My favourite match report comes from about 1972 or ’73. It’s from the Daily Mirror or Sunday Mirror, one of the two, it’s not important which.
The reporter in question saw his report on the back page. There were a couple of terse paragraphs about the match – a goalless draw in bleak conditions – and he felt obliged to add into his report:
“And so in the spirt of the entertainment served up by Messers Neill and Mee, here’s my view on game.”
It was followed by white space; nada, nothing, zip, zilch not a sausage. Two paragraphs of nothingness, straight out of the Len Shackleton school of publishing.
And it was published. The past two games would benefit from such reportage but in the Premier League era, everything has to be shinier and better. Exciting. Neither match warrants that adjective. Two away games, two points; disappointing for Bournemouth and it feels the same from Leverkusen.
Rubbing salt into the wounds, Moussa Sissoko misses three games – Liverpool, Leicester and Arsenal – after his wayward elbow. A stupid, reckless action and hard to argue with the punishment.
Not the best of weeks but hardly the worst. A week where we’ve been lucky to score nil.