For as long as the meme has existed, we’ve both wondered what, exactly, the regular day of Barclays Antonio Conte never actually asked for or whose impossibility he lamented might look like, and spent more time than is healthy attempting to will it into existence.
Today’s fixture list had rich potential to deliver the most regular day of Barclays imaginable. Enough big teams involved to make it identifiably Barclays, but no apparent standout match to deliver the kind of nonsense that prevents the regular day being delivered.
With the results now in, we’re leaning towards claiming it. Starting at the start, and Manchester United v Everton delivered impeccably.
If you tried to imagine the most regular Barclays outcome from that game, you surely wouldn’t veer too far from an unconvincing Manchester United performance short on creativity and purpose but delivering three points thanks to penalties – even the two takers were ideal – against an Everton side who huffed and puffed but did one (well, two) too many stupid things while never ever looking like they might turn possession, territory and United shakiness into goals.
With that, we had one regular game of Barclays at least. But could it become a whole day?
We put it to you that Wolves v Fulham is the most Regular Barclays of which it is possible to conceive. Our reasoning here is that “Wolves have beaten Fulham” and “Fulham have beaten Wolves” sit joint first atop the list of least remarkable things that could possibly happen in the Barclays.
There is just absolutely nothing surprising about any result in that fixture at all. Short of one team or other having some kind of conspicuous record-breaking bed-sh*tting collapse, it was always going to be Regular Barclays all the way at Molineux. And what scoreline do you want for your most unremarkable, regular Barclays win? Of course it’s a 2-1 home win. Two down, three to go.
Now some would argue that Luton’s late equaliser at Palace is disqualifying. A 96th-minute, result-changing goal cannot be regular Barclays. Pfft, of course it can if you need it to. Consider this: Crystal Palace win far less often this season than Luton don’t lose, so that’s one reason.
Plus Cauley Woodrow scoring a Premier League equaliser against Crystal Palace is so dripping in Barclays heritage that it first happened a decade ago. And Joel Ward – the most Regular Barclays footballer in existence – played in both those games.
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And who set the goal up by cutting inside and crossing the ball against a team that have even less excuse than most for falling for it? You’d better believe it was Andros Townsend delivering another piece of extremely Regular Barclays.
Sheffield United looked like they might spoil it at Bournemouth. With the best will in the world, no day containing a Sheffield United win can be described as Regular Barclays. But a day when Sheffield United drop points late on? Regular. Very regular.
And dropping those points to a goal from one of those assorted nondescript players Manchester City have bought, never played, and then sold for a profit years later? A player whose name looks like it should be an anagram or part of a cryptic crossword clue? Regular. Barclays.
As a little bonus, we even had a Harry Kane hat-trick for a team that definitely won’t win the league, and it doesn’t get more Regular Barclays than that.
On we rode, then, to surely the safest bet of the lot. After 500 words, we finally get to the game this feature was supposed to be about, but the editor’s off today and therefore they have only themselves to blame.
Arsenal, in imperious form, against a Brentford side with 10 defeats in their last 13. A routine Arsenal win, and we have our full house and Conte’s demons can finally be laid to rest.
Declan Rice heading in after 19 minutes was the very ideal kind of thing. It was at this point apparently in the bag.
Then Aaron Ramsdale did a madness just before half-time and it was somehow, inexplicably 1-1. Tell you who you don’t hear so much from these days: Aaron Ramsdale’s dad.
We were seething. Much as it would have been enormously funny to see Arsenal’s Very Clever Loan Deal for David Raya actually end up costing them the title by forcing them to pick Ramsdale against their proper keeper’s parent club, it simply would not and could not make up for the loss of Regular Barclays Day.
And as the clock ticked down in the second half, that was becoming a very real risk.
There were only two ways the second half could save us. Arsenal simply easing clear again in the first 20 minutes or so and running out comfortable 3-1 winners would have been perfectly acceptable Regular Barclays. A penalty and a goal from a corner would have been ideal, if we were being particularly picky.
Once that was off the table, there was only one choice left. Late winner, and the inevitable potential of thus incurring the wrath of the Celebration Police.
While taking care to steer clear of the bad-faith joyless grumbling of most that is customary for those lads, there is no denying Arsenal are – for good and ill – an inherently emotional team. They spent the whole second half playing as if it was the last five minutes, before rather neatly finally getting that elusive but inexorably certain goal once it actually was the last five minutes.
And a lovely touch for Kai Havertz to get the goal as well, given the money chucked at him was at least part of the reason Arsenal couldn’t buy Raya outright in the first place.
Kai Havertz has definitely cost Arsenal the title
Alan Smith on commentary just – and only just – managed to stop himself making a case for it being as big a goal as Havertz’s winner in an actual Champions League final.
A wild claim; it’s one of only two occasions on which it is acceptable to celebrate, for one thing.
In his defence, Smith got himself out of trouble neatly enough in the end with a judicious “for Arsenal” caveat on where the enormity of the goal might rank among others in Havertz’s career, thus cleverly reflecting Arsenal’s own ability here in getting themselves out of a tangle largely of their own making.
And in that moment, which had felt inevitable for much of that frenetic second half, we had our day. Antonio Conte had his day.
Because what could possibly be more Regular Barclays than a rampantly in-form Arsenal side making life needlessly and traumatically hard for themselves before collapsing over the line, annoying all the right people by being happy about it, and going top of the league in a title race they probably still won’t win?
At which point we find ourselves wondering if we’ve looked at this wrong all this time. What if everything now is just so Barclays-coded that every day is now just one day of Regular Barclays?
What if Conte had it there in his hands all along? After all, the game after which he didn’t actually lament that one regular day of Barclays will never happen was a 2-0 win for Chelsea against Hull. That feels very much like a regular day of Barclays, really.
The real regular day of Barclays was the friends we made and the Celebration Police we upset along the way.
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