The Warm-Up: Diversity or diver City? And Burnley are great

It’s not easy to find nice things in the hellscape that is 2017.

So let’s embrace the heartwarming story of Burnley. A small club with limited resources, riding high in the Premier League thanks to hard work, organisation and passion. A team whose lack of star players makes Leicester’s title-winning Mahrez-Vardy-Kante triumvirate look like Best, Law and Charlton. And a side that now sit in the Champions League places after a last-gasp win over Stoke last night.

Burnley’s success is often cast in terms that – if not explicitly negative – aren’t exactly glass-half-full. Do they get the credit they deserve? Why aren’t bigger clubs in for Sean Dyche? Could you pick any one of their players out of a police line-up?

Burnley don’t need to be first on Match of the Day to gain validation. They don’t need their manager to be poached by a cash-rich, tactics-poor sleeping giant. They’re fourth in the Premier League and that, surely, is recognition enough.

Also, look out for Dyche’s new children’s book ‘The proudest man in Proudsville’.

But let’s not allow actual football to quieten the rumblings from Milkgate.

We enter day four of recrimination from the post-Manchester Derby tunnel fracas. And rightly so. For this, we are solemnly told, was serious business. Serious enough to make Pizzagate look like handbags.

It’s not exactly clear what more would need to happen for Pizzagate to look like handbags? This was an incident in which the most grievous act saw a man literally get a pie in the face. As handbags go, it was very much Pret a Porter.

But this, this was bad. There were hazardous liquids and aggressive music, and someone got a small cut on the head.

Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola were asked about little else in their press conferences ahead of their midweek games.

There’s plenty to enjoy in that clip – particularly the following exchange at the end after Jose Mourinho has fended off a barrage of questions about the tunnel fracas after the Manchester Derby.

Oh, and how about this entertaining conspiracy theory?

Dark forces.

Everton are literally a bag of Revels.

Even when he was torpedoing England’s chances at three major tournaments, it was hard not to feel a little sympathy for Roy Hodgson. Here was a man who found his careful planning and meticulous methodology swept away by a rising tide of rank incompetence. So it’s nice that he’s doing well at Palace. Last night’s late win over Watford makes it six games without defeat for Palace and takes them out of the relegation zone. Well done.

The Warm-Up doesn’t usually like the geek bravado of mocking a lack of historic football knowledge. But this one... well. If you’re going to taunt the opposition for never winning the league, you should probably check whether they’ve ever won the league.

A few weeks old, but still very much relevant – Rory Smith on Burnley for the New York Times.

From a time when brawls happened in full view of the viewing public – here’s the legendary 21-man scuffle (David Seaman) between Manchester United and Arsenal from October 1990.

It’s hard to square the points deductions (Arsenal 2, Manchester United 1) with ref Keith Hackett booking two players for the stramash.

A busy night in the Premier League with seven matches including Swansea-Manchester City, Manchester United-Bournemouth and West Ham-Arsenal.