Klopp-Clap but Never Mind That

Claps to Klopp and the empty Kop! No amount of hammering by Citeh should confuse the issue. That victory was like a lapped runner hitting Mo Farah with a rotten orange - a small victory but you’re still wayyyyy behind.

Still it whets the appetite for next season and next season will be here very soon. As a Boro fan I’d be happy if it started now. The arrival of Warnock is like a foreshadowing of death. He is the managerial version of the last chance saloon. He’s the old guy in the zombie apocalypse movie who dealt with something like this Back in ‘92 and knew he’d be needed again. 

All the scrapes he’s been through have left him with an iron will, a foolproof method and no discernible eyebrows. That method involves defending like she-lions and nodding in the odd set-piece. I reckon his man-management technique is very much stick and carrot. But without the carrot. I think we’ll stay up with him there. Whether my nerves can bear it is a whole other matter.

Meanwhile other sports are tiptoeing into the limelight and, in the case of Novak Djokovic, skipping straight off to the hospital. Djokovic has always struck me as a little up himself despite the odd nod to humility. It is often asked why we don’t like him as much as Rafa or Roger and I think its cos he has all the charm of a gatepost and hair that looks suspiciously like an otter pelt. But that’s just me. Any road, swanning about with your tennis chums and taking as many precautions as a prime minister in a Covid ward reaps its inevitable rewards. Get well soon and don’t be a twat when you get back on court.

The Conservative Party at play is revived next week too. Test cricket returns - and indeed club cricket now Boris Johnson has understood that cricket need not necessarily involve lunches and teas and shared boxes. Just as education need not necessarily involve Latin verbs, emotional stunting and the induction of a wholly unjustifiable superiority complex. I’m kind of looking forward to it, although without Root England’s top 4 has all the solidity of Norwich City stroking it around on the edge of its own penalty area.

Despite the arenas having the air of a implausibly uninhabited planet on Star Trek, the Premier League itself is shaping up nicely, now that the champs are just about keeping their crowns on straight. Beyond the Canaries, who fell off their perch a while back, there is a bum-squeakingly tight contest at the rear end of the table. Bournemouth look doomed. The club, not the twats clustered on the beach. Eddie Howe’s team have all the bearing of men not quite recovered from induced comas.

Above these two, Watford’s minor improvement under Pearson seems a distant memory, Villa have been treating the route to goal as some some of maze in a Beano annual, and West Ham miraculously found some from to grab a 3-2 against Chelsea.

Still Chelsea are hanging in there, as the foot-race to the Champions League becomes keener than some English mustard with a kick of chilli. United - with Fernandes looking as good as anyone this season - are reborn; Leicester might just have woken up in time; Wolves, armed with the superhero auditionee Adama - who unlike his days at the Boro has learn to run extremely fast and keep the ball with him, look good even with the Arsenal defeat.

On the other hand, who the hell are Spurs right now? And when is Mourinho going to take a long hard look in the mirror? (Okay, clearly he does that every day - but for the wrong reasons). Personally I think Jose’s lost it. He’s got a pretty fine squad there and yet the defence is as polite as a socially-distanced queue outside Waitrose, and the attack is utterly without a plan. Mourinho, as is the way with responsible personalities in this grievous modern age, is happy to dole out blame to anyone  who’s been within two metres of the team bus. If players lack motivation then maybe the bloke in charge of them might find ways to find that motivation. Or maybe you just sit on your hands and moan at the ref? No that’s our job, the fans’ job!

In short, I reckon it’ll be United and Chelsea to nick out Leicester. And Norwich, Bournemouth and Villa to go. Be glad when this season’s  over and we have no rest