GLAD ALL OVER?
Like Selhurst Park, Football Daily’s local boozer is a fairly ramshackle, rough-and-ready establishment located in a small corner of south-west London that is an excellent place to go when the football’s on. During the FA Cup final, it was full of football fans whose allegiances lie with a wide variety of different teams across various divisions, none of whom happened to be Crystal Palace or Manchester City. You wouldn’t have thought it at the final whistle, mind, when for the first time in living memory this particular pub’s entire clientele was completely united in its celebration of the outcome of a football match shown live on the pub TV screens. With irritation or indifference conspicuous by its absence, each and every person present was genuinely thrilled that Palace had won and denied Pep Guardiola’s state-owned side the opportunity to salvage something from the wreckage of their season.
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While “this means more” might be a twee marketing slogan dreamt up by some wonk in the Liverpool marketing department, it was abundantly clear that winning Saturday’s cup final meant far, far more to the tens of thousands of weeping fans who had won the march on Wembley, won the tifos, won the hearts of neutrals and eventually won the match courtesy of Eberechi Eze’s strike at the end of that signature Palace move in which the ball is wellied through the centre from deep, held up, played out right and then quickly back inside. When it comes to tactical analysis, Football Daily is the simplest of simple folk but even we could see that one coming. Pep couldn’t, despite getting paid the big bucks, a state of affairs that might explain why he was as gracious in defeat as we’ve come to expect.
While Saturday’s final was not without its controversy and Crystal Palace were undeniably lucky that an inexplicable VAR recommendation helped them to keep Dean Henderson on the pitch, you would need a swinging brick in place of a heart to begrudge them their success on a weekend in which various fond farewells and emotional wins helped maintain the charade that for most observers, this season’s top flight has been anything other than a massively underwhelming non-event. “To do something like that is pretty incredible,” said Joel Ward, who has played just 12 minutes of football this season, didn’t get summoned from the bench during the final but was handed the responsibility of accepting the club’s first major pot. “I don’t think there are real words for what it means, but to create history for this club, this set of players will go down in the history books for lifetimes.”
With football increasingly not as good as it used to be back in the Daily’s … er, day, it should go without saying that this seismic, life-changing Cup win doesn’t mark the end of Palace’s season and the club’s players and fans may or may not choose to sober up in time for what promises to be an even more raucous Selhurst Park evening than usual when they host Wolves tomorrow. After that, Oliver Glasner’s side will end their season at Anfield, in what could become the first recorded Premier League fixture in which both sets of players eschew the option of doing anything so vulgar as trying to win and decide instead to spend the entire 90 minutes giving each other those congratulatory guards of honour the British media are so obsessed with.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Michael Butler at 8pm (BST) for some live on-the-beach Premier League updates from Brighton 1-2 Liverpool.
QUOTES OF THE DAY
The management and I have the same goals for the future of Ajax, but we have different visions and timeframes. I feel deep in my heart that this is the best moment to part ways” – Francesco Farioli flings himself through the Ajax door marked Doe Een after his side missed out on a record 37th Eredivisie because a late-season choke handed the title to PSV.
I find this incredibly disappointing … it’s been an intense season filled with many memorable moments, and we achieved our goal: qualifying for next season’s [Bigger Cup]. This summer was already set to be a challenging transfer window, and it has now become even more so” – it’s fair to say Ajax technical director Alex Kroes does not sound happy with having been given even more work to fit in around his summer holiday plans.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
After that final maybe we have a replacement for John Lithgow in … Big Hand and the Hendersons” – Mike Turney.
Thursday morning should be, er, interesting for supporters of Arsenal and Manchester City. One lot will be able to unleash a tsunami of epic b@ntz about the disastrous end to a catastrophic season for their despised local rivals, while the others are going to have to endure a similar deluge from the fans of their despised local rivals, who will have not only – same as them – somehow managed to get into next season’s Big Cup, but also gone one better than them by – admittedly miraculously – winning a trophy. Should add a bit of spice to a game which, on form, both sides look sure to lose” – Simon Gill.
Thank you for publishing my letter on Friday regarding the battle at the top of the Eredivisie. Now that PSV have won I thought I would try my Luuk again and make the Siem joke – thank goodness for the de Jongs. However, had PSV lost I would have mentioned that’s it’s better to have bad Luuk than no Luuk at all. I wonder if I am pressing my Luuk? (I’ll get my coat)” – Michael Glogower.
Given that the Premier League champions and the FA Cup holders will both be present, will the Community Shield be brought forward to Anfield on 25 May?” – Declan Houton.
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Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s letter o’ the day winners are … Simon Gill, who wins some Football Weekly merch. We’ll be in touch. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Join Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning and the Football Weekly pod squad as they discuss Crystal Palace’s FA Cup final win and more.
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (AGAIN)
A still clearly miffed Pep Guardiola has offered no guarantee that Kevin De Bruyne will start his final home game for Manchester City and even suggested that the great-but-somewhat-jaded midfielder would support being dropped for his Etihad farewell if it meant the club finished in the top five. “What Kevin wants is that we win the game to qualify for the [Bigger Cup] next season,” harrumphed Guardiola. “That is what Kevin wants. It cannot be otherwise. I’m going to decide the best so that we can have the best chance to win the game against Bournemouth.” It would be interesting to see if the Belgian playmaker agrees with his manager’s view. In any case, victory in what is a game in hand over their rivals would lift City into third heading into their last game of the season at Fulham next Sunday. Maybe he could start that one, instead, and then rest his aching legs in the pool on top of the sw@nky Riverside Stand later.
NEWS, BITS AND BOBS
Gary Lineker will leave the BBC after his last Match of the Day appearance on Sunday and not cover the Club World Cup, after apologising for amplifying online material with antisemitic connotations. “Gary has acknowledged the mistake he made,” said BBC director general Tim Davie. “Accordingly, we have agreed he will step back from further presenting after this season.”
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Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor already has eyes on next season’s silverware after wrapping up the domestic treble with the FA Cup win over Manchester United. “Some of the people there on the pitch were already mentioning ‘we are missing the [Women’s Big Cup]’, so that’s who we are, that’s our goal. I want to make sure we are all able to achieve that goal, to win the [Women’s Big Cup] with the club.”
Like most Manchester United fans, Amad Diallo says he was unhappy with life under Erik ten Hag. “In that moment, I was a little bit frustrated because you can understand that sometimes maybe you deserve to play and you don’t,” tooted the midfielder.
A tooled-up Arne Slot has vowed that Liverpool will try to add “extra weapons” this summer to take his champions to the next level. “That is what we are trying to achieve,” he roared. “That will make us only stronger.”
Morgan Gibbs-White still hopes Nottingham Forest can nab the final Bigger Cup spot but he reckons the vocal cords of the club’s fans will be needed to help them get there. “We’re at home [against Chelsea], the City Ground is going to be rocking and we’ll need the fans,” he roared. “We’ll plan this week how we’re going to go into the game but we’ll be fighting.”
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And Dundee have hoofed Tony Docherty out of the door marked Do One despite securing Scottish Premiership survival on the final day. “With the club finishing the season in 10th, one place above the relegation playoff position, the club have taken the decision to relieve Tony of his duties,” blathered a club suit.
STILL WANT MORE?
Another ridiculous Serie A Sunday left Napoli and Scott Maratominay on the verge of the title. Nicky Bandini has all the fallout – of which there is much.
The Ligue 1 season is over and, having qualified Nice for Bigger Cup, their manager, Franck Haise, took the chance to remind us that he absolutely loves Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Luke Entewhistle has more on that, along with the rest of the news.
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Out of the fire and into the, er … skillet? “People can say all the bad things they want about Mr Dai, but he has assembled an impressive collection of assets,” says Rob Couhig, Reading’s new American owner, who gets his chat on with Matt Hughes.
You’ll miss it when it’s gone: after the penultimate weekend of top-level club football, our writers assess the various talking points.
Chelsea, already winners of a women’s domestic treble following yesterday’s FA Cup Final triumph, are a fantastic football team … and have just been given a load of money. Jonathan Liew wonders if it’s really worth it.
Manchester United and Spurs are both rubbish, but watching them fight over Bigger Vase is not unamusing, writes Jonathan Wilson.
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Crystal Palace have finally won a trophy and Big Website’s Ed Aarons (see above) was in their end, greeting his little eyes out. He explains why, here.
And there was also no shortage of greeting at Goodison Park, where Everton’s men’s side have now played for the last time. Tom Jenkins has all the best photos from “in and around” one of the great football grounds.
MEMORY LANE
23 March 1974: The Middlesbrough squad celebrate after a 1-0 home win over Oxford, on 23 March 1974, guarantees them promotion to Football League Division One. Among them are a young Graeme Souness – front and centre of course, pennant judiciously protecting John Hickton’s modesty at the cost of his own. Also present – among others – are Lisbon Lion Bobby Murdoch (front row, second from the right), the manager, Jack Charlton (suited and with drink, behind Murdoch), and a disconcertingly hirsute Dave Armstrong, scorer of the game’s only goal (Liz Truss lookalike, back right).
LITHUANIA ONLY 16TH?
Read the full article here