connotations.
All of which just leaves more questions. Can cases involving different clubs realistically be compared? Are Everton the fall guys or the guinea pigs for a new era of sanctions? Why does a system supposedly brought in to help keep clubs solvent impose penalties that increase their chances of a financially ruinous relegation? Everton fans, and the manager and players now picking up the pieces, are entitled to feel hard done by, but it could be worse. Some might say the 10-point deduction, imposed with the club in decent form and battling a weak crop of promoted teams, could not have been better timed. Leicester, for one, might prefer that it was applied at the end of last season instead.
The Premier League has boldly cracked the ring-pull on the pulsating can o’ worms marked FFP, and now must stand back and await the fallout. We’re sure that whatever comes next, every fan base will accept their efforts to tackle an incredibly complex issue with good grace. In other news, a new set of VAR directives are coming into effect. It’s going to be a long weekend, isn’t it?
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I had to do this interview because I was shadow chancellor – it was on the same day as the match with Celtic and you didn’t get feed from Scotland into London at that time. There was no way I could see the pictures or get to the match. I was actually listening to the match with my brother playing it over the telephone! It was a bad diversion – I would’ve preferred to be at the football match!” – Gordon Brown on the trouble with having aspirations for high office in British politics when you’re a Raith Rovers ultra.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
I am glad that my mighty (Serbian) national team was mentioned (twice!) yesterday in your leading story. Football Daily has finally realised that if you want to find humour in international football, we are always there: a very good attacking team but a disaster in defence. For those looking for some entertainment next summer in Germany we certainly won’t disappoint. For example, last time when we played a Euro (back in 2000) in four matches we scored eight goals and conceded no less than 13!” – Bogdan Kotarlic.
A key aspect of Erwin Schrödinger’s thought experiment (yesterday’s letters) was that his cat was both dead and alive at the same time. This might be proved by Manchester United’s current situation, since the team are most likely dead in Europe but alive in the EPL. As a United fan, I’m hoping Schrodinger’s cat is not pronounced completely dead at season’s end” – Jim Christie (and no other superposition theorists).
Re Mike Wilner’s letter: first he gave up letter writing to try working, then he gave up letter writing to try holidays. I can only hope that Noble Francis is not now going to give up letter writing to try experimenting” – Peter Harper.
I’d love to see Jim Deery’s Fati-Baldi midfield axis (yesterday’s letters) supported by the likes of Eric Dier, Tyrone Mings, Craig Short, Pascal Gross and of course the one and only Rafael Scheidt. Gives hope to us all” – Tim Clarke.
Send any letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Tim Clarke, who lands a copy of Arsène Who? by Ryan Baldi. We’ve one more to give away, so get typing.
• This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
