Football and Christmas have become inseparable bedfellows and fixtures played at this time of year assume an alluring glow of wintry heroism
Here it is, then. Christmas. The most wonderful time of the year. Although only, it must be said, when judged against a list of other parts of the year that, deep down, nobody with any sense really likes that much.
You might disagree. But it doesn’t make any difference either way to Christmas, which is upon us once again like a vast, smothering weather front of duty and consumption, gushing in through every crack and open window, the usual gravy-soaked nightmare of ritual and repetition, cajoling acquisitiveness, unfulfilled desire, people hovering in the kitchen trying not to say things, undercut at all times by the distant, mocking impossibility of appearing even a fraction as happy as the people on television.
At which point it is time once again to give thanks for the gift of football. Christmas and football. Football and Christmas. It has always been a brilliant fit, from the early days of league matches on Christmas Day to the current gloriously overstuffed holiday schedule.
In more recent times it is hardly surprising the Premier League should slide so easily into the festive season. A certain kind of tinsel-strewn event glamour has always been a part of the show in a league where it is, let’s face it, pretty much Christmas every day. Talk to the Premier League about Christmas if you like. But it’s already there, way ahead of you pal, swaying against the doorjamb, pockets crammed with custard, Brussels sprouts tumbling from its turn-ups, Santa hat askew, doggedly ignoring the fact it’s still the middle of August.
Perhaps the best bit of Christmas football is the other side of this, the way football’s best parts are clarified and thrown into relief. At a time of year when simply getting out of the house is a major triumph football offers, above all, a beautifully welcome sense of escape.
This year the fixture list has thrown up league football of some kind eight days out of nine from Boxing Day to early January. At least two million journeys – Yeovil to Oxford, Burnley to Bristol, Chelsea to Manchester – will be made across a frost-bound, fog-prone network of road and rail, in the grand tradition of jams, frozen platforms and shuttered city centres, tracing the entrails of a country that nothing else really maps quite like football.
No wonder so many of football’s component parts take on a distinct festive glaze at this time of year. Even the players seem unusually heroic, running out in their Christmas gloves, like absent dads waving from the train, engaged for now in some noble seasonal labour. Plus nothing is quite so touching, so chill and dank as a football manager at Christmas. The tiny frozen feet of Steve McClaren. Louis van Gaal with his huge, sad drooping head, the head of a wise, lonely moose impaled on a trophy wall in some forgotten lodge. Rémi Garde, collar up against the drizzle, stood on his touchline like a man stranded on a provincial train platform on Christmas Eve, shoes soaked, umbrella blown inside out, maintaining a veneer of mournful self-control when all he really wants to do is hurl his suitcase into the bushes and sit weeping against the vending machine. Have a heart, sir. For the managers at Christmas.It is no accident that football has wrapped itself around the English Christmas. The two were invented at about the same time, functions of an empowered Victorian worker-class enjoying the new ideas of “leisure” and disposable income. As football was being codified so too was the modern Christmas, with its trees and cards, its godawful dinner. In 1889 the streams finally crossed as Christmas Day football arrived. America has its more famous traditions of noble travellers, the Thanksgiving return, the snowbound planes, trains and automobiles. England has football and Christmas and the annual migration around a fraying industrial landscape.
Of course it wouldn’t be Christmas without a little sozzled introspection, a cracker motto to end. If there is a wider sadness about Christmas and football it is the shared sadness of money and waste and an insatiable hunger for more and better and newer. Although not perhaps so much this season.
So far teams who have chopped and changed less and spent a little less, seem to be performing better. Leicester City have been portrayed as something freakish, a pre-Christmas miracle. But one benefit of the new TV money has been that for clubs such as Leicester there is no need to sell. Continuity, well-grooved combinations, a hard-won heart can all be retained.
Leicester’s last starting XI had six players who were there with them in the Championship. Watford have Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo, still high-kicking down the stage stairs, twanging each other’s bow ties and goofing about with Angela Rippon, making all the right runs and all the right passes, just not necessarily always in the right order.
For Leicester the festive schedule will provide a new challenge. Six games in three weeks is a genuine test of all that brio and vim and unity of purpose. For now they remain the Premier League team you’d most like to discover downstairs dressed in paper hats and reindeer sweaters playing Jenga and blanching the parsnips, perfect seasonal tree-toppers in a league where Christmas is, perhaps unexpectedly, always a source of cheer.
Pep Guardiola 'tells friends' he could join Manchester United instead of Man City
Pep Guardiola has told friends that he could join Manchester United instead of Manchester City next summer, according to reports.
The Spanish manager has sparked a frenzy of speculation over who will be his next club after it was confiemd he would be leaving Bayern Munich at the end of this season.
Manchester City are understood to be leading the race, with Guardiola's relationship with executives Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano, who worked with him at Barcelona, believed to be capable of swinging his decision in their favour.
However, Manchester City will have competition, with Chelsea seeking a new manager in the summer and even Arsenal mooted as a potential destination.
Manchester United though are considered to be their greatest rivals for Guardiola, with the Old Trafford club appearing increasingly likely to be in need of a new manager if the club continues on the same trajectory they are currently heading under Louis van Gaal.
It's claimed that Guardiola would be keen on any vacancy at Old Trafford, with the history and prestige of the club proving attractive.
The Daily Star quoted a source as saying: "Pep always found the club fascinating. He likes clubs with huge tradition and United certainly have this.
"He won't be short of options when it comes to deciding his next move and Manchester City are an ambitious club. But United could still prove to be the more attractive proposition."
The Independent understands that current Manchester United manager Van Gaal will be dimissed if United lose either of their next two games, which are against Stoke and Chelsea.
Jurgen Klopp: No Premier League break hurts England chances
The busy schedule of the Premier League hurts England's chances in major tournaments, says Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.
The German praised England's current team as "really talented", but said the lack of a winter break in the country would count against them at Euro 2016.
"You have too many games, that's for sure," Klopp told Football Focus. "You have no break, too many tournaments.
"I think everybody knows that's not the way [to be successful]."
The 48-year-old added: "Everybody thinks [manager] Roy [Hodgson] should lead these boys to the title, they have really good players.
"But they've had no break for one year. All the other teams have. You can be [successful] but it's much harder."
England have not reached the semi-finals at any of their past eight major tournaments, and were knocked out at the group stage of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
Klopp added that the fixture schedule in domestic football has also contributed to the recent struggles of English clubs in the Champions League, Europe's elite competition.
"There are reasons why the big English clubs in the last few years were not that successful," he said. "You have too many tournaments."
Klopp's Liverpool side face three matches in eight days over Christmas and New Year, starting against surprise Premier League leaders Leicester at Anfield on 26 December.
Mini pre-season for Sturridge
Klopp confirmed that Daniel Sturridge is currently doing "a little pre-season" as he works towards recovering from a hamstring injury.
The England striker is not expected to be fit until mid-January after straining his muscle against Newcastle on 6 December.
"He will do this for seven, eight, nine days and then we will see," said Klopp.
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