Crossed arms and cross clubs as premature show of loyalty lingers | Soccer

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

While he may be the wealthiest, most witless and thoroughly unpleasant person to have done so, Elon Musk isn’t the only high-profile individual to have raised eyebrows with a highly controversial and very public salute in the past six months. While the tragic billionaire tech bro used just one arm to give back-to-back fascist-like salutes in front of a gathering of Trump supporters at yesterday’s beginning-of-the-end-of-the-world inauguration in Washington, Jhon Durán famously crossed both of his on a live Social Media Disgrace feed last July in what he thought was a fun and harmless pledge of allegiance to his new club, West Ham.

Sadly for Jhon, he was still an Aston Villa player at the time and the proposed deal for him to move to That There Big London would quickly fall through, leaving him desperate to weasel his way back into the affections of Villa fans who were hugely unimpressed with what they saw as a show of disloyalty to their club. The young Colombian has done exactly that to devastating effect, scoring 12 goals in 27 appearances this season, despite his regular position as second fiddle to Ollie Watkins. The fact that several of his strikes have been absolute worldies suggests any Holte End animus prompted by his premature declaration of loyalty to West Ham has long since been forgotten by Villa fans, if not by the powers that be at West Ham.

On Monday it was reported that the Hammers had submitted another bid to sign Durán from Villa, despite him having inked a new-and-improved deal tying him to the club until 2030 only three months ago. Incensed by what they saw as the lowball nature of an offer believed to be in the region of £57m, not to mention its timing to coincide with Villa’s crucial Bigger Cup match in Monaco, club suits rejected it out of hand with a couple of back-to-back metaphorical V-signs of their own. Indeed, so outraged were they by West Ham’s impertinence that the London club are not expected to return with another new-and-improved bid.

Unable to join a pantheon of prolific West Ham greats including Albian Ajeti, Simone Zaza, Jonathan Calleri, Sébastien Haller, Jordan Hugill, Ashley Fletcher, André Ayew, Emmanuel Emenike, Nikica Jelavic, Diafra Sakho and Nicklas Füllkrug signed by the club to such good effect over the past decade, it’s probably fair to say that Durán has unwittingly dodged another bullet in not being granted a move to a place where strikers go to die. However, quite what effect Villa’s latest refusal to let him leave will have on a youngster whose head can be turned more easily than that of Regan in The Exorcist movie remains to be seen. Far from his arms being crossed, Villa fans will be hoping to see them raised in celebration as Villa secure their place in the Bigger Cup knockout stages later.

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Join Barry Glendenning at 5.45pm (GMT) for red-hot updates of Monaco 0-0 Aston Villa in Bigger Cup, while John Brewin will be on clockwatch duty at 8pm for the rest of the night’s action.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

There are some really dark days. I thought as a big, strong man, I was going to cruise through it; there were days when I would collapse but then see my phone with 20 messages of support. You need that” – Tony Mowbray, who returns to the dugout with West Brom at Middlesbrough tonight, on the power of positivity while he was receiving treatment for bowel cancer.

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It’s David Squires with a lovely tribute to Denis Law.

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I can’t say I pay much attention to Serie A, ever since the sad demise of Football Italia and watching someone sitting outside a cafe with an ice cream holding the front page of pink newspaper to camera (I wonder what happened to him?), but I couldn’t help but take notice when reading Juventus were unbeaten although outside the Bigger Cup places, having ‘won only six of 19 matches’ and with ‘pressure building on the manager’? Surely, I’m not the only one hoping that Juventus go the whole season unbeaten in the league and then fire the manager, just to prove that Arsenal’s so-called ‘Invincibles’, who, apropos of nothing, lost six games that season (once in the FA Cup, twice to Middlesbrough in the Milk Cup and three times in the Big Cup), really weren’t all that” – Noble Francis.

The younger me would’ve taken the p!ss out of Gerry Francis’s hair (yesterday’s Memory Lane –full email edition) but the older me is more concerned about the health and safety of that sun lounger on wheels, someone sitting on it and it and them rolling backwards head-first into the pool. Precarious. Then again I guess Gerry was a risk taker: look at that hair!” – Antony Train.

Thanks for the inspiring glimpse of Wayne Bridge in a boxing ring (yesterday’s Quote of the Day). Where’s John Terry when you need him?” – David Newton.

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day is … Noble Francis, who wins some Football Weekly merch. We’ll be in touch. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.

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