10 November 28, 2021The Sunday Times
Football
a transfer embargo and the snipping-
off of six points. Peterborough United
and Barnsley seem hellbent on
sampling life once again in the third
tier — and then, of course, there is
poor old Derby County.
Shortly before Reading got their
punishment, Derby had been handed
another hammering from the EFL.
Having been propelled to the bottom
of the league with a 12-point
reduction for having gone into
administration, they were
subsequently deducted another nine
points for their various breaches of
the Financial Fair Play rules — with
another three-point deduction
suspended lest they err again. This
leaves them rooted very firmly to the
bottom of the division, a full 17 points
from safety with not far short of half
the season completed. The general
consensus is that they will go down,which certainly seems to me the most
likely scenario — without the points
deductions Derby would be in lower
mid-table and they would need to
show immediate promotion form to
survive; at the moment they draw too
many matches.
Wayne Rooney, the club’s
manager, deserves a lot of credit for
refusing to get the hell out. He has
suffered the various slings and
arrows of outrageous misfortune —
which include a transfer embargoNo longer do they
sing to opposing
fans: we’re Derby
County, we do
what we want
TO LIVERPOOL
WITH LOVE
M
any footballers have been
shaped by Rafa Benítez,
but not so many footbal-
lers’ mums. “Oh, she’s
something else,” Sergi
Canós says, laughing and
talking fondly about his
mother, Alicia.
Alicia is the family member left
behind on Merseyside after Canós’s
spell at Liverpool from 2013 to 2016.
He joined the Anfield club from Barce-
lona, aged 16, arriving with his par-
ents and younger sister, Judit (now
studying sports journalism at univer-
sity in Leeds). One by one the others
departed but Alicia remained.
“She fell in love with Liverpool as a
place and she always says, ‘I’m like
Rafa Benítez! I came and wanted to
stay.’ He is her example,” Canós, 24,
says. His mum jokes that her name is
Alice because, well, she is a Scouser
these days.
She even moved from their old fam-
ily base in West Derby to the city cen-
tre. “Liverpool’s centre is incredible
and she’ll tell you — she wants to have
fun there,” Canós says with a grin.
“And that she doesn’t want to go back
to Spain.”
Canós looks here to stay as well — in
the Premier League, that is. Scorer of
Brentford’s first goal in the competi-
tion, in their opening match versus
Arsenal, he is playing with craft,
energy and quality as right wing back
in Thomas Frank’s thrustful 3-4-3, and
faces Benítez’s Everton today on the
back of two assists against Newcastle
United.
He is bubbly and positive — taking
after Mum, you imagine — and Brent-
ford’s approach fits his personality.
“We said that we want to attack the
league,” he says. “It’s our main target.
To perform in the Premier League you‘I remember
regretting coming to
Liverpool but those
six months made me
the person I am now’
NICK POTTSTHE FOOTBALL
INTERVIEW
WITH JONATHAN NORTHCROFT
challenging. He battled issues of lan-
guage, loneliness and culture and
could not play youth matches until a
long wait for international transfer
clearance was over. Fortunately, Liv-
erpool signed another Spanish teen-
ager at the same time; Pedro Chiriv-
ella, who was even from the same
province of Castellón. “Those first six
months were tough, because every-
thing was different,” Canós says. “I
don’t think the academy of Liverpool
was ready to accommodate a family
from overseas and I hope they learnt
from the mistakes they made with us
and are doing things differently now.
“We were lucky because Pedro and
his dad spoke English and my family
was with them all the time. They
helped us, calling us taxis, finding out
things like what time did I need to go
training — though for me it was still dif-
ficult because I’m a person who likes
to know what’s going on and like toask questions myself. And I couldn’t
play. So, everything was a disaster.
“But those six months don’t sum up
my time at Liverpool. We had a lot of
fun and grew as a family. West Derby
was a great area, where we met some
wonderful people — though, I don’t
know why, most of the friends we
made were Evertonians.” A group of
them are attending today’s game as
his guests.
Canós even opened a restaurant
just off Penny Lane, with his father
and a Michelin-star chef from Valen-
cia. It was called Gracias and was well
regarded “but to be honest it didn’t
work. Some family issues made it
impossible, so I decided to close it.”
He played once for Liverpool’s first
team, in the final game of Jürgen
Klopp’s debut season of 2015-16 but
soon after rejected a new contract to
sign for Norwich City. When opportu-
nities proved limited at Carrow Road,After a rocky start to
life in England,
Sergi Canós has found
feet with Brentford
Canós scored
Brentford’s first
goal in the Premier
League in their
opening gamehave to be brave, believe in yourself. I
think we’re doing that well.”
Canós is Brentford’s longest-serv-
ing player after Rico Henry, having
spent 2015-16 on loan at the club
before joining permanently in Janu-
ary 2017. He remembers his first start
as an 18-year-old against Rotherham
United. There were 10,293 fans inside
Griffin Park and Brentford were 19th
in the Championship. He was so over-
excited he got cramp and had to come
off after 69 minutes.
His first period in England was alsoDai Yongge took over the club in 2017
Reading have more than doubled
their spending on wages and since
then have run up debts of
£57.8 million. A case, you might
argue, of Live Fast, Dai Yongge (and
have a good-looking corpse).
That Reading have learnt their
lesson and will henceforth live within
their means, spending shrewdly and
wisely, is surely beyond doubt, since
in the very week that the EFL handed
down its punishment, the club signed
Andy Carroll. Before yesterday,
Carroll last scored a goal of any kind
almost a year ago, which was his first
in 24 months. Carroll has been
offered a short-term contract (on
reportedly lowish wages) and was a
free agent since being released by
Newcastle United at the end of last
season. Reading should be safe
enough this campaign, mind, despiteParachute
payments
have plenty to
answer for in
second tier’s
financial
felonies
The pleasant clucking sound of yet
more chickens coming home to
roost. During the international break,
Reading became the latest club to be
clobbered by the EFL over their
profligate and unsustainable
spending. They were docked six
points, leaving them just outside the
relegation trapdoor, plus another six
points suspended, which will come
into effect if they fail to abide by a
financial plan cooked up by the EFL
in consultation with the club.
The Biscuitmen (or, God help
me, “Royals”) were perhaps a
little fortunate that the
deduction wasn’t larger — but
then it will be quite a feat, given
their present wage bill, if
that suspended penalty
does not actually come
to pass. Since the
Chinese businessmanRo d
Liddle