Key events
Afcon had a day off yesterday but all 24 teams have now played. This is a handy roundup of all the goals so far from the first matchday of this year’s tournament.
Morocco and Senegal are seen as the favourites but Algeria are a fascinating team, led by 34-year-old Riyad Mahrez. The winger, who now plays for Al-Ahli in Saudi and earns more than any other player at this year’s tournament, scored two in his country’s opening game on Wednesday, with Luca Zidane, son of the former Real Madrid and France superstar Zinedine Zidane, also impressing for Algeria.
An email from Bogdan Kotarlic:
“I was 10 years years old in 1982 and I collected stickers for my World Cup album, played that summer. I had three stickers of John Robertson and I still can remember it, although I don’t know where those stickers finished in the end. I just know that John Robertson in that sticker was different from many other football players. The sticker he had an aura of a good man, of a good soul. With that relaxed expression and the smiling eyes, he instantly became one of my favourite players.”
While we are on Robertson, this Donald McRae interview with the great man from 2015 is well worth a read …
… and this quote (also buried in this 2015 piece from Daniel Taylor) from Jimmy Gordon, Forest’s trainer during the Clough years, is quite something.
I saw a lot of Tom Finney and Stan Matthews in my time and it was very difficult to choose between the two. But when you look at what Finney and Matthews had to offer, John had a bit of both – and something extra on top.
First they come for Boxing Day, now the 3pm blackout. Do these people have no respect?
The relative lack of Premier League football does however give the Football League (and non league) a festive time to shine.
And this might not be top of most people’s priorities, but most of the Premier League players had a rare Christmas Day off!
This Boxing Day is unusual in that there is only one Premier League fixture. Normally, it’s (more or less) a full house, which is a Christmas tradition here in the UK – the history of which you can enjoy in this handy video.
The reasons for just one Premier League game this year are here. Make of that what you will.
Boxing Day lands on a Friday and that has left the Premier League with a scheduling conundrum because of an expanded Champions League and a commitment to preserving a platform for the FA Cup.
The league must deliver 33 weekends of fixtures as part of its commitment to broadcasters and is struggling to locate another weekend to play games should at least half of the matches, as is tradition, be moved to Boxing Day.
On a standard Premier League weekend fixtures are, by default, played at 3pm on Saturday unless they are moved to a specified broadcast slot. This season there is only one broadcast slot reserved for a Friday.
First up, we must mention the sad news about Forest and Scotland legend John Robertson, who died on Christmas morning.
Tributes have been pouring in from all corners of the football world, but none more sincere than from his family, former teammates and those than played under him as a highly-successful coach.
Feel free to get in touch with your own memories or thoughts of Robbo (or anything else you fancy): michael.butler@theguardian.com.
Preamble
Sick of your family and hiding out in the loo? Can’t quite face the actual news. Welcome to the warm embrace of your Boxing Day football liveblog, in which you can forget all your worldly troubles and concentrate on the important business of Manchester United v Newcastle (8pm GMT), a full Football League fixture list and four Afcon matches: Angola v Zimbabwe, Egypt v South Africa, Zambia v Comoros and Morocco v Mali.
Four Afcon matches (Jeremy), that’s insane.
Source From: Premier League | The Guardian
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