That was the week that was (Dec 21-27 2019)

Saturday Dec 21:

L 1 Flamengo 0 We never do it the easy way do we? The only surprise is it didn’t go to penalties. Watching it live I wasn’t particularly impressed with our performance, especially in the first half, but I watched the whole game again later and with the nerves and emotion removed it was much better than I initially thought.

Firstly, they’re a good side. Steamrolling them was never going to happen. They had a good go but we took their best punches and eventually just overpowered them. Andy Robbo’s handling of Rafinha was brilliant. I couldn’t possibly love him any more than I do. He’s a little bastard and every team needs one of those. Funny how they’re often Scottish!

Hendo was great as well, and you’ve gotta love his trademark trophy lift. All those years he had to battle to win people over and he had all kinds of shit thrown his way, and now he’s lifting the biggest prizes in the game as our captain, and he’s doing it in his own unique way. 

I’m just made up for him. There are still some weirdos out there on social media who want him replaced, but every trophy he lifts makes them look more and more ridiculous. I only wish his brilliant shot in the last couple of minutes had gone in so he could have scored the winner. That was an incredible save actually.

So pleased for Bobby as well. It’s always about Sadio and Mo as they get the goals, and this season especially Bobby has struggled to score. But this tournament is a massive deal in Brazil so for him to score the winner in both games will have meant the world to him.

As much as Flamengo were bad shithouses, I like the fact we’ve played the South American Champions and wish we could do it more often (in other words let’s win more European Cups!). It should be seen as a bigger deal than it is really. Even some of our fans weren’t really on board with it, but seeing how much it meant to the lads probably swayed their opinion.  

Finally, I have to tell you this as you’ll love it. At the start of the game when the camera showed Jorge Jesus, I laughed and said to myself “look at the state of that Peter Stringfellow looking prick”. A bit later on, Adrianna comes in to see how the game is going. He comes on the screen and she goes “he’s got hair like you”. “You cheeky get, his hair is nothing like mine”. “What about it is not like yours? Name one thing that’s different?”. “The colour for a start”. She didn’t say anything, she just gave me the Ancelotti eyebrow, shook her head and walked out. The lack of respect I get in my own house is almost as bad as it is on here.

Sunday Dec 22:

Some sections of the media still talking about it like it’s some glorified friendly. Makes me laugh really. You know why no-one in this country gives a fuck about this tournament? Because our teams our usually not good enough to be in it, and when they are everyone else wants to talk about how shit it is. 

It’s understandable really. If City or Chelsea had been playing in this, I’d have been downplaying it too. No-one wants to see another English side crowned ‘World Champions’ so of course the importance of it is going to be dismissed. Fans of most other teams will never ever see their team competing for it, so why would they attach any importance to it?

If the competition were expanded and there were 32 teams from around the world involved it would be viewed differently, but hopefully that never happens as nobody needs that. Bottom line is we’re the European Champions and we just beat the best team in South America, so now we’re officially the best team on the planet. 

I don’t care if some chin stroking journos on Sunday Supplement are pontificating about it not being a big deal. Look at how our players have reacted to it. Their joyous celebrations tells me all I need to know.

Meanwhile, while we’re basking in the glow of becoming World Champs, the Mancs were losing 2-0 at bottom club Watford and Mourinho was getting schooled by Frank Lampard. Great stuff. These really are halcyon days.

Monday Dec 23:

Got nothing to say about footy today as there’s not really anything happening. I did go to see the new Star Wars movie though so I can talk about that if you like. No spoilers, obviously, so you’re fine to continue reading.

I’m a massive Star Wars nerd but I wasn’t looking forward to this as I thought “the last Jedi” was mostly terrible. I’m not one of those fanatics who want to pick holes in everything, I don’t want to be disappointed by these films so I’ll turn a blind eye to a certain amount of shite, but TLJ wound me right up. Not wound up like the final season of Game of Thrones, but it was a disappointment.

This one was boss though. Me and Adrianna loved it. I have no complaints, there’s nothing I’d change about it and we’re going to go again before the end of the school holidays. Jumanji 2 is great as well, we saw that the other day. Frozen 2 was a big let down though (I loved the first one), defo wouldn’t recommend that.

Tuesday Dec 24:

Christmas Eve, no idea if anything interesting is happening as I’ve spent my day putting together a cross trainer we got for Adrianna. I had three spirit meltdowns which involved me swearing at the top of my voice and belting fuck out of the thing with a hammer. The dog shit itself and hid under a chest of drawers but I make no apologies for it. 

The meltdowns were justified. I’m actually boss at putting stuff like this together, but when the holes aren’t lined up properly and it’s impossible to get the bolt in there, it’s fair game to lose your temper and shout and swear. The way I see it, it’s part of being a Dad and as long as your kid isn’t there to see it then it’s fine. 

Wednesday Dec 25: 

Christmas Day so fuck all happening footy wise. So here’s a list of some random ‘Best of 2019’ awards for you.

Best Game: Easy - Barca at home.

Best Goal: So many to choose from. I’ll go with “Corner Taken Quickly Origi!!!!!” even though there were plenty of goals that were probably better, including all of the first half goals against Everton the other week.

Best Moment: Impossible to choose one. Hendo and his Dad in Madrid. The Trent corner. Robbo calling Suarez fat at the Nou Camp. Robbo hitting Messi on the head at Anfield. Milner crying at full time after we beat Barca, while at the same time Hendo was collapsing with exhaustion. There's loads I haven't even mentioned. What a year.

Worst Moment: Anthony Taylor not sending Kompany off at the Etihad, closely followed by Martin Atkinson doing likewise with Harry Maguire. If either one of those fucknuts did their job properly we'd be Champions.

Best Player: Toss up between Virgil, Fabinho and Mané. Wait, and Andy Robbo and Trent too. Shit, this is really hard as any one of them could get it. I’ll go Sadio but if you pick any of the others you’d get no argument from me. You can even throw Alisson in if you want and I’m good with that. Jesus, how good is this fucking team?

Best Visiting Performance: Bon Jovi. Not even close. 

Best Visiting Fans: Barcelona. Despite the absolutely soul crushing defeat they showed a lot of class and applauded us off at the end. I don’t like them as a club but I’ve got respect for those fans who were at Anfield.

Worst Visiting Fans: It’s Man United every year but if we exclude them then it’s Wolves on the final day of the season. Unfunny, small time, banter obsessed jarg Brummy cunts.

Worst Visiting Performance: I think I’m going with Arsenal this season. Instead of attacking us and getting battered, they chose to defend and get battered instead.

Best Opposition Player - Minamino at Anfield is up there, but I’ll go with Messi in the game we won 4-0. He was actually on top form that night (which made Fabinho’s display agains him even more impressive), but it’s completely overlooked because we won the game. Honourable mention to Lewis Dunk the other week as well. No, I’m not kidding.

Worst Opposition Player - So many to choose from, I’ll need to have a think. Fuck it, my memory is so bad these days there's no way I'll get this right, so I'll let you decide. Post your suggestions underneath and see what jogs my shitty memory.

Thursday Dec 28:

Leicester 0 L 4 Holy shit, that was incredible. I was mildly concerned about this game, in part because of the tiredness factor and in part because Leicester are good. We made it look easy though. It was complete and utter dominance from start to finish and it was probably the biggest statement win of the season. Even more than when we beat City, because this was away from home and was a game that everyone will have looked at as a real chance of us dropping points. And we played like THAT! How disheartening for the rest of the league.

One thing I hadn’t counted on tonight though that I really should have, was Brendan’s ego giving us a helping hand. He won’t compromise his style at all even though he was playing into our hands by trying us beat us with ‘Rodgeball”. What he should have done is gone old school Leicester and tried to just play on the break. His ego wouldn’t allow that though, he had to try and play out from the back and as a result of that Jamie Vardy didn’t get a kick. Thanks Brendan.

The Leicester fans picked up where they left off at Goodison the other week. Chants supporting Boris Johnson and the S*n. Just embarrassing. It’s a minority and many of those inside the stadium will have been fuming, as Leicester is actually a labour supporting city, but this is modern footy for you. “Bantz” is king. Won’t surprise me if Wolves do the same this weekend. Football fans throughout this country are for the most part, tribal, banter obsessed wankers.

Friday Dec 27:

Holy shit part two, City lost again! None of us want to say that it’s over and we've won, but if someone else was this far ahead and playing the kind of football we’ve been playing for the last couple of years, not one of us would be saying there is still a chance of someone catching them.

If City were to win every game then there’s a slim chance they might catch us but they’re not going to win every game. This is not the Man City of last year or the year before. I do expect them to be much better in the second half of the season than they have been in the first, but it’s not going to be enough. 

Some might say that’s tempting fate or being over confident, but it’s really not. If I’d been giving it the beans a month ago then maybe so, but we’re 14 points ahead of them with a game in hand. It's no over-confidence, it's just reality. I could make a case that anyone saying it’s not over is showing under-confidence not to mention a serious lack of belief and trust in a team that would have to completely fall apart to not win it now.

Let me put it another way. What do Klopp and his team have to do to make you trust them enough to not blow a potential 17 point lead? So now, it’s not being cocky or arrogant, it’s just having enough faith in this team that they won’t lose it from the position they’re in. If you don't think it's over then you're basically saying you think this team might completely bottle it and lose six or seven games between now and May.

Caution is understandable and if the lead was single digits I'd be exactly the same. This lead is fucking massive though and we've lost one league game in 18 months, so my take would be that I have enough faith in them to not completely shit the bed.

Meanwhile, Luke Shaw says that United’s squad is just as good as ours. So, given that they’re 24 points behind us, he must be saying that it’s Solskjaer’s fault then? Unless he's going down the Blue Moon forum route and blaming VAR and the Premier League. 

Staying with the Mancs though. Scholes made some disparaging remarks about the World Club Cup, saying it means less than winning the darts in his local or something. That’s fine, unlike most who are doing likewise he’s actually won it and if that’s how he feels then he’s entitled to say it. I’d be interested to know if that’s what he said at the time like, but whatever. 

I’m sure the European Cup meant something to him, and the league title definitely will. So he can downplay us winning in Qatar all he likes, we’ll just have to shove the other other trophies in his pasty little round ginger face.

that was the week that was….