I’m hurting this week. Obviously like the rest of you I’m hurting emotionally after we dropped into the Europa League, lost at Old Trafford and slipped into the bottom half again, but worse than that I’m hurting physically too. Nothing to do with the footy though; I was involved in an ‘accident’ at the Tesco in Formby on Tuesday.
It’s an embarrassing tale but it’s one I feel I need to share as if it prevents another poor unfortunate soul from suffering the same fate then the personal ridicule I’ll have to endure is a small price to pay. So, this is how it all went down...
I’m heading back to the car with a trolley full of shopping. We unload it into the boot and my wife and daughter get into the car while I take the trolley back. Anyway, as you do, I start to run with the trolley and then I lean on the handle bars and freewheel for a little bit. If I’ve done it once I’ve done it a thousand times, it’s just about the only thing that makes a trip to the supermarket bearable. This time, it went horribly wrong.
It all happened in a flash, I saw the front end of the trolley rising up and the next thing I’m crashing to the floor. I hit the concrete HARD. You know how they say a cat always lands on it’s feet? That’s not true, I’ve got a cat, he’s a big old bruiser and I’ve seen him fall down a few times and I’m telling you, ol’ Claude doesn’t always land on his feet. What he does do, however, is jump up so quickly that it may look to the untrained eye that he did in fact land on his feet. Well that was me in the Tesco car park that was.
I hit the floor and I bounced straight back up. I’d estimate I was on the deck for less than a second. The crashing sound the trolley made will have drawn unwanted attention from anyone else in the car park, so you can’t lie there and milk it, no matter how much it hurts. Women do that, they lie there and wait for someone to come and help them up. Men on the other hand, we bounce back up and hope to hell that no-one saw it.
The knuckles on my left hand were all messed up and dripping blood, my right knee took some collateral damage and I’m pretty sure I’ve cracked at least one rib. The pain in my ribs wasn’t helped by my uncontrollable laughter at what had just gone down. People falling over is just about the funniest thing in the world to me and although me being the one who’d fallen made it slightly less amusing, it was still pretty damn hilarious.
In fact some of my most cherished memories are of friends and family falling down and hurting themselves. It’s actually making me all warm and fuzzy just thinking about some of those falls right now (yes Al, I mean you!).
(quick disclaimer: Kids and old people falling over isn’t funny, and if someone lands on their face that’s a whole different ball game too. Otherwise, all bets are off.)
So yeah, it hurt but I saw the funny side. I got back in the car and the wife and kid were wondering what was so funny. I showed them the bloody mess that was my left hand and eventually managed to explain what had happened. The best thing about it was neither of them saw me fall so they couldn’t take too much pleasure from it. I don’t think anybody did actually but I can’t be sure as I didn’t look around when it happened, I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
As funny as it was, I am now living with the constant fear that CCTV footage of it may exist and one day I’ll be watching “World’s Craziest Fools” and Mr T will yell “SHOPPING TROLLEY FOOLS!” and suddenly I’ll be a reluctant TV star.
My missus said to me yesterday “well you won’t be doing that again.” Erm, of course I will. You don’t stop riding a bike when you fall off, so how is this any different? Hell, five weeks ago I had a fecking car crash (not my fault!) but it didn’t stop her expecting lifts here there and everywhere. There was no “oh you want want to drive the car again” talk. So yeah, as soon as my ribs allow me to breathe properly without pain I’ll be back freewheeling on supermarket trolleys again. Not in Tesco’s though, those things are deathtraps.
But I suppose I need to get back to the footy, even though it was a nightmare as not one result helped us out. It was always going to be tough for Hull at Chelsea but they didn’t help themselves by allowing Hazard to score with a towering header. How do you let that happen, Hull? That’s almost as embarrassing as the time we allowed Ian Marshall to outpace our defence and run from the halfway line to score the winner at the Kop end.
Costa made it 2-0 after Huddleston was sent off for a bad shithouse challenge on Felipe Luis. It was a busy afternoon for referee Chris Foy. Willian and Costa were booked for diving and Cahill should have been too as his was far worse than either of the other two. He’d been cautioned earlier for a shocking tackle and then took a dive in the box. Foy shit out of that one badly.
I’m sick of them getting away with all this crap every week, but you know the first bad decision that goes against them will have Mourinho crying like he was when Villa and Sunderland beat them last season. As for his verdict on the diving? “At Chelsea we are clean”. Yeah, as clean as dogshit and twice as unpleasant. Twat.
Chelsea even managed to cause some friction in my parents household this week too after my al fella said while watching their cup tie at Derby; “Say what you like about Chelsea, but they’ve got class”. Now in his defence, I know what he meant and it was just a poor choice of words. In his own ham-fisted way he was just saying they might be twats but they’ve got some quality players. It got my mum’s back right up though “Class??? Class??? The one thing Chelsea haven’t got is class” she hissed before launching into a tirade against Abramovich, Mourinho, Costa, Drogba and of course “the weird whiskered little freak” Hazard.
I wasn’t there, the only reason I know about it is that when I turned up the next night to watch the Bournemouth game it was the first thing she said when I came through the door, she was still steaming about it 24 hours later. As I said last week, the apple never falls far from the tree.
So Arsenal fans love Wenger again this week after they won a couple of games. They were even singing “There’s only one Arsene Wenger” after they went three up, the two faced bastards. Hopefully we’ll twat them on Sunday again so they can turn on him once more, the fickle wankers. Giroud scored two brilliant goals and Cazorla added pair as they ran out comfortable 4-1 winners over Newcastle.
That Ayoze Perez lad scored again though. A couple more and they’ll be handing the him the number nine shirt and making him their newest messiah.
Pardew’s men followed that loss up by letting in another four, this time at Spurs in the League Cup. Had they come through that tie they’d have drawn Sheffield Utd in the semis. For a team that’s won as little as they have that was a real chance of silverware wasted, especially as they’ve already beaten Spurs at the Lane in the league this season. Their bubble looks to have burst now it seems, which is nice.
Southampton’s has too. They went to Burnley on the back of three straight defeats and came away with a fourth. Tadic missed a pen and then Ashley Barnes won it for Burnley with a deflected strike. The Saints then went to Bramall Lane in the League Cup and also lost 1-0. If it turns out they were just a flash in the pan there’ll be no-one more relieved than Brendan.
Elsewhere, a criminally unmarked Lampard got the only goal of the game as City failed to impress without Aguero but still picked up the points at Leicester. Kompany went off with a recurrence of a hamstring injury and Dzeko did his hammy in the warm up. Their squad will be tested over Christmas.
Kieran Richardson was sent off as Villa were beaten at the Hawthorns. Former Villa man Craig Gardner got the only goal of the game and went off on a mad celebration run all around the field before ending up with a high five with his manager. None of this ‘non-celebration’ bollocks for him, no sir. Fair play.
West Brom left back Poccognoli was booked for diving. He got up and patted Mike Dean on the back as if to say “Yeah, fair cop, you got me there”. I think that might be even worse than pleading innocence!
Staying with Villa for a second, I read an article this week on why Roy Keane ‘had to go’. It obviously came from one one of the players as it was so out of touch with reality only a footballer could have come up with it. Just have a read of some of this, it’s fantastic.
“A source said: ‘The atmosphere was horrible. It went downhill the moment Keane arrived. He p****d off all the big names he shouldn’t have p****d off and his relationship with the senior players slowly fell apart.”
Wait, what? Big names? Villa??? Hahaha. Hang on, maybe they literally meant, ‘big names’ as Gabriel Agbonlahor is a big of a tongue twister I guess, and he was the main one Keane failed to see eye to eye with according to the report. Remember I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about Keane not tolerating fools? No surprise then, that it was ‘Captain Mensa’ himself Agbonlahor who he fell out with.
“It is understood the long-serving Villa star was talking tactics with Lambert when Keane interrupted. Agbonlahor resented the interference and tried to belittle Keane by telling him: ‘Excuse me, but I’m talking to the boss!’ The two men then became involved in a heated row and had to be separated.”
Wow, Agbonlahor is either really brave or really stupid. Ok, there is no 'either', he’s just really stupid, we already knew that. You can tell just by looking at him.
“The 43-year-old hardly endeared himself to his new squad after a 1-0 home defeat by Leyton Orient in the Capital One Cup in August when he berated the players in the dressing room afterwards, and told them: ‘If I gave you 10 grand, you couldn’t even score in a brothel!’”
Hahahaha given that they went six games without scoring after the beat us 1-0, I’d say Keane had a point.
“Defender Chris Herd is another of the players said to have had a falling out with the brooding Irishman, who became exasperated with the relaxed attitude to training by some other players, including Charles N’Zogbia.”
Ok, who in the blue hell is Chris Herd? Is he an actually player or is that a typo or something? Does he even exist? And if he does, where is he as he's never on the pitch. As for N’Zogbia, is anyone in the least bit surprised by that? He’s barely broken a sweat since leaving Wigan. I'm surprised Keane didn't actually kill him with his bare hands.
“It was a combination of row after row and none of them were in private. The problem with Keane is that he demands the same standards that he was used to at United and the lads at Villa don’t get paid enough to put up with that kind of c**p. He just got everybody down.”
Yeah the poor lads at Villa, being expected to act professionally and shit. That’s ok when you’re being paid 80 grand a week but it’s bang out of order to expect players to take their trade seriously when they’re only picking up half that. Fucking Keane and his stupid high standards, where the fuck does he think he is, Old Trafford? Is it any wonder Villa are Villa?
After the reports of these bust ups appeared in the papers, Keane suspected Tom Cleverly of being the rat and reportedly went round to his house, rang the doorbell and then waited at the front door for a full 15 minutes before eventually giving up. Cleverly wasn’t home, at least that’s what he claims. Bet he was locked in his panic room watching the CCTV of his front door and shitting himself.
Moving on, and Big Andy Carroll says West Ham can win the title. This time last year he was saying the same about us and everyone laughed at him. Look, I’m just saying. They drew at Sunderland last weekend but they’re still ticking along nicely and have benefited more than anyone from Southampton’s recent woes.
The Mackems went ahead through a Gomez penalty after Tomkins breathed in the direction of Adam Johnson and knocked him over. Really harsh that one. Downing levelled soon after with a deflected shot but Sunderland should have regained the lead with the last kick of the half. Unfortunately the chance fell to the worst player in the Premier League, Dozy Jozy Altidore. I’m not sure what he was doing, it looked like he tried to score with his arse. Cant blame him for that I guess, it can’t be any less effective than his feet.
Onto Sunday now and Swansea had never beaten Spurs in the Premier League prior to this weekend. They still haven’t, but they only have themselves to blame for that as they threw this one away by conceding two awful goals. Harry Kane’s early header put the Londoners ahead but Lloris channeled his inner Brad Jones and dived the wrong way as Bony equalised. Spurs nicked it in the last minute through Eriksen (who else?) despite having been completely outplayed for the entire second half. Four away games in a row they’ve scored last minute winners. It’s a good job they stink at home or they’d be miles clear of us.
The centre of the Spurs midfield these days is Benteleb and Mason. How did that happen? They’ve got Paulinho and Dembele on the books yet they’re playing these two? And where’s that French fella they bought, Epoue is it? That pairing they’ve got now is the worst in the top half by a mile.
Kane was interviewed by MOTD afterwards and I have to say he talks even worse than he looks. He’s a better player than I’ve been giving him credit for though, and his work rate is incredible. It takes Adebayor half a season to cover the ground this lad does in one game.
Finally, Monday night. The Blueshite beat QPR at Goodison and I literally have nothing to say about that.
Dave
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