Football Daily | Why 10-man Arsenal’s rearguard action was a spectacle we did want to see
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If Michael Oliver had brandished a red card in the fizzog of a Manchester City player who had just blindsided a stationary opponent with a fairly violent shoulder charge and then kicked the ball away in frustration upon being penalised for it just before half-time at the Etihad Stadium yesterday, Football Daily is fairly certain various Arsenal fans of our acquaintance would have had no problem whatsoever with his decision. In fact we know for a fact they would be absolutely delighted with it and rubbing their hands together with glee at the prospect of seeing their side play half the game with a one-goal lead and an extra player in their ranks.
Adults with nostalgia and money brought it back. It has the planning ahead of chess, the geometry of pool and the excitement of football. You need the reactions of a cat” – Stewart Grant, media director of the English Subbuteo Association, on how lockdown helped the game bounce back after it almost went under. He was speaking at this weekend’s Subbuteo World Cup in Tunbridge Wells, where the game was invented by Peter Adolph in 1946. Fifteen nations took part and Italy were crowned world champions again after knocking England out in the quarter-finals.
Complain all you like about every two-bit team desperately trying to copy Pep Guardiola’s playing out from the back (which is actually Johan Cruyff’s playing out from the back and, in turn, Rinus Michels’s playing out from the back) despite them not having players talented enough to do it but it is giving us a vast array of gloriously incompetent own goals that would have given Danny Baker enough content for a new VHS every week. Pray silence for the great Huddersfield Town” – Noble Francis.
Following Football Daily’s revelation on Friday that Pep Guardiola had enjoyed a meeting with Neil Warnock, at one point during Manchester City’s game against Arsenal he had four centre-backs on the field, a tactic previously employed on a regular basis by Tony Pulis. If Guardiola wins the Premier League while taking inspiration from the regulars on the managerial merry-go-round, then it would be the most spectacular of his title wins. The only way he could top it would be to bring back the W-M” – Ed Taylor.
