That was the week that was (Mar 16-22 2019)

Saturday Mar 16:

I’ve been saying for over 12 months now how much I hate VAR and that it’s the worst thing to happen to football since oil money. I’m having seconds thoughts now. I mean, I hate the idea of it, but anything that stops City from getting all these ridiculous decisions has to be an improvement, right? 

Of course the ideal solution would be if officials just stopped handing them illegal goals and soft penalties, but clearly that’s not going to stop so it’s going to have to be VAR. That was an absolute joke today. Swansea deserved so much more from that game than what they got. I thought they were fantastic, but they got utterly screwed by that prick Marriner (who followed up his pitiful showing at Anfield last week with an even worse one here) and his linesman.

My utter contempt for anything City related is reaching unprecedented levels. It might even be eclipsing how I felt about Ferguson’s United and Mourinho’s Chelsea. I dunno, maybe I’m forgetting just how much I despised them, but this City thing is really bothering me just because of how they’re doing it. I know Chelsea did it too, but it wasn’t against the rules back then. Unpalatable, yes, illegal, no.

Fuck Man City, the absolute pricks. And fuck Guardiola too, the fake nice guy piece of shit. Hate that twat and how loads of people don’t realise yet what a snide he is. Apologising to Swansea and admitting it wasn’t a pen and the winner was offside. Fuck off with your fake apology you insincere baldy bastard. You don’t fool me.

You have to wonder just what the fuck the FA are doing with this VAR thing though. How can you have it at some games and not others? Only at Premier League grounds, which is ridiculous when you consider that virtually every Championship club would have the facilities to use it, especially Swansea who until last year was a Premier League ground. 

It’s a farce, you either have it for all or none. On the bright side, it means an extra game for City I suppose,  but that still left an awful taste in the mouth today.

Sunday Mar 17:

Fulham 1 L 2 The three points are all that matter, especially at this stage of the season, but bloody hell you have to wonder how this game ended up as close as it did. I don’t think there’s been a bigger gulf in quality between us and any opponent this year, yet we needed a late penalty to spare our blushes and keep us in the title race.

It might sound melodramatic, but if we’d dropped two points here I genuinely think that would have been the end for our title bid. We don’t have any real margin for error, and what little margin we have might be required when we play Spurs or Chelsea. You simply can’t drop points against Fulham and their worst defence in Premier League history.

Thank God for Sadio's hot streak and for James Milner’s balls of steel. He’s got more nerve than me that’s for sure. I couldn’t even watch him take it, I ran into my mum’s kitchen and waited to hear my Dad’s reaction before going back in. Yeah I’m a shithouse, but Klopp has turned his back on pens before so I’m in good company.

The goal we gave away was a total clusterfuck with Milner, Van Dijk and Alisson all culpable in varying degrees, but I’m fine with that as the occasional mistake is inevitable. I’m not fine with how wasteful we were in countless great situations. It’s been happening all season and nothing drives me more mad.

I feel guilty that I’ve got such a fucking downer on Mo at the moment. I gave him 4/10 in my ESPN ratings, which on reflection was harsh, but I was just so frustrated with him. The missed chances are one thing, but it’s the all too frequent hideous decision making that’s doing my head in. He’s so desperate to score that it’s completely clouding his judgement now. Without Mané picking up the slack in recent weeks our season would be over. Come on Mo lad, find that mojo again as we need it.

Also today, the youngsters reached the FA Youth Cup final after a 2-1 win over Watford that was just as one sided as the first team game at Fulham. Same score too, which is mad because it should have been about 10-1.

Glatzel scored both goals and could have had five, as could Duncan who will go to bed tonight wondering just how the hell he didn’t score. The lads played really well and deserved a bigger crowd than what they got. But scheduling a game right before the first team are playing was a bit mad. 

The club did that bullshit ‘ticket only’ thing too. I don’t know why, but it’s clear they really don’t want people turning up to these games, which is a shame as I remember being one of around 26,000 who showed up to watch Carra, Owen, little Thommo & co win this back in 1996. They’ll be lucky to get a tenth of that crowd for this year’s final.

Monday Mar 18:

Today's reported transfer target is 21 year old centre back Ferro, who has just broken into the Benfica team and is also said to be on the radar of City too. He has a buyout clause of €100m, but clearly it's not happening at that price. I doubt we'll even pay what it's going to cost to get de Ligt, but I was talking to someone today who said "we got the best kid from Ajax, we don't need to spend big on any of the others'. Interesting point I thought. 

When you think about it, rather than spend £80m it makes more sense to hold onto Lovren and Matip for one more year and try to bring Hoever through into the first team set up. All the noises coming out of the club are that there won't be any big splash signings this summer because the first eleven is so good, but to me we have a glaring need in the front three.

I'd spend the bulk of any available funds on getting someone who is at least the equal of our three front lads and then I'd rotate them all in the way City are able to do with their forwards. We can't go into next season playing Salah, Mané and Bobby as much as we have the last two seasons.

Meanwhile, Robbo pulls out of the Scotland squad to have some dental work done. I can see him reporting back for training looking like ‘Methadone Mick’ from Still Game (which is funny as fuck, but probably unknown to most of you. It’s on Netflix, so get on it, you can thank me later).

Tuesday Mar 19:

Shaqiri isn’t with the Swiss either, apparently he’s got a groin problem that’s been bothering him since January. Ok, that shines a different light on the ‘persona non grata’ role he’s had of late. His minutes have gone to Origi and in fairness, big Div has done alright so we’ve not really missed Shaq too much. Let’s hope this two week break sorts him out though because with the games we’ve got coming up we need the little big man.

I see we're being linked with Ben Chilwell again. Not going to happen. He's now starting to look like the player he was being talked up to be a couple of years ago, but why would he come here to play second fiddle to Robbo? And he would be second fiddle, because I don't care how good he is, no-one is as good as Robbo. We aren't going to spend a fortune on signing a back up. Just let Adam Lewis do it.

Another bullshit rumour has Sadio being on Madrid's radar again. The last time we heard this was before the CL Final. At that time it might have been possible for them to get him, but not now. He's under contract for a long time and his transfer value is at least what we got for Coutinho, possibly even more.

Real Madrid like to walk around swinging their dicks thinking they're still the biggest dog in the yard, but the truth is they don't have the cash to back that up anymore. They can't afford Salah or Mané, and they might not even be able to get Eden Hazard now that Chelsea have a transfer ban.

So basically what I'm saying here is....

Wednesday Mar 20:

Patrice Evra. What a knob. He’s not right in the head is he? Remember all the weird shit he was doing at the last world cup? Those awful 'trying too hard to be funny' videos and the rampant sexism. Well now he’s made homophobic slurs about PSG in an online video. He protested his innocence and claims the word he used has been twisted. "They translate it as I am against the gay people.  I am not homophobic.”

The fucking balls on this twat. This is a fella who initially claimed Suarez used the ’N’ word ten times. Then he backed down and said it was five times. Then he admitted he didn’t actually say it at all, and that he used the word ‘negro’ which is Spanish is not used as a racial slur. That didn’t matter to Evra, even though he understands Spanish. He used the English interpretation of it and deemed it racist. Now he’s talking about twisting words and things getting lost in translation? Fuck you, you lying little fucking scumbag.

Staying with the  irritating Frenchmen theme, Paul Pogba is flashing his draws at Real Madrid again. “I have always said it. Real Madrid is a dream for everyone. It is one of the biggest clubs in the world. Zidane is the manager there. It is a dream for every child and every player”. Well of course he wants to play for Zidane. One over-rated French turd midfield player being drawn towards another. Nothing to see here.

Yeah that’s right, I called Zidane an over-rated turd. I’m doubling down on last week and if that upsets all of you Zidane fanboys, too bad. I'll say it again. In fact, I'll spell it. O-V-E-R-R-A-T-E-D.

Meanwhile, it's a hat-trick for Kloppo as Trent is out of the internationals now with a ‘back injury’. Let’s hope this is just Jurgen flexing his muscles and getting all the lads to look after themselves, because if Trent has any kind of genuine issue then we’re fucked. We can’t go with a combination of Hendo and Milner at right back for any length of time, and although Gomez is due back in the next week or two I’m not counting on him.

One Red who is actually playing for his country is Ben Woodburn, and he scored a stoppage time winner for Wales against Trinidad & Tobago. Good for him, it’s about time something positive happened for him.

Thursday Mar 21:

So Barcelona are charging United fans €120 for the CL game. Outrageous, and no doubt it will be the same if we meet them in the semis. United are now charging Barca fans the same and will use the money made from that to subsidise the cost for their travelling fans, meaning Utd fans will ‘only’ be paying around €75 for their tickets.

I don’t know if its still like this, but the two times I went to Camp Nou with the Reds our seats were fucking rubbish. One felt like it was the Lower Bullens at Goodison and the other so high up we had to hold onto the seats to avoid floating away like fucking astronauts. €120? Get the fuck outta here. ‘More than a Club’. Nope, you’re just the same as all the other greedy twats. 

Meanwhile, PSG are gravely offended by Evra’s homophobic slurs. "These remarks profoundly shocked the club, which is particularly committed to the values of respect and inclusiveness.” Course you are. Except in Qatar, obviously, where being homosexual is enough to get you thrown in jail, or worse. PSG’s owners are bigger cunts than Evra.

Also today, Joleon Lescott says he wouldn’t have a single one of our lads in the City team. And they say Klingon’s have no sense of humour. Maybe he didn’t even say it. Could have been his super smartphone sending out stuff of it’s own back again.

Finally, Big Virg and Gini both score in a 4-0 win for Holland. Feels like the Dutch are on their way back now after a terrible few years. Major tournaments are certainly better for their presence, especially when they boast the world’s best defender in their ranks. He’s scored three in his last four game for Holland now, and three in his last five for us. So six in nine. That’s almost Mané-esque.

Friday Mar 22:

Another day, another Rhian Brewster interview. This time with Neil Jones at Goal. It’s a good interview, they usually are as he seems like a top lad. I just find it really bizarre that a kid who hasn’t even made his debut has done more interviews in the last year than someone like, say, Nathaniel Clyne, has done in his entire life.

The main takeaway I took from it was the lad is all in on making it here. There was a lot of talk he was going to leave for Germany but he more or less said that he couldn't do it because of how LFC treated him while he was out injured and how much he wants to repay the support he was given. Good for him. 

Elsewhere, Hendo played the full game for England tonight so he must be over that injury he got at Bayern. Played well too, which is more than can be said for the Czechs. Unusually for me, I watched this game (we had friends around and their little lad wanted to watch) and it just made me feel sad and nostalgic for Berger, Smicer, Nedved, Poborski & co. 

Sterling’s goalscoring record for England is pretty hideous but he padded those stats nicely with a hat-trick that consisted of a tap in (from a low Sancho cross, textbook Man City goal), a quality finish and a massively deflected shot from distance. Replace the quality finish with a pen and that’s a Harry Kane treble right there.

Seeing the state of the Czech’s these days though was really depressing. How have they gone from where they were to where they are?

Their team used to be made of players from us, United, Juve, Bayern, Dortmund, Arsenal etc Now? The only player I’d even heard of tonight can’t even get a start at Burnley. Actually I tell a lie, there was another guy who’s name was familiar to me, but only because he shares it with a famous long distance runner from the Olympics.

If the team of the 90s was the “Golden Generation”, then this lot are the “Everton Generation”.

and that was the week that was...