To paraphrase Thomas Miller, Christmas comes but once a year and can last approximately three to four months, depending on how easily we can manipulated into buying football branded tatt.
Now that our beloved game has cottoned on to the amount of money they can make by forcing their players into hideous, club themed Christmas jumpers, the joy of browsing the top club’s festive catalogues should be underestimated at your peril.
Germany usually lead the charge, with Bayern Munich players regularly earning every penny of their huge salaries by dressing up in horrendous outfits, but it seems Jurgen Klopp’s influence has spread as far as Liverpool’s marketing department, as the club celebrate their entry into the festive arena with this photo of the players pretending to enjoy themselves in a Christmas setting.
We can only wonder at what Daniel Sturridge is finding so funny, but it’s almost certainly something to do with how enterprises like this reinforce the conceit that all Premier League teams live in their stadium like a lovely big family. A conceit I’ve made it my business to perpetuate.
Look at this photo, then try to dispose me of the notion. Go on.
–
Tim Wiese won his first WWE fight. Apparently he’s put on 40lbs since he left football for Lycra.
Most of it seems to be bronzer.
–
Yaya Toure’s stand-off with Pep Guardiola has ended after the Ivory Coast midfielder apologised for ‘misunderstandings’.
When Guardiola moved to City, speculation that the notoriously laidback Yaya would struggle with Guardiola’s intensive training techniques and pressing play, but he barely got a foot into a rondo before his agent, Dimitri Seluk, went postal over Guardiola’s decision to leave Toure out of City’s Champions League squad.
Seluk claimed his client had been humiliated by said decision and suggested that if City fail to win this year’s Champion’s League, Guardiola should ‘have the balls’ to admit he was wrong to exclude his player. Unsurprisingly, the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich manager refused to engage with Seluk, who continued to chip off at every given opportunity, presumably until his client realised the only thing he was gaining from it was a reputation for petulance and a lack of match fitness likely to put off potential buyers.
You know, like the birthday cake business.
Anyhoo, Toure has finally realised that this kind of behaviour is beneath a player of his stature and an insult to the club he has served with distinction for the last six years and apologised. Now all he has to do is find the extra pace and guile to survive in Pep’s midfield while simultaneously ensuring his agent never speaks to the media again.
He’s already failed to manage the latter, so I’m not optimistic.
