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GM football fans. It’s Route One. Pinch, punch, first day of the month…
Results and tonight’s fixtures can be found here.
Today’s briefing is a ~3 min read:
Premier League’s luckiest charms 🍀
Around the world in 30 seconds: Schalke’s future uncertain 🇩🇪
3 talking points from last night’s games 🗣️
Morning Brief 🗞️
Jose Mourinho is eyeing a shock return to Manchester United following his exit from AS Roma earlier in January, according to reports.
Liverpool have announced the club will be featured in a TV documentary series, with behind-the-scenes footage capturing the final months of manager Jürgen Klopp’s reign.
The napkin on which 13-year-old Lionel Messi’s first Barcelona contract was signed is to be auctioned, with a starting price of £300,000.
Wolves confirm the signing of PSG youngster Noha Lemina and Nottingham Forest completed the loan deal for Dortmund star Giovanni Reyna.
LUCKY CHARMS 🍀
“Whichever team scores more goals usually wins.”
Ahhh. Who remembers that classic?
While Michael Owen might have had a point, there’s something - umm - more interesting: when certain players score, their team wins.
And that’s exactly what Opta Analyst has shown with their list of the Premier League’s ‘lucky charms’.
It’s when a player has scored in the most individual games without losing a single one of them…
Arsenal’s Gabriel Jesus leads the way with 60 games scored, resulting in 55 wins and five draws.
Followed closely behind by… James Milner.
But let’s think about this for a second.
There is only one of three explanations for why this happens…
a) You play for the most dominant teams - cough cough - Jesus.
b) You don’t score that often… but you like to chip in when your team is already leading.
c) You’re super influential to your team’s outcome.
Let’s be honest… most of the players will fall into categories A or B. That’s a fact.
R1 take: Being a ‘lucky charm’ is great and all. But 9/10 times it’s probably not great if a player only scores when their team wins. It’s what we like to call in the industry… a flat-track bully.
AROUND THE WORLD 🌍
🇩🇪 Schalke are currently 15th the second-division Bundesliga. If they get relegated, they will not get the license for the league due to their debt of €165m. It means they will essentially have to start over as an amateur club. F**k.
🇫🇷 Kylian Mbappe will announce his decision over his future in ht next fortnight, and Fourfourtwo reports the Frenchman could seek £150m signing-on fee from whichever club he joins in the summer.
🌍 The AFCON has reached the knockout stages. Senegal were the pre-tournament favourites, but the reigning champs have been knocked out. So too have finalists, Egypt and semi-finalists Morocco, who were tipped to go all the way.
🇯🇵 Japan ease into the quarter-finals of the Asian Cup with a clinical 3-1 victory over Bahrain.
LAST NIGHT’S TALKING POINTS 🗣️
1/ Conor Bradley has officially burst onto the scene
Bradley is the latest to join the Young Premier League Right-Back To Burst Onto The Scene list.
It’s becoming more of an occurrence these days… but not quite like this.
The Irishman added to his assist in the FA Cup with one goal and an assist in last night’s game against Chelsea.
This isn’t a fluke. Bradley has a knack for this - in 50 appearances for Bolton he…
Scored 7 and assisted 6.
Named the club’s player of the season and…
The player’s player of the season.
Yup. Liverpool have a good’un.
2/ Football-Darts
Neal Maupay opened the scoring and trash-talking last night…
He used his fourth goal of the season as an opportunity to copy James Maddison’s dart-throwing celebration… oh dear.
Maddison reacted badly.
Credit: TNT Sport
But… Maddison ended up having the last laugh:
Tottenham went on to win 3-2.
Brennan Johnson threw in a darts throw celebration of his own.
And James Maddison took the post-match interview just to have a final dig…
“He hasn't scored enough goals to have his own celebration”…
Meeeeow!
3/ Manchester City only care about one thing
Four things we learned about City last night:
They don’t care that Liverpool has a documentary coming out at the end of this season.
They don’t care that it’s Klopp’s final season.
They don’t care that no team has ever won the Premier League four times in a row.
All they care about is winning.
Credit: TNT Sport
They go second in the league with a game in hand after beating Burnley 3-1 last night.
And…
Haaland is back.
De Bruyne is getting back to full fitness.
Alvarez and Foden are on fire.
We have all seen how this story ends before… yikes.
EXTRA-TIME ⏱️
One of the best talents in the league right now. Eberechi Eze gives Neymar a run for his money with this skill.
French legend Franck Ribery taught his son all that he knows. Unfortunately for Franck, his son is now using it against him… with a nutmeg flip-flap.
Paul Merson has produced some of the best football stories. He recalls the time Harry Redknapp asked him to play for Portsmouth because his players were “fu**ing s*it", son.”
Some players are good with their weaker foot. Others don’t know what a weak foot even is. That was the case with Santi Carzola and he proves it by casually swapping to his left foot for a corner-kick.
MEME 😆
Source: @TheKopWatch