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For an elite head coach who isn’t used to seeing his team lose, suffering a rare defeat on the weekend before an international break is particularly hard to take. With the vast majority of your players hightailing it out of Dodge to rack up more air miles than Santa Claus across a decade’s worth of Christmas Eves, the chance to quickly put things right simply isn’t an option. With the first lull of the season set to be longer than any before, the potential for introspection, self-flagellation and over-thinking has never been higher. Luckily, Mikel Arteta has never struck Football Daily as the kind of intense, brooding and meticulous perfectionist likely to spend the next 19 days beating himself up over the monstering his team suffered from Brighton on Saturday. Whether it’s forlornly moving magnets around a tactics board or walking Win the dog around Arsenal’s largely-deserted training ground until her little legs are stumps, we’re confident the Arsenal boss’s every fleeting thought over the next three weeks will not be laser-focused on the manner in which the Seagulls viciously pecked his team of champions into submission and how best to ensure such a humiliation is never repeated.
Oxford United’s decision to market an American college-themed ‘United 93’ kit shortly after the 9/11 anniversary, only then to have to recall it (Friday’s Football Daily, full email edition), is a tad unfortunate. But until 1960 they were known as Headington United, from their heady days in the Southern League. So I am eagerly awaiting the ‘1960 Ron Atkinson’ range celebrating both their history and leading appearance maker (still)” – Jon Harris.
Following Andros Townsend’s freak (but miraculously not serious) on-pitch accident, will future fixtures between Prachuap and Pattani be known as the Roller derby?” – Phil Taverner.
OK. I messed up. On 30 August, I made a claim that Emilio Martínez’s transfer to Chelsea for £7.5m might be the bargain of the season. Now five games in and 12 goals conceded, I wish to retract my statement. I will try to do better and stay away from any rash predictions” – Nigel Sanders.
Football knowledge aside, I take great pride in knowing a lot about The Simpsons (earlier years especially … I haven’t watched it in about a decade). It was Wiggum who advised to dig up, not Homer (Friday’s Football Dailly letters)” – Mark Shrewsbury.
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