Back on top then. Despite everything that has happened so far this season, all the setbacks, all the criticism and the doubts thrown our way, we’re back on top after another eventful weekend in which Everton took another step back towards the mediocrity in which they’ve resided for decades, United delivered a pitiful showing against Arsenal and Harry Kane further enhanced his claim to be the league’s biggest cheat.
But the main takeaway from the weekend is we’re back on top of the pile again. I’m taking nothing for granted and I’m not claiming that we’ll stay there indefinitely, but it does put some perspective on where we’re at considering all the mad shit we’ve had throw at us over the past month. To come through all that and still be looking down on the rest says a lot.
All the talk of us crumbling without Van Dijk and how it opens the door for all the other challengers. Yeah I don’t really see it. Other than Man City, exactly who are these ‘challengers’ supposed to be? Everyone is dropping points and from week to week it’s impossible to predict the results as there’s always at least one mad scoreline we didn’t see coming. Actually this week was fairly predictable but that’s not been the case too often since footy returned.
It’s so topsy turvy that City might not even be the biggest threat to us and I’m open to the suggestion that the biggest challenge might come from elsewhere, but until that materialises I’ll just continue rooting against City, not least because I despise everything they stand for.
May as well start with them I suppose. They had an uninspiring but relatively comfortable 1-0 win at Bramall Lane. Kyle Walker’s low drive from 25 yards settled it and City had the better of the chances without ever really getting anywhere near top gear. Walker didn’t celebrate because he comes from a family of Blades fans and his parents still live in Sheffield.
That’s just reminded me, remember when they sold him to Spurs and then just immediately plugged in another Kyle at right back as his replacement, and Spurs went and bought him too?
What the fuck was his name? *googles* Kyle Naughton. He’s at Swansea now. Fair play to him, he’s made a good living for himself as a Kyle Walker tribute act.
He’s got a long way to go before he reaches the level of James McCarthur though, who started out as a jarg James McCarthy at Wigan only for the roles to be reversed years later when they were re-united at Palace. McCarthur is now the headline act and McCarthy is… I was going to say he’s the By Jovi to McCarthur’s Bon Jovi but neither of those bums are worthy of such a lofty comparison. McCarthy is the Kyle Naughton to McCarthur's Kyle Walker.
Lundstram had the best chance for the Blades when he fired just over in the second half. They’re not scoring goals and they’re losing every week but their performances suggest that it might not take much for things to around and them to start picking up some wins. They're competitive, they just create fuck all.
Brewster hasn’t had a sniff of goal yet because they aren’t creating chances. Shearer picked out a load of instances where Brewster was ready to make a run but the ball just didn’t come into the box. This is the one thing Shearer is good for these days. He can highlight stuff like this as well as anyone but ask him to break down a penalty incident or a red card and he’s almost as bad as his pal SuperDan. I’ll get 'Right Said Fred' in a minute though.
Hopefully the Blades can sort that out and Rhian can knock a few goals in, because if he’s not finishing chances he’s not doing much else. He looks a terrible fit for that team at the moment through no fault of his own. It’s like hiring Jamie Oliver for a dinner party and then not letting him cook. “Yeah Jamie, I know cooking is what you’re good at but I was thinking you might just stand around and watch while Lundstrom, Berge and Baldock take turns at burning toast instead”
As for City, I have lots of thoughts on them but I’ll say nothing more as we play them this weekend and I’m not going to risk jinxing anything by talking them down. I’ll say they’ve got more than enough quality to beat us if we aren’t at our best and I’ll leave it at that.
By the way, watching MOTD now to do this round up so I thought I’d watch the disallowed Jota again to see if I could spot the foul by Mané on Ogbonna. I couldn’t, even though the commentator is showing a slo-mo and saying “does Mané foul Ogbonna? I think he does you know”.
Am I going crazy here? It’s like one of those photos with the dress and you see it as one colour and everyone is else telling you it’s another and you think you’re the victim of some elaborate wind up. I’ve watched it over and over and over and I can’t see what people are telling me is happening. Sadio doesn’t even make a challenge on Ogbonna but it’s just being accepted that he fouled him.
I was hoping Danny Murphy would be able to clarify it for me because if he’d said it was a foul then I could just put this to bed and move on, knowing there is nothing wrong with my eyesight and judgement. If he’d have said it was no foul, however, then that's time to worry. Unfortunately Murphy left it to Shearer to dissect so I'm not really any the wiser.
Of course Shearer said it was a foul, just like he insisted that Massuaka’s kick on Salah wasn’t. I’ve written elsewhere (the West Ham match report I think) that Murphy is wrong on virtually every single incident he has to comment on, but Shearer is only marginally less shit. Their ability to assess situations accurately clearly departed along with their hair back in their mid 20s.
It’s no co-incidence to me that the best pundits all have hair while the bald ones are the least trustworthy. The same applies to referees too, with Collina being the exception that proves the rule. Think about it. Howard Webb, Steve Bennett, Mike Dean, Anthony Taylor, Lee Mason, Dermot Gallagher, David Elleray…. all bald, all shit, all complete cunts.
Want further evidence? Ok, Clattenberg only became a top ref after he had his hair transplant. Bald refs and bald pundits have terrible judgement when it comes to assessing incidents in football matches. It’s science. The prosecution rests, your honour.
Anyway, back to the footy. Burnley’s woes continued as they lost again at home to Chelsea, who looked pretty good to be fair to them.
Maybe things might have been different if Burnley had converted an early chance when Ashley Barnes went through on goal but lobbed the ball miles over the bar as the keeper raced out at him. He got clattered by the keeper after he got his shot away and it’s interesting to me that not only was no foul given but nobody even appealed for it and the commentators didn’t mention it. I’d have defo been wanting a foul there if I was Barnes, but it’s a known fact now that Burnley aren’t allowed penalty kicks so maybe they’ve just given up even appealing.
That was dubious though. There was a pen given a few weeks ago when a defender slid in and brought down an attacker after he’d hit a shot (or cross, can’t remember) so what’s the rule with this? If an outfield player comes in late and clatters someone after a ball is released it’s nearly always a foul, so how come keepers always get away with it?
I’m not even saying I think this should definitely have been a penalty but there’s a big inconsistency there in how these things are interpreted. Barnes had to shoot earlier than he’d have liked because the keeper was launching himself at him. He massively overhits the attempted lob and a split second later he’s clattered into. I think it’s a foul you know, but that’s never getting given for Burnley. Man United maybe, but Burnley not a chance.
Ziyech scored on his first league start to put Chelsea ahead. I don’t think Pope covered himself in glory on that. Not saying he should have saved it but he should be getting closer than he did as his balance was completely on the wrong side. Zouma then powered one in with his face from a corner and Werner wrapped it up late on the break.
Burnley just don’t score goals and unless they can address that they’re in big trouble. Losing to Chelsea doesn’t really matter. They should lose to Chelsea and anything else is a huge bonus. It’s the fact they never look like scoring that should concern them most.
Chelsea have so many quality attacking players that more often than not they’ll be able to overcome the handicap of having Fat Frank as their manager. Ziyech, Pulisic, Mount, Werner, Abraham, Havertz, Big Handsome Giroud… they’ve got loads of options now. Thiago Silva has helped to shore up their leaky defence of late too. I’d be really worried about them if they had a manager worthy of the name.
Elsewhere, some French teenager Wolves have taken on loan gave them the lead at home to Palace before Daniel “Jota MkII” Podence then made it 2-0. They’re trying to pull a Kyle Walker / Kyle Naughton thing here hoping we’ll send some more cash their way, although to be fair Podence looks boss and if we did sign him it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea based on the little I’ve seen of him.
Palace offered virtually no threat but they thought they had a lifeline when Boly tripped Van Aanholt in the box, but the penalty decision was nullified by an offside in the build up.
To add to Hodgson’s woes Milavoijevic was then sent off for serious foul play. Awful decision. He wins the ball and catches the lad’s shin on his follow though, but the Wolves player is coming in from the side so what’s he supposed to do? When the player is facing you and go in like that, then yeah fair enough it’s dangerous and can be avoided, but this wasn’t that. The Wolves player wasn’t there when he won the ball and he came in from the side after and got caught inadvertently. Dreadful decision and he’s banned for three games now after their appeal failed. What a joke.
Onto Sunday now and Villa got spanked again. I hexed them good and proper with that “Villa might be good you know” comment the other week.
Southampton, looking sexy as fuck in their Peru tribute away kit, took them to the cleaners and raced into a 4-0 lead before it got nervy late on and ended 4-3.
Vestergaard powered in a header to give the Saints the lead but this takes me back to what I said in the Burnley game with Barnes. This goal came from a free-kick out wide that was awarded when Targett slid in to try to block a cross from Walker-Peters. He didn’t get there and then made contact with the Southampton full back after he had massively overhit the cross. The challenge didn’t cause him to hit such a bad cross, it was just a bad cross.
What the Chelsea keeper did to Barnes was far worse than this but apparently one is a foul and the other isn’t. Theres no consistency. The challenge by Targett didn’t really impede Walker-Peters from making the cross but Barnes had to take his shot earlier than he wanted because the keeper was flying at him.
Double standards working in a keeper’s favour again. They can basically do whatever the fuck they want now without any punishment. Come for a cross but miss the ball and punch someone in the head? No problem. Clatter a striker after he rushes a shot to avoid the impact? No problem. Two foot someone and snap every ligament in the knee causing them to miss the entire season? Yeah go on, you’re good.
When people say keepers are overly protected in the modern game they’re usually talking about not being able to challenge them on crosses, but this is the real fucked up thing where keepers are concerned. They just aren’t held to the same rules as everyone else.
Southampton doubled their lead when they awarded a free-kick 25 yards out. Any time Ward-Prowse is stood over a free-kick like that I expect him to score. He’s lethal from there and this one flew over the wall into the top corner. And then he did it again to make it 3-0. The second one was incredible because it was right on the edge of the box and he got it up and over the wall and down again about four feet below the bar. It’s hard enough getting it just below the bar from that close, but to get it to dip that much was just stunning technique.
Ings then made it 4-0 with a screamer that went in off the bar from the corner of the box but he would later go off with what looked like a serious knee injury. A horrible, worrying sight after everything he’s been through. It didn’t look good for him at the time and it’s been reported that he does need an operation, but thankfully it’s only 4-6 weeks and not another ACL injury.
Villa pulled one back through Mings and then Grealish won a late penalty when he made the most of a swinging leg from Diallo to win a penalty. Not sure there was even any contact as the Saints player pulled out of the challenge as Grealish arrived, but hey! *points in opposite direction* Look! Mo Salah, what a cheating cunt eh?
Watkins converted the pen and Grealish pulled another one back deep into stoppage time, but Southampton held on for the win. Bit of a weird one though really as three of their goals were absolute worldies and the XG numbers had Villa looking like easy winners. They were 4-0 down and hadn’t even played that badly. A far cry from the other goal fest they were involved in a few weeks back, eh?
When I think about us conceding seven at Villa the first thing that comes to mind now is how funny it is that none of their fans were there to see it. I’m not even arsed about what happened anymore as it might actually be exactly what we needed. So any time I think about it the main takeaway I have that their knobhead fans didn’t get to witness it in person and inflict their world famous “Brummy wit” on us.
I can picture it now, them singing “can we play you every week” and thinking they’re being so funny and original. They make me cringe, the unfunny cunts. They’re the absolute worst for that kind of thing. Singing “sign on” and then patting themselves on the back like they’re the first ones to do it. Fucking losers.
The late Sunday night game saw Spurs overcome Brighton thanks to a late winner from substitute Bale. That penalty that Spurs got was a fucking outrage though. Not only is it not a penalty, it’s a foul to Brighton and should be a yellow card for Kane for dangerous play. He isn’t making a play for the ball, his only intent is to back into Lallana and then throw himself to the floor looking for a foul. The problem is, you can’t be doing that shit when a player is off the ground because it’s dangerous as fuck. It’s not ‘clever’ and it’s not ‘winning a penalty’, it’s just bad shithouse move that deserves a suspension.
Lallana could have broken his neck there depending on how he fell. I’m not even joking. If you’re in the air and someone takes you out like that you can land in all kinds of horrific ways. I see it in the NFL all the time when a receiver goes up to make a catch and he is tackled as he’s off the ground. You can easily land on your head or bust a shoulder or a rib.
Lallana was lucky that he didn’t fall too awkwardly but for Kane to be given a penalty for that is outrageous. What makes it even harder to take is when the commentators and pundits are all like “Lallana went into the back of him, it’s a penalty”. Get the fuck out of here with that shit.
I looked on social media and fans from clubs right across the country were saying the opposite and calling it like it was, so how come so many fuckers who are being paid to talk / write about it are all getting it completely wrong?
Son and Kane both then attempted blatant dives to try and win penalties when there was zero contact at all. No surprise to me, these two cunts are right up there with Sterling, Richarlison and Fernandez when it comes to this kind of thing. It annoys the fuck out of me that Sir Harry can cheat on a weekly basis with fuck all being said, but as soon as Mo is awarded a penalty we get the Spanish inquisition over it and the incident is analysed from 50 different camera angles as the narrative is spun to “well there is contact and he is kicked, but is that really a foul?”
I can make a case that Kane is currently the best player in the league. I can make an even stronger case that he’s the biggest cheat. Did MOTD2 focus on the terrible dive? Did they fuck. The night before though we had the two talking baked beans going on about how Salah going down too easily and how he wasn’t actually fouled. Kane does this shit constantly and he’s never called on it or subjected to the level of scrutiny Mo is. We all know why and it fucking stinks.
My boy Lamptey equalised but that goal shouldn’t have stood either as there was a clear foul by March on Hoijberg in the build up. There may have been the tiniest bit of contact on the ball but Hoijberg still had control of it and was wiped out. Utterly mental that Fabinho was penalised for a foul last week while this was deemed ok.
Mourinho wouldn’t comment on that incident afterwards because him saying “that was a foul” isn’t going to change anything and if he were to say what he wanted to say he’d be charged by the FA. When he pressed on whether he thought it was a foul he just said “I miss my old football. Football the way it was, but with goal-line technology”. Amen to that. Fuck VAR, it hasn’t improved anything and it has defo taken away far more than it has brought.
Mourinho was right about that, but then he came out with this fucking nonsense…. “Harry Kane win a penalty?” Mourinho said. “Perhaps you’re speaking about players at other clubs, and they do it and they do it so well, but for sure you’re not speaking about Harry Kane. Harry Kane was in a position to control the ball in a dangerous position and Lallana comes in, a very dangerous action, and commits a foul. Lallana was reckless. He made a mistake. Speak about Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, clever guys where somebody blows on them and they are on the floor. Speak about those guys, not Harry Kane.
And if you thought that was bad, here’s what the slobbering goon himself had to say “I tried to put my body in between the player to shield the ball and he jumped into the back of me with quite a bit of force”. What a pair of duplicitous, lying cheating fucks. Mourinho and Kane are made for each other really. Son too, he’s another horrible little shit.
Anyway, Bale replaced Lamela and headed a late winner. Harsh on Brighton, who continue to look like a decent little outfit. Potter knows what he’s doing and has a chance at bigger and better things if he keeps going the way he is. There is also the possibility that he ends up being the next Eddie Howe of course. Could go either way at this early stage.
Some have been talking Spurs up as potential title contenders. My initial, instinctive response to that is always “are you forgetting that they are Spurs?” but Mourinho has experience of winning and that front three they have is potentially as good as anything.
Kane and Son have been sensational and if Bale can stay fit (for once in his life) that’s a scary looking frontline. They’re flawed elsewhere and you can never overstate the influence of ‘Spurs DNA’ so they’re up against it, but that forward line is better than anything other than our own and if Bale has the impact he did when he was there the first time around then theirs might even be better than ours if we didn’t have Jota. But we do have Jota and he’s boss, so that makes ours better.
The biggest game of the weekend was at Old Trafford where United lost 1-0 to Arsenal. Fuck me, United are hard to get a read on aren’t they? It’s not that they’re completely shite, because occasionally they look brilliant, but you just don’t know what you’re going to get from them.
A few days before this they destroyed Leipzig 5-0. Rashford and Greenwood looked sensational and their fans will have been thinking “ok, we’re onto something here” and then they go and lose like this to Arsenal. And it’s not just that they lost, it’s that they were fucking awful. Arsenal weren’t even that good, but they didn’t need to be as United were just so meek and toothless.
Remember those colossal battles these two had when Ferguson and Wenger were at each others throats? Two superpowers, the best two teams in the country, huge personalities and strong characters going to war and battling for the biggest prizes. A rivalry for the ages…. and now look at the fucking kip of both of them. They’re pathetic.
Aubamayeng got the game’s only goal from the spot after Pogba had brought down Bellerin. All the stick Pogba gets about not working hard enough or helping out defensively, but he clearly knows he’s a liability and is just trying to play to his strengths and not his weaknesses. When he has to help out in his own box this kind of shit happens all the time.
He said afterwards “I was out of breath from running just before and I made a stupid mistake”. Fuck me. A midfielder is so out of breath from a bit of running that he makes a stupid foul. Yeah, he shouldn’t be asked to defend because he’s a fucking liability.
The closest United came to a goal was when Elneny deflected a cross onto the face of his keeper and it bounced off him and hit the post. That summed up how inept United are that the only time they looked like scoring was when an Arsenal defender and keeper were playing pinball wizard with each other.
Much is being made of the fact this was the first time in 29 attempts that Arsenal have beaten a ‘big six’ club away from. I almost feel like this shouldn’t count because United were so bad and the stadium was empty. And despite this, if pushed I’d still back United to finish above Arsenal come the end of the season because they have better players.
If they had a manager that knew what he was doing they wouldn’t be this wildly inconsistent, but this is a good thing because if it was shit all the time they’d fuck him off. The occasional Leipzig type performances are the best thing that can happen because they delude themselves into thinking they’re making progress and it makes it easier to overlook the just as frequent turd butty displays like this one.
They were also hilariously inept in midweek against a team I’d never even heard of prior to this week, so they need a bounce back performance just keep Ole safe. This weekend they play Everton and I genuinely hope they win 10-0. I’m not conflicted in any way about that. United aren’t any threat to us but if they keep losing then maybe they hire Pochettino or someone and they might become dangerous.
So yeah, let them do just enough to keep them fooled into thinking Solksjaer is on the right track and if that means them battering the Blueshite then it’s a double win, because fuck Everton. I hope they don’t win another game for the rest of their shitty fucking existence. The sheer fucking arrogance of them after they won a few games to start the season was a real eye opener. They don’t know how to handle winning, it’s completely alien to them.
Which is ironic given they got a song to the top of the charts that contained the lyric “we don’t know the meaning of losing”. Yeah, and Neil Ruddock doesn’t know the meaning of boozing. Everton wrote the fucking book on losing, the absolute fucking losers.
This brings me onto them and their hilarious loss at Newcastle. The portrayal of Pickford as the victim of the Van Dijk debacle was ramped up further this week as Ancelotti left him out and it was reportedly due to the stress he’s been under following death threats by the Redshite. What a fucking scabby, shitty, bitter little club they are from top to bottom. Fucking rats.
Pickford was dropped because a) he’s shite and b) they were playing Newcastle, which means he’s likely to do something mental like letting a goal in because he’s too busy mooning at the “Howay the lads” banner on the seats behind the goal.
Rodriguez was missing too, apparently he’s still suffering from being fouled by…. yep, you guessed it, Virgil. Never mind that he completed the full game after suffering this apparently serious injury. Never mind that he trained the next week and then played 90 minutes again. No, we’re expected to believe that he missed the game because of a tackle that happened weeks ago and hasn’t caused him to miss any time since. Whatever injury he has is fuck all to do with the derby game.
They could have returned to the top if they had beaten Newcastle but they shit the bed and after winning their first four games they haven’t won in three games now. I believe that is called “normal service being resumed”. Don’t. Know. The. Meaning. Of. Losing.
That massive fraud Andre Gomez conceded a pen when Callum Wilson got in front of him on a near post corner. Wilson himself converted the spot kick and then he bagged his second goal with a back post tap in following a cross from his old Bournemouth running mate Ryan Fraser.
Wilson was booked before he took the pen for pushing the ball into the stomach of Yerry Mina. Incredibly shit decision that. Mina was in his face, trash talking and trying to put him off while they waited for VAR confirmation that it was a pen. Since when has that been ok? Wilson was entitled to react to that and it’s out of order that he’s getting booked for having to do a job the ref is supposed to. Add Mina to the ever growing list of horrible Everton cunts.
Calvert-Lewin prodded in at the near post in stoppage time to set up a tense finale but Newcastle kept them at bay, helped by a nice little tip over the bar followed by standard camera pose by Darlow. Newcastle are dull as fuck but they’re picking up points and they have more threat in attack than most of the teams around them.
I can’t help but like Almiron you know. I probably owe Rafa a bit of an apology on that one as I took the piss for ages about how much he spent on a forward who never scored and who looked like a worm with eyebrows. He hasn’t been worth the money they paid but I can see why Rafa was drawn to him as the lad never stops running and he’s hard not to like. He chases everything and works his nuts off. He’s a tidy little player too, he just doesn’t score enough.
I like that front three Newcastle have though. It’s obviously not top class but Saint Maximin, Wilson and Almiron is really good by bottom half standards and fun to watch when Bruce actually let’s Newcastle attack a little bit.
Finally, Monday night saw Leicester smash Leeds and move into second spot, just a point behind us. Its like last year all over again. Hopefully we’ll destroy them at their place and send them spiralling back into mediocrity again.
Vardy unselfishly teed up Barnes for the opener and also claims an assist on the second as Tielemans scored from the rebound after Vardy’s header was saved.
Dallas pulled one back when his cross eluded everyone and then Hernandez hit the bar as Leeds almost equalised. That proved decisive as Vardy scored Leicester’s third and Tielemans added number four from the spot.
Brendan was all full of beans afterwards, joking with Pochettino (who was in the Sky MNF studio) and generally just being all Brendany. You know, when his team loses I find him to be very likeable, dignified and classy. He handles it well and rarely comes across like a twat in the way a lot of managers do.
When he’s had a big win though he kind of makes me squirm. It’s not that he’s shouting from the rooftops about how great he is or anything like that. It’s hard to explain really. It’s not that he does anything bad, he just gets all… I dunno… happy and overly talkative and it makes me cringe a bit.
Well I thought that was it all finished then but I’ve just checked through and realised there was no mention of Fulham. It seems they played West Brom on Monday and they won 2-0, but I had no idea.
It was presumably before the Leicester / Leeds game but I’m not going to waste any time looking for highlights of that as let’s be honest, who actually gives a fuck?
All I’ll say is that despite my low opinion of Fulham I’m not surprised they won because this was basically a Championship game masquerading as a Premier League fixture. They were both in the Championship last year and they’ll both be back there next year.
Fulham might not be quite as useless as I thought though and I’m no longer convinced they’ll finish bottom, because West Brom might be worse.
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