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DON’T PANIC
Crikey! Just over a month ago, the inevitable coronation of Shamrock Rovers as Irish champions seemed such a fait accompli you could practically hear the faint, mournful wail of Derry City fans in the distance. Having dispatched the hipster threat of Bohemians and watched Derry slip up against Drogheda, the Tallaght titans needed a single, solitary point from their final five League of Ireland Premier Division outings to bag their fifth title in six years. Three defeats later, they are finding that point harder to come by than heatstroke on a wet and windy November night at their own stadium. Still, if Rovers can just draw their game in hand against Galway United at home this evening, they will finally be crowned champions.
While their recent run of five consecutive defeats across the league and Tin Pot means bagging a point against a Galway team battling the drop is a far from foregone conclusion, Rovers can still afford to lose tonight and wrap up the league by taking a point from their final game of the season against Sligo. Should the unthinkable happen and the Hoops lose both their remaining matches, it almost certainly still won’t matter. With a three-point lead and a vastly superior goal difference of +11 over nearest rivals Derry City, the chances of them Devon Loching this title race are negligible. In the extremely unlikely event they were to ship a five- or six-goal hiding tonight, though, they would certainly be entering the puckered, unedifying realms of the Squeaky Bum.
What was supposed to be a canter to the title for Rovers has come to resemble a sloth attempting to escape from quicksand but if their head coach, Stephen Bradley, is even remotely concerned by his side’s recent collapse in form he is hiding his anxiety well. While his players prepared for their 2-1 defeat against Derry at the Brandywell last Sunday, he and his assistant, Glenn Cronin, stayed behind to run the Dublin marathon. As the fathers of children who have been affected by cancer, the duo raised over €50,000 for Oscars Kids before boarding a helicopter that flew them to the game. “It’s very unlike us,” said Bradley of the unprecedented back-to-back league losses on his nine-year watch. “We want it to get done but obviously in the last couple of weeks it hasn’t happened. That’s life, that’s football, it’s just about getting back to what we do, winning games and everything else will be fine.”
Despite their late wobble down the home straight, it has been a fine season for Rovers, who also have an FAI Cup final against Cork City ahoy and are still hopeful of making the knockout stages of Tin Pot. In centre-back Pico Lopes, they also boast the only Irishman on the planet likely to play in next year’s Geopolitics World Cup, where he is set to line up for Cape Verde. “We had to get him over the line because he wasn’t sure about leaving the bank,” said Bradley of the former part-timer turned international stalwart he persuaded to leave his “proper” job to come and play for Rovers. Now the club has another line to drag themselves over and hope to do so tonight, at the fourth time of asking.
LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE
Join Scott Murray from 7.45pm GMT for hot Milk Cup coverage of Liverpool 1-2 Crystal Palace, while Michael Butler will be clockwatching the rest of the evening’s action.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Do you remember Stoke City when they made the throws? It happened in that time. Now it’s just more and more teams doing that, but then maybe Stoke was the exception. I remember when I was at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Arsène Wenger talked about going to play at Stoke” – with long throws taking over football, Pep Guardiola pulls on a club-shop cap to put some respect on Tony Pulis’ name.
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Ifab should appoint Rory Delap to issue guidelines for long throw-ins. You need experts in the field; you wouldn’t invite José Mourinho for a seminar on attacking football, would you?” – Krishna Moorthy.
It’s pointless trivia, but when Paul Biya became president of Cameroon, George Weah had only just turned 16 the month before. Since then, Weah has won the Ballon d’Or, retired from football, won multiple awards for his humanitarian work, and then served as president of Liberia for six years. Weah is now 59, and Paul Biya is still president of Cameroon” – Noble Francis.
Jamie Cureton’s goal for Kings Park Rangers [yesterday’s Daily, full email edition] means that he has not only now scored in all of the top 10 tiers of English football, but also has a matching set of goals for Kings Park Rangers and Queens Park Rangers. Even more impressively, his goals for QPR came when there was a Queen on the throne, and his goal for Kings Park Rangers now there is a King as monarch. Definitely worth waiting for” – Andrew Long.
Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Andrew Long, who gets a copy of A History of Football in 100 Objects from the Guardian Bookshop, which has loads of other great football reads, too. Get shopping! Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
