Spurs have been trolled by one opponent, humiliated by another and now Covid has delayed their final group gameEven now, at this distance, the video retains all of its shock value; the dark comedy mixing seamlessly with the gloating. Tottenham had lost 1-0 at Paços de Ferreira on 19 August in the first leg of the Europa Conference League play-off and it was the prompt for the Portuguese club to get trolling. Again.After the draw was made, Paços had uploaded a clip of two of their fans discussing the meeting with a London giant. Which one was it? They ran through all of the possibles, deliberately ignoring Spurs, until they were informed that it was indeed them. “Oh, these guys...
The sauce is a source of enduring obsession and furious debate in football – and speaks to our confusion as a nationAs with most wars, nobody can really trace the origins of English football’s enduring obsession with ketchup. Perhaps, like many things, it only really began to mean something when someone threatened to take it away. Battle lines were drawn. Sides were taken. Occasionally hostilities would subside, perhaps for years, before roaring back into life. And yet even seasoned observers of the ketchup wars can scarcely remember a week as bitterly contested as the last.It all began with Antonio Conte’s appointment at Tottenham, when reports began to emerge that the new manager had immediately banned ketchup from the club canteen....
Liverpool stepping up their title charge, Manchester United old boys scuppering Solskjær and Brighton letting it slipIt is a footnote to the weekend’s biggest story, but the final nail in Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s coffin was partly hammered in by four players who were at various points deemed not good enough for Manchester United. Ben Foster, Craig Cathcart, Tom Cleverley and Joshua King all made vital contributions to a Watford performance that brimmed with energy, intent and endeavour. United’s class of 2021 lacked all those qualities, and plenty more. They were simply overrun and, while Solskjær’s departure was both inevitable and correct, they might wonder whether a better engagement with the basics might have helped their old manager’s cause. After the...
Arsenal might fancy their chances at Anfield and three new managers begin survival bidsThis will be the fourth meeting between Leicester and Chelsea this calendar year, clubs of differing resources whose fortunes nonetheless seem tangled together. Leicester went top after beating Chelsea 2-0 at home in January, James Maddison scoring the second goal before cheerfully claiming: “We knew they switched off at set pieces,” an observation that felt terminal to Frank Lampard’s employment. Having played some part in Thomas Tuchel’s arrival, Leicester won the FA Cup final against him in May, before league defeat at Stamford Bridge three days later helped to ensure the Foxes would narrowly miss out on the Champions League yet again. Chelsea are now European champions...
The energetic manager watched his side fail to have a shot on target in his Premier League comeback at Goodison ParkTributes to Nuno Espiríto Santo had been few and far between this week until Antonio Conte found a fitting way to mark his predecessor’s reign. In the Italian’s first Premier League match in charge of Tottenham, just as in the Portuguese’s last, Spurs had no shots on target. Perhaps Nuno nodded on approvingly from afar.The paradox is that 0-0 felt the definitive Nuno scoreline, but his Tottenham never secured a stalemate in his ill-fated reign. Instead, after the breathless excitement of Conte’s bow against Vitesse came a game where, although Giovani Lo Celso struck the post, the only efforts on...