“Negligence and unprofessionalism” unwise pre-match words

I know none of you take this stuff seriously, but I’d been feeling a bit exposed with yesterday’s “Determined by Dundee” blog.  Newco won 0-5 there earlier in the season and have a vastly superior squad to Dundee, but winning when it really matters is difficult.  You can sense when a side are a tad short in this department, and Newco definitely made this a worthwhile punt.

Tony Docherty would have had his easiest team talk as a manager before last night’s game; Phillipe Clement did all his spade work.  “Negligence and unprofessionalism” are words that land a punch.  True or not, they are enormously disrespectful and gave Dundee a binding cause.  It was a schoolboy error from the latest iteration of guru-soon-to-be-worst-mistake-ever.

Now Phil has to ride the toxic fruits of his labour.  Angry and entitled football fans blaming him or his team for the happiness you and I enjoy, and which they are denied.  If only he had been nice to Dundee things might have turned out different.  Let’s hope he finds somewhere nice when he moves on in the autumn.

I’m a jinx, whenever I turn the TV onto a Newco game, they score, so I stayed on Man City – Real Madrid until a wave of texts lit up the phone.  “0-0 FT”!  City-Real are two great teams who served up a classic encounter.  So much to talk about but one moment stood out.

With City leading the penalty decider 1-0, Bernardo Silva tried a Panenka but got it horribly wrong and shot weakly into the keepers’ hands.  Silva, though, had been made to wait at the spot for 40 seconds, but in the context felt like an age, until a City fan returned the ball to the pitch.  The player had terrible preparation for his kick.

Think of the most stupid act you can imagine, and one clown will soon redefine your expectations.