REELING IN THE BIG FISH
Whether it’s Robbie Savage being serenaded by the braying, lagered-up hordes at Ally Pally, assorted players in Gareth Southgate’s squad stepping up to take on members of the England press pack at major tournaments or Steve Sidwell repeatedly running scared of comedy’s Tim Vine in the as-yet-unplayed Talksport Warm-up Pandemic Trust Darts final, the worlds of football and the arrows have been known to collide. During the world championships, Declan Rice and Aaron Ramsdale spotted Luke Littler in a London hotel and asked him for a selfie, while more recently the tungsten-toting teenager was invited to Manchester United’s training ground to wipe the floor with Christian Eriksen and Harry Maguire. In the finest tradition of the sport, their games were played in the very best of order ladies and gentlemen, with a level of mutual respect on show that called to mind that clip from the 1980s in which Jocky Wilson pauses between sets to light his opponent Cliff Lazarenko’s tab.
Sadly, there was no such sportsmanship on show on Wednesday night at Tottenham, where Neal Maupay appropriated James Maddison’s trademark dart-throwing celebration after scoring Brentford’s opening goal. It was an undeniably cheeky move for a player fabled for his ability to wind up opponents, even if his decision to do it after just 15 minutes meant there was plenty of time left for his amusing act of trolling to come back and bite him in the nether regions. Having come on at half-time to score the second of a three-goal flurry that ultimately won Tottenham the points, Brennan Johnson invited Richarlison to join him in celebration at the imaginary oche, while a sheepish Maupay was forced to settle for a Bully tankard and his bus fare home.
“I just said to him he probably hasn’t scored enough goals of his own over the last few years to have his own celebration so you probably have to copy mine,” mused Maddison, upon being asked by TNT what he said to Maupay during what looked like a fractious exchange between the pair.
He was, of course, alluding to the famous goal drought in which Maupay spent the best part of a year winding up Everton teammates through his almost supernatural inability to hit a cow’s backside with a banjo. Having rediscovered his mojo since returning to Brentford and chipping in with seven goals in his past seven games, Maupay clearly felt bullish enough to respond. “Gutted we couldn’t get the win,” he said on Instagram, before going in with his studs up. “More goals and less relegations in my career than James Maddison. We go again Monday Bees.” Described by some of Thursday’s papers as an “escalating feud”, in darts terms this harmless bickering was more akin to a pair of hapless amateurs repeatedly missing double one.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
The transfer deadline day liveblog rolls on to 11pm GMT, while Tim de Lisle will be at the wheel for Premier League news from Wolves 1-2 Manchester United.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I just feel like I’m in a dream. It’s unbelievable” – homegrown full-back Conor Bradley struggles to find the words after helping Liverpool to dismantle Chelsea 4-1 at Anfield and keep them five points clear at the top of the Premier League. “They were better than us in all areas,” sighed Mauricio Pochettino.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Re: John Caley’s suggestion that the football pyramid be rebranded the football ‘bell-bottomed trousers’ (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). What a brilliant suggestion. How could we resist being able to say that our club is ‘aiming to touch the top of the trousers’, or ‘alas, we are falling out of the bottom of the bell-bottoms’, or we are ‘moving up the bottom’?” – Dan Levy.
Re: centre-circle chat (Football Daily letters passim). I have always wondered what the point of the centre circle is. We could very easily live without it. I appreciate that 1,057 pedants will declare that it is needed to keep opponents 10 yards from a kick-off, but come on, we manage elsewhere on the pitch. For similar provocative pub statements, see also: 30-all in tennis should be deuce” – Karim Fatih.
In yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs (full email edition), you quote Arsenal’s Gabriel Jesus as vowing to be more ruthless. You go on to say that he ‘blathered’ about changing his mindset. According to the good people at Merriam-Webster, to blather is to ‘talk long-windedly without making very much sense’. I’m sure most other dictionaries would concur. It hardly seemed that Jesus was blathering at all. There is no indication that he was being at all long-winded and his remarks made perfect sense. At the risk of being accused of ‘blathering’, I would suggest a more careful choice of words when quoting someone” – Richard Hourlula.
Some consolation for Chelsea fans still struggling with the ongoing fallout from Todd Boehly and co’s £1bn splurge. After the recent match with Fulham was relegated to the status of a PR event for the film Argylle, it becomes clear that whoever agreed to that knows as much about the entertainment industry as they do about football” – Neil Bage.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Neil Bage.
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