Football Daily | Spying some tasty match-ups, from Wrexham v Saints to desperation derbies

Before an engorged international break we have a gala weekend of derby games. Some of them are familiar, others rather longer in the waiting, others spurious in their definition but shoehorned in for tea-timely email purposes. Thursday night’s Bigger Vase defeat by Ferencvaros was not a great result for angry Martin O’Neill’s Celtic, coming three days before the Old Firm/Glasgow derby (delete as applicable according to adherence to Scottish company law), and four days after losing to Rangers in the Old Firm/Glasgow derby. In Spain, Atlético v Real Madrid will see Diego Simeone and José Mourinho bring the morbo ruckus to the sidelines. A football match might actually break out, though that cannot be guaranteed when considering the managers involved.

Plenty of anticipation for Millwall v West Ham, if not from the Met police, which has set up a Section 35 dispersal zone stretching across most of the map on the closing credits of EastEnders. Saturday’s match-up will have rung out when the fixtures came out. That four points separate the two clubs in the battle for promotion has become a side issue. The “Dockers derby”, when supporters’ ancestors worked for rival firms either side of the Thames, hasn’t been played since 2012, the long years since consumed by the cartoon mythology of Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan and the Rise of the Footsoldier franchise.

Talking of grudge matches, Wrexham v Southampton gained extra Spygate fizz when co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac released a social media disgrace ad for their official web browser (!) on the “importance of privacy”. Those guys! Elsewhere in the Championship, Wolves and West Brom are reunited for a first league fixture in five years, a Sunday high noon kick-off time reflecting West Midlands police’s similar concerns to their London counterparts after a 2024 cup date. Rather more genteel, a university challenge between Oxford and Cambridge, and after Oxon and Cantab split the men’s and women’s Boat Races, there’s first-class honours at stake, in a battle of League One playoff hopefuls.

To a couple of desperation derbies, then. They say you are never more than six feet away from a pest in a big city, and the same logic is true of turmoil at Manchester United and/or Tottenham. Did Michael Carrick shed tears after that Littlewoods Cup defeat by Brighton? Who could blame him? On Sunday United really, really must beat Fulham, for whom Álvaro Arbeloa is taking on the look of lame-duck manager, as well as that of a cross between General Zod and Rylan. If not, Carrick stares down the face of three weeks where “United in crisis” is blood in the water for needy hacks. Maybe Tottenham can provide cover. Their goal drought has been mocked by try-hard pizza companies though perhaps a visit from Aston Villa, whose summer reboot has yielded just one point, can end Spurs’ hosepipe ban.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Join Scott Murray at 8pm BST for a red-hot updates on Brentford 0-0 Chelsea in yet another weekend derby.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I got told off for the substitutions I made. Only joking!” – Thomas Tuchel attempts some comedy after being asked what he spoke about with his FA overlords in the post-Geopolitics World Cup review. More impressive was his ability to keep a straight face when he told hacks “99.9% of fans don’t talk about the substitutions I made [against Argentina].” The German recalled Trent Alexander-Arnold and Cole Palmer in his first squad since the GWC – and even found space for Liverpool’s teenage winger Rio Ngumoha. View the full selection here.

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS

I also met Ludek Miklosko (yesterday’s Football Daily letters), but in a way that now seems rather surreal. When I was a kid, my junior Sunday league team trained at West Ham’s Chadwell Heath training ground every Friday night in their sports hall. In them days, anyone could drive into the car park and walk through the gym to the hall – and on one particular night my dad dropped me and a teammate off and told us he’d be back in an hour. When we walked into the hall we were more than surprised to find that our team had cancelled training, with nobody else turning up, and half of the West Ham first team were in there doing drills instead. With nowhere to go (and no mobile phones) they invited us to join in. As an Arsenal fan, I didn’t really care much for West Ham players, but their goalkeeper was a lovely man and spent most of the hour playing with us and encouraging shots. I never forgot Ludo after that night” – Nicholas Larkin.

I was struck by the sentiment of Christopher D’Cruz that it is not possible to dig yourself out of a hole (yesterday’s letters). OK, I know it is not exactly the same, but it is still a similar principle … they have clearly never heard of Baron Munchhausen pulling himself out of a swamp with his own hair” – Andriy Zavgorodniy.

Christopher has clearly never had to dig a trench, moat, ditch, etc. Sure, there has to be some downward digging to start, but then most of the work is going sideways. Similarly, if you’re stuck at the bottom of a steep-sided hole with nothing but a shovel then the move to get oneself out is digging a gentler slope back to ground-level. Or, to quote the intellectual leviathan, Homer J Simpson: dig up, stupid!” – James Humphries (and 1,056 others).

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day goes to … Nicholas Larkin. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here. 

RECOMMENDED BOOKMARKING

Find out which of the Premier League’s sharp shooters are firing their way up the goalscoring charts with our top scorers page, baby. Yep, a certain Norwegian is leading the way again.

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