by Tony Attwood
There used to be a programme on TV in the UK called the Fast Show which featured Ron Manager the TV commentator on football. In case you never came across him here he is
And amazingly Premier Sports 1, which is showing the current pre-season tournament in the UK brought him back as their co-commentator for the Arsenal v Atletico Madrid match yesterday. At any moment we expected him to say “Jumpers for goalposts, three word sentence, over the top…”
He didn’t, but what he did say was (and I promise you each was a sentence in itself not part of a sentence) a ceaseless collection of three worders. He did occasionally cheat with the odd two word phrase-sentence but those were there just to mix it up a bit.
Here’s a sample…
- Met it well
- Directed it goalwards
- Frustrate the opposition
- Old habits die hard [we got excited with that four worder, was this going to be the breakthrough?]
- So many years
- Lots of confidnece
- Started well [note the shimmy with the sudden move here to two word sentences]
- Smith Rowe
- Very Bright
- Au bama yang
- Too wide
- La ca zette
- Naive defending
- Magnificent header
- Reiss Nelson!
- Playing on shoulders
- Time for Holding
- Time will tell
Of course if couldn’t go on for ever, and so on seeing a picture of Ozil he said, “Not many German fans in the audience”. Oh the shock!
But we did hear Emile Smith Rowe called Eric a few times as well, which also made it worth keeping the sound on.
It’s been over a year since I watched a match on TV and clearly, during that time, the world of commentary has moved on and found that the old depths had not been plumbed and were merely a surface scratched.
As for the game, and leaving aside the obvious amazingly amazing Emile, I was very impressed by Matteo Guendouzi in the first half, and not at all impressed with Perez. Of course you can’t tell a player’s future from one game but if I had to, those would be my biggest plus and minus.
So, should I go back to watching football on TV? Possibly not, because it can’t always be as hilarious as this.
Like the man actually said during the course of the match, “Not many German fans in the audience”.
Here’s the league table in case you haven’t seen it
| # | Team | Pld | W | WP | LP | L | F | A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Dortmund | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 7 |
| 2. | Tottenham | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 3 |
| 3. | Juventus | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| 4. | Bayern | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 5. | Liverpool | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 6. | Benfica | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 7. | Manchester Utd | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 8. | Atl. Madrid | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 9. | Arsenal | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 10. | AC Milan | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 11. | Chelsea | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 12. | Lyon | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 13. | Inter | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 14. | Real Madrid | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 15. | Barcelona | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 16. | PSG | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 17. | AS Roma | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| 18. | Manchester City | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
WP is won on penalties, but you knew that. 3 for a win, 2 for a win on penalties one for a defeat on penalties, nothing for being Manchester City.
And the other news
Arsenal have sold Le Jeff Reine-Adelaide to Angers. An amazing talent, we haven’t seen him recover from his injury, but let’s hope he can really show his talent now. They are playing Nantes tomorrow in a friendly, and hopefully he’ll have a chance to get into the game for a while and show what he can do.
Also lots of talk of Ramsey staying and being captain
And 15-year-old academy scholar Marcelo Flores has joined Arsenal. He’s a Canadian who has been with Ipswich Town, and has what the TWTD (known as the Independent Ipswich Town website) reports as “Mexican former footballer father Ruben”, who has been coaching Ipswich youth team. Don’t try and say that with food in your mouth.
They say, “It’s understood compensation has been agreed between the clubs, although with the figure thought to be somewhat lower than the sum City paid for Knight [who went to Man City for £1m]. Like Knight, Flores had reportedly also been tracked by a number of other big clubs including Chelsea, Liverpool and Barcelona.”
And it wouldn’t be a football day without a sense of the end of the world. And so we have “Arsenal doomed if Kroenke takes total control” on
The Express, excitable as always tells us that “Arsenal and Liverpool may be allowed Ousmane Dembele deal.”
While the Standard’s predicted line up for Arsenal v PSG is
Leno;
Bellerin, Papastathopoulos, Mustafi, Kolasinac;
Ramsey, Smith Rowe, Mkhitaryan;
Ozil, Lacazette, Aubameyang
I doubt it, but you never know.
- Pre season friendly : Atletico Madrid – Arsenal 1-1
- Arsenal v Atletico Madrid: all you need to know, the league table, the team and the Tottenham game
- The 10 biggest Arsenal news stories in the last 12 hours, all on one page.
on Premier Sports, where I was watching Emile was called Ernie all the time
Ernie Smith-Rowe was funny, not sure if there are many 17 year olds called Ernie… Also he said that the match against Atletico was Emery’s first match as Arsenal manager- Boreham Wood anyone?
Out of interest Ron the Manager was a take off of Alec Stock who was the manager of QPR
For goodness sake, this chap Emilie who turns 18 tomorrow according to reports should not have been said to be a 17 year old chap by yesterday but an 18 year old. Or is it until one clocks his actual birthday date that he or she can be of the next age?
Hi Tony,
Excellent write up! I’m looking forward to watching “Eric” and Matteo develop at Arsenal. In regards to our missing WC players, I was wondering if you or Walter know whether the 4 week break is a Premier League or club policy? The reason I ask is that one of our former players Carlos Vela played for his club team (LAFC of the MLS) 5 days after Mexico was knocked out of the WC.
Congratulations to Iwobi on his new long term contract! Arsenal continuing with a strong core of players developed from a young age – Ramsey, Bellerin, Iwobi, Maitland-Niles, Holding, Chambers, Nelson and the many youth products that are starting to come through