The Warm-Up: 'Garbage!' - Keane savages Jose, Southgate ends Rooney
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Updated 17/03/2017 at 07:55 GMT
The Warm-Up isn't for the faint-hearted today...
Manchester United's Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho arrives
Image credit: AFP
FRIDAY'S BIG HEADLINES
Jose hits out, Keane lands KO
One of the most tepid encounters The Warm-Up has had to endure in recent memory was suddenly set ablaze after the final whistle last night, as Manchester United beat FC Rostov 1-0 to reach the quarter-finals of the Europa League.
A match chiefly notable for a human eating an ordinary item of food (see In The Channels, below), and, if we are being fair, Juan Mata's neat goal which came after a Zlatan Ibrahimovic's improvised flick from Henrikh Mkhitaryan's cross, took on a life of its own when Jose Mourinho stood in front of a microphone and unloaded about United's oppressive fixture list.
Mourinho - who for most of the match had been thoroughly Mourinhoed as Rostov parked the bus and wasted time from minute one - embarked on a paranoid rant of Trumpian proportions, topped off with a rather astonishing conclusion about the upcoming game against Middlesbrough...
We have lots of enemies [folks]. Normally the enemies should be Rostov but we have a lot of enemies [very bad guys, the worst, everyone says so]. It is difficult. It's difficult to play Monday night with 10 men, it's difficult to play now, it's difficult to play 12 o'clock on Sunday [believe me, okay]. We have a lot of enemies [bad, bad hombres]. Probably we lose the game on Sunday [sad!]. But we will try our best [MAKE MAN UTD GREAT AGAIN!!!].
The rant seemed to be provoked by an injury to Paul Pogba who, as spotted by Richard Jolly elsewhere, has played 11 games more than Chelsea this season. It was a classic exercise in siege mentality but if it fortified Mourinho's own troops inside the castle, it didn't stop a certain former prince of the realm spewing hot tar all over the barricades.
I’ve never heard so much rubbish in my life - why do we have to listen to that garbage? It’s just utter nonsense, what he’s talking about. He’s manager of Manchester United, one of the biggest clubs on the planet - the squad he’s got, the players, and he keeps moaning about fixtures and fatigue... Maybe the club is too big for him. He can’t deal with all these demands of the match - what matches? Cup competitions? Man Utd reserves could have won that game tonight. I'm sick to death of him.
If you are keeping score in this battle for the soul of Manchester United, Roy Keane just took an early 2-0 lead (obviously the result will be settled in Fergie Time).
Admittedly, though:
Wayne Rooney: The End
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In a picture taken on November 11, 2016 England's striker Wayne Rooney wears a poppy armband to commemorate Armistice Day
Image credit: AFP
Whoever said Gareth Southgate was boring? As well as managing to thoroughly piss off that nice Theo Walcott - "He wasn't chuffed to bits to get the call and I understand that," said Southgate of his decision to axe, ON HIS BIRTHDAY, the top-scoring Englishman who was available for the upcoming matches against Lithuania and Germany - Southgate quietly but brutally ended the international career of Wayne Rooney last night.
Not officially, as Rooney will attend a team meeting on Monday at St George's Park, like David Brent turning up at the office with a dog in tow after being made redundant, as Southgate outlines his vision for the team. But the manager's quotes on the matter betrayed the fact this was not merely about the injury which has ruled Rooney out for United recently - especially as it transpired Rooney had declared himself fit for selection.
We have to look at Wayne as a No10, which is his predominant role. In the last two games we’ve played Dele Alli there and we’ve played Adam Lallana there. Both are playing very well, scoring and assisting for their clubs. Ross Barkley has been playing very well for his club. So there’s competition. I can’t dress it up any other way. There are some very good players and it’s a battle to get in this squad.
The man who once said Sven-Goran Eriksson was too much like Iain Duncan Smith when England needed Winston Churchill is now swinging the axe with as much relish as Henry VIII.
Man Utd win Europa League
It's really not a great quarter-final line up, is it?
IN OTHER NEWS
The Warm-Up can exclusively reveal that tennis star Dominic Thiem will not be signing for a Premier League club when the transfer window reopens.
IN THE CHANNELS
Bravo to BT Sport for managing to turn 'man eats banana' into a gripping drama. As soon as Mourinho had it unpeeled on the touchline, it was just sitting there like Chekhov's gun, ready to go off (sadly the abridged video, above, misses this). It was an intense wait to discover who the fruity payload was intended for, a passage which could have been scripted by Hitchcock himself as the potassium-rich implement was passed to Ashley Young and the tension ramped up menacingly, before Marcos Rojo, well, ate a banana. That's what happened. He ate a banana.
RETRO CORNER
*Wipes away a tear*
COMING UP
Rejoice, for the football gods have bestowed on ye not one, but two good reasons to escape the drudgery of working life today. The Champions League quarter-final draw is at 11am and we will be covering that live on site with a video stream, or on Facebook with a whiteboard and coloured markers (seriously). Then, at 12pm, United will probably draw Gent - or Genk, whoever made it through that match - in the Europa League quarter-final draw.
Adam Hurrey has just fielded a call from Gareth Southgate while out golfing and is now in floods of tears, but hopefully he's still called-up for Monday's Warm-Up.
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