Manchester City and an old sentiment from Omar Little
DOWN TO THE WIRE
When Football Daily read that a cold-eyed marksman named Omar had agreed a contract with Manchester City, we fully expected a scary bloke concealing a 12-gauge sawn-off shotgun under his trenchcoat to rock up at the Etihad Stadium telling reporters who asked about his move that “it’s all in the game yo, it’s all in the game”. Rather disappointingly, the man in question wasn’t everybody’s favourite character from The Wire but a 25-year-old Egyptian, Omar Marmoush, who chipped in with 37 goals and 20 assists during his 18 months at Eintracht Frankfurt and will be expected to generate similar numbers as a No 9 or wide man for his new employers.
“City have been the most successful club in England for many, many years, so I know I am joining a winning environment and winning culture,” he whooped. “I want to learn from the staff and my teammates, and I want to become a valued member of this winning team.” Yes, don’t worry. We’ll get to that loudly trumpeting elephant in the room in due course, but first back to Omar Little. While robbing the players in a poker game, Baltimore most eligible stick-up man sagely observed that “money ain’t got no owners, only spenders” and it is a sentiment City have gone some way towards proving. In this transfer window they’ve now hosed £122.5m at three different clubs to bring in Vitor Reis, Abdukodir Khusanov and Marmoush. And, in doing so, they hope to arrest a hugely entertaining slide into ignominy Pep Guardiola could have been forgiven for thinking he’d halted after a recent six-game unbeaten run.
It was a sequence that never really looked likely to continue despite his side going 2-0 up against Paris Saint-Germain and so it came to pass that Bigger Cup’s most fabled chokers enjoyed the novel experience of coming from behind to leave their fellow state-owned club needing nothing less than a win against Club Brugge next week to avoid the embarrassment of crashing out of the tournament at the first hurdle. “It could happen,” parped Pep. “If we don’t win we don’t deserve it. It’s always a difficult tie, this is the reality. We haven’t got enough points and we have to accept it. We have to do what we have to do.”
Having opened the scoring for City in Paris, Jack Grealish bemoaned the fact that he and his teammates had failed to win after going ahead for the ninth time this season. “We’re losing too many leads,” he harrumphed, sounding like a careless dog-walker. “It has happened too many times this season – going one, two or three goals up and not being able to see it out.” One man who won’t see the season out with City is Kyle Walker, who has agreed a loan to Milan with a view to making it permanent come season’s end. Despite seven successful seasons during which he won pretty much every trophy going, the 34-year-old had let it be known he fancied a move to pastures new and foreign. A reluctant tabloid staple whose private life has been tediously documented at excruciating length, it’s small wonder Walker wants to try his luck abroad and leave a potentially sinking ship.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“After the game, I learned about the tradition of the bouquet of flowers at the Metropolitano. I didn’t know about it and at the time of the goal, I got carried away with excitement and I made a mistake. Perdón a la afición del Atlético y especialmente a Margarita [apologies to the Atlético fans and especially Margarita]” – Leverkusen defender Jérémie Frimpong gets bilingual in his apology post after upsetting home fans with his celebration of Piero Hincapié’s goal in Bigger Cup on Tuesday. Frimpong raced to join teammates by the corner flag and then hoofed a bouquet of flowers, not realising they were left there by beloved 76-year-old fan Margarita Luengo, a tradition she has observed at every Atlético Madrid home game for three decades. We’d like to give Frimpong his flowers for a #classy apology, but fear he might punt them into oblivion.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
I noticed the headline elsewhere: ‘Katherine Ryan shares brutal message for 1,057 men who queued for Bonnie Blue.’ If I wasn’t already questioning some of your readers’ taste and sanity, I definitely am now” – Tim Werry (and others).
Perhaps it’s my Yankfulness showing, but I beg to differ with Erling Haaland’s putative resemblance to ‘a Bond villain’ (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition). Black attire notwithstanding, he looks far more like a Sylvester Stallone baddie, circa Rocky IV. Thinking of other regular Football Daily subjects, Gianni Infantino comes to mind” – Clinton Macsherry.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day is … Rollover. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
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