QUOTE
“Watching Arsenal is like watching Netflix – you always have to wait for the next season.”
Now, now, Patrice Evra.
NUMBER: 37.55
In metres, the longest ever throw-in by a female footballer, the mark, achieved last week in London, earning a place in the Guinness World Records. Take a bow, Megan Campbell.
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Man of the week? We’ll go with Francesco Acerbi for that 93rd-minute equaliser against Barcelona in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final. Not just because it was a sublime finish from, of all things, a grizzly 37-year-old centre half, not just because it was his first goal in 65 European appearances, but mainly because it gave us another 30 minutes of a game that you didn’t want to end.
Acerbi, the oldest man on the pitch, was also outstanding at the back for Inter, which led to the week’s very finest tribute. Speaking on his podcast, former German and Real Madrid midfielder Toni Kroos said: “If I had to choose between an alarm system, a German shepherd or Acerbi to guard my house, I would choose Acerbi.” Quality.
WORD OF MOUTH
Roy Keane: “Did he forget about all his other team-mates? Were we not good enough?”
Gary Neville: “It is because you didn’t invite us to your 50th.”
Keane: “My 50th was at the Pizza Express in Altrincham.”
An aggrieved Roy on Gary being the only former team-mate David Beckham invited to his star-studded 50th birthday bash at a three-star Michelin restaurant in London.
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“Liverpool have won the title with less points than we had in the last two seasons. With the points from the last two seasons, we have two Premier Leagues.”
Mikel Arteta? Stop.
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“I was very bad at expressing myself. All I wanted to say was that Dembele is not a team player.”
Former Argentina manager Jorge Sampaoli attempting to explain why he said France and PSG’s Ousmane Dembele “plays like an autistic”. That’s sorted, then.
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It was four years ago that Harry Kane’s company HK28 filed documents with the British government’s Intellectual Property Office in an effort to “protect his name and fame for future commercial use”.
Among the products that the company applied to trademark were, The Sun told us at the time, “cosmetics, food, booze, jewellery, clothing and electrical equipment”, while there were also plans to “launch his own brand of loo rolls”. And “he hoped to make wads of cash from whips, nail varnish and toothpaste”.
It was, perhaps, the prospect of seeing Harry’s face on toilet paper and whips that was the most intriguing, although efforts to find them on supermarket shelves have so far failed. What you will find soon, though, are Harry’s knobbly sticks.
The healthy snacks are made from the cereal sorghum and contain the probiotic Bacillus Coagulans, which is (allegedly) good for constipation, diarrhoea and flatulence – it doesn’t give you those afflictions, by the way, it’s meant to ease them.
What did The Sun make of Knobbly Sticks in their recent review? “If you’re looking for a taste experience as potent as Kane is in front of goal, you will be disappointed. Despite what he says on the packets, they are not ‘insanely delicious’. Paying £2 per bag? I won’t be Bayern them again.” Harsh.
MORE WORD OF MOUTH
“I gravitate towards grumpy people. Samuel L Jackson can be a grumpy person and he’s one of my favourite human beings on planet earth because of it. I love it. James has a bit of that.”
James McClean might never have anticipated a day when he’d be likened to Samuel L Jackson, but Ryan Reynolds – actor and Wrexham co-owner – delivered it.
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“We tell them [new signings], ‘if you need anything, call us, we’re here to help’. One player called to ask me to rent him a car. I told him that when I said ‘call me for anything’, I meant something like a kidney. I didn’t mean renting a car. Try Google next time.”
Reynolds again, this time on his rather helpless new recruits.
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“I met Todd Boehly, introduced myself, ‘hi I am Ruud Gullit’. Todd said, ‘what do you do?’. I said, ‘well I played football, I also played for and coached Chelsea.’”
The Dutch man on a somewhat mortifying meeting with Chelsea’s co-owner.
