Football needs more Pep talks

So West Ham took the least surprising option and sent for David Moyes. Same old same old. I have a feeling that if Theresa May fell on her, or anyone else’s, sword, we’d send for David Moyes and that familiar figure would be shuffling up Downing Street with his wrinkly-eyed grin, proclaiming outside No. 10: ‘We’re in a relegation battle here.’ He wouldn’t be wrong either.

Looking at West Ham’s lacklustre performances, with players sometimes putting on a bit of a reluctant jog in vague pursuit of opponents sprinting past, it’s easy to imagine them in the dressing room with a fag and some of owner David Sullivan’s old top-shelf magazines. Poor old Slaven Bilic: who needs enemies when he has friends like Ian Wright, who’s pleased he got the sack because ‘he needs a rest’.

You might not watch a David Moyes team if they played in your back garden, but let us celebrate the fact that Pep Guardiola has come among us. Manchester City are playing a kind of football you would pay handsomely to watch anywhere in the world. His explosion of frustration on the touchline last weekend when a woeful pass from Sterling failed to find Leroy Sane with the Arsenal goal beckoning was a joy. He even lost his water bottle. It was one of very few mistakes City made in 90 minutes of almost perfect, always absorbing and often thrilling football.

By the way, if England are serious about winning the World Cup any time soon they should make Gareth Southgate ‘manager emeritus’ or something, and give the job to Spurs’ Mauricio Pochettino, who has done more to develop English football than pretty much anyone since Sir Alf Ramsey. Watch Spurs’s first goal against Real Madrid, a piece of fluid brilliance featuring Kane, Winks, Trippier and Dele Alli, all English and all pin-sharp on the ball.