48 HOURS AND THE TURGID GAME
At the conclusion of last night's snooze-draw between Manchester United and Chelsea, the Fiver met up with its girlfriendless, chalkboard-scratching, tactics-obsessed cousin False Nine Inside-Out Wingers 4-2-3-1 Fiver in order to borrow an opinion on the game we could pass off as our own in today's instalment of the world's most tea-timely football email. We were left disappointed: False Nine Inside-Out Wingers 4-2-3-1 Fiver had fallen into a coma, induced by the tedium of what he had seen and was lying unconscious beside his green rectangular tactics board, on which 22 red and blue discs had been arranged to spell out the word "futility".
He wasn't wrong.
Last night's highly anticipated match between teams picked by two of the most cautious managers in Premier League history was one of those contests that was so incredibly boring, an army of ludicrously pretentious hipsters immediately took to the comments sections of assorted websites to post lengthy missives in which they tried to appear cool and knowledgable by pretending they'd found the game genuinely fascinating, going completely over the top in their praise of what looked to the Fiver like some fairly bog-standard defending against two sets of very toothless attackers. Put it this way: if Stoke City and West Brom had played out a stalemate like that it would have been flung in the bin marked 'unwatchable dreck'. For no other reason than the participation of Chelsea and Manchester United, this became "the football equivalent of a chess match".
Luckily, with so much (not) happening in the transfer window, this is a time of year when actual football plays second fiddle to the really entertaining business of the Turgid Game: feverous, ongoing speculation about unspeakable, tedious nonsense. And perhaps with that in mind, José Mourinho attempted to provide something in the way of excitement and entertainment by doing an impression of an angry police chief in a 1980s Eddie Murphy movie and giving Wayne Rooney "48 hours" to decide whether he wants to leave Manchester United and move to Chelsea. In less than 24, it became apparent that the striker will not be handing in a transfer request and will therefore almost certainly be staying put. It is a state of affairs that will come as great news to False Nine Inside-Out Wingers 4-2-3-1 Fiver, if only we can wake him up to let him know.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I don't think anything like this has happened to any team in the world. We deserve to be in the Guinness Book of Records. I've never seen anything like it" – Edgar Ospina, coach of Peruvian comedy troupe Union Comercio, reacts after his team conceded this, a third shambolic goal in as many weeks. It follows Juan Flores' epic goalkeeping blunder and Renzo Reanos' equally slapstick own goal.
FIVER LETTERS
"Thank you to Max Pearmain for his three-year-old Big Phil anecdote (Friday's Fiver letters). May I be one of 1,057 similarly sad, empty Fiver readers bursting to share their historical brush with stardom. As a university fresher in the early 1980s heading to campus in time for a lunchtime pint, I sat opposite Diane-from-Crossroads on the tube – the Central Line, westbound to be exact. As I'd had an enormous adolescent crush on Diane, it was a big moment for me if you know what I mean. She got on at Bank. I got off at Holborn. Oh, and I once saw The Clash sitting on a bench in Regents Park in 1984" – Luke Pease.
"If, like Max Pearmain, we're coming up with new Fiver sub-categories I have one called: 'Things I thought but which are not true'. Watching Cardiff take on Manchester City this weekend, I discovered that Malky Mackay did not, as I'd thought, have albinism. Any other Fiver readers get their misconceptions corrected watching football this weekend?" – Adoni Patrikios.
"I'd also like to suggest a new Fiver sub-category; 'blatantly made-up letters that are none-the-less amusing'. Perhaps you could re-print Max Pearmain's letter in it for a start?" – Andrew Nelson.
"Re: Shakhter Karagandy fans slaughtering a sheep before turning their attentions to the Queen's Celtic (Friday's Fiver). I'm surprised no one came up with the headline 'Super Kazi go sadistic, poor ex-lamb delicious'" – John Myles.
"Turns out that, in their spare time, Edin Dzeko and Fernando Torres make uplifting house music. Who knew?" – Fred Easey.
• Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Also, if you've nothing better to do, you can tweet the Fiver. Today's winner of our prizeless letter o' the day prize is: John Myles.
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BITS AND BOBS
Mr Roy has called up Ross Barkley and Andros Townsend for his World Cup qualifiers squad to face Moldova and Ukraine. The squad in full: Forster (Queen's Celtic), Hart (Manchester City), Ruddy (Norwich City); Baines (Everton), Cahill (Chelsea), Cole (Chelsea), Jagielka (Everton), Johnson (Liverpool), Jones (Manchester United), Smalling (Manchester United), Walker (Tottenham); Barkley (Everton), Carrick (Manchester United), Cleverley (Manchester United), $tevie Mbe (Liverpool), $exually Repressed Morris Dancing Fiver (Fiver Towers), Lampard (Chelsea), Milner (Manchester City), Sterling (Liverpool), Townsend (Tottenham), Walcott (Arsenal), Wilshere (Arsenal); Defoe (Tottenham), Lambert (Southampton), Rooney (Manchester United), Sturridge (Liverpool), Welbeck (Manchester United), Young (Manchester United).
In what might not necessarily be the best advert for his judgment with that squad, Mr Roy claims to have been thoroughly entertained by United v Chelsea. "That was the best game of the ones I've seen. I'm sad others didn't think it was good. I'm obviously out of sync," he parped.
Shakhter Karagandy manager Viktor Kumykov expects the club's sheep-sacrificing ritual to continue before their Big Cup play-off second leg at the Queen's Celtic. "As far as we know in Scotland the agriculture is very developed so it shouldn't be an issue to find a sheep," he honked. John Brady, chief suit of animal protection charity, OneKind, is inevitably fuming. "The arrogance of the Kazakhstan side is really quite staggering if they think they can continue with their bizarre and unnecessary rituals while in a country known to be a nation of animal lovers," bellowed Brady.
The Papiss Cissé PR fightback is in overdrive, with the Newcastle striker inviting a load of fans to a BBQ at his house (with obligatory reporter and snapper in presence, obviously). "I wanted to spend more time with my fans. They are very important to me," he cheered.
West Brom keeper and knack victim Ben Foster will miss around 12 weeks after suffering foot-snap.
Fun and games in South America dept: this.
Stoke have signed Oussama Assaidi on a season's loan from Liverpool.
And Crystal Palace manager Ian Holloway wants the transfer window scrapped. "When the window shuts, then we can go to work, until that happens it's an absolute nightmare," he despaired.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING
This is great. Robert Pires gets spotted watching a friendly in Greece, before being invited to play. Inevitability ensues.
STILL WANT MORE?
Norwich's Ricky van Wolfswinkel stars as a big bad wolf, Kramer from Seinfeld and an Alan Partridge feature in this week's Gallery.
Kolo Touré is back, baby! Jonathan Wilson looks at the Liverpool defender's resurgence.
Meanwhile, Proper Journalism's David Conn explains why Notts County's trip to Liverpool tonight is a sign of happier times to come.
If you missed them over the Bank Holiday, here are the weekly European football blogs.
And Barney Ronay suggests that Wayne Rooney's display in Monday Night Borefest demonstrated why Chelsea want him and Man Utd are reluctant to sell.
GUARDIAN MASTERCLASSES
There are still places available for the next of Big Paper/Website's 'How to be a football journalist' masterclasses on 29 September. If you're interested, you can sign up here.
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LONG LIVE THE NEW HAMSTER
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