Premier League Round Up (Apr 9-10 2016)

The weekend kicked off with Arsenal shitting the bed against West Ham in the early game on Saturday. They raced into a 2-0 lead but then imploded and let my boy big Andy bag a hat-trick before they eventually snatched a point through Koscielny’s equaliser.
 
Carroll has been awol most of the season but one good game in front of the TV cameras was all it took for the narrative to become “should Hodgson take him to the Euros?” followed by lots of nonsense discussion about “Plan B” and “he’d certainly give Roy something different”. Christ. He’s even more likely to break down between now and the summer than Sturridge is, so it’s a moot point as he won’t be available, he’ll be preparing for a lads holiday in Vegas. Even if by some miracle he was still fit, not even Hodgson would be daft enough to pick him ahead of Kane, Vardy, Sturridge, Walcott and, I can’t believe I’m saying this, even Danny Welcrap. Maybe you can make a case for taking Carroll over Mr Potato Head, but then Woy absolutely loves Wooney so that ain’t happening.
 
The other thing to take into account is that England won’t be playing against Arsenal in the Euros, the teams they’ll face there will actually have a bit of backbone and won’t make him look like Gabriel Batistuta.
 
Long time readers will know I’m an Andy Carroll guy, always have been, probably always will be. But let’s get it right, he probably should have been sent off at least once in this game, possibly even twice, and two of his goals were deflected. If a few scrappy goals is enough to get on the plane for the Euros then Hodgson may as well take Darren fucking Bent. 
 
Fuck West Ham though. It goes without saying I’m glad Arsenal didn’t win as I despise the bastards, but the more I think about it the more I’m glad West Ham didn’t win either. Hell, whisper it, but I’m even glad they lost to the Mancs in the cup. They’re getting right on my tits. I’m sick to death of all this “oh this is the last time that Danny Dyer will ever eat jellied eels in the directors box while watching a game against Sunderland at the Boleyn Ground” shite. 
 
We’ve been hearing that bollocks for months. The last this, the second to last that, just fuck off you boring bastards. I don’t give a fuck about them leaving Upton Park. It’s not like they’re being kicked out; they’ve chosen to go because their Tory backing board did a deal with Dodgy Dave (or was it Bellend Boris?”) to get a brand spanking new stadium for £2.5m a year rent. 
 
It’s quite funny because the whole country has now decided West Ham can fuck off. If I was a fan of a rival London club I’d be even more pissed off about it than I am now, as it’s a right facking liberty.
 
David Sullivan went on talksport to try and justify it and he kept harping on about how it's all fine because they have given up the catering rights to the stadium owners. The fucking catering rights? Really? How much is that worth? Unless I’m seriously misjudging the cost of jellied eels and pork pies then it’s less per game than they pay Dmitri Payet in a week.
 
Fuck West Ham, I’m made up they lost their “last ever FA Cup tie at Upton Park” even if it did mean those other scumbags getting a bye to the final. What? You don’t actually think Everton will stand in their way do you?
 
Speaking of the Blues, it’s not been a good week for them. They’re still floundering in the bottom half after a couple of draws against fellow bottom half non-entities. First they were held to a 1-1 draw at Watford on Saturday. They took the lead in first half stoppage time through McCarthy, but while their fans were still celebrating Watford equalised. The goal came about because “God’s gift to defending” once again put his team in unnecessary trouble by playing football in the wrong areas. He makes Sakho look like Robert Huth he does. Bet they’ll never get anything like that £45m offer from Chelsea again. Mugs.
 
Their fans unveiled a banner saying “Baines is one of us” and another one that read “Martinez out”. So based on that I can only deduce they’re saying that Bilbo Baines is a fickle, sad twat?
 
They followed that up with a dire goalless draw at Palace in midweek that had their fans spitting feathers at “Bobby’s” blatant trolling.  “Incredible, incredible feeling of satisfaction” “That result was perfect timing” “most satisfying point of the season” etc
 
You’d think he’d just picked up a heroic draw in the Bernabeu, not a 0-0 at a Palace side that have won just once in 2016. He’s blatantly taking the piss now, it’s tremendous work and I can only admire it, as I’ve spent 17 years trying to bait the Blues but haven’t even come close to this. 
 
They’re doing their nuts over him now, but I said weeks ago that he’s defo not serious with the stuff he’s saying. He’s going out in front of the cameras thinking “let’s see what I can get away with this time”. If I was nitpicking though I’d say that he probably played the “Spectacular Tom Cleverley” card too soon. Once you go there, how can you top that? Everything since has been a bit of a letdown I’d say. Short of wheeling out “Hibbo” for the semi final he’s going to find it impossible to scale those heights again.
 
Moving on, and City had a scruffy win over West Brom to not only cement their grip on 4th place, but put pressure on Arsenal for 3rd. I think I’d like them to get third just to make Arsenal’s plight even more amusing. City fell behind early when Hart just stood and watched as Sessegnon’s shot went past him. He makes some incredible saves but also lets in goals that make you think “far eastern betting syndicates”. 
 
Aguero equalised from the spot and bird shit head Nasri got the winner. City also edged past PSG to reach the CL semis. Good for the Premier League’s co-efficient I suppose but hopefully that’s as far as they get. With Barca crashing out this week it’s opened right up this year. I had hoped they’d get drawn against “Flat Track Pep” in the next round and lose to an Arjen Robben dive for a penalty, but I’ll have to settle for Ronaldo knocking them instead.
 
Things aren’t getting any better for Rafa are they? Shane Long went round Steven Taylor like he was a traffic cone (a bit insulting to traffic cones, most of whom have a higher IQ than the perma-tanned Geordie) to put Southampton 1-0 up. Janmaat then fell over in the build up to Southampton’s second, put away by Pelle. Rafa prides himself on his defensive strength so it was no surprise that both Taylor and Janmaat were subbed not long after. 
 
It made little difference as Wanyama made it 3-0 before Townsend grabbed a consolation with just about the most “Andros Townsend goal” you’ll ever see. Cut in from the right, get onto left foot, hit it in top corner from 20 yards. He’ll get you four or five of those a season. The problem is he’ll do absolutely nothing else in between. He’ll be great in the Championship though, him and Jonjo will tear it up I reckon. Will Rafa be there to oversee it though? I reckon he should stay. He went there to keep them up, and although he wouldn’t be to blame for their relegation it’d be a bit of a shithouse move to just walk away.
 
Final observation on this; Does anyone else think Sammy Lee looks like he could be Ronald Koeman’s dad?
 
There was some good news for Newcastle as Norwich’s revival hit the skids at Palace. My boy Jason Puncheon got the only goal of the game to give Palace their first win since mid-December. He was crying after he scored too, bless ‘im. If that was anyone else I might rip them to shreds, but he’s my boy he is. Well done son.
 
Chelsea hadn’t lost a game in ages but they were beaten 1-0 at Swansea. No prizes for guessing who the goalscorer was. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Sigurdsson scores goals. The thing I like about him is he isn’t one of those midfielders who just scores goals and does nothing else. The best example of that was David Platt. He was fucking garbage, the spoon faced bastard. You wouldn’t even see him until he popped up with a goal. God I hated him. 
 
Sigurdsson is boss though, he dribbles, he back heels, he shoots with both feet, he takes set-pieces… I have absolutely no idea why it didn’t work out for him at Spurs because he’s clearly a very good player.
 
In other news, Villa fans are revolting. They’re also in revolt. (never gets old that!) Some of them didn’t take their seats until the 7th minute, they got that number from the number of titles they’ve won. Bit of a tenuous link that. Clearly they didn’t want to miss any more than ten minutes so just came up with that. They could have just settled on five, for the number of chins Gabby Agbonlahor has these days. 
 
He’s been sent to fat camp this week and isn’t under consideration for their games until he shapes up. I can’t say I’m surprised. He’s the most unhealthy looking player in the league, it staggers me that he’s so damn fast because he just looks like a Sunday league player. He wears a baggy shirt and doesn’t tuck it in so he can cover his paunch and he looks like he’d have yellow fingers and smoke roleys behind the goal at half time.
 
Steve Cook back-heeled Bournemouth ahead and then Josh King took advantage of shite defending to double their lead, as thousands of Villa fans got up and walked out. Ayew pulled one back but Bournemouth held on. Villa are just a massive turd of a football team.
 
Ok that’s reminded me of something that’s been on my mind a lot lately. Turds and what goes into making them. Now bear with me here as it’s an interesting point I think. It’s fascinating when you really think about it. I’ve got two dogs. Both of them are small and they eat the same amount of food. Yet one of them shits like a Great Dane. Massive turds, three times a day. The other one just drops little malteser like things and will sometimes go three days without doing anything. I don’t know how this is possible? Where does the food go? 
 
It’s not just dogs either. I remember years ago when I worked in an office in town, a girl who I worked with reckoned she only dropped number two every couple couple of weeks. She ate more than me but she wasn’t packing a lot of timber. So where did it go? “When you do go, you must shit like a horse” one of my co-workers once somewhat tactlessly pointed out. “No, they’re quite small” she insisted. All these years I just assumed she was lying, but she swore blind she was telling the truth and having watched my two dogs lately I now believe her. 
 
I can’t get my head around it at all though. If it goes in it has to come out, but for some dogs - and indeed people - it doesn’t appear to be doing so. Someone help me out here and explain it to me, because I’m spending far too much time obsessing about this.
 
Anyway, to get back on track. Sunday saw Leicester move another step closer to the title as they won 2-0 at Sunderland. Hardy got both goals although Sunderland did have their chances too. Leicester’s miserly defence is boss isn’t it? They’re just grinding out clean sheet after clean sheet and the finish line is in sight now. 
 
I saw something today saying that they were 5000-1 to win it at the start of the season, and if they pull it off that will be the biggest upset in any sport. To add some further perspective to that, Moyesy was only 2500-1 to be announced as one of the X-Factor judges. We’ll probably never see anything like this ever again, and I’ve got to admit, I’m enjoying it a lot. I thought everyone was until I saw my mate Dan’s face tripping him when he heard the score. “What’s your problem Dan? Don’t you want Leicester to win the league?” we asked. “No, I can’t stand them”. “Eh? Why, what’s your beef?” “I don’t like underdog stories”. *shakes head*
 
Dan wants Spurs to win, which in itself would be an underdog story anyway, so I didn’t really get it. Anyway, Spurs are still doing their bit to keep the pressure on and scored three goals in six second half minutes to run out comfortable winners against “Louis Van Gaal’s army”. The mad Dutchman looked to be on the brink of the sack after that but every time that happens he keeps pulling a result out to buy himself more time, much to the annoyance of thousands of United fans. I’d probably settle for them winning the FA Cup if it means another year of Butthead.