Quote
“That won’t help Norwich in their fight against survival.”
BBC Radio 5 Live’s Ian Dennis intimating that Norwich are doing their best to avoid staying up.
Number: 13
An unlucky number for the Napoli faithful - that’s how many different shirts the club has worn this season, the latest released last week, their fourth tribute to Diego Maradona. Lads? Enough.
No Sympathy
It had already been a tough season for Oli McBurnie, the Sheffield United striker scoring just one goal in 24 appearances, and none in the league thus far. And then a shower of “rats”, as he called them, broke in to his house and stole his safe, which contained eight designer watches, including one Rolex.
The Sun estimated that the collection was worth a hefty £500,000, so little wonder that McBurnie took to Twitter to offer a reward of £20,000 for information leading to their return.
How sympathetic were the replies?
“Do you buy a new Rolex for every goal you score?”
Not very.
Word of Mouth
“We would like to issue an apology to Mr David Goodwillie. Earlier this evening, in error, we reported that he had been ruled to be a racist in a civil case in 2017. The ruling in question was actually that Goodwillie was ruled to be a rapist in that case. We apologise for the error in reporting.”
Sky Sports News with an apology for the ages.
“When Jurgen Klopp came into the Premier League, they played Gangnam Style football.”
Match of the Day pundit Stephen Warnock confusing his ‘gegenpressing’ with Psy’s hit-parade-topping tune. Easily done.
“CATS LIVES MATTER.”
The banner flown over Anfield on Saturday where a certain Kurt Zouma was in action for West Ham.
“On the instructions of the President of the Republic, the coach of the men’s national football team, Mr Antonio Conceicao, has been replaced by Rigobert Song.”
Cameroon’s sports minister Narcisse Mouelle Kombi. This would be akin to Michael D replacing Stephen Kenny with, say, Gary Breen.
Cultured Fiorentina
As The Athletic’s James Horncastle put it, “there are cultured fanbases ….. and then there’s Fiorentina”. On the evidence of how they ‘welcomed’ Dusan Vlahovic back to the club last week, this is undeniably true.
Vlahovic, of course, left for Juventus in January, a move that he’s unlikely ever to be forgiven for considering how the Fiorentina folk feel about Juve. So, when he returned last week for the first leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final, how was he received?
Football Italia: “With a very special banner covering the entire end of the arena that referenced Canto 26, the section of Dante’s Inferno, where his protagonist continues his journey through hell, that is dedicated to frauds. The relevant part of the banner read: “Vlahovic, throughout Hell thy name is spread about!”.”
Way more cultured than “Juuuuuuuuudas”, that.
Ginger from Sweden
Tune of the Week: We’ll go with the Spurs fans’ tribute to their new boy Dejan Kulusevski, the Swedish international who has had a very decent start to his spell with the club after signing on loan from Juventus in January.
To the tune of ABBA’s ‘Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)’ ….
“Gimme, gimme, gimme a ginger from Sweden,
He came from Juventus,
And he plays on the wing.
Gimme, gimme, gimme a ginger from Sweden,
Number 21,
His name is Kulusevski.”
Catchy - but if Kulusevski rhymes with wing, then Spurs will win a trophy this season.
