Hang out the bunting, fetch your William Blake anthologies! | Soccer

After 51 years, six months, one week and three days of hurt since England’s one previous moment of international football glory, the nation can’t turn its nose up at any kind of praise. It’s been a long time since any widely-respected global figure acclaimed English footballers as masters of any of the sport’s technical aspects, and though our players would surely prefer to receive plaudits for their intelligent movement, all-round sporting dedication or the haunting melodies of their heavily-sponsored supporters’ brass band, they will very much take what they’re given. Yes, Arsène Wenger has announced that “English players might even be the masters” of something. As Wenger himself might say, le jour de gloire est arrivé! Hang out the bunting, fetch your William Blake anthologies and lavishly renovate the Houses of Parliament, we are champions of the world once more!

At diving.

With Arsenal due to play Tottenham and their all-English penalty-area tumble twins Harry Kane and Dele Alli on Saturday, the subject of simulation inevitably cropped up in Wenger’s press conference on Thursday morning. “I remember there were tremendous cases here when foreign players did it,” he tooted, “but I must say the English players have learned very quickly and they might even be the masters now.” Might even be the masters. That’s right, world. We have watched, we have learned, we have copied and we have improved, and this June we’re going to totally Diegosimeone our way to greatness.

This will now be the English way. In Brazil four years ago Mr Roy’s team bus was emblazoned with the slogan: “The dream of one team, the heartbeat of millions!!”, which sounded like they’d picked two halves of a sentence from a big bucket of inspirational half-sentences and just stuck them together, but was vaguely encouraging. In 2010 we had “Playing with Pride and Glory”. In 2006 there was “One Nation, One Trophy, Eleven Lions”. In Russia let it be, “Try to push the boundaries to win your game without cheating!!” though, for full and frank disclosure, The Fiver would add the words, “and failing that, cheat!” Now we know what we’re good at, we need to base our game around it. Should any of Gareth Southgate’s charges sense the vague possibility of penalty-area contact the advice must be: close your eyes, lie down and think of England.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I should never have gone to Las Palmas. When I said yes I didn’t even know that the team was on an island” – Oussama Tannane, whose loan from St Étienne was abruptly cut short, will hopefully do more due diligence in future.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

Max Rushden and the pod get their teeth into the big issues of the week, such as VAR flag-based farces, on Football Weekly Extra.

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FIVER LETTERS

“The c0ckles of my heart were indeed warmed by the tale of the boy who travelled from Trinidad to meet his hero, and full marks to Thibaut Courtois for treating his young fan so considerately. The story brought to mind the time David Seaman gave his gloves to Mickey Thomas to pass on to his kid after Wrexham dumped Arsenal out of the FA Cup. And I wondered if other Fiver readers had heartwarming tales to tell of meeting their goalkeeping hero? Mine is Gordon Banks and I’ve never met him” – Kevin McKee.

“I’d like to point out the 10-year-old Chelsea fan who travelled more than 4,417 miles to meet Thibaut Courtois is not ‘almost nine-times more fervent than the Proclaimers’, as claimed in yesterday’s Fiver but almost four and a half times. Not only were the Proclaimers prepared to walk 500 miles to be the man who falls down at your door, but they were also, as they quite clearly stated, prepared to walk ‘500 more’, giving a total acceptable distance of 1,000 miles. Lazy journalism, I expect better from The Guardian and so forth” – Paul Croft (and 1,056 others).

“In your rallying cry for Newport in yesterday’s Fiver you forgot the Nato summit of 2014. There was no mention of Newport in the logo but everyone will have been able to guess where it was being held as the town was represented by an image of the Newport Transporter Bridge – an icon of the skyline, and one of only six operational transporter bridges left worldwide” – John Stainton.

“Never mind ‘outlandish dreams’ like Newport having two Pizza Huts, The Fiver discovered this through actual (Google) research. Are we in some sort of Twilight Zone?” – Ed Taylor.

“To Tom Murray-Rust, who incorrectly identified the Rhubarb Triangle as between the typically showy Leeds, Wakefield and Bradford (yesterday’s Fiver letter), I say shame on you. As a proud Pomfretian, I can confirm the true Rhubarb Triangle sits between the much less glamorous Wakefield, Morley and Rothwell, within which Pontefract sits. It’s why we can grow such fantastic liquorice too, and is what ultimately gave birth to the esteemed Pontefract cake” – Kris Holland.

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet The Fiver. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Kris Holland.

THE RECAP

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BITS AND BOBS

Mauricio Pochettino wants the FA to take a close look at Rochdale’s really-quite-abysmal pitch before their fifth-round Cup tie at Spotland. “Not because we are Tottenham,” he fretted. There’s more coming, isn’t there? “It is a massive risk for their players too. Maybe the FA needs to go in and take a very good decision for football.”

Claude Puel says wantaway Riyad Mahrez won’t be back in the Leicester squad to face the team he wanted away to, Manchester City, this weekend. “I hope Riyad can get his head right and come back with us and work hard,” added Puel optimistically.

Manchester United have recorded a £29m second-quarter lozzzzzzz …

The Republic O’Ireland will no longer be able stick Wes Hoolahan and his wand of a left foot on the bench while crying out for creativity during goalless away qualifiers in eastern Europe – the midfielder has retired from international football.

Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha will be out for “the next few weeks” with the knee-ouch he picked up against Newcastle.

Jeremy Corbyn has urged England players to walk off during World Cup matches in Russia if that is the only way they feel racist abuse will be taken seriously.

And Steven Caulker has joined Dundee on an 18-month contract.

STILL WANT MORE?

Leon McKenzie tried to take his life while playing for Charlton. Here he shares his story in the hope of helping others who are suffering in silence.

Matty Fryatt has retired from football. He tells Stuart James about the injury that ended his career and left him in agony.

The Joy of Six: Aston Villa v Birmingham City memories – Scott Murray selects some scorching Second City derbies.

Half-time pep talks, north London derbies of yore and ’Arry losing it? It must be Classic YouTube.

The first time Arsenal played Spurs at Wembley they hammered them 4-0 – Steven Pye on the inaugural Wembley International Tournament.

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