Manchester City and an old sentiment from Omar Little

When Football Daily read that a cold-eyed marksman named Omar had agreed a contract with Manchester City, we fully expected a scary bloke concealing a 12-gauge sawn-off shotgun under his trenchcoat to rock up at the Etihad Stadium telling reporters who asked about his move that “it’s all in the game yo, it’s all in the game”. Rather disappointingly, the man in question wasn’t everybody’s favourite character from The Wire but a 25-year-old Egyptian, Omar Marmoush, who chipped in with 37 goals and 20 assists during his 18 months at Eintracht Frankfurt and will be expected to generate similar numbers as a No 9 or wide man for his new employers.

“City have been the most successful club in England for many, many years, so I know I am joining a winning environment and winning culture,” he whooped. “I want to learn from the staff and my teammates, and I want to become a valued member of this winning team.” Yes, don’t worry. We’ll get to that loudly trumpeting elephant in the room in due course, but first back to Omar Little. While robbing the players in a poker game, Baltimore most eligible stick-up man sagely observed that “money ain’t got no owners, only spenders” and it is a sentiment City have gone some way towards proving. In this transfer window they’ve now hosed £122.5m at three different clubs to bring in Vitor Reis, Abdukodir Khusanov and Marmoush. And, in doing so, they hope to arrest a hugely entertaining slide into ignominy Pep Guardiola could have been forgiven for thinking he’d halted after a recent six-game unbeaten run.

It was a sequence that never really looked likely to continue despite his side going 2-0 up against Paris Saint-Germain and so it came to pass that Bigger Cup’s most fabled chokers enjoyed the novel experience of coming from behind to leave their fellow state-owned club needing nothing less than a win against Club Brugge next week to avoid the embarrassment of crashing out of the tournament at the first hurdle. “It could happen,” parped Pep. “If we don’t win we don’t deserve it. It’s always a difficult tie, this is the reality. We haven’t got enough points and we have to accept it. We have to do what we have to do.”

Having opened the scoring for City in Paris, Jack Grealish bemoaned the fact that he and his teammates had failed to win after going ahead for the ninth time this season. “We’re losing too many leads,” he harrumphed, sounding like a careless dog-walker. “It has happened too many times this season – going one, two or three goals up and not being able to see it out.” One man who won’t see the season out with City is Kyle Walker, who has agreed a loan to Milan with a view to making it permanent come season’s end. Despite seven successful seasons during which he won pretty much every trophy going, the 34-year-old had let it be known he fancied a move to pastures new and foreign. A reluctant tabloid staple whose private life has been tediously documented at excruciating length, it’s small wonder Walker wants to try his luck abroad and leave a potentially sinking ship.

Join Simon Burnton from 5.45pm GMT for hot Bigger Vase minute-by-minute coverage of Hoffenheim 2-1 Tottenham, while Scott Murray will be on hand at 8pm for Manchester United 3-1 Rangers.

“After the game, I learned about the tradition of the bouquet of flowers at the Metropolitano. I didn’t know about it and at the time of the goal, I got carried away with excitement and I made a mistake. Perdón a la afición del Atlético y especialmente a Margarita [apologies to the Atlético fans and especially Margarita]” – Leverkusen defender Jérémie Frimpong gets bilingual in his apology post after upsetting home fans with his celebration of Piero Hincapié’s goal in Bigger Cup on Tuesday. Frimpong raced to join teammates by the corner flag and then hoofed a bouquet of flowers, not realising they were left there by beloved 76-year-old fan Margarita Luengo, a tradition she has observed at every Atlético Madrid home game for three decades. We’d like to give Frimpong his flowers for a #classy apology, but fear he might punt them into oblivion.

I noticed the headline elsewhere: ‘Katherine Ryan shares brutal message for 1,057 men who queued for Bonnie Blue.’ If I wasn’t already questioning some of your readers’ taste and sanity, I definitely am now” – Tim Werry (and others).

Perhaps it’s my Yankfulness showing, but I beg to differ with Erling Haaland’s putative resemblance to ‘a Bond villain’ (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition). Black attire notwithstanding, he looks far more like a Sylvester Stallone baddie, circa Rocky IV. Thinking of other regular Football Daily subjects, Gianni Infantino comes to mind” – Clinton Macsherry.

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our letter o’ the day is … Rollover. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.

Big Website’s bookshop has a host of great new tomes waiting to be added to your basket. There’s Football: the People’s Shame by Micky Kerr and David Squires’ latest brilliant collection of cartoons: Chaos in the Box. Get shopping!

A promising development in the STOP VAR campaign from Scandinavia, where 19 out of 32 clubs in the country’s top two divisions have formally recommended that the use of video assistant referees should be discontinued. “We see the technology has potential,” cooed Cato Haug, the chairman of Norsk Toppfotball, which represents clubs in Norway’s top two divisions. “But through today’s discussion and subsequent voting, we see the majority of our clubs believe the current version of VAR does not work well enough.” The clubs’ recommendation, based on member votes, will now be passed to Norwegian FA suits for a final call on whether to join Sweden in rejecting the system. Protests have been common in Norway since it was introduced two years ago, with a match between Rosenborg and Lillestrøm abandoned in July after – checks notes – fish cakes were thrown on to the pitch.

Sven-Göran Eriksson’s handwritten pre-match notes on England World Cup matches probably belong in a museum rather than your mantelpiece, but life (and death) isn’t fair and money talks. The Swede died in August with debts of more than £3.8m. So feel excited/slightly uneasy at the prospect of owning some of the late manager’s possessions after his family put some personal items up for auction, including some of his official suits, his Scudetto medal with Lazio, his England diaries with Tord Grip (2000-05) and – of course – a pair of 2002 World Cup commemorative dinner plates, plus an award from the Manchester City supporters’ club thanking him “for a wonderful season”. Don’t delay! Buy your August 2007 Barclays Manager Of The Month trophy … today!

B teams from WSL and Women’s Championship clubs could be allowed to join the third-tier National League as part of a pyramid restructure from 2026-27.

Having declared himself “ready for a new challenge” last month, Marcus Rashford may find said challenge involves staying put at Manchester United and winning his place back, with no offers coming to fruition so far in January.

Ange Postecoglou would like a bigger squad from which to send out a team with no defensive plan, with his side involved in Bigger Vase and Milk Cup action. If you’re going to play this much football you should be increasing squad numbers,” the Tottenham manager grumbled.

In heart-warming football finance news, Real Madrid have become the first club to pass €1bn in revenue in one season. Florentino Pérez’s plucky bunch made €1.05bn (£883m) in the 2023-24 campaign, with Manchester City raking in just €838m (£708m) in second place on Deloitte’s Football Money League list.

Transfer latest: West Ham want to bring in Sunderland midfielder Dan Neil, Ipswich have signed Brighton’s Julio Enciso on loan, and Hull have signed Lincoln – the Fenerbahce playmaker, not the city an hour’s drive down the A15.

Arsenal are set for a warm-weather training camp in Dubai, with the team out of the FA Cup and likely to avoid a Bigger Cup playoff after beating Dinamo Zagreb 3-0. “If we earn the right to do that, it will be great,” cheered Mikel Arteta as he bundled his sunnies and Bermuda shorts into a holdall.

Tyrone Mings reckons Aston Villa’s crunch meeting with Celtic has the makings of “a classic” next week. The Bhoys have a playoff spot in the bag after getting one over on Young Boys.

And Manchester City have swiftly avenged their WSL derby defeat by dumping United out of the Women’s League Cup quarter-finals.

How Nigerian Londoners found their identity through football. A long read from Aniefiok Ekpoudom that’s well worth your time.

Barney in Paris.

It’s Bigger Cup review time, courtesy of John Brewin.

Battles of Britain from down the years, in some excellent pictures.

Hayley Ladd gets her chat on with Tom Garry about moving to Everton, the new owners and her Euro 2025 hopes.

And a five-way fight for Tyler Dibling? The Mill has this and much more.

To November 1978 and apparently the only place you’ll read the ghostwritten words of Graeme Souness, in the 6p Daily Star.