That was the week that was (Oct 3-9 2020)

Saturday Oct 3:

City are held to a draw by Leeds in a wild end to end game that could have ended up 5-5. Guardiola’s reaction afterwards was in stark contrast to last week after they were hammered by Leicester. He spoke of how refreshing it is to see a team go for it like Leeds did. 

Yeah, he’s saying that because he loves Bielsa and he’s also doubling down on his dig at Brendan from last week. Such a twat. 

Almost as big a twat as Richard Keys. He’s just the fucking worst isn’t he? But he does provide some inadvertently amazing comedy at times as he’s such a thick, old school, stuck in the past cunt. Today we might have actually reached ‘Peak Keysy’.

Him and Tefal Head were talking about City’s defensive problems and Gray threw in the old lazy “he maybe needs someone to come in and work with the defence” to which Keys immediately jumped in with “Sam Allardyce”. This is the most scorching of hot takes. I don’t think there is any suggestion he could have made that would have been funnier or more ridiculous, and I don’t even mean that as a dig at Allardyce.

Fat Sam can organise a defence but he does it by having the whole team play a specific way, and that way is about as different as Guardiola’s style as it’s possible to be. It’s mental that Keys, a man who has made his living presenting football and being surrounded by people who know what they’re talking about, hasn’t learned a single thing about the game. 

It’s impressive in its own way, as you’d thin it would be impossible for at least some knowledge to rub off on him. It clearly hasn’t though because he thinks Sam Allardyce (and he also mentioned Roy Hodgson!) could go into City, work with their back four and solve all their problems.

This is the kind of take that even Adrian Durham would be too embarrassed to share, and that’s a fella who a year ago claimed Tom Davies could be better than Stevie Gerrard.

Anyway, have a look at this because it really is something else. Even Andy Gray is embarrassed by it.

"He could bring Sam Allardyce in on a temporary basis"@richardajkeys offers Pep Guardiola some advice on how he could fix @ManCity's leaky defence.#beINPL #PL #LEEMCI HD11 pic.twitter.com/YcapARFliE

— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) October 3, 2020

Also today, Layton Stewart, who I mentioned last week as a possible factor in the club being willing to let Brewster leave, bagged a hat-trick today. That’s two hat-tricks in three games for him now. Not sure why he isn’t in the u23s already to be honest, as they don’t have a proper striker.

Sunday Oct 4:

Villa 7 L 2. Tell you what, I’m glad I didn’t take the piss out of United for letting in six earlier in the day. I don’t think I’ve ever been as stunned by one of ur results as I am today. We’ve had some bad defeats over the years and conceding six in Stevie’s last game was bad, but we were shot then. This was utterly mental because we’re so good.

How can it happen? Firstly, empty stadiums are skewing everything right now. Some players just aren’t the same without a crowd. Since footy came back there have been games when Van Dijk has looked like he’s in a training session. In fact, he’s probably more focused in training sessions. It’s most of the team though. Some games we’ve looked like our usual selves but there have been others when the intensity just isn’t there. And when the intensity isn’t there we’re not very good. We need that. It’s what makes us special.

Everyone will blame the defence today and it’s true that they didn’t cover themselves in glory. But there was no pressure on the ball ahead of them and Villa were able to break on us at will. We lost the ball far too cheaply, didn’t win it back and then didn’t get into the positions we needed to be in. The defence was shite (especially Gomez and Trent) but they had no protection either, and there’s plenty of blame to go around today.

We probably needed this. It’s a massive kick up the arse and is probably better than if we’d lost a narrow one, 2-1 or 3-2 or something. This will have embarrassed the players and it will have shown them that if you aren’t right at it then bad things can happen. Maybe they’d forgotten that due to the incredible run they’ve had over the last couple of years, but this is now a chance for them to refocus and get back to what makes them great.

Having Hendo back will make all the difference as this just wouldn’t have happened on his watch. He’ll have been fucking fuming watching this and I expect him and Milner will have had plenty to say. I wouldn’t want to be playing us next, that’s for sure.

*checks fixture list*

Ha! The derby at Goodison. If we were going into that flying we’d no doubt throw in a clunker and draw 0-0 as usual. So to be going in after a shameful result like this probably helps us. 

Monday Oct 5:

Especially as fucking Richarlison is taking the piss on social media. Posted a pic of himself with his back to the camera and his number seven next to a scoreboard in the background saying goal. It was done in a way where he could say it wasn’t intentional, but it’s clear he’s being a smart arse. I despise this cunt. Said it in the rounds ups loads of times but he’s the one player in the league I hate the most. I hate his fucking face and along with that Fernandez shithouse at United he’s the worst cheat in the league.

Hopefully someone at LFC will show that to our players as his mouth needs shutting next week. The Blues are getting way ahead of themselves, which is fine for the fans as they’ve had nothing to get excited about in decades, but when their players start swinging their dicks too then that’s when they need putting back in their place.

And now Count Buvac has emerged from his fucking coffin to put the boot in on Klopp. He didn’t congratulate anyone from LFC on winning the title and he claims he was the manager for 17 years. Have another can of Monster and shut the fuck up you bitter goth cunt.

Speaking of cunts, Arsenal are the absolute worst aren’t they? They got rid of Gunnersaurus today as part of their “financial streamlining” efforts. Seriously, how much money can this poor bastard be making? I’m not a fan of mascots in general but kids love them and Gunnersaurus has kind of become part of the Arsenal fabric. I tend to hate everyone and everything these days, but even I don’t hate Gunnersaurus. This is a scumbag move by Arsenal, especially as they just spent a fortune on that Atletico Madrid midfielder and are giving him over 200k a week. 

Spurs should hire Gunnersaurus as a PR move and to troll Arsenal. I’d defo do that if I was Daniel Levy. Get him to sign a contract with Jose standing behind him with his hand on his shoulder. Give it the works, just to wind up Arsenal. Then again, Spurs are just as Tory as Arsenal, from what I remember the furloughing fuckers weren’t even giving their staff the 20% to make up the shortfall.

Tuesday Oct 6:

Ozil is going to pay the wages of Gunnersaurus until the end of the year. While it’s a pittance for him and this is a smart PR move, I give him credit for it because ultimately this isn’t his responsibility. It’s Arsenal who are the bad guys here. Ozil is doing a good thing. Maybe it’s for the right reason or maybe it’s just to make Arsenal look bad, but either way that little dinosaur isn’t going to go hungry and he can pay his bills, so well done Mesut.

Shaq’s got Covid now. Whether he got it away with the Swiss or while he was with is I don’t know. Given that we have two other players that have tested positive I’d say there’s a good chance he caught it at Melwood and that he won’t be the only other one. Someone else will have it, but we may not find out about it as I suspect there have been a few cases where nothing has been said. There are a lot of rumours that Trent had it in pre-season, for example. Gomez missed the Chelsea game and he may have had it. In fact he looks like he still has it.

Regardless of all that, it’s clearly just fucking irresponsible having players go all around the world to play in internationals when we’re in the middle of a pandemic. Salzburg (or was it Leipzig?) refused to let any of their players go on international duty as they had a positive test and made everyone self isolate. That just seems like a completely normal and sensible action, but no-one else is doing it.

I mean, if a kid in Adrianna’s school tests positive then the entire year has to stay home and isolate. So how come when footy players are testing positive their team-mates are being allowed to travel all around the world to potentially spread it in those countries as well? Then there’s the element of those who don’t have it, picking it up on international duty and bringing it back to their clubs. It’s madness. 

Meanwhile, Spirit of the Blues is knocked off the number one spot by Amanda Holden, who ironically is probably Everton’s most famous fan (after Sly of course). You just couldn’t make this shit up.

Wednesday Oct 7:

Grujic goes on loan to Porto. I thought the window had closed and he was stuck here, because that’s how everyone reported it. So there’s nothing to stop Wilson and/or Shaqiri going on loan now either, in theory at least. Apparently Grujic had to go because we have too many overseas players and therefore wouldn’t have been able to include him on the squad list.

This is why I’d have fucked Adrian off and brought in Joe Hart or someone like that. Maybe Tom Heaton when he’s fit. Both better than Adrian and neither take up an overseas spot in the squad.

Watched a video today of Trent, Sadio, Div and Curtinho talking about their FIFA ratings and it was funny as fuck, solely because of Mané and the amount of shade he was throwing at Trent over his defending. Mind you, it wasn’t just him. When asked who was the best defender only Trent voted for himself and the other three went with Sadio.

Then when it comes to rating their team-mates, they ask Sadio about Trent’s defensive rating and he says “45. No more than 50”. Ouch. 

I also loved Jones declaring himself a better dribbler than Mané. He might be right in fairness, but it’s not really about whether he’s better or not. I just loved the confidence that he’s sitting there insisting he’s a better dribbler than arguably the best attacking winger in the world right now.

Have a watch, it’s great.

Thursday Oct 8:

Ok what the fuck is this all about. Grujic is joking around on Instagram about fantasy footy and says of Olly Watkins ‘The first couple of games the man is nowhere to be found, I impatiently decided to move him in Fantasy…. the rest is history.’ No problem with that, but he then followed it by saying “also probably ended Adrian’s career at LFC”.

He’s my boy but I’d fuck him off to the first bidder for that as it’s unacceptable. He might only be expressing an opinion shared by a lot of other players and I don’t have any problem if he thinks Adrian is shit and should be binned, but you can’t say stuff like that publicly.

Mind you, maybe he knows something we don’t, as today we’re being linked with Jack Butland. We can do that deal because the Championship window is still open. He’s fallen off a cliff these last few years and his value has probably plummeted as a result. Is he better than Adrian? Fuck knows. At one point he was so maybe he could still be salvaged. Should have done this weeks ago though really as now we look like we’re desperate and we’ve had to send Grujic away because of the overseas quota.

In other news, Shaq doesn’t have Covid as it was a false positive apparently. He didn’t test positive with us, but when he arrived with the Swiss he did. They isolated him, tested him again and he doesn’t have it. What a fucking farce.

Friday Oct 9:

The new FIFA is out so the club did a video with Trent and Robbo bringing in a few of the lads to discuss their ratings. Hendo was proper fucking pissed off that his pace was 65, especially as Trent was 80 and the skipper knows he’s quicker than him. These FIFA ratings are absolute bollocks. 

Footy Manager gets it right much more often, except when they pick some random kid and ruin his life by turning him into a wonderkid and forcing unrealistic expectations on him. Tonton Zolo-Moukolo and Cherno Samba immediately spring to mind.

Also today, it's going to be £15 now for games not televised by BT and Sky. One the one hand I’m thinking, greedy fucking bastards. On the other, I can understand it as the money is being divvied up among all the clubs and you can see why they want this when there are no fans in the grounds. 

The clubs are losing money. For us it’s reportedly £3m a game. So if the TV companies come to them with a proposal like this then they’re going to go for. Only Leeds voted against it. 

The problem isn’t so much that the TV companies are charging for these games. Those games weren’t going to be televised anyway so in that respect we’re no worse off. No-one is forcing us to pay the £15 and hopefully people won’t. 

The main reason people are pissed off is because they feel like this is opening the door for all the big games going PPV. Maybe it will, but I’m not sure. Sky can’t really do that because if they’re not showing the big games on their normal package then people won’t buy it. Unless they slash the price of the normal package and then go full on PPV. If that happens then it’s only a matter of time before the big clubs start demanding a bigger slice then the Evertons and Burnley’s of this world.

Its easy enough to stop this. If people don’t buy it they’ll have to scrap it. I think people will buy it though. Especially those who actually go the game and aren’t used to not being able to watch every game live. My seat in the Main Stand costs upwards of £50 a game, so in theory I can get three of these PPV games and still have change. So financially, I’m no worse off.

I’m not going to do that, not least because Pandemic footy is shit. There’s no way I’m paying £15 a game to watch any of this shit. I’ll just find a stream and watch it that way. 

I think it’s a panic move by the clubs because they’re losing so much revenue, but it comes across as being tone deaf because guess what fellas, it’s not just you that’s losing revenue. We’re in a pandemic and a financial crisis, and you’re trying to squeeze people for more cash when so much of the population are sweating over their jobs and struggling to meet ends meet. It’s a terrible look for the clubs and TV companies.

Still, I'm looking forward to Mesut Ozil offering to foot the ball for all the Arsenal fans who want to watch their games.

and that was the week that was….