Erik Ten Hag on Harry Potter, Salah on leaving Liverpool, and Leclerc’s Monza triumph
The Paris Paralympics continues to inspire, Manchester United’s manager edges closer to the exit, and Red Bull are having a mid-season breakdown
Famous sporting quotes can take many forms; the inspirational, the perceptive, the downright funny and occasionally – I’m looking at you Cantona – the very weird.
Overnight, muggle Erik Ten Hag put in his bid to be added to the more memorable ones by invoking Harry Potter to explain away Manchester United’s 3-0 defeat to Liverpool. I bet that wasn’t on your Monday morning bingo.
So, along with some Formula One, the Paris Paralympics and a bit of golf, here’s what happened while you were sleeping.
The long goodbye
A hint that Saudi money may have finally won the day, a belief he has no more world’s to conquer, or the first shot fired in a season-long contact negotiation?
Fresh from scoring one and creating two for Luis Diaz in Liverpool’s 3-0 win at Manchester United, Mohamed Salah thought he stole the headlines when he said this would be his “last year with the club and I want to enjoy it”.
Manager Arne Slot didn’t take the bait in his post-match press conference, and hopefully we’ll be spared a season of “emotional goodbyes” and “last evers”. Getting dewy-eyed over departing sports stars is best left to the Americans.
More Moaning Myrtle than Harry Potter
If the bookmakers are still offering odds on Manchester United boss Erik Ten Hag being the first manager sacked this season, I’d be amazed.
Outstandingly lucky to have survived Jim Ratcliffe’s summer cull, the Dutchman was on pretty shaky ground even before the latest embarrassing home defeat, which saw Arne Slot become the first Liverpool manager to win at Old Trafford on the first attempt since George Kay in 1936.
