The Warm-Up: Two more weeks for Mou? Messi misses out on Espanyol greatness

Manchester United clearly don’t want to sack Jose Mourinho. The admin must be a nightmare if nothing else. Plus the compensation: having to pay a bloke nobody likes a lot of money for doing a bad job is inevitably going to stick in the craw somewhat.

But what will they do if Manchester United lose to Valencia tonight? On its own, no huge disgrace. Yet in the context of everything else, it will perhaps simply provide more evidence that this is a man whose race is run, who can no longer command the respect of his players and the sooner he’s flushed out the better.

Mourinho spent much of his pre-match press conference on Monday enjoying some banter with journalists, and he positively sparkled with glass half-full optimism. “If it is the Champions League it is always a big week and a good week,” Mourinho said. “Not everyone gets to play Champions League games so you should always look forward to them.”

How nice! Of course, Mourinho was simply smiling in the face of potential disaster, knowing full well what storms are swirling. He probably won’t be pushed out this week, even if United are on the end of a hiding. But they play Chelsea in a couple of weeks - oh, the symbolism….

You just can’t keep a great showman out of the headlines. Bournemouth and Crystal Palace were heading for a 1-1 draw on Monday night, but was showbusiness great Mike Dean going to settle for that? Not on your nelly.

Dean spotted a rogue elbow from Mamadou Sakho in the penalty area and that whistle simply couldn’t fly up to his mouth quick enough, giving Bournemouth the penalty that Junior Stanislas promptly converted to earn a 2-1 win for the Cherries.

Good old Mike Dean. The fact that it was entirely the correct decision is frankly neither here nor there: it was the relish with which he awarded the kick that proved what a flamboyant operator he is. Earlier, David Brooks had emphasised his status as one of the Premier League’s more interesting young players by giving Bournemouth the lead with a terrific finish high into the net, before Patrick van Aanholt lashed an equaliser into the roof of the net.

But let’s not kid ourselves that the star of the show was anyone other than Mike Dean.

The Warm-Up always enjoys a good ‘transfer that nearly happened’. That’s why it’s such a shame that Arsene Wenger is no longer around, because he was usually good for a tale or twelve about the players he nearly bought for Arsenal that went on to be brilliant.

So thank you Mauricio Pochettino, who revealed this week that Leo Messi very nearly joined Espanyol back in 2005 (when Poch was a player there), after having a tough time at Barcelona.

“I remember that summer, he was so close to moving to Espanyol,” Pochettino said. “If he did, maybe he could have been the biggest star in Espanyol. We should be the Barcelona! He would have been my team-mate and maybe I would still be in Espanyol managing him.”

Speaking of Messi, he’s been given some sage advice by Diego Maradona, which is always a sentence that should chill the soul.

Messi is currently taking a break from the Argentina team, so when Maradona was asked what he would advise his successor to do, he said: ”Not to come [to the national team] again. If the under-15 side loses, it's Messi's fault. He is always at fault. I would tell him: "Don't come anymore.”

Just in case you missed the greatest own-goal of all-time at the weekend…

OK, ‘hero’ might be a bit much, but you can at least have some sympathy for a man who’s been as unlucky as Giuseppe Rossi. After failing a doping test when a substance that could be used as a masking agent was found in his system, Rossi was simply reprimanded rather than suspended, which would probably have effectively ended his career. And for a man whose knee has been destroyed so many times, what a relief that must be.

Sometimes, hints of gossip about fun things is all we have to keep us going in this grim world. So we say boo to you Pep Guardiola - boooooo - for scotching talk that Manchester City might be signing Kylian Mbappe. "That is not going to happen," he said. "Sometimes I don't understand where the news comes from.” Booooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The 60-year-old pauses before describing the moment he first killed a man. “My first time was at dusk. As the sun sinks you’re seeing shadows in the bush. You cannot recognise much until you see the whites of their eyes. It’s you or them. You shoot, you drop and there’s overwhelming gunfire. You hear voices on your side: ‘Hey, corporal, I’m hit.’ You whistle to shut them up otherwise we’re all getting killed. When the firefight is finished you see bodies everywhere. The first time everything in your stomach comes up through your mouth.” How many people did he kill? “I couldn’t tell you.”

Bruce Grobbelaar has a new book coming out, and from this interview with Don McRae in the Guardian, it sounds like it’s going to be an eye-opener.

On this day in 1999, the mass of hair and sinew that is Carles Puyol made his debut for Barcelona. Here’s a compilation of him doing things.

The Chaaaaaaaaaaampions! Yessir, more Gazprom all round. First up, in the terrific UEFA decision to stagger games, we have Manchester City vs Hoffenheim, or if you prefer Juventus vs Young Boys. Then, a wide selection: do you want the last days of Jose Mourinho, as Manchester United play Valencia? Maybe Bayern vs Ajax is more your thing? Or perhaps CSKA Moscow vs Real Madrid?