Football Daily | Ashley Cole finally gets the chance to scratch his seven-year itch

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! A Gold-Plate Generation full-back, taking a surprise appointment abroad, having never managed a club before; what could possibly go wrong? Must we really endure Jamie Carragher making hilarious sport of another inevitable failure every time he’s comprehensively defeated in an argument on Monday Night Football (MNF)? Er, no, because unlike Gary Neville, Ashley Cole hasn’t been presented with a job managing Cesena thanks to his friendship with a cuddly billionaire, able to fit the Valencia gig around his day-job of buying up swathes of his beloved Manchester for personal enrichment. Several decades ago I played Sunday league football with the late and former Arsenal, Manchester United and Scotland striker David Herd. He claimed to not have been a gifted player and he sharpened his skills by spending his afternoons kicking balls into the shed (Friday’s Memory Lane – Football Daily full email edition) while more talented teammates went off to play snooker and enjoy a pint or two. The intense practise made hitting the ball into the onion bag instinctive, he said” – David Campion. Your picture and write-up about the Arsenal training box reminded me of that old, very adaptable, training ground joke from years gone by. A team, let’s call them, say, Spurs, are suffering long-term performance problems. Before another match and inevitable defeat, their current manager, let’s call him, say, Mr Tudor, calls a previous, successful manager, let’s call him, say, Mr Pocchetino, to ask for training ground tips. Well, one thing we always used were dustbins. You know, the old-fashioned cylindrical dustbins? Put 10 of them out on the pitch in a random formation and get your players to attack them. They have to kick the ball against the bins, and the unpredictable angle and speed of bounce will help your players develop their reactions and anticipation. ‘Oh, great. Thanks Poch. We’ll try that with the current side.’ Three hours later, Poch gets another call from Tudor. ‘Poch! Poch! What will we do? The bins are winning 3-0!’ – Ken Muir (written before the draw with Liverpool). I’m aware of how busy y’all are refilling your cartridge pens (pints?), but might you kindly point me to the glossary for Big Vase [Europa League], Tin Pot (Europa Conference League], Bigger Cups [Champions League], tin [Oh come one!] … we colonials need some help, in case that’s not obvious” – Clinton Macsherry. This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. Continue reading...