Before we get going, a reminder to join our team of writers for all the latest transfer deadline day updates before the window slams shut (in most major leagues) at 11pm BST. While Football Daily isn’t going to claim to have looked too hard, the earliest mention we could find of Tottenham Hotspur being “in very real danger” of having to play Lincoln City home and away this season dates back to early March. Thomas Frank had been sacked a couple of weeks previously and fabled firefighter Igor Tudor had arrived in north London, only to lose his first two matches.
While the weird but mercifully brief fever dream prompted a deluge of further hand-wringing, Spurs eventually avoided the drop thanks to replacing the Croat with Roberto De Zerbi. A more passable version of Red Adair, the Italian masterminded heroic wins over already-relegated Wolves, a Villa side focused entirely on Bigger Vase and an Everton team who had last done anything of interest 31 years previously. Not so much a miraculous escape, as a quite fortunate one aided by the benevolence of the fixture generator, it prompted the club hierarchy to hose cash in all directions, all the better to ensure Spurs never find themselves circling the drain again.
Just two top-flight games into the new campaign and De Zerbi’s much-bolstered squad is already rock bottom of the table and six points off the early pace set by their relegation rivals Hull City. And having completely embarrassed themselves at Brentford on the opening weekend of the season, you could have been forgiven for presuming their first home game of the campaign might have been prefaced by a modicum of humility. We’re huge!” Approximately 90 minutes and a third consecutive home defeat at the hands of Newcastle later, there was scarcely a peep from said hype bro, so loud was the jeering of Geordies revelling in the obvious discomfort of their former midfielder Sandro Tonali, who could scarcely have done less to justify his £100m summer fee before being hooked in raucous ignominy.
I know where we are going and what the plan is.” Of course everyone has a plan until they get the kind of smacks in the face dished out by Brentford and Newcastle but De Zerbi can at least take heart from the fact that on Saturday, Tottenham looked pretty impressive until they didn’t. It’s a minor victory that will have to do until obliging Everton come to town in two games’ time. Now on BlueSpace, TikBook, Instachat, all the lesser disgraces.
I love, have loved and I will always love being part of the national team. I have emptied myself: now I have nothing more to give and, besides, there are great young players coming through who deserve to be [selected]. I thank God for making me Argentinian” – Lionel Messi, with the heaviest of hearts, bids farewell to international duty.
As probably the greatest player in history has announced his retirement from international football, I’d like to do likewise. Sure, the ingrates never picked me, overlooking my abilities through several World Cups and Euros, but I feel that, like Messi, the time has come to finally hang up my … ah, hopes of a call-up. Look all that happened when the little maestro changed his mind last time around!
Extract — continue reading at the source.
