Shlid #1 The Premier League
It takes a great deal of courage to take a risk. Most of us prefer a safe life, looking like every one else, talking like everyone else and doing the same things as everyone else, because the spotlight can be blinding and it’s easier to be average, even if average doesn’t really exist.
Yet there is one area where average just doesn’t cut it is the football pitch. Risk taking is about as central to football as breathing. From risking a red card to make a last ditch tackle, to risking the laughter of tens of thousands of fans for failing a step over, footballers have to be risk takers.
And for most footballers, the football is their best mode of expression. But for some, that just won’t cut it. Some have had the taste of individual expression and they aren’t stopping any time soon. Personalised boots, full body tattoos and most noticeably, haircuts, become further vehicles for expression.
Mullets, top knots, braids, dreads, mohawks and rat tails have all, for better or worse, seen the light of day on a football pitch and while we should applaud everyone with the courage to take a risk, there is no denying that sometimes, those risks just don’t pay off.
So here are 5 of the best Shlids from the Premier League last season. If you’re headed to the barbers later, don’t ask for one of these.
- Marouane Fellaini
Since arriving in the Premier League, Belgian expert-elbow-thrower Marouane Fellaini has always possessed a barnet worthy of a meme of two. Yet when he decided to join in on last summer’s blonde hype he took things to a whole new level. After a career spent mostly imitating that thing Armed Police use to break down doors, this lighter lid promised a lighter Marouane (I mean just look at that smile). Instead of chesting the ball down then breaking a defender’s jaw, would we see Fellaini stop play to pick up an injured butterfly off the Trafford Pitch? Well no, it didn’t happen whatsoever, but his short lived blonde phase certainly had us all talking. In fact, some say that Fellaini’s decision to go blonde actually inspired Frank Ocean to rename his album. However, those rumours are as yet unconfirmed.
2. Roberto Firmino
Another player who turned up to pre season with a startler of a barnet was Roberto Firmino. The Brazilian began the season in spectacular form with 4 goals in 8 games, but what truly caught everyone’s attention was his utterly shameful top knot. Firmino claimed the hairstyle was a tribute to Brazilian pop star Wesley Safadao, but couldn’t just buy a CD like everyone else? Nonetheless having taken the leap into the murky world of top knot, he did at least achieve an almost physics defyingly angular finish. And he might not have even had the worst top knot at Anfield that season. Part time defender Alberto Moreno saw Firmino’s effort and raised him a white hair band. Whereas Firmino looks like a proud peacock, Moreno’s effort has an arc matching his career trajectory. It just goes to prove that if you’re going to have a shocking haircut, then you’d better make it stand out (or up).
3. Marco Arnautovic
During both the 2015/16 and 2016/17 seasons, Stoke’s maverick winger Marco Arnautovic also used his global platform to champion the honourable and often overlooked cause of the top knot. Praise be. In fact, Arnautovic may have even kicked off the summer’s blonde craze having fused two of last years most questionable fashion statements in a move which proved yet again that two wrongs don’t make a right. Yet what Arnautovic definitely did do was to test the limit of how tight you can pull human hair without it snapping out and flailing around like a Donald Trump combover (see eyebrows below). However, despite saving on botox, the fear of traction alopecia eventually caught up with the Austrian and he will begin his time at new club West Ham with a much more conservative short back and sides. The collective sigh of relied from his follicles could apparently be heard from as far away as Brentford.
4. Hector Bellerin
Hector Bellerin is a man who deserves a great deal of respect. At 22 he is Arsenal’s first choice right back, he has won two FA Cups and in the not too distant future a move to Barcelona beckons. He has it all. So for him to take the decision to absolutely shaft himself with a series of brutally awful haircuts, simply to make himself more human, is something deserving of a minutes applause on the opening day of the coming season. Here’s a short timeline of his hair history:
After beginning his career with a lid carved by Zeus himself…
…the young Spaniard decided to spit in the face of fashion and go for this…
… and he recently starred in Arsenal’s Community Shield Victory with a style seemingly inspired by Good Housekeeping, which would go very nicely with a male romper …
Jokes aside, hats off to the young man. The world is full of people with a variation on 2 or 3 haircuts and us men need a few more. Bellerin is clearly on a journey of exploration and for all we know he might push the boundaries of fashion into spaces they’ve never been before. I doubt it. But you never know.
5. Mamadou Sakho
Sakho has something about him which chills me to the bone. He actually reminds me of a White Walker. Sadly, due to a drugs mix up and a falling out with Jurgen Klopp we were robbed of the Frenchman for much of the season, but with January’s loan move to Crystal Palace we were blessed with his brilliant, yet Bambi-like presence again. And although featuring in the inaugural Shlid article, for the most part his hair is actually epic. The designs that his barber must have spent hours carving would not look out of place in a Pharaoh’s sarcophagus. In fact, often it feels like Djibril Cisse is living vicariously though Sakho and I think we’re all down for that. The problem you see, and it is a small, yet insurmountable problem, is that it despite all that incredible detail it feels like the barber has finished by asking ‘and do you want mustard with that?’ and sadly, Sakho keeps saying yes.
