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Premier League Diary, week three - Best laid plans destroyed by international week

Brushing the sausagemeat from his lips, Richard Scudamore looks up from the communal trough, and wipes the grease and pork mix off his lips. He dings the ceremonial bell, Gordon Taylor, and the others around him do the same, wiping their faces with lemon-scented towels, with a trace of Wayne Rooney’s face on each of them. After three weeks, it was time for the monthly Premier League board meeting to review how the storylines had been managed so far.

Scudamore: “So, gentlemen, congratulations. So far we’ve received more money in sponsorship than ever before. Attendances have increased now that West Ham have moved to their own Superbowl in East London. That will get even better when Spurs move to their new stadium. Television figures, with the competition and arms race between Sky and BT, is through the roof. The numbing of masculinity and its distillation around three key points: steroids, insecurity and football banter, means we are now almost inescapable.

“But that’s not enough. If we’re to keep the challenges of the Italians, Spanish and Germans at bay, then we’re going to have to keep improving. To get bigger, louder, less sophisticated. More angry, more running, more sweat and more of Alan Pardew shouting at genteel older fellows going about their business. Tell me how things have progressed after last year.”

Dogsbody 1: “From the Arsenal point of view, we couldn’t have planned it any better. We enraged them early on. The defeat to Liverpool served two purposes. One, the fury of the fans has peaked interest in Arsenal’s fan television to new highs. Second, Liverpool fans started to believe it was their year incredibly early, an emotion which can be raised and destroyed as we see fit for the coming six months.

“Their transfer policy, if I do say so myself, has been magnificenlty orchestrated. Granit Xhaka is the perfect Arsenal player. Nobody actually good wanted him, but he was reasonably expensive and looks fantastic in easy games and in highlights. He already has Arsenal hair, so he glided into photoshoots seamlessly. His name, Granit, is rare enough to be adopted by fans when discussing him on a first-name basis, to go with ‘Theo’ and ‘Jack’.

“The expertly dull Rob Holding arrived, and has been underwhelmingly fine in defence. Just as frustration was setting in, we gave them a 3-1 win over Watford, and a bizarrely Arsenal pair of signings. Shkodran Mustafi is pretty decent in central defence, but not so good he won’t be infected by North London incompetence, and literally nobody knows who Lucas Perez is, so we can tease out just how mediocre he really is at a crunch point in Arsenal’s season. They finish third, by the way. What’s going on with United?”

Dogsbody 2: “Thanks for asking. We all agreed at the end of last season that, save for Liverpool fans, there probably wasn’t a big enough demographic getting mileage out of United schadenfreude anymore, and we needed to pivot back to outright loathing. There were a few key essential points to knock off early doors, and we’ve done that.

“Most recently, we had a late goal from Marcus Rashford to break the hearts of a plucky sob story, a team that people largely don’t mind, but who were down on their luck. Before then, of course, we had Paul Pogba. It broke the transfer record, so they can be accused of buying trophies now, and because he knows he’s talented, he’ll wind people up who object to him enjoying his life. Zlatan Ibrahimovic might have been guilding the lily a tad, but when United lose occasionally people will adore laughing in his big face. Jose Mourinho’s been something that we’ve been working on since Alex Ferguson, and we couldn’t really put it off any longer. He’s keeping his powder dry for now, but apparently he has some special lined up for Brian Kidd’s left eye for the derby. By the end of the season, RAWK will need an extra megaserver in California to cope with the outrage.”

Scudamore: “Excellent work. I almost can’t believe how far we get to take the Arsenal thing, but then I remember how far we’ve pushed them in the past. Serves them right, really. Lastly, how’s it going with City?”

Dogsbody 3: “Like the Mourinho thing, it wasn’t really feasible to keep teasing Pep Guardiola to their fans and not delivering. We all agree it was a misstep to keep on Manuel Pellegrini any longer. We had a perfect opportunity to write him out at his peak, the ‘Shut Your Noise’ episode, but we overplayed our hand in the end. No matter, things have been sorted for this season.

“We’ve still got problems, though. Nolito looks like a classic Spanish man, but with Jesus Navas and David Silva there too, and with Kevin De Bruyne, we’re looking a bit ‘Football Manager Regen’. All the faces are pleasant, but unsettlingly plain and generic. To that end, we looked to see if we could find anyone to turn to the dark side. City have been successful, but even United fans don’t really get angry, because there’s still not a single workable hook we’ve got to agitate people. Yes, there’s the human rights abuses thing, but this is England, nobody actually cares about treating people with dignity, it seems, not even themselves. So the best I’ve got is getting Sergio Aguero to grow a beard and start chinning people. We’re working on persuading him to slap a kid in the stands at the derby, but he’s not having it. We’ll keep on at him over the international break.”

Scuadmore: “The international break? Already? Oh for FU-”