Todays Tales

Hey, if Wayne Rooney can go into international retirement so can Today’s Tales. Alright? And, to be fair, we have no interest in becoming an England fan and we didn’t get done for drink driving, so I would say we made a better fist of it than Wazza.

If I were Riyad Mahrez I’d probably still be on the missing list as, frankly, there isn’t much to write about. But, contractually, I am obliged to turn up for training this morning as the international break is now over. And it didn’t really teach us very much, did it?

We learned that the French national team can beat Holland 4-0 one night, and then draw 0-0 at home to Luxembourg another. Hell, even England wouldn’t have done that. This surely means that (a) the Netherlands are even worse than we all thought and (b) English Premier League clubs swerved a bullet by not signing Thomas Lemar and Kylian Mbappe. I mean, who can live with that kind of inconsistency.

England came out of the whole break pretty much unscathed, and Gareth Southgate is very much within his rights to say “I know what I am doing, see” to all those that mocked him for selecting Jordan Henderson and Jake Livermore to take on the mighty Malta. The plan to wear the Maltese out and then take full advantage in injury time at the end of the match worked a treat. One thing I would say though Gareth, Kyle Walker is not Philip sodding Lahm and you are not Pep Guardiola. Asking the Manchester City to “do what he does for City” was probably not wise and we are English. We do not do inverted wingbacks.

We do love a bit of sticking the middle finger up though, as Dele Alli demonstrated. FIFA are sure to investigate thoroughly and fine him a far larger amount than Serbia might get for allowing their fans to sing racist songs or PSG might get for blatantly circumnavigating any FFP regulations.

USA manager Bruce Arena might have cottoned on the fact that the USA foreign diplomacy, or lack of it, is not winning many friends outside of the White House. Arena is blaming his team’s struggles on the fact that other teams hating them so much that they are trying harder. Bruce, if that were really the case then the States wouldn’t have won a game ever. Though, I don’t entirely disagree with him – just look at Great Britain’s record in the Eurovision Song Contest which undoubtedly has something to do with whichever idiot is upsetting people from Number 10 (and I don’t mean whoever is playing just off the striker).