NOTORIOUSLY DIMWITTED FOOTBALLER PARTICIPATES IN JOKE AT FORMER MANAGER'S EXPENSE; WHOLE WORLD GOES MAD ... AGAIN
Manchester City striker Carlos Tevez has stunned the football world by taking the golf club that he spent most of this season gadding around with – and using it to batter Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson to cruel and gory death. The Argentine maverick compounded the atrocity by hiring an open-topped bus to cavort through Manchester
city centre boasting about his heinous act.
At least that's what the Fiver deduced this morning from the very many fevered condemnations of Tevez on Twitter. But after conducting the sort of meticulous journalistic investigation with which the Fiver has long been synonymous, we learned that what had in fact occurred was that Tevez had made the sort of slightly distasteful joke with which the Fiver has never, ever, ever been synonymous. It turns out that during City's title-winning celebrations yesterday, a gurning Tevez held aloft a piece of cardboard reading "RIP FERGIE".
The player had been handed the placard, drawn in marker to look like a spooky headstone, by a fan and, renowned as he is for his ability to make winsome use of English idioms, he knew immediately that this was jocular ribbing of his Jockular former boss, who had famously answered the question "Can City win the title?" with the reply: "not in my lifetime".
Alas, Tevez's wit appears to have gone unappreciated, as his club agreed with the Twitter outcriers that attempts to pep up a party by invoking a 70-year-old's mortality are about as welcome as pricks in a balloon factory. "The creation of the tasteless material is in itself reprehensible and in accepting and brandishing it, Carlos has made a significant error of judgement," stormed a City spokesperson. "The club wishes to express its sincerest apologies to Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United Football Club for any offence or distress caused."
"I got carried away in the excitement of the moment and I certainly didn't mean any disrespect to Sir Alex Ferguson, who I admire as a man and a manager," whimpered a chastened Tevez. Roberto Mancini, meanwhile, has neither publicly berated his player, nor even deployed the same odd blend of support and ridicule that he routinely uses when talking about Mario Balotelli.
The manager did, however, reveal that Balotelli will not be sold over the summer. "Mario has been very clear and I reiterate: Balotelli will remain at Manchester 101%," he hurrahed before announcing that he expects his compatriot to star at Euro 2012 because "he is the best Italian striker … he just needs to make his brain work. That is his only problem." That and the fact that his manager has only backed him 101% to be at the club; a massive 9% down on the usual certainty in football-speak.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I now hope the Arsenal fans can get on with their lives and forget me. They should celebrate their third-place achievement and I will focus on winning titles" – Manchester City midfielder Samir Nasri 1-0 Gooners.
QUOTE OF THE DAY TWO
"The club is allowing all the major players of the team to go. Seriously, do you think it is the fault of the players? Andy [Carroll], Nobby [Kevin Nolan] etc etc. This club will never again fight to be among the top six again with this policy" - Liverpool's Spanish full-back Jose Enrique, then a Newcastle player, providing valuable insight into where it was all going wrong at St James's Park last July.
FIVER LETTERS
"Re: The Fiver's prediction of a headline-grabbing farce at Manchester City's victory parade (yesterday's Fiver). 'Balotelli with a policeman's hat' was close, but not exactly right" - Richard Howard.
"A quick shout out to Mark Bosnich and Robbie Slater for their 'punditry' on Australia's Fox Sports on Sunday, where they showed an impressive ignorance of football fan culture by suggesting everyone in England should be cheering Chelsea on to Big Cup glory. When the presenter suggested that Spurs fans in particular might relish a Bayern win, the reply was 'well we all know what Spurs fans are like' - thus brilliantly indicting Tottenham fans of the heinous crime of wanting their own team to qualify for the world's biggest club competition. In Bosnich/Slater world, a proper English football fan would gleefully see their team step aside in favour of a club funded by post-Soviet misery, captained by a man accused of racially aggravated public disorder, and whose principal achievements this season were being better than Liverpool and doing 178 minutes of Quite Good Defending against Barcelona. Sheesh" - Mike Hopkin.
"You're quite correct to take Asa Hartford to task by pointing out that Quentin Tarantino didn't script the match between Manchester City and QPR (yesterday's Quote of the Day), although I believe he did pen a few lines for Luis Suarez earlier in the season" - Mark Ireland.
"Perhaps M Night Shyamalan would be a more apt director for Asa to namecheck, with his monumental dedication to final twists. Having said that, if Mr Shyamalan had scripted City's game against QPR, there is always the danger we may have discovered it was (a) a dream (b) an episode of Beadle's About (c) 'mind games' from Mr Ferguson or (d) all the above" - Tom Heaton.
"I've been trying to work out the Guardian Sport team formation for your losing match against the Daily Mail (yesterday's Last Line). Presumably you had five left wingers, they had five right wingers and everyone just got in each other's way?" - Mark Judd.
Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver.
BITS AND BOBS
Big Sam is to sue his successor at Blackeye Rovers, Steve Kean, over comments made to fans regarding his sacking in a secretly recorded video. So how worried should Kean be? Not very. Number of years to have elapsed since Big Sam instructed his lawyers to prepare a case against the BBC over similar allegations and that case going to court: six ... and counting.
Joey Barton has until 6pm to respond to the two charges of violent conduct levelled against him by the FA for that outburst on the final day of the season. Considering that, earlier today, he was sitting by the pool on his hollybobs, reflecting "on not only on how lucky I am but how hard I work and how far that hard work has taken me", we're advising the FA not to wait up.
In a sneaky effort to ensure they get to play at Euro 2020 without having to win any qualifying matches first, Scotland, Wales and the Republic O' Ireland are considering a joint bid to host it instead.
Liverpool's walking tattoo Martin Skrtel will delay talks on signing a new contract until he gets some assurances on where the club is heading. Or, at least until those 'King Kenny has gone' Twitter rumours are resolved. "There are expectations on both sides," kerchinged the defender's Mr 15%, Karol Csonto.
And Sami Hyypia, a player sensible enough to flee before the Anfield roof caved in, has signed a three-year extension to his contract as manager of Bayer Leverkusen.
STILL WANT MORE?
Yaya Touré stars as the Incredible Hulk and the first lady of pop in this week's Gallery.
Big Paper writers and various Fiver lackeys put their heads together to come up with the players, goals and flops of 2011-12 in our review of the season. Warning: may contain multiple references to Stuart Downing.
Big Paper readers have been marking players out of 10 putting their heads together all season and have decided on a most unlikely player of the season.
Chelsea to come third? Swansea rock bottom? Man City to win the title with two goals in injury time? Mouth-foaming readers become genuinely enraged by the inability of Guardian writers to see into the future, as they comment below a look back on our laughable predictions for the Premier League season just gone.
And Stuart James says it was the right call for Aston Villa to sack Big "Alex McLeish" Eck. No one disagrees.
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STILL, IT WAS WORTH IT TO SEE THEM GET BEATEN BY A BUNCH OF CHEESE-EATING SURRENDER MONKEYS
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
