The Rebound: Arsenal’s hurdle horror, Chelsea’s German skateboarder, and Aston Villa’s body snatchers

There has been a lot of talk about hurdles this weekend. In three days at Aintree, an equivalent number of horses died in the name of the gambling-industrial complex and bad Peaky Blinders cosplay. For many - mainly the profiteers and the apologists; themselves usually wannabee profiteers - that was an acceptable price to pay.

For others, however, it was not. On Saturday evening, the 175th annual Grand National was delayed by a guerilla cadre of animal rights protestors. The following morning, a very smug front page from the Mail on Sunday proclaimed a victory over these ‘virtue-signalling anarchists’ after having infiltrated the activist group and alerting authorities to their plan. Seemingly, in the eyes of certain quarters, there is nothing as dastardly as decency. If only the same braying scribblers cared about fundamental human rights as deeply as they care about society’s entitlement to watch coerced animals die on live television. But I digress.

Somebody else who has probably had hurdles spinning around his head like cartoon cuckoos this morning is Mikel Arteta. Like those scumbag-lefty-wokeist-snowflake-probably-bloody-vegan animal lovers, the Arsenal manager must be dreaming of a world in which all races are decidedly more... flat track. The Gunners are firmly on the home stretch of their improbable title charge, but have come a cropper at each of the last two fences. Twice now in consecutive weeks they have stormed into commanding two-goal leads away from home, and twice they have blown it and come away with just a point. Mathematically, they are not consigned to the glue factory just yet, but with Manchester City devouring the lengths behind them, and with a winner-takes-all clash at the Etihad looming on the horizon, they are bordering on the lame.

Yesterday, it was West Ham who threw a spanner, or rather a hammer, in the works. David Moyes’ men have been more like Timmy Mallett’s rubber sidekick than their iron-headed tool belt namesakes this season, but they turned up when it mattered to spook the Premier League leaders big time. In a chaotic contest, Arsenal were two ahead inside 10 minutes, were pegged back by the 54th, and managed to miss a penalty in amongst the tumolt too. You have to feel for Bukayo Saka, whose look of numb disbelief as his effort sailed swiftly past the upright was haunted by more than a touch of the post-traumatic.

Quite where this all leaves the Gunners, only the oracles can say. Even they, you would imagine, might not have foreseen this latest hiccup coming. But to reiterate, Arteta’s side still have control. It is in their hands. The problem is that it is also in Man City’s. The two of them, like hulking seagulls fighting over a discarded cone of chips on an overcast pier, will do battle a week on Wednesday. Rarely do football matches have so much riding on them.

Elsewhere, we welcome you to a new featured segment in The Rebound; Through the Keys Hole, where we take a nonsensical exclamation from the world of football and decided whether or not it came from Qatar’s favourite adopted son/exiled banter merchant.

Let’s see, what do we have here? A take so hot that it threatens to evaporate on contact, the steam of something masquerading as substance singeing your poor brain cells as it whistles down your ear canal and into your incredulity gland? Check. A faint distrust of foreigners arriving in the English game, while the proprietor of aforementioned hot take fails to muster the self-awareness to see the inherent hypocrisy of he, an Englishman, making said statement (and a pretty penny) on a channel based in the Middle East? Check. An immediate disproving of the aforementioned aforementioned hot take, accompanied by an apparent refusal to admit when he’s wrong like the captain of a doomed cruise liner stripping down to his long johns so that he can wrestle the iceberg of incontravertible reality mano a mano. Check, check, and check. Why, it simply must be Richard Keys!

The broadcaster - and his conjoined bestie Andy Gray - have been at it again, dishing out the opinions that nobody else dare! (Mainly because they’re incorrect!) Speaking on beIN Sports over the weekend, Keys addressed Chelsea’s managerial situation thusly: “One of the candidates is Julian Nagelsmann. What has he got that the Chelsea legend that is Frank Lampard has not? A guy that knows the club inside out, a guy that Chelsea fans think the world of. What has Nagelsmann done? Okay, he’s won the Bundesliga - but he’d be hard pushed not to as Bayern Munich coach - but nothing else. So what makes him preferable? Is it because he’s German? Young? Rides a skateboard?”

Presumably, the collective answer to that last flurry of absurd questioning is a resounding ‘no’. If not, don’t be surprised to see the odds on legendary 11-time freestyle skateboarding champion Guenter Mokulys rocking up at Stamford Bridge slashed in the coming days. Then again, don’t give Todd any ideas.

No, the reason that Nagelsmann is in the running is because he is widely, and justifiably, regarded as one of the most promising coaches in European football. The fact that he is still only 35, and that he was born in south west Bavaria, is purely circumstantial.

By contrast, Frank Lampard continues to fall upwards for reasons that, to many, remain indiscernible. He did okay at Derby County for a while without ever truly making any material progress. Then he got handed the Chelsea gig because of his name, mucked about a bit, and got sacked. At Everton, he averaged one point per game, kept them up largely because of how dire Burnley, Watford, and Norwich City were last season, bombed, and then got sacked. Now he’s back at Chelsea - again because of his name - and has lost his first three matches in charge. Which part of that CV screams ‘suitable top six manager’ to you, Richard? I am eager to know.

And finally, a word on Unai Emery and his quiet rejuvenation of Aston Villa. Had the season started on the day that the Spaniard arrived at Villa Park, his side would currently be third, just four points behind leaders Arsenal. That is, whichever way you look at it, remarkable. Week after week he continues to skulk on the periphery of the conversation, bludgeoning the unsuspecting and rifling through their pockets for precious, precious points - like if Burke and/or Hare worked for Fagan.

This weekend it was Newcastle United, oft-heralded Champions League candidates, who collapsed by Emery’s hand. With a good summer of recruitment and a full pre-season behind him, he can do special, special things with this Villa team.