Todays Tales

So, a few days on from the Premier League season ending it occurs to me that the real losers in Arsenal failing to qualify for the Champions League are Bayern Munich. I mean, they’re going to have to find another London side to bully in the knockout stages next season, right? I know what some of you are thinking, Spurs, but I still think there is more chance of them playing Arsenal on a Thursday night come 2018 than there is them playing Bayern.

Following their total and utter failure, the Gunners have reduced the price of tickets by 10% next season. How on earth is that going to cover the ridiculous amounts of money they will now need to throw at Alexis and Mesut to keep them at the club? Wenger has accepted that the uncertainty around his future did have an impact on their form after Christmas. Yes, Arsene. When the players caught wind of the fact that you’d already signed a new deal and were just waiting for the right time to announce it, they decided to down tools far too often. I am guessing they worked on the theory that if Spurs finished above them in the league, there would never be a good time to announce you were staying?

Having presided over one of the worst Premier League campaigns in history, David Moyes felt 48 hours after the season ending as an appropriate time to resign, also forgoing any compensation. Now, I am no lawyer, but I thought you only got compo as a manager if you were sacked? So, he’s not being noble, he is being contractual. Also, I cannot imagine there is a great deal of cash in the Sunderland coffers once they work out how far up shit creek they are minus any paddles considering their wage bill. Moyes either quit because he didn’t want to get sacked in the Championship or because that whole John Terry farce was one humiliation too far this season.

Speaking of that, the FA are asking leading bookmakers for “their observations” on the whole kicking the ball into touch thing. I’d love to think some of the replies will be something along the lines of, “possibly the most cringey thing we have ever seen” or “Sunderland couldn’t even get that right”. I’m sure the person in charge of Paddy Power’s social media account is licking his lips already.

Antoine Griezmann has been talking about the chances of him moving to United. 6 out of 10 he said, or maybe he was making reference to where they finished in the league? We have 20 teams in our Premier League Antoine, not 10 and certainly not 2 and a half like you are used to in Spain.

Jermain Defoe might have gone down with Sunderland, but he appears to be on the verge of earning £20m over the next four years plus a signing on fee down at Bournemouth. It looks as though the Wilshere experiment went so well for Eddie Howe that he is going to take it up a level next season. People are scoffing at this deal, calling it financially crazy but one thing that Defoe does guarantee is…. sorry, dull answer but goals. Mind you, it’s not really scoring them that’s a problem for Bournemouth, it’s keeping them out.

Do you remember when David Beckham became famous for scoring from the half way line? Well, this is a little like that. You’ll probably never hear of him at Premier League level, certainly never for Chelsea though maybe for a Watford or a Burnley, but check out Fikayo Tomori’s own goal for England U20’s in the World Cup today. With JT retiring, today would have been a good day not to smack it half the length of the pitch past your own goalkeeper. As they say, life is about timing and that, Fikayo, was bad timing.

Finally today, many people think Liverpool have a goalkeeping crisis on their hands. I can assure you of one thing. Sign Iker Casillas and you have a real goalkeeping crisis on your hands King Klopp.