Tomorrow afternoon BLACK bracelets all around Villa Park.
Now there is a good chance that Kyle Walker will make a miraculous recovery from the 'headbutt' that sent him crashing to the ground last weekend.
And that is something to be happy about.
Yet the Premier League should be in mourning over the final farewell to the game's last true hardman.
Because if big, bad Kyle Walker has resorted to that sort of thing, what hope is there for football to remain a fair contact sport?
The Manchester City and England defender has enjoyed a formidable reputation for being unbreakable and unwavering for years.
Built like a Sheffield tram, faster than any joyrider on the fearsome Lansdowne Estate where he grew up, uncompromising to the limit on the field, Walker was the closest thing to ingrained English oak.
He also came across as the last bastion of pure bs in the cosmopolitan, coiffed, cozy modern game.
A hardened working-class boy, he grew up in a council flat in a place where getting to the bus stop was a daily obstacle course, dodging burnt-out cars and drug dealers.
Even if his tangled love life was splashed across the front pages of this newspaper, as he juggled the balls of his professional career and his ability to father children like the Southampton ship's goals, he wouldn't be blown off course.
He pushed his way past stunned opponents, chasing everything like a hungry cheetah and giving the impression that he could handle himself in any situation.
Your money would certainly have been on him in a feud with Manchester United pretty boy Rasmus Hojlund.
So when Walker found himself sprawled beneath the weakest bristles of the Dane's blonde bangs, the era of the tough footballer crashed to the ground with him – and can never be revived.
At one of those rare, breathtaking English press conferences some time ago, Walker exposed some of the horrific episodes from the grim streets where he lived.
A neighbor hanging himself, a fatal arson in a nearby flat, a woman wandering around with an ax as if she were carrying the weekly groceries home.
People who witness things like that don't fold up like a free sheet put through a letterbox unless they do it on purpose – but City's captain didn't do so well and should absolutely give up any thought of coming second function. career.
Walker was in the same league as people like John Terry.
An extremely gifted player with a cast iron core. A perversely admirable 'don't give a damn' type who always comes out on top through courage and pure self-determination.
But not anymore.
Ironically, just hours after his symbolic collapse at the Etihad, Chelsea's Marc Cucurella produced an equally embarrassing act of self-capitulation during a home match against Brentford.
But you actually expect it from him; after all, he has long, curly hair and a bit of history with the dark arts of the game. I always thought Walker was a little different.
The toughest kid on the playground. The one you wanted by your side every lunchtime in football, because he was not only brilliant, but also tough as nails.
It seems like he's been losing his pace for a few months now and at 34, that's to be expected.
After all, six Premier League titles catch up with you.
The disappointing surprise is that he loses his dignity and resorts to the kind of tactics that many lesser men turn to today.
Please don't do it again.
WRONG WAY TO MAKE A GOOD POINT
The only surprise about Ian Holloway's confrontation with fed-up Swindon fans is that it took so long.
Ollie was appointed Robin's boss in October and has had to deal with a team that clearly lacked confidence from day one.
The Bristolian is never one to take a step back and while groaning supporters who have traveled hundreds of miles to see their team lose may not be the smartest move, it does spark an interesting debate.
Do supporters automatically claim the right to say and do whatever they want because they paid for a ticket or made a long journey?
Holloway doesn't think so and believes the constant negativity from the terraces will drag the team down even further.
He makes a good point, even if he made it in an unceremonious manner.
OSCAR LOSS SO PAINFUL
Every now and then a story comes between your eyes as a reminder of how irrelevant winning or losing football matches is.
As West Ham's high-profile but under-pressure boss Julen Lopetegui mourns the death of his 94-year-old father, the entire club is shattered by the loss of teenage goalkeeper Oscar Fairs.
At 15, he had the world in his hands as an academy player who dreamed of mud, sweat and a distant hope of stardom.
His death from a brain tumor last week leaves a family devastated and a community reeling.
There seems to be no escape from the evil curse that is cancer, but when someone is wiped out so young, the pain is intensified exponentially.
ARAB FLIGHTS
BOXING, the World Cup, Formula 1, golf, tennis.
They are now all being performed in Saudi Arabia.
The Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk world heavyweight rematch is just the latest major event to take place in the bone-dry desert.
Hopefully there will be one sport that will be tempted to stage its biggest event in a country where booze is banned.
The PDC World Darts Championship is underway on a raucous Ally Pally and the alcohol is flowing.
Imagine it in a place where you can't get to it morning, noon or night.
Where you can't sneak out of your seat and grab a bellyful of beer, where it's impossible to grab a bottle of grog whenever you want.
And those are just the players.
That's a joke, before anyone decides to press charges.
The 'Unify League' could involve as many as ten Premier League clubs, we are told.
Assuming it is a merit-based system as it currently stands, that would also include Bournemouth, Fulham and Brighton.
No disrespect, but as a revamped and more competitive version of the so-called 'Super League' invitational boys' club, that doesn't look very 'super' at all, does it?
If you haven't wasted enough of your hard-earned money on useless old tat this Christmas, tickets for next summer's Club World Cup in the US are now on sale.
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