So Mourinho is back then, which is a shame as I’ve warmed to him quite a bit since he left United and became a pundit. Now he’s back in the rat race I expect he’ll go back to being a rat and I’ll go back to hating him. Pity.
He’s slowly working his way down the pecking order of English clubs, so maybe those Everton fans who thought they had a chance of landing him will be proved right. In ten years or so.
I’m not happy to see him back, more so because of the way the media react to him than anything else. There’s an obsession towards him and frankly it bores me. It’s not 2005 anymore lads, he’s no longer “box office”, he’s just a guy.
Thankfully he’s unlikely to be posing much of a threat to us this time around given how far we’ve pulled ahead of Spurs over the last 12 months. Honestly, it’s mad if you go back a year and see how close they were to us. So much has happened since then though and now they’re somehow below Arsenal in the table. Only by a point mind, and probably only for another week.
I think Mourinho will get Spurs into a comfortable 5th place position within a few weeks as they’ve got a lot of good players there. He’s not going to get them performing better than they did under Pochettino before it started to go wrong, but he’ll get them back on track.
He started with a win, but they were only playing West Ham and everyone is beating them at the moment so it doesn’t really mean much. They looked quite good for 80 minutes though.
West Ham’s witness protection programme keeper was exposed again for the opening goal as Son’s shot just went right through him. Moura made it 2-0 when he converted a cross from Son, but it was Deli Alli pulling all the strings.
This was his best game in two years, which I’m sure won’t have gone unnoticed by Pochettino. Alli spoke afterwards about how tough it was seeing Poch leave and how much he appreciated everything he did for him.
He’s got a funny way of showing it. I mean, if it was a gradual improvement that got him back to top form under a new boss then fair enough, but one game under Mourinho and suddenly he looked like the old Deli Alli again? I smell a rat.
Kane headed in an Aurier cross to make it 3-0 but then West Ham came back at them and could have completed an unlikely comeback as Antonio came off the bench and turned the game for them.
I’d completely forgotten he existed. He must have been out injured but now he’s back he needs to start every week as he’s the only West Ham player I’d worry about as an opposition manager. Other Hammers players are more talented (Felipe Anderson, Yarmolenko, Haller) but Antonio is a handful and puts himself about far more than any of those other flakey bastards.
It’s not fashionable to say it, but he’s a pretty good player. He’s in that bracket with Ashley Barnes and my boy Troy Deeney. Much better than people think.
He fired in from 18 yards to give them hope and Declan Rice then thought he’d made it 2-3 with a minute left. VAR had other ideas though. He was clearly offside and it was rightly disallowed. Ogbonna did pull another one back in stoppage time and if there’d been a few more minutes left they might have snatched a point, but they’re in a terrible rut right now. They’re basically the Everton of the South.
Speaking of Everton, a week or two back I was looking at their upcoming fixtures and thinking that by Christmas they might be hovering just above the bottom three, because after a gimme three points at home to Norwich they had it really tough. Then they actually went and lost at home to Norwich, so now I’m thinking they might actually be IN that bottom three at Christmas.
Look at their next five games. It’s brutal. Us, Chelsea, Leicester, United and Arsenal. The only one I think they’ll get anything from is Arsenal and even that is by no means certain now that the Gunners have canned Emery.
You can’t lose at home to Norwich. You just can’t. They’ve done nothing on their travels all season and can’t usually even score, let alone win. Yet they went to Goodison and came away with a 2-0 win that didn’t flatter them.
How bad must Everton be? Fucking hell. They’ve lost to all three newly promoted teams now, which really takes some doing. What do they get for that unique hat-trick? A place in the Championship, hopefully.
Silva has to be on borrowed time now and all the talk is of a return for the Moyesiah. It actually makes sense on a lot of levels, but how depressing would that be if you were a blue? Remember how smug they were when he left and was replaced by Bobby Brown Shoes?
All that sneering about his ugly brand of football and how they were now back to being the School of Science. They gave him dog’s abuse when he came back with United and Moyes actually branded them “a disgrace”.
Since then they’ve sacked Martinez, hired and fired Koeman, hired and are about to fire Silva. Shit, I almost forgot about Allardyce!! They hired and fired him too. What a mess.
Still, all is not lost for Silva, as if recent history is anything to go by then he’ll probably be managing Spain or Portugal within weeks of getting his p45. The knock out stages of the Euros this summer will be a who’s who of former Everton coaches.
I’ll shit a lung if they bring Moyes back though you know. We’re top of the league and have a European Cup in the bag, and they’re looking at bringing back Davey Moyes. What a fucking miserable existence.
The boos at full time were predictable but still hilarious. It’ll never not be. Just listen to this….
Ladies & gentlemen, may I present Everton Football Club & their fans
— Craig Holden (@AnfieldAgenda) November 23, 2019
pic.twitter.com/gh17OQfBRE
I might make that my ring tone you know. My text alert would have to be “Geroff the pitch yer shower of knob heads” hahahaha. The Norwich fans were singing “you’re getting sacked in the morning” and the Blues joined in.
Even funnier was Moise Keane liking a video of it on Instagram. What a mess.
Then there’s this….
“He’s gotta go Bill” shouts one fan to Everton chairman Bill Kenwright pic.twitter.com/8xore6a9kD
— Carl Markham (@carlmarkham) November 23, 2019
“HE’S GOTTA GO BILL!!!” Might make that my whatsapp alert.
The glamour fixture of the weekend was the Saturday evening game at the Etihad. With us having secured three points at Palace to go 12 clear of City I was actually looking forward to watching this one for once. There was no pressure from our point of view.
If City won, we were still nine clear of them but we’d have gone 11 clear of Chelsea. A draw would have seen us extend our lead over both, but if Chelsea won then fucking hell, that might just have killed off City for good. There were positives in it for us regardless of the outcome, but a Chelsea win was obviously preferable.
For a while it looked like it might happen too. Chelsea started the game brilliantly and were just slicing through City. It reminded me of what we did to them the other week. I felt like Chelsea might score any time they crossed halfway as City were just wide open.
Chelsea were dominant early on. It wasn’t just counter-attacking, they were enjoying more possession than City which is almost unheard of. I might be wrong, but I think we’re the only team to do that since Guardiola went there.
Chelsea looked great and deservedly led through Ngolo Kante’s strike. What a player he is, I love him. He’d get in any team in the world, even ours. Chelsea’s midfield were sensational in the opening half hour or so. Kovacic was running the show and Jorginho was showing why City wanted to sign him.
For all their lovely approach play though, Chelsea were wasteful in front of goal and it would cost them. City equalised with a flukey deflected strike by De Bruyne and then immediately scored again through a Mahrez solo effort.
This is the problem with Chelsea at the moment. For all their nice football and the promising young players at the top end of the park, their defence is extremely suspect. There’s a reason Kurt Zouma was at Everton last season. Kevin Abraham looked out of his depth too.
Chelsea still had a fair bit of the ball and tried to rally after going behind, but the gaps they were finding early on just weren’t there any more as City tightened things up. The longer it went, the less Chelsea looked like scoring.
City wasted chances to make the game safe but thought they’d made it 3-1 in stoppage when Sterling went through to score. VAR had other ideas. As funny as it is any time City get a VAR decision go against them, that just shouldn’t be offside. I hate this shit. Why have they made it so unnecessarily complicated? I keep saying it, but draw the fucking line based on where the standing foot of each player is.
Forget this bollocks about the attacker’s armpit is a millimetre ahead of the defender’s arse. It’s stupid and it’s causing perfectly good goals to be chalked off. I’m glad Sterling didn’t get a goal, but that decision was ridiculous. Still, never mind, eh?
Leicester are now clear in second spot after another win, this time 2-0 at Brighton. Vardy put the first one on a plate for that Ayoze Perez loser, and he bagged the second himself from the penalty spot after his initial kick had been saved. Maddison scored the rebound but there were about six players in the box.
In between those two goals Brighton were denied what looked like a clear pen when Ricardo brought down Maupay. Mike Dean wasn’t interested and you could read his lips saying “he got the ball”. The replay showed he didn’t, so surely that’s a pen?
Mind you, it’d take a brave VAR ref to over-rule Mike Dean. Imagine the scenes? He’d probably refuse to acknowledge it and just stick with his own decision.
They have to be taken seriously as challengers because they’ve got the best defensive record in the league as well as having the top scorer. They aren’t hampered by European football either and will only be playing once a week. That said, the only way they would be able to get near us is if we had a seriously unexpected downturn in results.
I’m still laughing about Vardy’s celebration at Palace the other week you know, especially as we played them last weekend and I saw the Eagle flying across the pitch prior to kick off and it reminded me of what he did. It’s just funny as fuck thinking about him running in front of their fans flapping his arms up and down. It’s gloriously childish, I love it.
Bit disappointed he didn’t continue with his ‘taunt the opposition by mimicking their nickname’ celebrations, especially as this one could have involved him climbing onto the roof and taking a shit on a random fan down below.
Tell you what else I was disappointed with. A realisation came to me out of the blue and it’s depressed the fuck out of me to be honest. Remember that episode of Friends when Joey discovered his “identical hand twin”? That happened to me.
I saw Brendan on the touchline, writing in his stupid little notepad with his stumpy little fingers, and just as I was sneering at his tiny hands and little chipolata sausage fingers when BAM!!! It hit me like a fucking sledgehammer. “Ah shit, those are just like my hands”.
The maddest part is I’ve actually shaken hands with Brendan and I didn’t even notice. Probably for the best really as it might have gone down something like this….
Off to the Emirates now, where Arsenal’s shambles of a season continues to plumb new depths by the week. Drawing at home with Southampton? Fuck me, even Everton beat them. Arsenal are just a disaster zone at the moment, which probably explains why so many fans stayed away in midweek for the Europa game (which they lost).
I’m not criticising, as I’d stay away too in their shoes. The highest ticket prices around and the only thing going to watch Arsenal brings you is misery. DT on Arsenal Fan TV said after the Southampton game that it was his son’s birthday, and as one of his presents he went to the game without him.
That sounds arlarse but when you think about it that’s actually a great present, as how upset would the kid have been having to sit through that shite? Defo did him a favour.
Danny Ings gave the Saints the lead but Lacazette equalised. Ings then won a penalty that was converted by Ward-Prowse at the second attempt. The Saints then wasted two glorious chances to seal the win and they paid the price when Lacazette scores six minutes into stoppage time.
In fairness to Arsenal’s players they didn’t even celebrate that goal because they knew they’d been fucking awful and were fortunate that Southampton’s finishing was pub team standard.
Watford’s woes continued as they lost 3-0 at home to Burnley. Serves them right really, as they clearly haven’t done their homework. I mean, how many times do you need to see that corner routine where Tarkowski arrives at the back post and heads it back for Wood to score? They do it every week, yet Watford fell for it. Soft cunts
Barnes made it 2-0 from the penalty spot and Tarkowski got one himself when he arrived at - yep, you guessed it - the back post to convert a free-kick.
Bournemouth v Wolves now. My first observation on this is that my boy Adama Traore has grown a set of long dreadlocks almost overnight. He showed up at Bournemouth looking like Taribo West. Where the fuck did that come from? I need to know. It must be extensions or something, surely? He had short hair two weeks ago. I'm spending far more time pondering this than I really should, to be perfectly honest.
Moutinho’s brilliant free-kick set Wolves on the way to victory and Jimenez added a second after being picked out by Traore. Bournemouth’s task was made all the more difficult when Simon Francis was sent off for two silly yellow cards.
Wolves had a goal incorrectly disallowed for offside and VAR couldn’t do anything about it because the flag had gone up. This is why lino’s aren’t supposed to flag unless it’s blatant. It could have proved costly that, as Cook’s header gave Bournemouth hope and Ake could have equalised late on.
Wolves held on though and are now in 5th spot despite that terrible start. I don’t like them, but I do like the manager who seems like a top fella.
Onto Sunday now and the hilarious events at Bramall Lane. The Mancs have fallen and they can’t get up. Any time there’s a little glimmer of hope and they think they’re climbing out of the hole, someone appears with a shovel and smacks them over the head to send them tumbling back in.
They went 2-0 down and the Blades were running all over them. It was embarrassing and people were speculating whether Solksjaer would even make it to full time without getting sacked.
Then they came roaring back with three goals in seven minutes and United twitter was cock a hoop with excitement about their “wonder kids”. Then they let that Ollie McBurnie jabroni equalise right at the end. So funny. Massively disappointing to discover he doesn’t have a Scottish accent though. A name like that, and he’s got a Yorkshire accent. Just doesn’t seem right.
Goldbridge’s meltdown when that goal went in and then with the subsequent VAR review of it was an all timer. If you haven’t already seen this, you’re welcome.
GOLDBRIDGE CLIP OF THE YEAR! BAR NONE! Maybe all time
— Goldbridge World™ (@GoldbridgeWorld) November 24, 2019
Goldbridge getting done by VAR is life!
'We've got the 3 points!'
'I LOVE VAR'
1 minute later...
'I BLOODY HATE VAR'
pic.twitter.com/iWWfIJfM0G
They’ve fallen so far that they were playing a Europa League game on Thursday before the kids had even finished school. It’s less humiliating to miss out on the Europa entirely than to have to play on a Thursday afternoon. What makes it even worse is they were playing a team I’d never even heard of. What makes it worse still is they lost! I fucking love how irrelevant they’ve become now.
Finally, Villa beat Newcastle on Monday night. Didn’t see any of it, don’t really care who won. It’s a shame they both couldn’t lose but whatever.
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