When we’ve had one of *those* letdown games the last thing I want to do is watch Match of the Day and see both Manc clubs winning, Chelsea and Everton coming from behind to get three points and Spurs and West Ham grabbing late winners. At least Arsenal didn’t win I suppose, but they didn’t lose either and all things considered, it really couldn’t have been much worse.
Writing these round ups is usually one of the most enjoyable parts of my job. There’s nothing better than writing these when we’ve had a good result and two or three of our rivals have lost, but the flip side to that coin is weekends like this one when virtually everything went to shit.
United played on Friday night and beat Southampton. I didn’t watch it and I’ve also avoided the highlights so therefore have nothing further to add other than fuck off you shower of twats.
In the early game on Saturday, Man City won easily enough in the end at Stoke, although the home side were right in the game until the last five minutes when City bagged two late goals to give the scoreline a somewhat flattering look.
Mike Dean gave two pens in this game for holding on set-pieces. We’ll get this for the next couple of weeks as refs try to crack down on it, but give it a month or two and it will all go back to normal. The only shock is that we aren’t the ones being made an example of, like we were with that whole “respect campaign” thing back in the day.
Remember that? The Mancs harassed the fuck out of some poor official, everyone was up in arms about the lack of respect shown to him and a clampdown was promised. That “clampdown” started and ended with Mascherano being sent off for taking exception to Steve Bennett allowing the opposition to kick seven bells of shite out of Fernando Torres. The opposition that day? The very team that caused the whole situation to start with. Despicable cunts.
Anyway, Shawcross was penalised for grabbing Otamendi’s shirt and although this one was somewhat debatable (Otamendi also had hold of him) he can have no real complaints given he’s been doing that shit for years. If I had to place money on who would be the first defender to be made an example of I’d have probably said Shawcross now that Skrtel has gone and Huth is serving a suspension.
Aguero buried the pen and then headed in a second soon after when he somehow got between two big bastards and glanced the ball home. Amazing how often he does that for such a little short arse.
“Wee Joe” - who played well on his debut - had a good penalty shout when he was flattened by Kolorov. He was going away from goal and might not have even reached the ball, but he was taken out and it was a clear pen.
What pissed me off most about it was that the ball was immediately played back in and Diouf missed a sitter. What did he do after heading it about twenty yards wide? Went mad at the ref for not giving the pen of course. Never mind blaming the ref, just bury the header you fucking bum. Do that and it doesn’t matter what the ref did or didn’t do.
Stoke were then awarded a pen early in the second half but this one was an absolute fucking joke, as Sterling barely even touched Shawcross. He was booked for it too, which might be the softest yellow card of all time.
This was 100% a case of the ref evening it up and trying to “show consistency”. If you want to give pens for that type of holding on set-pieces, you have to do it on every single one as there’ll be at least two of three examples of what Sterling did on every corner.
Bojan buried the pen and City were wobbling a bit but they kept things secure until Nolito bagged two late goals to make the win look a lot more convincing than it actually was.
Fair play to Shawcross who came out afterwards and apologised for the ‘stupid mistake’ that cost Stoke a pen and also said that he didn’t think there was anything in the Sterling one.
Moving on, and the Blueshite had a good win at West Brom after falling behind to… wait for it… a goal from a corner kick. West Brom love corners like Chelsea fans love a plastic flag.
Mirallas scored a well worked goal to equalise just before half time and that crab Barry won it in the second half with a close range header. Pulis said afterwards that his team “are not equipped to chase a game” which is another way of admitting that “I know how to stifle teams who like to play football but I haven’t got a clue how to do it myself”.
The Hawthorns looked half empty. Is that to do with ticket pricing or fans being bored shitless by Pulis-ball? Either would be entirely understandable.
Staying with West Brom for a sec though, Arsenal are reportedly after Johnny Evans and are being quoted £25m for him. I’d laugh, except we’d probably then go and buy Jonas Olsson for thirty so I’m saying nothing.
Spurs left it late but were worthy winners against Palace. Wanyama’s header with eight minutes to go proved decisive but they had other chances before and after while Palace offered very little. Pardew’s side have won just two of their last 21 games now and Benteke is really gonna have to get his shit together if he’s going to save them. That said, if he can keep that horrific Villa squad up for three years then it should be a piece of piss doing the same with Palace, who at least have some talent to surround him with.
Elsewhere, Chelsea went a goal down at Watford which is always a good test of any team’s resolve, as they’re not the easiest side to break down when they have something to defend. The bad news for the rest of the league is Chelsea came back to win. They look to be made of sterner stuff this season under Conte even though they’ve not really done too much to reshape last season’s squad. Maybe they didn’t need to, as 12 months previous they won the league.
Capoue hadn’t ever scored for Watford until last week but now he’s slotted in successive weeks. That new Belgian lad came off the bench and equalised for Chelsea and he also hit the bar with a rocket shot. He looks good him, unfortunately.
Chelsea once again owed a big thanks to the ref though, as Costa was booked for dissent early on and then took a blatant dive on the edge of the box soon after. The ref knew it was a dive but bottled it and didn’t send him off. That’s two games in a row the cunt has escaped a red card, and two games in a row he’s gone on to score the winner in the last few minutes. Sort it out refs, you fucking cowards.
The shite refereeing continued as Hull were denied an absolute stonewall pen when Snodgrass was tripped by Jordi Amat. There were bad calls in virtually all of the games this weekend, except ours, which is amazing really seeing as Lee fucking Mason was in charge. The standard of officiating at the Euros was great, but “the best league in the world” has a bunch of fucking bungling idiots ruining games.
Hull overcame that bad call though to upset the odds with their second win in as many weeks. So much for my “they might not win another game” comment last week. I’m not entirely sure how they’re doing it considering the problems they’ve got, but maybe this result says more about Swansea than Hull? They were pretty poor and deserved nothing from the game.
Hull took the lead from a set-piece and Hernandez then wrapped it up in stoppage time. I still reckon they’ll finish bottom and as soon as they pick up an injury or two they’re in real trouble, but give them credit for what they’ve done so far as no-one saw that coming.
Arsenal and Leicester played out a goalless draw at the Kingpower Stadium but the Champions (still seems weird saying that about Leicester) can feel a little hard done by as they were shafted by the Premier League’s latest “celebrity ref”. Clattenberg is the best ref in the league (which is a bit like being the world’s tallest jocky) but recently he’s developed an ego to match that of Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s even got tattoos to mark his “achievements” of last season, the absolute fucking goon.
He hasn’t had the best of starts to this season and missed a clear pen on Drinkwater and then an even clearer one on Musa when Bellerin tripped him. He’s gone all “Uriah Rennie” on us hasn’t he, believing his own hype and taking his eye off the ball. It’s a hair thing I reckon, he was a right little dweeb when he thought he was going bald, but then he gets the transplant and suddenly he’s strutting round like he’s King Dick.
Onto Sunday now, and poor, poor old Sunderland. They’ve lost Fat Sam (who for all his faults would have undoubtedly kept them up again) and now have Moyes doing his level best to dampen any kind of enthusiasm they might muster (which isn’t much to begin with) with his continually dour statements about how finishing 16th would be a success and that they’re in for a long old season.
Rule number one in the book of Moyes: You don’t have to win to be a winner, just make sure there’s three teams worse than you. He’s the Scottish Hodgson.
His team lost at home to Boro this weekend, which is about as depressing as it can get for a Sunderland fan. Losing to Newcastle might well be more painful, but being had off by a newly promoted, bang average Boro side is depressing as fuck. You can’t take anything from that other than abject misery. It shouldn’t have surprised anyone really though, as Sunderland haven’t won in August since 2010, which is an incredible stat.
Stuani’s screamer put Boro ahead early and then he bagged a second on the stroke of half time. Van Aanholt pulled one back for the Mackems but they never looked like forcing an equaliser. Moyes said afterwards “Tell you what, they’ve done a great job albeit with a disappointing result”. A great job? A great job of what?
Van Aanholt was asked afterwards about the difference between Moyes and Allardyce, and responded “he likes to play football, not like Sam”. Ooof! We’ll see where that “football” takes them, as if they carry on like this is will take them to twice a year meetings with Newcastle in the Championship.
Can’t believe Steven Pienaar is playing for Sunderland though. I had to do a double take when I saw him. He’s still playing? Why? He hasn’t been relevant for about four years and but for the fact that Moyes loves signing his old players (presumably because he can no longer be arsed scouting for new ones), Pienaar would surely be on the scrap heap. Some would argue that playing for Moyes in this team of rejects is effectively the same thing, and they’d have a point.
Sunderland also have a lad called Gooch playing for them, which always makes me laugh because some call that gap between the ballsack and arsehole “the gooch”. You may also know it as “the taint”, “notchya” or “Biffers Bridge”, but “the Gooch” is probably my favourite.
Finally, West Ham had their first game in that new stadium their Tory owners leeched from the council, and unfortunately they scraped a late win against Bournemouth who look like they might be going to find their second season in the top flight a lot more difficult than their first.
Ibe was shite again. He had a great chance to score but instead inexplicably tried to square it. That’s the problem with him, his decision making when he gets in and around the box undermines all the good things he does to get there and it’s also probably why he never fucking scores. At 16 or 17 it didn’t seem to matter as his natural talent shone through and you just assume he’ll get better with experience, but he hasn’t and probably won’t.
Bournemouth had actually looked very comfortable throughout against an understrength Hammers side, but Harry Arter needlessly got himself sent off and Antonio headed an undeserved winner with five minutes left.
I mentioned last week how Bournemouth already had Charlie Daniels and a lad they paid a lot of money for (Tyrone Mings), but they’ve also got Nathan Aki on loan from Chelsea, so I’ll ask again, why in the blue hell did they buy Brad Smith? Perhaps the more pertinent question though is why the hell did he go there, as he’d actually have had far more chance of getting a game here than he has at Bournemouth. A depressing thought, in keeping with the rest of the weekend.
Next week better not be like this, it’s too early in the season to be fucking miserable.
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