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Arsenal produced a sorry performance in losing 1-0 at West Ham. Lifeless, turgid, shite. The exact type of performance they became synonymous with under Wenger. It’s too soon to be making any kind of judgement on Emery and his methods, but that stink is clearly going to take a long time (and a lot of money) to clear. There’s nothing surprising about it. The sixth best squad in the country will most likely finish sixth now that United have cut loose the massive dead weight that was slowing them down. Arsenal are where they should be but the gap between them and the top four is now huge in terms of player quality. They need to spend big but Kroenke isn’t going to do that. In fact, the suggestion this month is that they’re only able to bring anyone in if it’s a loan deal. Ouch. Arsenal never lose at West Ham though and the manner of this defeat prompted me to have a little look at Arsenal Fan TV for the first time this season. Great stuff. DT is still the same angry, aggressive, arrogant knobhead, only instead of leading a “Wenger Out” campaign he’s now urging his fellow fans to target the owners by not buying anything inside the Emirates. He’s not wrong to be fair to him like. Most expensive tickets in the league and they’re talking about only being able to sign loan players? The price you pay for giving Ozil nearly half a million a week to sit in the stands I guess. Amusingly, DT did acknowledge that little Ty is one of the biggest problems as he is single handedly keeping them in business with all the shit he buys in the club shop. Troopz, meanwhile, was understandably kicking off over the fact that his club are paying shite players crazy salaries, and pointed out that Carl Jenkinson is on 65k a week. Fucking hell, that’s mad. What are they smoking down there at the Emirates? I always used to get Jenkinson confused with Callum Chambers, as I’m sure some of you must also. Here’s a little trick I use to tell the difference; Chambers is the shit one, and Jenkinson is the REALLY shit one. Kind of like how it used to be with James McCarthy / James McArthur, until they confused the issue by switching roles. Meanwhile, I had no idea Samir Nasri was back in the Premier League, but if you’d asked me to name the top three most likely landing spots for him, West Ham would have been one, two and three on the list. The most West Ham signing ever that is. The Hammers have improved steadily under Pellegrini but they might be about to lose Arnautovic to China. Initially I was appalled at the notion he’d walk away from a top league to go and play over there. In theory I’m against any player still in his prime doing that, but the more I think about it the more I reckon he’d be stupid not to. This isn’t like Oscar or that other Brazilian midfielder (his name escapes me for now) who left Chelsea to chase the money. Arnautovic isn’t at Chelsea. He’s not challenging for major honours. He’s at West Ham. Before that he was at Stoke. It doesn’t look like any of the top teams want him so if he can quadruple his wages by going to China then good luck to him I guess. He’d be a loss to the Premier League as he’s a really good player, but West Ham will no doubt already have a replacement lined up. What’s David Trezeguet up to these days? Or Stephane Guivarch? Besides, Arnautovic can always return there for one last big pay day when he’s in his mid-30s. From the east end to the west end now, as Chelsea secured their grip on fourth place with a hard fought win over one of their many former managers. Pedro opened the scoring early when he latched onto an inch perfect ball over the top by David Luiz and finished expertly. Great goal that. Lovely pass and terrific technique on the control and finish. Newcastle responded well though and had a little spell of pressure that culminated in an equaliser from Clark. Newcastle wanted a penalty when that Ayoze Perez loser took an outrageous dive in the box. Can’t stand him, the fuckin’ bum. Chelsea then stepped it up once again and a cracker from Willian won it for them, but the performance was far from convincing and after all the initial good publicity they had early in the season, turns out they’re actually a bit dull to watch really. It’s all pass pass pass without going anywhere. But for the individual brilliance they possess in Hazard and Willian, they’d struggle to score any goals via the way they build attacks. They’ve got a big issue in attack as Hazard is just not a centre forward and it’s criminal to play him there. Sarri left Morata out of the squad and is now on the brink of signing Higuain. I for one will be glad when this little porker is finally over here because we’ll find out once and for all if he’s the massive fraud I’ve always thought he is. Ramires!! That’s the fella I was on about earlier. I might be slow but I usually get there in the end. He was a good player him too, absolute waste that he’s now in China. I mean I get Oscar and Jon Obi Mikel going there as they’re both fucking shite, but Ramires could play. He was like a Poundland Fernandinho. No wait, that was Fernando. Ramires was a Tesco’s Fernandinho. Meanwhile, another former Chelsea man (there are fucking hundreds of them aren’t there?) Andre Schurrle’s brilliant strike put Fulham ahead at Turf Moor, but two own goals ensured they went home with nothing. Only Burnley could score twice without having a single shot on target. Maybe I’m deluded, but I still think Fulham will get out of it. I hope so, as I’d much rather watch them then most of the other spoiling shithouse teams down there. I’m rooting for them. Get rid of Burnley or Newcastle and let’s see Fulham survive, especially now Ryan Babel is there. I’ll always have a soft spot for him, partly because of that night against Arsenal in the Champions League at Anfield, but mostly for the Howard Webb in a United kit picture he tweeted. What a man. It was an entertaining game at Leicester, as ten man Southampton pulled off an upset win. I say upset, but I guess it wasn’t really because as I wrote in the last round up, Leicester are much better when the game comes to them and they don’t have to make the play. That’s why they won at Chelsea and Everton but lost at home to Cardiff. They should beat Southampton but it’s all very Claude Puel-ish that they didn’t. Shane Long won a penalty in typical Shane Long style, getting his body in front of a defender and then falling down. Not that there was any doubt about it, as Mendy’s challenge was clumsy as fuck. Ward-Prowse buried the pen to put the Saints ahead but then Valery was harshly sent off for a second yellow. It was harsh, as it was a nothing foul (if it even was a foul), but he’d been lucky to stay on earlier after a bad tackle and he also escaped a booking for diving, as did Vardy after one of the most pitiful attempts at deceiving a ref I’ve ever seen. I’ve said repeatedly that there are few players I enjoy watching more than Vardy, I think he’s brilliant. He loves a dive though. Being English means he seems to get a free pass on it. It’s not so much that they don’t get pointed out (it was highlighted on MOTD), it’s just that it doesn’t seem to stick and damage his reputation. People don’t automatically think “diver” when they hear the name Vardy, but they probably should. Same with Harry Kane, who dives more than anyone else in the league. Anyway, despite being a man down, Southampton extended their lead when Long capitalised on more generosity from the hapless Mendy to score with the last kick of the first half. Not sure he should even be credited with the goal though as his shot was going wide until it hit Schmeichel’s hand. It would take a far crueler man than me to take that away from Long though, as goals for him come around about as regularly as Halley’s Comet. His last four goals have come under four different managers, which is mental. People look down their noses at Long, but he’s got his uses and any team outside of the top six should be glad to have him. This manager appears to know how to use him, unlike some of the other bums he’s played for in recent years. Ndidi pulled one back after the break but Southampton held on quite comfortably. They’re not out of the woods yet but they’ve improved enough under the new fella to suggest they’ll be alright. That’s right, I still don’t know his name and I still can’t be arsed looking it up because I’m still pissed off at him throwing that game against City, the twat. I sound like my main man Neil Warnock there, but don’t worry, I’m not going to follow his lead on Brexit as well. Come on though, I know he’s a cock, but that was funny as fuck. Initially I thought the quotes were fake as they just seemed too Neil Warnock even for Neil Warnock. “I can’t wait to get out. To hell with the rest of the world”. He’s sat there in front of a ‘Visit Malaysia’ sign, he manages a team that has ten different nationalities represented, his multi million pound salary is paid by a Malaysian billionaire and he’s spent this week trying to sign Oumar Niasse from Everton. To hell with the rest of the world though, eh? Amazing. In fairness, he’s a 70 year old Yorkshireman. It would be more surprising if he didn’t think that way. His Brexit outburst overshadowed the rest of the absolute horseshite he came out with after their 0-0 draw with Huddersfield though. Huddersfield got screwed massively. There’s no doubt about it. Lee Mason saw what he believed was a penalty (and it was) and then allowed himself to be talked out of it by a linesman who had a much worse view of it. Absolute disgrace that was, and it’s had he consequences already, which I’ll get to shortly. Warnock said “thank God we had an experienced linesman”. Now I’m willing to go out on a limb here and say if Warnock had been on the receiving end of that decision he’d be serving a lengthy touchline ban and that linesman would currently be in A&E recovering from having his flag removed from his arse. He then tried to deflect attention away from that incident by complaining about a penalty that wasn’t awarded to Cardiff, even though replays showed the Huddersfield defender won the ball cleanly. Give Warnock credit though, it’s not easy talking so much and somehow not being right about anything at all. It’s a difficult skill, mastered only by the true greats, such as Richard Keys and Paul Merson. Warnock put himself in that lofty company this weekend though. Sadly it was all too much for poor David Wagner, who a couple of days after the result stepped down as Huddersfield boss. That was probably the final straw for him. It would have been more of a statement if he’d just quit right there and then when Mason screwed him. Imagine that. What a way to go out, just quit in the middle of the game and put it on Lee Mason’s shoulders. That would have been boss. It’s a shame for Wagner and it looks like, on the surface at least, that it was his decision rather than the club’s. I hope so, because if they’ve pushed him then they’re fucking idiots. He performed a miracle there, and then performed another one. You don’t sack him because he can’t pull off a third. Yeah they’re going down, but they can come back up again and be stronger for it. Maybe not now though, not without Klopp’s mate. He’s done himself a power of good in his time there though and he should get a good job whenever he’s ready to step back into it. It doesn’t matter who Huddersfield bring in, they’re already down, so they should probably be looking to next season and finding someone who can get them back up. Moving on, and Craig Cathcart scored at both ends as Watford won at Palace. Could any of you pick him out of a line up? He’s one of those players who’s been around forever and we all know his name, but I bet most of you have no idea what he looks like. I like to call this “Wes Hoolahan Syndrome”. The game was finely poised at 1-1 with chances coming at both ends, but substitute Tom Cleverly eventually hit a screaming volley to win it. He’s been out injured for a year so it was a nice moment for him. A year is a long time and I’d forgotten just how much I hated his manc face. I remember now though. Eurgh. Speaking of the mancs, they won at Spurs on Sunday. I didn’t watch it but it’s a good result for us as it pretty much ends any hope Spurs had of catching us. Still, this United “revival” needs to fuck off. It’s been massively overstated to this point as they’ve basically beaten a load of shite teams and only won this one because Spurs got De Gea’d. That being said, it is becoming a thing now. They’ve won every game and irrespective of who they beat or how they did it, that will breed confidence. I’m already fucking dreading the prospect of going to Old Trafford in a few weeks, with them being all whipped up into a frenzy trying to help City out. Horrible bastards. Also on Sunday, the Blues had an unconvincing win at home over Bournemouth. They were booed off at half after being thoroughly outplayed by Eddie Howe’s men. David Brooks ran them ragged in the first half and came closest to scoring when his shot hit the inside of the post. He also thought he should have had a penalty. Could have gone either way, but Bournemouth never get any decisions so there’s no point even appealing. They were denied a clear one later on too. The lad made a meal of it, but he was definitely fouled. As I say though, it’s Bournemouth, they get stiffed by refs every week and Nice Guy Eddie takes it on the chin. They were right in this until the end when they allowed that Calvert-Lewin turn to wrap things up five minutes into stoppage time. Bournemouth need to get Solanke fit because it looks like Callum Wilson might be off soon. Chelsea and Spurs are both being linked. He’s a good player, but he’s not THAT good. No way is Daniel Levy paying £50m for him. Finally, City beat Wolves on Monday night. I didn’t see any of it because I was in bed with stomach flu (and have been for pretty much the rest of the week. I’ve spewed out more shit this week than Neil Warnock, Rio Ferdinand and Richard Keys combined). I didn’t even know they’d won until the next day, but I’ve already come to terms with the idea they’ll probably win every game between now and May and that we’re going to have to do the same. One thing I do know is when they go to Old Trafford they’ll have a much easier time of it than we will. It might be stretching things a little to suggest they’ll all be hand in hand chanting “Manchester” but I guarantee the only competition we’ll see that day is in who can sing about us the most. Cunts.

One of the biggest wins of the season under the circumstances. A nice four or five goal stroll would have been preferable of course, but it was somewhat fitting that we did it this way, as we are where we are this season based on this kind of ultra professional, ballsy win. Losing against City shouldn’t have had any negative impact on the confidence of the players as it was a tight game that could have gone either way. In isolation that loss wasn’t going to do too much damage to our title chances either, providing of course that we just picked right up where we’d left off before that defeat. This game was huge in terms of that. It was as big a test as we've had all season. Anything other than three points would have been utterly soul destroying and probably season changing. We can’t give City any encouragement as they’re capable of going unbeaten between now and the end of the season. So are we though. You can’t always smack lesser teams about and on those difficult days when it becomes a slog, the only thing that counts is winning. We’ve had loads of these grind it out wins and it must be doing City’s head in. When we were chasing them it was their close wins that got to me more than the beatdowns. They’ll have hated this, as right until the very end there was the hope for them that we might drop points. But we didn’t drop points. We did what we’ve done all season and took care of business. We haven’t had to do it like this very often in recent weeks but earlier in the season these kind of wins were becoming the norm. We’re becoming machine-like and it’s great. More often than not you’ll beat the weaker sides with plenty to spare, but not always. Sometimes it’s tight and tense. Teams that don’t win the title can usually point to these scrappy games as the reason why. It’s so easy to drop points in these games but so far we’ve got a 100% record against sides outside of the top five. Incredible. To do that you can’t afford any mistakes at the back and you have to find a way to get the breakthrough at the other end. Brighton didn’t have a single shot on target (and they only had a couple off target) and although we only managed the one goal when you defend like we do now, that’s usually enough. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to saying that after all these years of keystone cops defending and 4-3 wins, but this is where we are now. Big Virgil has transformed the culture. It’s all about the clean sheets. The big man was imperious again in this game. Fabinho did well alongside him too, but Virgil is so good, so dominant and so much of a leader that Klopp could have probably dragged someone out of the away end and Van Dijk would have been able to carry them through the game. That’s doing Fabinho a bit of a dis-service, but you get the point. Seeing him yelling and pointing and making sure everyone is doing their jobs just makes you feel safe, doesn't it? The game is in the balance, but you think "it's fine, Virgil's got this". Brighton had no interest in anything other than trying to fluke a goalless draw. Even when we went a goal up they still played conservatively. It’s understandable because we’re so good. Brighton don’t play like this against everyone - they’re actually one of the better home teams in the league - but as I wrote in a recent report, we’re now a absolute nightmare for rival managers to prepare for. I mean seriously, what do you do? If you attack us you’ve basically got no chance. Adopting a blanket defensive strategy probably won’t work either, but it might be the best hope you have if we have a bit of an off day up front. The lack of a recognised centre back alongside Van Dijk offered them a glimmer of hope and something they might be able to target, but all out defence was clearly their best chance of getting anything. Chris Hughton puts all his eggs in that basket and it almost worked for him. Brighton made it very difficult for us but I thought we made it more difficult for ourselves with the way we played, especially in the first half. Defensively we were spot on and it was almost complete and total domination of the ball. It’s just that we weren’t doing much with it. At times it almost looked like we’d never been faced with this kind of approach before, which is frustrating because we come up against it probably 75% of the time. Maybe Brighton are just better at it than most? It is hard when the opposition are as well drilled as Hughton’s men, but I didn’t like the way we went about trying to break them down. The build up was too slow and ponderous, the passing in midfield was too safe and what was with all those attempted long balls over the top? You can’t play balls over the top when the centre halves are massive and are usually standing around 30 yards from their own goal. There’s no space for a ball like that, yet we kept trying it. I sound like a broken record here, but fucking hell lads, get round the back and get some low crosses in. That’s how you break these teams down; overload out wide, move the ball quickly and get to the byline. Instead, we had Mané playing miles inside, meaning Robbo had nowhere to go and usually had to just play it back to Van Dijk. Meanwhile, over on the other side Shaqiri was nowhere to be seen and Trent was clearly troubled by an injury he picked up in the warm up. Robbo did give us a bit of production from his flank when possible, but generally he had too little support to be able to do much. We never looked like scoring in that first half at all, but the thing with this team, this year, is that they usually find a way. The second half wasn’t vintage but it was definitely better. The tempo was quicker and there was more zip up front. The main reason for that was Salah seemed to just decide he was going to take over the game. He did nothing in the first half but after the break he was much more involved, coming deep to get on the ball and generally just looking a lot livelier. He won the penalty with some great play in the box that left poor Pascal Gross in a terrible spot. You can’t expect an attacking player to be able to deal with Mo in that situation. Hell, most defenders wouldn’t be able to. Had it not been for the foul he might have scored anyway as he had worked a good shooting opportunity for himself before he was completely mugged by Gross. I’m the first to admit when Mo has gone down easily but anyone suggesting this was anything other than a 100% stonewall pen clearly has their own agenda. If you think that isn’t a penalty or it was a dive, go and watch another sport because clearly you have no idea about football or your perspective is so warped by a hatred of the Reds that it’s probably better for your health to spend your weekends doing something else. I mean bloody hell, how this is even up for discussion is baffling. The funniest thing is seeing Brighton fans accusing Kevin Friend of being a scouser. KEVIN FRIEND!!! Fucking hell. In terms of screwing over the Reds, he's Poundland Howard Webb. I’m going to say something I’ve never said before and probably never will again though. Kevin Friend had a flawless game. Not just good. Flawless. I think Friend actually got every single decision right, big and small. Maybe there was one foul on Robertson he should have given, but Robbo wasn’t going to reach the ball and I can see why Friend chose not to give it. Everything else he absolutely nailed, and he wasn’t being a twat with his cards either. This merely confirms the view I’ve always had of him that he’s not a terrible referee, he’s just a a biased one. When he’s not being a Chelsea-enabling twat he’s one of the better refs out there. This notion that he was doing us a favour though, it’s beyond fantasy. If that wasn’t a stonewall pen then Friend wouldn’t have given it. Not to us. Brighton might want to think about the three pens he didn’t give us last season when we played them at Anfield. Of course ol’ hairy hands Richard Keys has chimed in with his “does Salah go down to easily?” shite, but his opinion is completely worthless at this point (was it ever worth anything?). The man’s a complete joke, the TV equivalent of click bait. He’s a boil on the arse of sports broadcasting, and his Tefal headed sidekick is little better. But I digress. Mo picked himself up and buried the spot kick, but again it just wasn’t convincing and it’s only a matter of time before he misses a costly one. I’m not saying he shouldn’t be taking them, just that I know that miss is coming as I don’t think he’s particularly good at them. Hopefully it’s not in a close game. Hopefully not at Old Trafford. *shudders* After we went ahead I thought we’d pick them off and add a second, but it’s not easy to pick off a team that isn’t really trying to attack. Brighton had a bit more of a go than before, especially late on, but they never really overcommitted and we didn’t create too many more chances. Mo did miss an absolute sitter after substitute Milner put one on a plate for him. How did that come about? A nice one two out wide and Milner cutting one back. That’s what I mean. That’s how you do it. Just do it more, Reds. Do it more. I’m not sure how much more of these close games my heart can take. We’ve got 16 more games and I reckon half of them are going to go down something like this one. At the other end Brighton only threatened a couple of times. Alisson turned a shot round the post but it was going wide anyway. The most dangerous moment they had was when Keita gave the ball away and Trent needed to get something on a cross to prevent a Brighton player having a back post tap in. Keita is prone to that type of thing. It’s happened too many times where he’s given the ball away cheaply and put us under pressure. He’s not a great sub to bring on. Not at this moment in time anyway. So now we sit and watch to see what City do. They’ll probably win, but it’s fine because we won so the gap isn’t going to be anything less than four. Any dropped points is a bonus. The pressure is back on them and we’ll see how they respond. Playing first helps us, as does City’s involvement in cups that could see them fall further behind us if we’re playing league games when they’re on cup duty. Just have to keep turning that screw and winning the games we’re supposed to win. Star man is Virgil, but Robbo was great too and one pass he volleyed out wide late on after Brighton had cleared a corner was magnificent. He’s like what Marcelo would be like if he knew how to defend. Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Wijnaldum; Shaqiri (Milner), Firmino, Mané (Keita); Salah: