Nult satis nisi optimum: Phil McNulty 2011/12

Atalanta are like a huge USB stick whereas Everton are a floppy disc.

Atalanta are a superneat Casio digital watch with a caluclator while Everton are not even a Half Hunter.

Atalanta are a Class 43 InterCity diesel train while Everton are a donkey pulling a wooden cart and the cart has square wheels and the donkey has tuberculosis

TBFTTMcN valuing 78s over LPs is admirably antirockist.

Atlanta are a Sumerian building site, utilising the wheel for the first time and marvelling as huge weights are moved from one place to another, Everton are the site of the Egyptian pyramids, Koeman on the sideline resembling a slavemaster beating his slaves to death as they haul rocks along with logs underneath. One for the oldies there.

Atalanta*

thought you were using the Sumerian spelling

Good work all 'round guys

Atalanta are a HEL MD photon cannon that can fire 50 to 60-kilowatt laser blasts while Everton are that bone that the monkey throws at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey

lol

lmao

But there is a cold reality to consider here. If Arsenal played like this week in, week out, then they could be proclaimed as title challengers - but they don't, so they aren't.

This article bursting with hot takes could've just been summed up with the above. But Nult ploughed on last night and wrote a long read on why Spurs and Arsenal won't be champions.

Arsenal do have a quiet consistency about them at home but then images of the horror show at Liverpool, where they were lucky to only lose 4-0, invade the memory bank and title aspirations are doused in cold water.

Images invading the memory bank is a nice touch tbf

He'll grind out copy like this well after the apocalypse, I imagine.

read that absolute doggerel earlier.

"here's why arsenal and spurs won't win the league" - because man city are fucking walking it in an unprecedented fashion.

Otm.

Won't someone think of the children though? If Nult is the alpha and omega of football writing - the piece could've been three times as long and still written better by a bot, I'm fairly certain - what young lad/lass would ever pick up the trade? Why bother?

I've been getting into baseball this year, and a big plus is the writing about it. Not the dazzling stats mumbo jumbo, but solely the match reports are a breath of fresh air. It's so diverse, there are so many different (literary) forms. There's freedom and experiment in baseball writing. It seems to flourish. Where, if at all, is this (still) happening w/r/t football?

Eamon Sweeney's article on todays sunday independent on why O'Neill should stay made me chuckle a few times. There was even a good Metal Machine Music joke in there

https://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/international-soccer/eamonn-sweeney-lets-just-keep-calm-and-carry-on-36332809.html

The Irish, as always, light years ahead of the Brits when it comes to fitba/sports writing. I enjoyed that.

Sam Allardyce is second favourite with the bookies yet he would probably adopt the same approach as O'Neill and be unlikely to do it as well.

i enjoyed that article but this is a strange statement. i'm not pushing mon out the door but big sam would be fucking perfect for this irish team. i would genuinely love to see what he'd do.

XP ito posters anyway, otm

Don't think Big Sam is perfect for any team tbh. Keep him your side of the bay. His nickname is carrying him further than life meant to.

Yeah I'd rather stick with MON than Big Sam

Brace yourselves

O'Neill is doing fine imo

If it's time for anyone to go it's Dunphy.

Yeah, Dunphy Out. I do disagree with Sweeney regarding Jack Charlton's departure. There was a lot more to it than just getting beaten by Holland in the playoffs. The infamous Harry Ramsden challenge for example and generally the rot was starting to set in

yeah that was rose-tinted spectacles for sure.

if his name was Sean Athenry you'd all be backing him for the job.

looooow lie the fields of allardyce

he did manage Limerick back in the 80s tbf

In a typically frenetic Anfield atmosphere, which boiled over in the disgraceful scenes before kick-off when Manchester City's coach was damaged, Pep Guardiola's side had been looking to take the heat out of the game.

past perfect verbiage from the scouse soccer scribe

guiltily confess that i was thinking of the multiple possible meanings of the word "coach" in context, but yes! that too!

idk if it's Ronay's influence but every big game report now seems to involve time standing still, a momentary hush as the ball seemed to hang in the air blah blah

Keith Jackson going a bit Nulty in the Daily Record:

They knew that beating was on the cards just as they will have sat in their own living rooms yesterday bracing themselves for something very similar.

Gerrard completes 'jaw-dropping' deal

Tom English

Chief sports writer, BBC Scotland

"Those of us who love Scottish football will love it a little more now that this jaw-dropping deal has been done to bring Steven Gerrard down from football’s Hollywood Hills and into our world. It’s ambitious, it’s glamorous, it guarantees that every cough and splutter of the Gerrard reign will reverberate around football, not just Scottish football.

"It will be gripping to see how it all turns out. An act of genius or of utter folly? Who knows? Finding out will be a whole lot of fun, though. There is no doubt that this is a gargantuan gamble by Rangers. Going for a rookie manager when their problems are so vast is a spectacular roll of the dice. At this remove, it looks reckless. How can a novice survive in the intense climate that Gerrard is about to walk into?
Steven Gerrard
Reuters

"If he does, it will be a miracle to stand alongside Istanbul in 2005 when his brilliance sparked one of the greatest on-field comebacks we have seen in European football. He now has to spark another comeback. What an appointment and what a eye-wateringly daunting job he faces."

Next level Nultism

every cough and splutter of the Gerrard reign will reverberate around football, not just Scottish football.

keep telling yourself that son

Mcnults seems to be suggesting that England should warp the space/time continuum
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/44637064

“This was a very painful, public indignity and will surely have been noted in red ink in Chelsea's corridors of power.”

Sort of Manson family/The Shining vibe

The 48-year-old landed the job on the back of impressive work at Walsall and Brentford, but this was a well-respected figure destined to return to Villa, the club that coursed through his veins as a lifelong supporter of the club where his father Ron used to be a steward.

do u reckon this is a wind up

even by Nult's low standards that is particularly garbled

very good piece of nult

If Liverpool's rivals did not exactly fear their potential renaissance, they will have known the vast potential waiting to be released once they got it right - which they now have, quite spectacularly.

playing the hits

This eminently sensible, mature and rounded character will know as well as anyone the risks he would be taking in accepting a job that has eaten up and spat out more experienced managers than him - twice in Jose Mourinho's case.

And, for all the goodwill that will cut him a lot more slack than others, Lampard will know Abramovich is not so sentimental that he will preside over any serious period of underachievement without acting decisively, no matter how glorious his new manager's past is at Chelsea.

pardon

There Will Have Wanted To Have Been Blood

hahahaha

England manager Gareth Southgate will have struggled to decide whether his glass was half-full or half-empty as he reflected on a thud and blunder night against Kosovo at St Mary's.

First things first - everyone at Southampton enjoyed a thrilling Euro 2020 qualifier that led to a rousing ovation for both sides at the conclusion of England's chaotic 5-3 victory.

And Southgate will have revelled in England's magnificent attacking display, spearheaded by a world-class performance from Raheem Sterling, who scored once as well as setting up two goals for Jadon Sancho and another for Harry Kane.

Damn

Lampard's strategy was even more high-risk against Liverpool given the fact both his goalkeeper and the current Chelsea defence represent accidents waiting to happen, which they duly did

Liverpool have struggled to find high points this season as their Premier League title defence disintegrated spectacularly and their Anfield form has made history of the wrong sort - but could this traumatic campaign yet have a satisfactory ending?

But manager Jurgen Klopp's beaming smile was back after Liverpool took Arsenal to the cleaners at Emirates Stadium in a 3-0 win that was not close to being an accurate reflection of their total domination.