The weekend got underway on Friday night when Brighton ensured their survival by beating the Mancs 1-0. Thoroughly deserved too, United were garbage and Brighton played well, especially their goalscorer Pascal Gross who has had a good season.
Mourinho threw Rashford right under the bus afterwards, and then he jumped into the bus and ran him over, before sticking it in reverse and finishing the job.
“'Why always Lukaku? Why always Lukaku? Why always Lukaku? You have the answer why always Lukaku.' The players that replaced others did not perform at a good level. When individuals do that it is difficult for the team to play well. Maybe now you will not ask me why A, B and C do not play so much.”
As funny as this is, because it’s Mourinho ripping a United player, and a homegrown one at that, you do have to wonder just what the fuck he’s doing laying into a 20 year kid like that. Anyone would think he wants him to be shit so he can justify spending another king’s ransom on some 30 year old established name…
While Brighton were saving themselves on Friday, Stoke went hurtling through the trap door on Saturday after a home defeat to Palace. Shaqiri had given them hope by whipping in a superb 25 yard free-kick to open the scoring. He then put N’Diaye through with a chance to make it 2-0 but the midfielder couldn’t sort out his feet in time and the chance went begging. That was a turning point as Palace went down the other end and equalised through McArthur.
Remember a few years ago when he was at Wigan and I used to take the piss out of him for being a blag James McCarthy? Yeah he’s actually flipped that one on its head now. Not because he’s been that good, but because he’s been alright whereas McCarthy has turned into a right bum.
Mad to think how highly rated he was when he was a kid. Look at him now? At least you see McArthur pop up and do something on MOTD once in a while, when was the last time McCarthy was noticed for anything other than a fucking terrible tackle? Absolute shitbird he is. Dirty blueshite.
Anyway, back to Palace and Stoke. A draw was no good for the home side so they had to commit men forward and they got caught on the break late on when Shawcross failed to cut out a Zaha through ball and diverted it perfectly into the path of Van Aanholt who put them out of their misery.
I’ll lose no sleep over Stoke going down but I wouldn’t say I’m happy about it either. Fairly indifferent is how I’d describe it. This isn’t the Stoke of Tony Pulis and I’ve got no real beef with them, although not having to face Paul Lambert and his fucking weird Anfield mojo is a good thing. They deserved to go down though as they’ve been pretty hopeless. Losing Arnautovic was huge for them and if that deal never happened you can probably swap Stoke and West Ham around.
The Hammers could do worse than re-unite the Jersey Shore brothers. Shaqiri won’t hang around now they’ve gone down. He’s given them everything to be fair to him but he’s too good to be playing in the Championship. My Dad loves him, when we played Stoke at Anfield last week he pointed at Shaqiri and said (rather loudly as he’s a bit on the deaf side) “That’s the one I like. I think he’s a cracking player…… I’m sure he’s deformed though, he’s a funny looking thing.”
Swansea are as good as down too now after the amazing exploits of Huddersfield, who I’ll get to shortly. The Welsh side lost 1-0 at Bournemouth as Ryan Fraser curled one in from 20 yards with the aid of a deflection from Alfie Mawson. The win guaranteed survival for Eddie Howe’s men but they haven’t looked in any real danger for a long time, which is a decent accomplishment considering the bad start they had. Great job again by Nice Guy Eddie.
Swansea though. Weird team. They looked like they’d dragged themselves out of it a month or two ago, but just when I thought they were out, they got pulled back in. The Bournemouth loss wasn’t catastrophic because they had Southampton at home on Tuesday, but they lost that 1-0 too.
It turns out that Carvalhal is exactly what I thought he was when they hired him. He made me second guess myself for a little while there with that good start he had, but he is indeed shit and they should never have appointed him. Look at his managerial record and then tell me how he managed to get the Swansea job in the first place?
He must have one hell of an agent…. *googles* Ah that explains it.
I see Mawson is being linked with Spurs. He defo needs a move to a London club, the chimney sweep sounding bastard, but not sure he’s good enough for Tottenham. West Ham maybe, although Mark Noble might not react well to someone who might be able to out-cockney him.
Speaking of Spurs though, they lost at West Brom. Good result for us, but the fact we lost at Chelsea meant we didn’t take advantage of it and will probably now finish below them, which irritates me no end.
West Brom parked the bus for 80 minutes then threw everything at Spurs late on. Well why wouldn’t they, it worked perfectly against us? They could have scored four in the last ten minutes against Tottenham, it was mad.
Hugo Lloris made a stunning save to prevent Harry Kane scoring an own goal and in the process spared us from several million social media gags about “does he known own goals don’t count towards the Golden Boot?”.
The winning goal came from a corner (well of course it did) but it looked like there were a couple of Baggies players offside. It kept them alive for a few more days because Southampton got hosed at Everton. The Saints winning at Swansea in midweek though finally condemned West Brom to a fate that had been sealed months ago. They did well to drag it out as long as they did and not finishing bottom would be an achievement in itself considering how far adrift they were when Pardew was canned.
Darren Moore should get the job permanently, if for no other reason than he had the common sense to look at the squad that had been assembled by Pulis and got them playing to their strengths. Those strengths are getting everyone behind the ball, being physical bastards and making the most of set-pieces. He’s got them doing that again and they now once again look like the horrible alehouse side nobody likes playing against. If they’d given him the job at Christmas they’d have stayed up.
Southampton have saved themselves with seven points from the last nine available, although it should have been all nine but for Fat Jon Moss, who screwed them big time at Goodison. Not for the time added on, he actually got that right, which some would say proves the old ‘stopped clock’ theory. It doesn’t though, as a stopped clock is right twice.
I fucking hate Jon Moss. Hate his face. Hate his fat arse. Hate the fact he doesn’t have an ‘h’ in his first name. Doesn’t bother me when anyone else spells it without the ‘h’, but because it’s him I hate it. He’s a worthless sack of shit, and although it’s always fun seeing Mark Hughes being wronged, I was pretty pissed off at seeing Southampton’s players robbed of victory like that.
They were down to ten men after Yoshida picked up two yellows (the first was a joke), but they’d been holding on without any real drama and were well in control. Nathan Redmond came off the bench and finally remembered that he can actually play football and looked like the player he was last season. He headed them into the lead and had been running Everton ragged. Then deep in stoppage time he pressured Funes Mori and robbed him and was in on goal. The linesman was right on the spot and gave nothing, but Moss decided to give a free-kick to Everton even though there was no foul.
Whatsmore, he let them take it 10 yards higher up the field than they should have. Everton then got the ball upfield and Davies scored with the aid of a wicked deflection with literally the last kick of the game. Absolutely heartbreaking stuff it was.
You know the worst thing about it? Sammy Lee going nuts on the touchline like they’d just won the European Cup. What the fuck is wrong with him? Honestly, it was proper cringeworthy, turning to the few fans who were still in the ground and giving it fucking loads because of a spawny deflected equaliser against team that was in the relegation zone and had only ten men. I’m ashamed for him, the sad little fuck.
Anyway, thankfully for Southampton there was no lasting damage as they went and won at Swansea thanks to a tidy goal from my boy Gabbiadini. If he’d played more often they probably wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place, as he’s quality. They’ll be back to being mid-table next season I think.
Watford beat Newcastle thanks to a first half blitz in which they scored two but could have had five. Deeney missed a penalty and then missed the rebound. It was never a penalty to begin with though. Fucking hell that was such a bad decision. Andre Gray didn’t even appeal for a penalty and nor did any of the crowd. The linesman signalled for it and the ref didn’t really have a choice then.
Newcastle pulled one back through that loser Ayoze Perez (who has actually resembled a professional footballer in recent weeks) but couldn’t find an equaliser and lost their third game in a row. Three became four when they lost at Spurs in midweek. Hopefully it doesn’t get to tfive because they’ve got Chelsea on the last day.
Rafa was overheating on the touchline and took off his jacket but he was wearing a waistcoat underneath, which isn’t going to help him shed the “fat Spanish waiter” tag. All he needed was a tray of drinks to complete the look.
Elsewhere, Arnautovic almost gave West Ham an early lead at Leicester but his volley crashed against the bar. He then put one on a plate for Joao Mario to open the scoring. He was brilliant again, Arnautovic I mean, not Joao Mario, he’s fucking crap. Arnautovic has been a real handful these last few months and aside from De Bruyne he probably produced the best display at Anfield by a visiting player this season.
Noble’s brilliant volley sealed the win for the Londoners and the home crowd weren’t happy. When they finally had an attempt on target after 86 minutes it was almost celebrated like a goal, with sarcastic cheers and jumping around from all sides of the ground.
Leicester were poor but they weren’t helped by a bizarre refereeing decision when Cresswell was beaten by Vardy and just fell on the ball and grabbed hold of it to stop the striker running through on goal. It was just outside the box, but it was a clear red card and somehow he escaped with just a yellow. Terrible that, it was the very definition of a professional foul.
Leicester’s players did their lap of honour after the game, which was a little odd seeing as how they had another home game a few days later. Maybe that’s why none of the fans bothered staying behind for it? Or maybe they’re just ungrateful bastards?
Speaking of which, Arsenal fans paid tribute to Wenger at his last home game. The Arsenal Fan TV crew were all over the telly paying homage to him, after fucking hammering him for the best part of three years. DT even got a selfie with him!! DT!!! He of the ‘Wenger out’ banner and weekly rants about how he needs to fuck off. And now he’s got the balls to ask for a selfie with him??? *Joe Pesci voice* Do you believe this prick?
After the game the fans all stayed behind for Wenger and he gave an emotional speech on the field. He started by saying get well soon to his old nemesis. Funny how he just called him “Ferguson” though and not Alex or “Sir Alex”. Made me laugh that.
He also said “I am an Arsenal fan just like you”. Yeeeeerrssss, so we can have him replace that miserable bastard Claude and be Club Shop Ty’s new sidekick next year then? Come on Robbie, you know it makes sense.
Arsenal’s 2018 was summed up by the last few days. Convincing win at home, dreadful defeat away. They smashed Burnley 5-0 at the Emirates on Sunday (Burnley never lose by more than one or two goals) and then lost their sixth consecutive away game by going down 3-1 at Leicester. What a fucking spineless bunch they are, especially Ozil who has now gone MIA.
Interestingly, Martin Keown called it when they lost at Atletico last week:
“It seems as though he picks and chooses his games. You can hide a little bit in that wide position. At times I was watching him and was like ‘are you going to get back for your team?’ The great players I played with, the Bergkamp’s, the Henry’s, they worked hard as well and I don’t think this team can carry anybody.
“It’s almost as if his hands are in the air, ‘look at this group, they aren’t as good as me.’ Someone needed to grab him a long time ago, shake him and say, ‘we are trying to get the ball to you, we are working for you but you aren’t working for us.
“I bet he doesn’t play again this season. He’ll have some emotional breakdown and he won’t able to play at the weekend. I don’t know how many illnesses he has had this season but the fella is not kidding me.”
Ozil didn’t play against Burnley or Leicester. Keown will be on MOTD this week like this….
Mertesacker is hanging up his boots at the end of the season so I need to get this old favourite in one last time before it too goes into retirement. So here goes, one more time for the road. He came on as a late sub against Burnley. He was actually meant to be starting the game but he’s so slow it took him 85 minutes to get from the dressing room to the pitch.
Here’s me saying ‘so long partner’ to one of my favourite long running gags….
With all that stuff going on I wasn’t really paying much attention to the game itself, so I’m not sure who scored. All of them did I think, as every time I looked up at the telly the ball seemed to be pinging around the Burnley six yard box. You don’t see Burnley torn apart like that very often. I’d say that maybe they were on their holidays but if they’d won this game they’d have been level on points with Arsenal so the incentive was there for them. Arsenal are just pretty good at home I guess.
Also on Sunday, City’s bid to reach 100 points was thwarted by Huddersfield who held them to a goalless draw at the Etihad. That might be the biggest shock of the season, not least because it wasn’t even that hairy for them and they had some good chances of their own. Brilliant performance. Quite the achievement by Wagner’s boys, who followed it up with a 1-1 draw at Chelsea on Wednesday to clinch their survival.
They deserve all the praise in the world for that. Their run in was a complete bastard but they saved themselves without even having to beat Arsenal on the last day (which they probably will as Arsenal travel about as well as B.A. Baracus).
Huddersfield’s players cancelled their flight home because they wanted to get drunk on the coach. The coach driver had done his hourly limit though and couldn’t drive, so instead they hit the town in London after the game and got smashed. Good for them, they’ve earned it and I hope they had a great night.
It’s also not lost on me that the player I’ve been hammering all season for being the worst in the Premier League was the one who scored the goal that kept them up and did us a big favour in the process. So Laurent Depoitre, while I stand by every word I’ve said, I’ll also say well done and ta la.
Huddersfield’s defending and time wasting at Chelsea was a fucking masterclass. Lee Mason aided it by not booking the keeper until 87 minutes (a standard shit refs move that is) and he also managed to get Chelsea on an FA charge for not controlling their players when he blew for half time instead of letting Chelsea take a corner. Pretty funny really, Huddersfield had been wasting time from the opening seconds so the least Mason could have done is let Chelsea take the corner. I’m glad he didn’t, obviously, but if that had been us I’d have wanted him strung up.
What else? Spurs beat Newcastle thanks to a goal by Kane. City beat Brighton and then gave Yaya Toure a send off that was even bigger than Arsenal’s for Wenger, the fucking weirdos. Here’s a fella who joined them only for money, who wanted to leave because he didn’t get a fucking birthday cake and who has barely kicked a ball for the last two years but stuck around because no-one else would pay his wages, and City are sending him off like a conquering hero.
They’re a strange bunch, but it basically comes down to them suddenly being a big successful club and having absolutely no clue what that entails or how they’re supposed to act. In fairness, when you’re previous legends were the likes of Shaun Goater and Trevor Morley in their eyes Yaya is basically Steven Gerrard or Ryan Giggs.
Finally, the mancs drew 0-0 with Moyesy in another absolute shiftiest that had their supporters wanting to gouge out their own eyes with Fellaini’s elbows. They’ve secured second spot yet only the most blinkered of United fan believes they’re the second best team. Hopefully they lose the cup final and have a fucking miserable summer.
The only thing of note that happened in the game was Noble tried to get up in the face of Pogba and ended up being completely manhandled and looking like a right fucking loser. This is the best thing Pogba has done since he returned to United.
It’s not worth £90m but it’s pretty good. Pogba doesn’t even get angry, Noble is snarling and yapping at him and Pogba’s handling him like a parent dealing with a child throwing a tantrum. If I was Noble I think I’d leave the country after that. Big Andy came to his rescue but the damage was already done by that point.
Incidentally, both players got the same punishment for that even though Pogba clearly did nothing wrong and Noble should have been red carded. The ref? Fat Jon Moss. Of course, oui.
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