So for weeks I’d been assuming that it was Villa and Norwich down with one of the two North East teams joining them. Norwich are showing real signs of life though and it’s looking like Sunderland AND Newcastle could go. The Canaries have taken seven points from their last nine and have opened up a four point gap over Sunderland.
Their latest win was a double whammy because they beat Newcastle. A six pointer as they say. Whatsmore, it came via a stoppage time winner, which not only gives Norwich a massive boost, but it’s the type of kick in the pills that it’s difficult to recover from if you’re Newcastle. It’s looking increasingly likely that they’re screwed.
They really had to win this one, yet Rafa dropped crowd favourite Mitrovic despite him rescuing a point for them in the derby last week. If he’d left him out for Ayoze Perez it might have been more understandable, but he went with Papiss Cisse instead. Hey Rafa, 2012 called, it wants it’s “flash in the pan striker” back.
That was vintage Rafa that was though, he’s a complete law unto himself isn't he? When it works he's a genius, but when it doesn't... He’ll have had his reasons for doing it, but it’ll have been something completely random like he’d noticed a Norwich defender was not comfortable passing to his left and that Cisse is better at pressing from his right side than Mitrovic. Sometimes he out thinks himself, and this was one of those times.
Mitrovic eventually came off the bench and scored twice to almost snatch a point for them until Norwich won it in the last minute through Olsen. If Rafa saves this bunch of losers from here it might be as big an achievement as Istanbul.
Newcastle fans might be thinking they’ve jumped the gun a little bit after once again crowning a messiah when he's barely through the door. Remember the Ruud Gullit wigs? They lasted a few weeks until he dropped Shearer for the derby and they decided they didn’t like him anymore.
They’ve gone all in on Rafa very quickly too. They’ve nicked the La Bamba song, they’re wearing Rafa masks and thousands of them have even grown Rafa bellies in tribute. The thing is, Rafa hasn’t won a game for them yet and they're so bad he might not ever win one, yet they’ve canonised him already. At least we waited until he got us to a cup final before we walked around the streets hailing him as the “Rafatolah”.
If he’d been there at the start of the season there’s no way in hell they’d be going down, but he’s got his hands full trying to turn that hot mess he’s inherited into a cohesive defensive unit in such a short space of time. It’s mad really, he started the season with Ronaldo, Bale, Modric & co at Real, and he looks like he’s ending it by getting relegated with Steven Taylor and Andros Townsend. I doubt that any manager has ever had two more contrasting jobs in the same season.
It wasn’t a total disaster for the Toon though, because Sunderland were held to a frustrating 0-0 draw at home to West Brom as Fat Sam and Pulis went head to head in the “Alehouse brown envelope” derby. My Mackem brother in law was not impressed, saying “Fucking Pulis. I’d rather get relegated than watch them every week”. Yep, Pulis is now that bad that he makes Allardyce’s brand of football almost palatable. West Brom have had seven games this season where they haven't even had a shot on target.
I’ve got nothing against West Brom as a club, but if he’s still there next season then hopefully they’ll follow Villa and Newcastle into the Championship.
Speaking of Villa, they sacked Remi Garde last week (I called that when they appointed him, absolutely ridiculous choice he was) but it changed nothing as they lost heavily again, as Chelsea cruised to a 4-0 win at Villa Park.
The home fans were protesting before the game, holding up pieces of paper saying “Proud history, what future?”. It is a disgrace the way that Randy Lerner arsewipe has turned them into the Cleveland Browns of the Premier League. The thing is, the Browns can afford to be shite year after year and be the laughing stock of the NFL, because there’s no relegation and you’re actually rewarded for being shit as you get your pick of the best young players in the country. Has anyone told him that doesn’t happen over here?
Loftus-Cheek opened the scoring and then Pato scored from the spot after a comically bad bit of defending by Cissokho in first half stoppage time. Seconds after the break Pedro made it 3-0 and the ex Barca man added another soon after. It looked like Chelsea might get double figures as Villa looked like they just quit again, especially when Hutton got sent off for two stupid fouls. He deliberately did that just to get the hell out of there, yet he was roundly applauded off by the fans for some reason, presumably because they mistook his violence for passion.
I almost feel sorry for Villa fans, but any time I’m wavering towards that an image pops into my head of those sad fucks on the train to Wembley last year having a birthday party for Stevie. It might be harsh tarring them all with the same brush, but fuck ‘em. They’ve always come across as unfunny, self satisfied gobshites, patting themselves on the back after singing songs about us nicking stereos as though they were the first ones to think of it. Enjoy oblivion, knobheads.
Boss though the way people are talking about all these exciting Chelsea kids who we’ll never see again when Conte comes in and goes on a wild spending spree. They’re supposed to be trying to get Lukaku back for £60m after selling him for half that. If they’re looking to correct their own mistakes then City should be bracing themselves for a £100m bid for De Bruyne. Who knows, maybe they’ll make us an offer we can’t refuse for “Studge”. We can but dream.
Moving on, and now that they’re out of the title race Arsenal have quickly gotten back to being Arsenal again. There’s no better team in the country when the pressure’s off, and they beat Watford at a canter on Saturday. It was 4-0 but could have been double that.
Staying with Arsenal, and Jack Wilshere is in the news again, and as usual it’s not for his football. He was filmed being spoken to by the police after being lashed out of a nightclub. He may have done nothing wrong and it might have been blown out of all proportion, but with a face like that you’re just not going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Whatever he was accused of, he’s guilty, the BMX riding, knock off firework selling, old lady mugging, attack the block little chav scrote.
Man City’s season has been quite Arsenal like, which is why they’ll be finishing 4th by the looks of it. Any chance they had of the title went weeks ago but they need to keep winning to hold United and West Ham off for 4th spot. They were 3-0 up at Bournemouth after just 18 minutes and ended up winning 4-0.
Their second goal was just brilliant as Silva teed up the returning De Bruyne for a cool finish. De Bruyne is the only good signing City have made in about three years. He’s class, he deserves far better than that shitty “White stripes” song. If you have to put an “oh” in front of a player’s name then it doesn’t fit that song, jabronis.
Finally on this, Samir Nasri’s head…. fucking hell, what is he thinking? Hey soft lad, 1996 called, it said Robbie Fowler wants his hair back.
West Ham were held to a draw by struggling Palace, who haven’t won a league game since mid-December. Delaney put Pardew’s side ahead after a howler by the loathsome Adrian, but Lanzini drilled in the equaliser two minutes later. He’s a Poundland Coutinho that lad, he even runs like little Phil.
Payet’s latest stunning free-kick put the Hammers ahead but then Kouyate was sent off for a tackle on Dwight Gayle which I didn’t think was bad at all. Maybe a yellow card at most, but he didn’t go studs first and I thought he actually played the ball first. Yet to listen to the MOTD commentator you’d swear he’d gone at Gayle with a machete. If only.
That decision proved crucial as Gayle then equalised with his first goal in 20 games. The only surprise there was that it didn’t come against us the other week. He’s a fat little porker too these days, his moobs were jiggling up and down after he scored. So now he’s fat as well as being ugly and shit.
Stoke and Swansea played out an entertaining 2-2 draw at the Britannia. Affelay’s header broke the deadlock and the outstanding Bojan doubled Stoke’s lead after the break. Swansea had done nothing up to that point but then Sigurdsson - surprise surprise - pulled one back and then Paloschi equalised.
Mark Hughes was “disappointed” afterwards. Is he ever anything but? I don’t think he’s ever done an interview in which he hasn’t used the word “disappointed” even after they’d won. The miserable, old woman haired, manc fuck.
Speaking of manc fucks, they beat the blueshite this weekend although they didn’t really deserve to on the balance of play and chances. They must have about 20 points they didn’t deserve this season, to go with double that amount last year, the spawny twats. At least Van Gaal had the good grace to admit they were lucky. I’m not wasting any more time talking about the jammy shit bastards so I’ll swiftly move on to the league leaders.
Leicester need just 12 points to guarantee the title now, and that’s assuming that Spurs win all of their games, which they won’t. All season they’ve been scoring for fun by taking advantage of the lack of respect paid to them by opponents, but lately teams have been more cautious against them, so they’ve just started winning 1-0 every week instead. It’s brilliant how they’ve just kept finding ways to win and Ranieri is just such a nice fella it’s impossible not to root for him.
The hero on Sunday was skipper Wes Morgan, whose excellent header settled the game. In the space of 12 months Morgan has gone from an out of his depth Championship clogger to captain of the Champions elect and a probably place in the Premier League team of the year. Who says the drugs don’t work?
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