That was the week that was (May 10-14 2021)

Monday May 10:

Alisson’s missus gives birth to their third child. Congratulations to them. Usually when a keeper becomes a dad there’s a joke to be made about the doctor handing him the baby and him dropping it. That doesn’t work with Alisson as his handling is really secure. What actually happened here though was the doc handed him the baby and he passed it straight to Che Adams.

On a similar note, Perrie Edwards announces she’s pregnant, so at least we know Ox has been putting all that spare time to good use. Happy for him, he’s a sound lad and I’m sure he’ll be a great dad. Can’t see his kid growing up with a scouse accent though as he’s surely going to be off this summer. One of the lads always says that “he’s got West Ham stamped through him like a stick of rock” and that’s probably a good shout.

Tuesday May 11:

United lose at home to Leicester with a severely weakened team. No surprise here and while I have a big problem about the situation and decision making process that led to this happening, I don’t have any problem with the team that was picked tonight. What else was he supposed to do? 

Technically the title was still up for grabs if they could have won tonight, but he couldn’t just send out the same players who played at the weekend, especially as they play again on Thursday against us. It’s easy to say ‘he rested everyone to try and beat us’ but it’s not that simple. 

If they’d have been playing us tonight what would he have done? I don’t think the team would have been much different, because he needs to protect his players, especially with a European final coming up. I suspect his line up would have been a bit stronger than it was, but he wouldn’t have picked his best eleven because it would have been stupid to take that risk.

The real problem here is that their fans caused our game to be postponed and as a result of that, Leicester benefited from it and we suffered (West Ham and Chelsea as well to some degree). United themselves suffered too because they were unable to drag the title race out a little further.

Of course City were going to win it at some point but they have been stalling lately and if United had kept the pressure on for another week you never know. At least make them win it on the pitch. They couldn’t do that because they had to play three games in five days and the middle one was always going to give Solskjaer a huge problem.

So the real villains here are the mutants that invaded the pitch, the PL for re-scheduling for this week because they didn’t want to inconvenience West Brom (who were clearly going to be already down anyway) and Sky. Why Sky? Because the PL should have just awarded us the points but that was never going to happen because it’s Sky’s biggest game of the season and they would not have allowed that to happen.

If we miss out on the top four, which now looks almost certain, it’s our own fault for losing all those home games. This didn’t help though and it leaves a sour taste in the mouth. We need a miracle now.

Wednesday May 12:  

And we got one! Arsenal actually did a thing. ARSENAL! Can you believe that? They went to Chelsea and won, and now Chelsea are really going to have to sweat for their top four spot. If we win our last four games that will be enough, barring a freak situation in which Leicester beat Spurs by a landslide and we get screwed by goal difference.

Chelsea play Leicester next so whatever happens in that game we’re going to be able to catch one of those two as long as we take care of our own business. Easier said than done of course, especially considering where we go tomorrow night. 

The kids are in another youth cup final after coming from a goal down to win 2-1 at Ipswich tonight. They weren’t good in the first half and I didn’t think they were at their best in the second either, but they did enough and goals from Musialowski and substitute Frauendorf saw them through. 

The players I was most looking forward to watching weren’t really on their game but Quansah at the back was brilliant. I like the look of him. Big fan of James Norris at left back too. Can’t wait for the final now, I love the youth cup. Probably going to play Villa, who face West Brom in the other semi.

Also today, Virg does an interview with the club tv channel and reveals he isn’t going to the Euros and wants to get himself right for pre-season. I don’t think this was ever really in doubt was it? To have any chance of making the Euros he’d have needed to play for us and he’s nowhere near.

Gomez is the same, but Hendo apparently still has a chance. He won’t play for us but he’d be fit to play for England and he’d be nice and rested too. I think he’ll go, although I’d much rather he didn’t. Robbo is the one that really concerns me as he’s had no rest all season and will then run himself into the ground for Scotland before having a couple of weeks off and doing it all over again.

Thursday May 13:

Mancs 2 L 4. Get the fuck in. That felt so good and not just because it kept us alive in the fight for the Champions League. It was just so sweet knocking them off after all the shite their fans were pulling again. Home game two nights ago, not a fucking peep. Liverpool come to town and it turns into an episode of Line of Duty with the fucking OCG trying to hijack an AC12 transport. 

Those photos online of the team bus being stopped by cars were just nuts. They let the tyres down on the bus too, trying to stop them reaching Old Trafford. Apparently THIS is about getting the Glazers out? I’m struggling to join those dots if I’m honest. If the goal is to stop games going ahead, where were these fucking mutants the other night when they played Leicester? Or the other week when they had a Europa League semi?

And if this is a protest about billionaires and the greed in football, then singing songs mocking unemployment and poverty is probably going to undermine that message just a tad, don’t you think lads? The answer to that is obviously that no, they don’t think at all. About anything. The fucking helmets. Manchester having a higher unemployment rate and arguably more poverty than Merseyside seems lost on these cunts.

“We decide when you play” is their latest, self indulgent, deluded arrogant shout. Right up there with “we’re Man United, we’ll do what we want”. I can’t stress this strongly enough. Fuck those cunts. Fuck their fight against the Glazers. Fuck absolutely everything about that. Now, before, after, forever.

I do love that the bus they stopped was a decoy though. Klopp said that they didn’t see any trouble and had an uneventful journey into the stadium, so that suggests the police knew what was going on, sent a second bus along the route and then took the real bus a different way. 

Not even going to say much about the game as it’s been covered in the match report. One thing I didn’t say in there though was that Mo was understatedly fucking brilliant tonight. If he hadn’t scored that goal late on not much would have been said about him but even aside from that he was great. 

Some of his control was out of this world, he worked his bollocks off and his decision making was superb. Some of those counter attacks we had were great and a lot of it was down to Mo laying it off first time or generally playing the right pass. He was terrific. Fully deserved his moment at the end and having scored three in his last two Old Trafford appearances hopefully he’s put that hoodoo behind him. 

Friday May 14:

What is it about the press in this country (and probably others I assume) that everything has to be a fucking soap opera. There were so many things to focus on from last night but the first thing Klopp was asked was about Sadio blanking him at the end. He’d answered it three or four times after the game, but it was still the first thing he was asked in his press conf today.

And as if that wasn’t annoying enough, even after he’d answered it he STILL got asked about it again by that fat fuck ‘Moose’ from Talksport. It’s ridiculous. I’m not saying it wasn’t a story and yeah, we were all interested in it at the time and wanted to know what was behind it, but to still be dragging it out, looking for more gossip for Jim fucking White to get milage out of is just grim. 

That Talksport goon ‘Moose’ even tried to justify his stupid question by adding “if I disrespected my boss like that I’d be in trouble”. Klopp just said “I feel sorry for you then” before pointing out that when he was a player he’d lose his head all the time and it’s not a big deal. 

Sadio looked like a petulant little tit last night but if you speak to anyone at Melwood (or new Melwood, whatever its called) they’ll tell you he’s the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. When he arrives for training he goes in to see everybody and (pre-covid) would greet everyone with a hug. Sports Science people, cleaners, canteen staff, everyone loves Sadio because he’s got time for everyone. 

But he’s also a hothead. He doesn’t lose it often but when he does he proper loses it and can’t contain himself. We saw it at Burnley last year. That was hilarious because we were top of the league and everything was great. Him doing that the other night in a season when he’s been shite and the team hasn’t been much better means we find it much harder to laugh it off.

Ultimately though it’s got fuck all to do with any of us and the only thing that matters is what Klopp thinks, and he clearly does not give a flying fuck about it and if anything he tried to take the blame for it because he didn’t handle ‘dropping’ Sadio the way he normally would. 

I’m increasingly coming to the belief that these press conferences are a total waste of time as 90% of the questions are pointless and irrelevant and you can see Klopp's visible disdain. Its probably the worst thing he has to do all week. And the Champions League ones when they let the overseas journey ask questions are even worse. Especially the fucking Spanish who only ever want to get people to talk about how massive Real Madrid and Barcelona are.

Meanwhile, I watched the other youth cup semi tonight and Villa comfortably saw off West Brom. They added another four to their total and they’ve scored a shitload of goals in this competition. That Louie Barry kid who scored against our first team in the FA Cup is their star player. That’s going to be a really difficult game for us in the final. Should be full of goals though.

…. and that was the week that was.