The Return of the King
Firstly, we begin on the glorious note of the return of a true main-eventer to the Premier League. It's quite a lineup we have in managerial terms now – the return of Mourinho, Wenger still ploughing on, United replacing Ferguson with a man who flashes his players and raises the roof at Amsterdam Pride. Sean Dyche, a man who looks like a geography teacher at a bear bar. And now, to complete the set, the arsehole’s arsehole, Colin Wanker: Neil Warnock.Warnock is a man who has a separate section on his Wikipedia page dedicated solely to "disputes", arranged into subsections of players, managers, referees, clubs and chairmen. A man who claimed that Sean Bean subjected him to a torrent of abuse in front of his wife and children, which was later said to be total bullshit. He's also one of the game’s trailblazing feminist icons to boot.All of this can only be a good thing. He might be managing an insignificant club, but they’ll likely be in a relegation battle and that means he can unleash his whirlwind of bitterness, jealousy, arrogance, hubris, tactlessness and general shithousery. It’s no coincidence that after his appointment Mourinho had to immediately up his bullshit game by claiming Pep Guardiola wouldn’t be bald if he liked football. Much like the Portuguese genius when he first arrived on our shores, Warnock sets a new standard for the league as a whole.He's gonna have a great yearThe Redemption of Welbeck
Once, at a house party in Sheffield, someone pointed out a girl to me whose claim to fame was that she went to school with Danny Welbeck. Upon being asked what he was like, she summed up what made him tick, what passions and desires fuelled his ambition, really plumbed to the depths of his extistential core, with the one-word reply: “Sporty.” It sums the man up – you wonder sometimes if Welbeck wasn't created in a lab as the ultimate Alex Ferguson footballer, a pacy hard-working runner who seemed about as like as Thomas Hitzlsperger to marry a female popstar.It’s strange that someone so desperately bland – we might as well admit it, especially now Daniel Sturridge has overtaken him in terms of being interesting and cool as well as good at football – could be a cult hero at a club. And yet he was, despite being a bit shit, as Louis van Gaal seemed to admit himself when asked why Welbeck was sold and effectively answering “because he was rubbish”.And now Welbeck finds himself at Arsenal; the final confirmation of Arsene Wenger’s Damascene conversion from relying upon gangly, inconsistent, happy-go-lucky French youngsters to gangly, inconsistent, happy-go-lucky English youngsters. Usually, moving between rival clubs is daunting. When Manuel Neuer signed for Bayern Munich, the fans provided him with a list of behavioural guidelines that essentially prohibited him from enjoying himself. He wasn't allowed to approach the fans, he wasn't allowed to start any chants, and hilariously, he was banned from kissing the badge. He was transformed overnight into a eunuch of footballing joy.No such worry at Arsenal, however – it’s a great choice for Welbeck. You know exactly what you’ll get, because every single player who has ever played for Arsenal has undergone the same trajectory when it comes to fan opinion.First, he'll be heralded as a saviour. A world-class player like Mesut Ozil was pushed at the time of his signing as more integral to Real Madrid’s success than Cristiano Ronaldo. A painfully mid-table player like Mikel Arteta was praised as the astute snapping up of an underrated talent. Calum Chambers, Southampton’s second choice right-back at the time, was heralded as a future England captain after two games for Arsenal. If Wenger signed Lionel Ainsworth, the justification would be found, somewhere.And after that, the fans’ opinion of Welbeck will tally with his own performances – only on an insanely fickle match-by-match basis. “You’re only as good as your last game” is for some an empty platitude, but Arsenal should have it on their club crest. He’ll go from castigation to deification every single game, and then when he leaves everybody will agree he was underrated and let go too soon. And as an inconsistent player who’s not quite good enough, talented but immensely frustrating, Welbeck will fit into the Arsenal way like a glove.Footage from Alan Hutton's wedding, starring Jermaine Jenas, Jonathan Woodgate and Peter Lovenkrands. Weirdly, it looks like it was recorded on the sly.Will Villa's Old Dogs Have Their Day?
There was much ballyhooing in the summer about the establishment of a brand new transcontinental retirement home for players looking to earn that last big payday, as we saw the establishment of the Indian Super League. This filled a vital niche in the world for forgotten footballers – the MLS was where you went if you had a name but not the talent, Australia was where you went if you were just shit, and if you were an average jobber who still had something to offer but wanted to be paid well beyond your ability, there was China or Qatar. Now, India have granted us a new tier – players who retired about four years ago and still have bookies’ debts to pay.Less heralded, however, was the establishment of another new place for an even more beleaguered professional. Players who are too overpaid to move to a real club, too low-profile for the MLS, too cowardly to flee to China or Qatar, and too shit to still be starting in England now have a place to call home. And that place is Villa Park, as the old, the bad and Alan Hutton – the first player ever to retire from club football to focus on his international career – have moved into the space where Randy Lerner’s cash used to be.Such a plan isn’t naturally conducive to being competitive in the Premier League, yet Villa have somehow had a storming start to the season and are likely to provide serious opposition to Liverpool in the late game on Saturday. Mario Balotelli will probably hog the headlines regardless of what he does – the back page of the Mirror will probably read "Balotelli watches on as Scots vote to dissolve Union" in a week’s time – but these are exciting times at Villa, too. A world that doesn’t have a role for Joe Cole to play isn’t one we want to be any part of.Speaking of Cole, what price him to actually get a game and wreak his terrible "revenge" upon a club that paid him exorbitantly to be depressingly shit? These are the kind of mini-narratives we have to cling to in order to get us through the early season.Weird, Weird United
Deadline day might be a popular entertainment spectacle, but even without the purple dildos, there’s something faintly undignified about it. Football isn’t really a sport any more – there’s far too much riding on it for it to be considered the same thing as, say, showjumping, or rounders. The Premier League is now a gigantic battlefield between the private armies of mega-rich supervillains, with more than merely money at stake. The international reputation of Qatar, the US sub-prime market, the fate of Brazil’s favela underclass and Mike Ashley’s nefarious crusade to install a four-gallon mug on every desk in the country are all there to be won and lost.With so much at stake, it’s baffling that clubs still choose to get their business done in a Supermarket Sweep-style last-minute romp before rolling TV cameras. Yet Manchester United did exactly that, pulling off a remarkable last-minute coup for one of the greatest strikers in the world out of nowhere. Falcao will now rub shoulders with Chris Smalling, Angel Di Maria to their left, Marnick Vermijl to their right. United currently is a fucking bizarre rabble assembled at the self-styled biggest club in the world, and nobody knows if they’re going to be even worse than last year or actually win the thing.But the greatest possibility is this: Manchester United fans had 15 years to mentally prepare themselves for the fact that whoever replaced Alex Ferguson might well be a disaster and the club would enter a decline. As a result, they’ve behaved well – they supported David Moyes exactly the right amount, neither jerking their knees up into his balls, nor blindly insisting he was a genius. They played it perfectly. But after one season of shite, they now have the air of already being fed up. Will the same patience extent to Van Gaal should he turn out to struggle in a similar fashion? Only time will tell.On the Continent: Twisted Madridista
Keeping a good team together from a club outside of Europe's elite pack can be difficult. But it seems it doesn't always have to be that way. Finish eighth in the Premier League and your fellow clubs will surround you like gang of wolves, tearing away all your star players and your manager. Win the league and get to a Champions League final, however, and it seems you get to more or less soldier on. Atletico might have lost some players – some really very good players – but they’re still at large and likely to contend for trophies once again. And across the city, at their more glamorous neighbours, things aren’t looking as rosy as they might be.The sale of Angel di Maria has been compared to the old ousting of Claude Makelele from Real Madrid, a move too focused on glitz and glamour rather than getting things done. Although to be honest, if a dainty Argentinian winger who looks like he should be mixing Mojitos at a Marbella gay bar is your hatchet-man, then that problem may already have set in.As a result, Real are now rivalling Manchester United for being able to field a ludicrous array of attacking talent that doesn’t fit together at all, backed up by an assortment of the weak-willed, the lily-livered, and the brain-dead in the less exciting roles in the team. Faced against the solid, no-nonsense 4-4-2 of Atletico – who are, let’s be frank, a sort of classier, title-contending continental version of Stoke – and Real's castle of really fucking expensive sand could come crashing down around them.Follow Callum on Twitter: @Callum_THMore from VICE:It's Too Easy to Hate Transfer Deadline DayThe VICE Alternative Premier League Preview 2014-15Manchester United, Twitter Disasters and Postmodernism
Firstly, we begin on the glorious note of the return of a true main-eventer to the Premier League. It's quite a lineup we have in managerial terms now – the return of Mourinho, Wenger still ploughing on, United replacing Ferguson with a man who flashes his players and raises the roof at Amsterdam Pride. Sean Dyche, a man who looks like a geography teacher at a bear bar. And now, to complete the set, the arsehole’s arsehole, Colin Wanker: Neil Warnock.
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Once, at a house party in Sheffield, someone pointed out a girl to me whose claim to fame was that she went to school with Danny Welbeck. Upon being asked what he was like, she summed up what made him tick, what passions and desires fuelled his ambition, really plumbed to the depths of his extistential core, with the one-word reply: “Sporty.” It sums the man up – you wonder sometimes if Welbeck wasn't created in a lab as the ultimate Alex Ferguson footballer, a pacy hard-working runner who seemed about as like as Thomas Hitzlsperger to marry a female popstar.
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There was much ballyhooing in the summer about the establishment of a brand new transcontinental retirement home for players looking to earn that last big payday, as we saw the establishment of the Indian Super League. This filled a vital niche in the world for forgotten footballers – the MLS was where you went if you had a name but not the talent, Australia was where you went if you were just shit, and if you were an average jobber who still had something to offer but wanted to be paid well beyond your ability, there was China or Qatar. Now, India have granted us a new tier – players who retired about four years ago and still have bookies’ debts to pay.Less heralded, however, was the establishment of another new place for an even more beleaguered professional. Players who are too overpaid to move to a real club, too low-profile for the MLS, too cowardly to flee to China or Qatar, and too shit to still be starting in England now have a place to call home. And that place is Villa Park, as the old, the bad and Alan Hutton – the first player ever to retire from club football to focus on his international career – have moved into the space where Randy Lerner’s cash used to be.
Advertisement
Deadline day might be a popular entertainment spectacle, but even without the purple dildos, there’s something faintly undignified about it. Football isn’t really a sport any more – there’s far too much riding on it for it to be considered the same thing as, say, showjumping, or rounders. The Premier League is now a gigantic battlefield between the private armies of mega-rich supervillains, with more than merely money at stake. The international reputation of Qatar, the US sub-prime market, the fate of Brazil’s favela underclass and Mike Ashley’s nefarious crusade to install a four-gallon mug on every desk in the country are all there to be won and lost.
Advertisement
Keeping a good team together from a club outside of Europe's elite pack can be difficult. But it seems it doesn't always have to be that way. Finish eighth in the Premier League and your fellow clubs will surround you like gang of wolves, tearing away all your star players and your manager. Win the league and get to a Champions League final, however, and it seems you get to more or less soldier on. Atletico might have lost some players – some really very good players – but they’re still at large and likely to contend for trophies once again. And across the city, at their more glamorous neighbours, things aren’t looking as rosy as they might be.
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