SUPER EASTER SUNDAY
With Arsenal primed to take on Manchester City at the Etihad in a potential title decider, the stage is certainly set for a certain Brazilian to hijack the occasion. As the clock ticks down to kick-off on Sunday, you can be sure commentators tasked with covering the game will have spent long evenings working diligently on their painstakingly scripted “ad-libs”, fervently hoping Arsenal’s No 9 will score the winning goal. Ideally, a strike that finishes a most unlikely comeback for his team. Suffice to say that Football Daily has got its Peter Drury bingo card ready and phrases such as “divine intervention”, “back from the dead” and the rather snappy “Arsenal looked doomed on their Etihad Calvary but Jesus has resurrected their title hopes on this Easter Sunday!” all feature.
The game is certainly a hard one to call and while Jesus seems unlikely to start against his former side, having just emerged from a long battle with assorted knack (as opposed to actual crucifixion at the hands of the Romans), he wouldn’t be the first Brazilian to come off the bench after a lengthy absence and snatch the points for Arsenal against City this season if everything goes according to the biblical script. In October, Gabriel Martinelli bagged the winner four minutes from the end of a hugely disappointing game that failed dismally to live up to pre-match hype, although his shot needed a spawny deflection off Nathan Aké to beat Ederson. But away from home, Arsenal’s form against City could scarcely be more dismal and they haven’t even managed a draw at the Etihad since Gunnersaurus was knee-high to a Microraptor.
With 10 games of the season to go and just one point separating the two sides positioned above and below Liverpool in the table, defeat would be far from a catastrophe for either side … even if the prevailing wisdom is that it would be quite the kick in the swingers for an Arsenal team whose backbone, mental strength and various other shortcomings that fall under the umbrella of their “inherent Arsenalness” continue to be raised, perhaps unfairly, as potential red flags in their quest for a first title in 20 years. Whether they win or lose on Sunday, let’s just say nobody will be hugely surprised if they come a cropper when they host Luton next Wednesday night.
Currently on a four-game goal drought for club and country, Erling Haaland looks set to be a key figure for City and the Norse cyborg will hope to improve on his virtually anonymous display against the Gunners last time out. In this fixture last season, the 23-year-old gave it the full Timotei by unleashing his golden mane shortly after losing his scrunchie before scoring to cap a virtuoso performance in City’s 4-1 destruction of the visitors. City fans will be hoping to see their pagan Norse God let his hair down once again on Sunday, especially if it helps them rain on Jesus’s Easter parade.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“After the [court] judgment, [Manchester United] absolutely wanted me to speak to the press. I didn’t want to but they said it’s important you have to speak to the press. So I said, OK I will speak to the press, in the sense that they want me to speak – I’ll say any old thing. They wanted me to speak, I spoke. It just came out and then I left. And the press, they all tried to find a sense to it and make it all philosophical. You know, it just came out like that; maybe it came from my subconscious and maybe unconsciously it created a sense, but the best sense of it was, you make me speak, I speak and who cares whether the words make sense” – Eric Cantona ends almost three decades of speculation as to the meaning of those “seagulls” and “sardines” remarks with an explanation Football Daily can properly get behind.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Interesting reading the ‘Paul Bodin moment for the modern age’ (yesterday’s Football Daily). As we Swindon Town fans all know and cherish, the Paul Bodin moment for all time happened on 31 May 1993 at Wembley when his penalty took us to a 4-3 win in the playoff final v Leicester and promotion for our one and only (so far) season in the Premier League. Many happy conversations with Paul at the County Ground directors’ box on match days. Forever the Paul Bodin moment for all time!” – David J Waldron.
George Kirk’s puzzlement about Kobbie Mainoo’s playing position (yesterday’s Football Daily letters) supports my own perplexity. I’m a strong believer that a team should wear the numbers 1-11 whenever they play. So the sum total of the perfect team’s numbers would be 66. Any deviation, or excess, since it can’t be lower, from this should be frowned upon. In the recent Manchester United v Liverpool FA Cup semi-final the clubs had shirt totals of 216 v 220, respectively. Whenever I have no explicit reason for supporting a side in a match, I will often go with the team with the lower shirt total. My backup protocol (in the unlikely event that shirt totals might be equal) is to support whichever side is farther north. So in that particular FA Cup tie, United had the marginally lower shirt total … and the centre spot at Old Trafford is a meagre 0.033° further north than at Anfield. No wonder Erik ten Hag’s Specials came out on top” – Ken Muir.
In response to George’s query, a No 6 usually means a defensive midfielder (or No 5 if you’re South American) and a No 8 is now shorthand for a box-to-box midfielder. Also, No 10 normally means a support striker or attacking midfielder who sits off the main centre-forward, but that’s more obvious. And don’t get me started on these false 9s, 9-and-a-halves, etc” – Dale Godfrey.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Ken Muir.
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