This is usually the round up I most enjoy writing every season. The first week of a new campaign is great because absence makes the heart grow fonder and you’ve got the added bonus of newly promoted teams and loads of new signings throughout the league. So it’s an interesting, fun weekend. Unless you fail to beat one of those newly promoted teams and then the entire weekend is turned to shit.
After our game I virtually checked out for the weekend. Didn’t watch the other live games and I’m only getting around to watching Match of the Day now, on Thursday. And only because I have to for the purpose of this. That draw with Fulham killed my new season buzz stone dead. Playing catch up to City already? Fucks sake.
I even broke my own rule and immediately regretted it. I almost never watch City unless I know that they’ve dropped points or I’m very confident they are about to. For some inexplicable reason I switched on for five minutes of their game at West Ham on Sunday. It was 0-0 at the time, so I flicked it on partly because the Hammers gave them such a good game a few months ago and partly because of a morbid curiosity as to whether Haaland’s arrival would have a negative impact on how they play.
In that five minutes I don’t remember West Ham even touching the ball and the camera was rarely off Haaland’s horrendous grid. He won and scored a penalty and that was me done. TV off, cursing myself for breaking my own rule and lamenting further the two points dropped at Fulham. Fucks sake.
Such was the extent of my sulk at the weekend I didn’t even feel like laughing at United. That’s not the case now, I’m watching these highlights a few days later and just marvelling at the depths they continue to plumb. I’m not surprised, I expected them to lose to Brighton because Brighton are a better team. I’m not saying that to take the piss either, it’s just the truth. United finished higher in the table, largely off the back of Ronaldo’s goals, but Brighton are a much better unit. Better coached, better organised, better to watch. They look like a football team, United look like a fucking shambles, utterly reliant on moments of individual skill from the good, but not great, attacking players they have.
Brighton battered them at the back end of last season and this was more of the same. They didn’t have the goals to show for it this time, but they dominated the first half. United beat us 4-0 a few weeks ago and while I highly doubt the hard core support were in any way fooled by that, United twitter on the other hand went the full Arsenal and were smelling themselves big time. How are you smelling now, knobheads?
We shouldn’t be surprised that they looked confused in that first half though. After all, their captain had them lining up on the wrong side of the tunnel before they came out. Incredible. That’s his home fucking stadium! How is he not getting that right? I’d love to sit with Roy Keane and play that clip for him to see his reaction. He can’t even say the word “Magwoooyyer” without rolling his eyes and looking skyward.
Ronaldo was on the bench. No idea why. Not sure what’s going on with him as there have been so many mad stories about his future this summer I don’t know what to believe. The maddest report was the one that said he wanted to leave for a Champions League club and United were so desperate to keep him they said “go on loan for a year and then come back to us if we get in the Champions League”. Can that possibly be true? How degrading would that be. I know you’re shit at the moment but you’re still Manchester United. Have some pride. Fucking hell.
Anyway, Ronaldo was on the bench and Eriksen was playing as a false nine. What a cunt he is by the way. Brentford took a chance on him when nobody else would after he died on the pitch. And he repays them by fucking off to that clownshow. Says a lot about him I think. Maybe he enjoyed purgatory so much in that little spell he had on the other side that he’s got a taste for it. Or maybe it was hell? No, if it was that he'd have signed for Everton.
That United team looks genuinely terrible though. Maguire is still in it but he’s got a tiny new defensive partner now who looks more like a jocky than a centre back. McFred still makes up the midfield, they’ve got that Dalot starting at right back and van de Beek is still there despite not even being able to get a game with the Blues last season. They’ll do well to even get sixth. If they somehow finish higher than that then Ten Hag is manager of the season regardless of what anyone else does. Because that team and squad is SHITE. My prediction for them (as their squad currently stands) is somewhere between 8-12th.
I mean come on, Brighton sold two of their best players, haven’t bought anyone and they still have Danny Welcrap up front. Yet they were miles better than United.
Pascal Gross scored twice in the first half and he’s scored so many goals against them now he’s probably got more right to claim ownership of them than the fucking Glazers have. Speaking of United ownership, Michael Knighton has reignited his efforts to get hold of them. You honestly couldn’t make this shit up. Every day it’s something more mental. It’s getting Everton-like. Hope he juggles a ball on the pitch again.
Brighton were denied a stonewall pen too when the teeny weeny Martinez ran into the back of Welbeck and flattened him, but Manchester’s own Paul Tierney said no. VAR didn’t get involved either, apparently because of the ‘high bar’ being used this season on VAR interventions. Sorry, but if you’re not getting involved in that then there’s no point even having it.
I mean just look at this, how is it not a penalty?
Ronaldo came on and United rallied. Rashford had a few chances he couldn’t take and then they scored the scruffiest of scruffy goals that eventually rolled in off Mac Allister. Brighton’s first ever win at Old Trafford. There’ll be a lot of teams getting their best Old Trafford results this season I think. It won’t be United though.
Both the City and United game were on Sunday so I may as well wrap up Sunday’s action before getting to Saturday. The other game was at Leicester where Brendan’s boys took on Brentford.
It’s really weird seeing Leicester without Schmeichel in goal. I can’t even remember who their keeper was before him, he was there forever and he even played all the cup games too. It’s just as weird seeing Danny Ward getting starts. He must be in his thirties now and he’s played *checks notes* only four more Premier League games than I have. In other words, he’s played four Premier League games.
I was being flippant about his age but while checking my notes (by that I mean wiki, as if I'm organised enough to take notes) I see that he is in fact, 29, so I wasn’t far off.
Castagne headed Leicester into the lead when he rose highest to meet Maddison’s corner before Dewsbury-Hall lashed in a 30 yarder to double their advantage. Toney pulled one back and then missed a sitter that would have made it 2-2. They were flying at that point though and Da Silva did make it 2-2 with a fine solo effort. Deserved point for them as they finished really strong after being outplayed for seventy minutes.
I usually don’t make predictions until after the third round up of the season but we did predictions on the pod so I had to make my three relegation picks for that and I went Everton, Bournemouth and Fulham. I’d completely forgotten about Brentford to be honest and if I could have done those picks over I’d probably have included them over Fulham or Bournemouth. I might have thrown Leeds in there too. On this evidence though I might be underselling Brentford. I’ll see after three games if I need to re-assess, but for now I’m good with the three I picked.
That is despite Bournemouth doing what they did this weekend. Scott ‘Scotty’ Parker once got the better of Steven Gerrard when Stuart Pearce thought he was a better choice for England captain. He got the better of him again on opening day at the Vitality Stadium. What the fuck was with the three white stripes on the sleeve of his suit though? Are adidas making suits now? Terrible business that.
Lerma rifled in the opener after Villa didn’t deal with a corner and Keifer Moore made is 2-0 late on. They weren’t particularly good but Villa were awful.
Something isn’t right at Villa. Stevie stripped Mings of the captaincy and dropped him. Of course Mings is shite, but he’s always been shite. You don’t take the captaincy off him for that, so there must be more to it.
There’s a chance that Stevie just isn’t very good you know. He gets away with it because he was a great player and is such a well respected figure in the game. Not just that, he really looks the part. He’s dapper, well groomed, dresses in smart suits, talks a great game and is a walking football cliché encyclopaedia. He’s every inch the generic looking boss that you see on the front cover of Football Manager games.
I had to check the line ups just then to see if Coutinho played, because I didn’t see the little fucker at all in the highlights. O Magico and his away from home disappearing act still going strong.
I could have done without Spurs getting off to a flyer. I think they’ll do well this season so a slow start would have been good. It looked promising too when Ward-Prowse volleyed in from 16 yards to give Southampton an early lead.
I t didn’t last long. Sessegnon headed in from Kulusevski’s brilliant ball in and it wasn’t long before Dier stopped to head one in and make it 2-1. It was one way traffic after that and Spurs created chance after chance before eventually Salisu put one in his own net in comical fashion.
The outstanding Kulusevski made it 3-1 and I have to say that as of right now, Spurs have the best front three in the league. I’ve always thought we had that, but Sadio is gone and Diaz and Nunez have to do it over a longer period of time to establish themselves as the best. Kane and Son are proved and Kulusevski has been excellent since his arrival.
Hopefully in a few months we’ll have re-established our dominance, but currently their front three leads the way for me. And I hate saying that because two of them are absolute cunts and they have an even bigger cunt as their fourth forward.
Tell you what else I can really do without. Newcastle doing well. Fucking cunts. If you thought I had beef with them last season, then you ain’t see nothing yet. The oil twats are well on their way to ruining footy and Newcastle will eventually be every bit as loathsome as City and PSG, but the Saudi cunts are ruining golf too.
This isn’t going to happen and I’m under no illusions here, but if you give me a choice now to relegate anyone outside of the big six, I’m going Newcastle all day. Even more so than Everton. Fuck those bonesaw condoning shill cunts.
They beat Forest easily but then this was the best moment to face Forest as they’ve got about thirty new players to bed in. They’ve done what Fulham did a few years ago. I suspect they’ll fare better than Fulham did because Steve Cooper is a good coach, but it can be difficult bedding in so many new players and the danger is they lose the spirit, togetherness and chemistry that got them promoted in the first place. We’ll see. They were proper shit on Saturday though.
Schar made the breakthrough with a speculative long range shot that beat Henderson at the near post. He’s a fraud that keeper. Made his name off one brilliant game against us (in which he actually fucked up for the only goal of the game) when he was on loan. He’s one of those Pickford, Ramsdale types.
You know the moment I knew he was a total fraud? When Mo ran through against him at Old Trafford and he ran backwards and made himself as small as possible. Massive, massive red flag that. He’s clearly shite. He got lobbed from inside the six yard box for the second goal too. Nice finish by Wilson but if my keeper lets that in I’m not happy.
There’s always a lot of talk about Steve Cooper’s face and the poor guy takes a lot of stick for it. He’s not that bad, I think he gets a raw deal but the one thing that always springs to mind when I look at him is his resemblance to Craig Bellamy. He’s the Hugo to Bellamy’s Bart.
Leeds might be in trouble again this season. They did well to save themselves last season but they’ve lost Phillips and Raphinha now. One of the new players they brought in was quite lively against Wolves and for them to have any chance of surviving they need him to be good.
They fell behind early when Podence volleyed in but Rodrigo levelled with a shot that Sa really ought to have saved. The Wolves keeper was all over the place and almost dribbled it into his own net at one point. He’s usually quite solid him too. He was being pressured by my boy Bamford though and that’s no Bed of Roses.
The new boy Aaronson thought he’d scored the winner but it goes down as an own goal by Ait-Nouri. Fair play to him for not only wheeling away like it was his goal but also lying in his post match interview by saying it hit him on the leg. Great assist by my boy there though, and he almost got a goal himself but was denied by a brilliant save by Sa.
Wolves were the better side but lost, and they didn’t end last season very well either. I think they’ll be ok but if I had to pick an outside bet for relegation it might be them. At least they’ve fucked Coady off though, so the coach isn’t an idiot.
Which is more than can be said for his counterpart at Everton. They’ve signed Coady and all I’ll say here is that he’ll fit right in because he’s a cunt. I’ve said that for years, now you’ll all see!
Bad start for the Blues who lost to Chelsea and also lost both centre backs to injury. Godfrey’s is a bad one but fuck him. He’s always throwing himself into bad tackles and this time he came off worse. They lost Mina too, but they’re used to that as that cunt is never out of the treatment room.
Chelsea were comfortably the better side but didn’t really have much of a cutting edge and had to settle for just the one goal, from the penalty spot courtesy of Jorginho after Chilwell was fouled by Doucoure.
There’s a lot of upheaval at Chelsea but their starting line up still looks pretty good to me. I can’t see them missing out on the top four, especially if they bring in a striker before the window closes.
Mind you, with their track record on centre forwards they might be better off not bothering. That Broja lad did well at Southampton, they could do worse than stick with him. And by do worse, I mean they could sign another Werner or Lukaku. Personally I hope the Ronaldo talk has some legs as it would be funny as fuck seeing United fans trying to deal with that.
Only thing to add to this is that I really, REALLY fucking hate Frank Lampard.
Arsenal had a good win away at Palace on Friday night. I didn’t watch it and have no interest in catching up on what happened. Needless to say I’m not buying what Arsenal are selling, and that loud sniffing noise you hear is the sound of a few hundred thousand ‘Gooners’ smelling themselves.
Recommended Comments