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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/02/19 in Articles

  1. Remember what I said last week about not wanting Newcastle to go down because they beat City? Yeah, forget that. I take it all back after watching them hand Spurs three points late on at Wembley. They gave it a good go for a long time and yes, it might seem harsh holding it against the entire club when it was just one howler from the goalkeeper that lost them the game, but tough shit. It’s a team game, so I’ve had one of my trademark changes of heart and now I’m back to wanting them to go down. It could happen too, they’re only a couple of points ahead of the drop zone. Spurs are really doing my head in now. They just won’t die. They’re like Michael Myers. When we got to nine points ahead that was it, they were out of it and there was even a lot of talk that they might struggle to hold onto a top four spot with the injuries they had to their forwards. They lost a couple of cup games which added to the ‘Spurs are fucked’ narrative, but then I look out the window and there they are stood there in their fucking stupid hockey mask after they dug in and found a way to keep scraping wins in the league. They briefly even went above City this week, which is good in one way, because fuck Man City, but bad in another because it keeps them right on our heels. The sooner Jamie Lee-Curtis shows up and finally finishes these fuckers off for good the better. And if she could take care of City for us as well that would be nice. A couple of weeks ago Chelsea would have been fancying their chances of catching Spurs, but then the arse fell out of them completely and all of a sudden there was talk that Sarri might be in trouble. They got back to winning ways on Saturday with a 5-0 romp over Huddersfield in which Higuain bagged his first goals since his loan move from Serie A. Hazard got a couple too, and David Luiz wrapped it up late on with a deflected header. As I’ve said, I’m curious to see how Higuain does over here as it’s always been my suspicion that he’d flop massively if he ever moved to the Premier League. Taking over the cursed Chelsea number nine shirt only added to that feeling, and these two goals do nothing yet to make me change my mind. Why? Because it was Huddersfield. Even slumping Everton beat Huddersfield. There’s no real achievement in Chelsea hammering Huddersfield and it proves nothing about whether they’re back on track or not. The Terriers are game and they’ll try their best, but they pose no threat whatsoeve, which makes them a pushover. It’s like going into the boxing ring against an opponent with no arms. He’s ducking and weaving and he’s brave as fuck, but he’s got no arms so you can just throw everything at him knowing you aren’t going to get hit and that eventually you’ll just beat the shit out of him. So as of now, I’m still saying Higuain is a fraud and I challenge him to prove me wrong this weekend against City. If Chelsea beat City I promise to listen to Madness songs in the car all next week, and I really fucking hate Madness. Those irritating baggy trousered Chelsea pricks did their best to single handedly ruin the 80s. Some of you will be shaking your head at that and saying “I quite like Madness”. You can all fuck off too. You know nothing about music. Anyway, moving swiftly on before I alienate even more of my loyal paying customers… There was fun and games at Goodison as Everton got spanked by Wolves. The only highlight for the crowd was a black cat running across the field. It was on there for nearly three minutes and to its credit did more in that time than Theo Walcott has since he left Arsenal. Having a black cat cross your path is said to bring bad luck, and with City coming to town a few days later this was just what the doctor ordered for the Evertonians. In fact, I reckon one of them smuggled the cat in just so they could let it loose among the players. I’m sure they knew they had no chance of beating City even if they gave their all, but why take any chances? County Road wasn’t safe to drive down all day on Wednesday because of all the broken mirrors lying on the road and no doubt there was a set of ladders lined up outside the home dressing room door for when the players came out of there. I’ll get to their meek surrender against City in due course, for now I’ll just stick with the bumming they got by Nuno Holy Spirit and his boys. Wolves were really good once again. Their first was a pen after Baines had been brilliantly done by the excellent Doherty (defo a best shit player in the league contender). A screamer by Andre Gomez drew Everton level but Jimenez headed Wolves back in front. I like him, he’s a Poundland Bobby, although maybe based on recent form Bobby is a Poundland Jimenez. Dendoncker made it 3-1 after a mistake from ‘the Golden Child’ Ademola Lookman. Told you before, he’s shite him but to listen to the Blues you’d think he’s the next big thing. Not like them to overhype shite kids is it? Branch, Ball, Cadamarteri, Jeffers, Rodwell, Barkley, Rooney. Ok, so Rooney wasn’t bad but he’s the exception that proves the rule. The fight for survival got more interesting this week after Cardiff made up ground on all of their rivals by beating Bournemouth, who failed to build on their brilliant demolition of Chelsea in their previous game. I’m saying nothing about Bournemouth's performance as we’ve got them next. Steve Cook’s bizarre handball allowed Bobby Reid to put the home side ahead from the spot. The players celebrated by holding up a shirt with a picture of poor Emiliano Sala on it. Very sad, those players didn’t really know him but it’s still got to be hard for them as they know it could have been any one of them. Still, it’s a bit galling seeing Cardiff doing all this mourning when according to reports in France it looks like they’re trying to get out of paying the fee. Poor form that. Although saying that, Nantes sending them an invoice and demand for payment while the poor lad is still lying at the bottom of the English Channel is also unsavoury as fuck, as is them dragging all of this out in public. Football is fucking rotten isn’t it? Reid got his second almost immediately after the restart when Cook stepped up to play offside but Clyne was a yard deeper and played the Cardiff striker on. Good finish from him. Afterwards Warnock was in tears on the field (completely genuine) and almost broke down in his interview afterwards as he spoke about Sala. Not entirely sure how genuine that was because just seconds before the interview started he was full of beans and was caught on camera saying to a BBC interviewer “Tell Gary Lineker to fuck off. He’s been calling me ‘Colin’”. Fair enough I think. If Lineker has been calling him ‘Colin’ then he’s entitled to have a pop back. I doubt Lineker gives a shit. He’s probably too busy arguing with Piers Morgan on Twitter to even notice. Cardiff’s win saw them edge closer to Burnley and Southampton who draw at Turf Moor. Ings should have given the Saints an early lead against his old club but his shot was straight at Heaton. Burnley’s record has been really good since Heaton got back in the side, which just goes to show once more than Joe Hart has some sort of curse following him around. He’s played really well this season but they were getting battered. Not through any fault of his, but as soon as he was replaced they started picking up points and now he’s back on bench duty. It’s mad, one moment you’re on top of the world and the next you’re on the bench at Burnley. Maybe he had an encounter with that Goodison cat? There was one massive flashpoint in this game that we’d be hearing an awful lot more about if Burnley had lost. Ashley Barnes was lucky to stay on when he was booked for diving and then he completely lost his shit with the linesman and the ref. At one point he spat at the linesman’s feet, as he delivered a torrent of abuse whilst wildly gesticulating with his arms. Anthony Taylor should have given him a second yellow for such a blatant show of dissent, but Barnes’ protests were so vociferous I reckon Taylor realised he must have gotten that one wrong and shit himself. You don’t react like Barnes did unless you know you’ve been wronged and he had every reason to be furious as it was a staggeringly shit decision by the officials. Anthony Taylor though, so it’s par for the course. Redmond looked like he’d won it with a good finish but Crouchy came off the bench and played his part in a last gasp equaliser. Dyche was no doubt ready to launch into his weekly rant about his team never getting penalties, when, after 67 games without one, Taylor adjudged Jack Stephens to have handled under pressure from Crouch. Barnes held his nerve to get them a well deserved point. Watford and Brighton also played out a well fought draw at the Amex. Ben Foster was sensational. He has a clanger in him but more often than not when I’m watching MOTD all I see is him making loads of worldy saves. Pickford might be "England's Number One" but Foster is by far their best keeper. It's a low bar though to be fair. Special mention for Lewis Dunk too for the best bit of defending all season. He’s lying on the floor having been turned by Andre Gray, and the ball is nestling against his chest. Gray is going to nick it and probably score, and it looks like the only way Dunk can stop him is to handle it. Somehow he managed to make a tackle with his face, and then he grabs the ball between both of his thighs, drags it away from Gray, drops it down on the floor before back heeling it to a team-mate. Take a bow son. Fulham’s revival lasted one game. That great comeback they had in midweek was soon forgotten as they slumped to a limp 2-0 defeat at Selhurst Park against a Palace side missing Wilf Zaha. Palace opened the scoring from the spot. Well of course they did, they’re alternate universe Burnley. Palace and penalties go together like Everton and white flag waving against Mancs. Benteke was back in the starting line up and he hit the bar with a stunning overhead kick. It’s mad how he’s better at overheads than he is with normal shots. I’d back with him an overhead from 18 yards before I would with an unopposed one v one with the keeper any day. Mitrovic should have had a pen when he was shoved in the back, but he wasn’t wearing a Palace shirt so the ref wasn’t interested. Schlupp wrapped up the points with a couple of minutes to go when he fired in a rebound after good work by sub Batshuayi. Onto Sunday now. United won at Leicester. Don’t care. Didn’t watch any of it. Fuck them. City won too. I did watch that one, for my sins. I should have known better than to put myself through that. That Arsenal defence offends me. I mean, I don’t want Arsenal to be good, but seeing their defence as bad as this is actually offensive. I’ve been banging on all season about City scoring most of their goals the same way, but recently it’s began to feel like maybe teams are beginning to figure it out. Not Arsenal. They somehow managed to concede the exact same goal three times. Aguero’s third may have been a clear handball but it deserved to count just so Arsenal got the punishment their staggeringly incompetent play warranted. Absolute fucking losers. The second half from Arsenal was a disgrace. It was like they had eleven Ozil’s on the field. No heart, no fight, they just gave up as soon as the third goal went in. They’ve got some players in that defence who wouldn’t get a game for teams in the relegation zone. And they’re paying them fortunes. Kolasinic is on £120k apparently. Imagine paying that much to a left back who isn’t Marcelo or Andy Robbo? Finally, Wednesday night went as we all expected. The Blues made it look good but got the result they wanted. Hold out for 45 minutes just to show they’re not hopeless, then concede in stoppage time to avoid being booed off. Second half, hold out for 45 minutes to show they can, then let City score in stoppage time just in case goal difference becomes a factor. Marco Silva left out his three best players as Richarlison, Coleman and Sigurdsson all started on the bench. Why do that? Two reasons. Firstly, they’ve got the Z-Cars derby this weekend and Watford are rapidly becoming their main rivals these days. The rivalry with us has lost a lot of its lustre as we play in different leagues now, but the beef with Watford is really gathering pace as that’s a battle they think they can win. It started when they tapped up Silva and Watford weren’t having it and threatened to report them. Watford made Silva stay for a few months and then sacked him for being shit and disloyal. Everton eventually got their man and some Blues are using that as some kind of evidence that they’re a superior club to Watford. “We took your manager because we can”. Watford, for their part, seem to be bearing a grudge against both Everton and Silva. They retweeted something Lineker posted on the day they sacked Silva, where he condemned them for the decision and said they’d be worse off, and they commented “This aged well”. Watford’s CEO apologised for it and joked that he might be going through more social media managers than head coaches at this rate. I reckon that Harry the Hornet was behind it. He’s a case him, remember him taunting Zaha by diving at his feet? The Hodge wanted to kill him that day. That tweet had his fingerprints all over it. Anyway, Silva was clearly prioritising this weekend’s game for personal reasons and had we not been going for the title I expect he’d have been hammered by the fans for not going all out to beat City. But we are going for the title, so they were good with it. I’m not even mad, it’s exactly what I expect. I’m just grateful this game was played at the beginning of February and not the end of April. I hope my boy Troy and the Watford lads tear them a new arsehole this weekend though. In fact, if Watford beat Everton this weekend I pledge to listen to Elton John songs in the car all week. So just like most week’s really. Can’t beat a bit of Elton. Update: My Boy Troy is ready! He had this to say about the prospect of Watford fans giving Silva a hard time: “We’d prefer if you left him alone, it will only motivate them more. Let us kick the shit out of them”. That’s my boy right there. My Boy Troy.
    2 points
  2. Just think, we’ve got three more months of this. I’m not sure I’ll cope. It’s hard watching these games at the moment. The stakes are massive but it’s not just that. The way we’re playing is making it really difficult to stay cool. We’re approaching the most important part of the season and our form seems to have vanished completely. So much for that warm weather training eh? Half the squad got ill or injured and the rest of them look like they’re running in treacle. Whatever happened to “the Red Arrows”? You know, the forward line that terrorised the whole of Europe last season? That was the thought I had watching this as a memory randomly popped up in my head. It was one of our European games last season. Might have been the City game but I think it was before that. Could have been Moscow. Anyway, who it was is irrelevant. The thing that popped into my head was an image of four or five of our lads charging forward against back peddling defenders who were shitting in their shorts, and Steve McManaman making that “Red Arrows” comment. Remember those days when we were just scaring the shit out of everyone with our speed and devastatingly incisive attacking play? What the fuck happened? Now it’s just ponderous, predictable, toothless. Opposing coaches have obviously had time to come up with ways to slow us down and frustrate us, but it seems like more than just that. That might seem like a knee jerk reaction to a couple of draws, and yeah there’s an element of that because I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty fucking despondent today. Clearly we've been doing something right as we’ve got more points than we’ve ever had at this stage of a season and we’ve only been beaten once. What I’m saying is that something isn’t right and in truth it hasn’t been for large parts of the season. Mané even said something last week about how the attack hasn’t really played at it’s best this season. They had a slow start but then looked like they were finding form, but recently it’s all gone to shit again. And now the defence isn't able to compensate for it. This season we’ve had loads of those wins where we’ve just got the job done and found a way, and that’s great, I love it. If you want to win titles you need plenty of those wins along the way and it’s those results that have us where we are. What concerns me is the lack of hammerings we’ve dished out. I remember writing last season that scoring three goals had now become level par. I expected three goals a game. If we got more than that, we were under par. Any less than three and it was an over par round and a bad day. That was the bar that we set. This year we seemed to undergo a change in identity. It was suddenly all about the clean sheets. In the opening months of the season the general consensus seemed to be “this is great, we’re winning without playing at our best. Imagine how good we’ll be when the front three hit form”. Yeah, well it’s February now and we’re still waiting. The clean sheets are becoming scarce and since the turn of the year we’ve dropped seven points in five games. I definitely don’t go into games now expecting us to score three. I miss that feeling but I don’t want to seem too ungrateful as, after all, we’re still top of the table with a three point lead. We should be over the moon about that but I don’t feel it. I should, but instead I’m just becoming consumed by the fear of us being overhauled. After seeing Spurs and City both win at the weekend, I had a feeling of impending doom. I was more nervous about this game than I had been at any point all season. It had nothing to do with the opposition either - West Ham had been battered by Wimbledon and Wolves in their previous two - I was just nervous about us. As it turns out, I was right to be. We were fucking garbage. You could even argue that it was a decent point in the end because we should have lost. I don’t want to hear about injuries either. Spurs have injuries but they continue to win. Hell, they’ve been without Kane and Alli, while Son missed games too. Imagine us without our front three! We look bad enough in attack even with them. Until last week they’d also been having to deal with the strain of playing in both cups too. No mid-season getaway to Dubai for them. So no, I don’t care that Henderson and Wijnaldum were missing. I don’t care than Trent, Gomez and Lovren were out either. Cry me a fucking river. West Ham had more players out than we did (including their star man) and they didn’t have the luxury of bringing in players like Milner, Matip, Fabinho, Keita and Lallana to replace them. So get the fuck out of here putting this down to injuries. Had we lost to a top six side then it’s a valid excuse, but this was a team that had their pants pulled down by fucking Wimbledon a week ago. That team we sent out to play West Ham should have been much better than they were. The team that didn’t beat Leicester last week likewise. But we’re not playing well. Some will say it’s the pressure of trying to win the league but it’s more that we’re just not playing well, both collectively and individually. We look predictable and easy to defend against. It’s not so much about nerves, it’s more tactics and form. The biggest difference between now and a few months ago is that we aren’t keeping clean sheets. We scored first against Leicester and also against West Ham. Early in the season that meant three points. Now, there are no guarantees because we’re conceding goals and giving up chances. West Ham should have scored more than one. So should Leicester. We were fortunate to lead in this one as our goal was so far offside it’s hard to believe how a professional official can fail to spot that. All I can think is maybe he was hypnotised by Lallana’s magic feet. That was brilliant from him, but then control in tight spaces has never been an issue for him. He’ll still be able to do that when he’s 60. It’s the rest of the game that’s now looking like it’s beyond him. Maybe if he had a run of games we’d see him return to what he was, but what are the chances of him getting a run of games? Slim and none. He’s not good enough to be first choice anymore and he’s not durable enough to stay fit for more than three games at a time even if he was. Anyway, he did superbly to work that ball to Milner, who then did well to cut it back to Mané to finish expertly. We’ve been on the wrong end of some bad decisions of late so we were owed this bit of luck with the offside. Just a shame we didn’t make it count. I give credit to West Ham for the equaliser. It was well worked from their point of view and although it was questionable whether Noble should have been allowed to get away with impeding Keita, I don’t have any real complaints about that. Maybe Naby should have took a dive when Noble stepped across him? Antonio does my head in. Shite against everyone else and then turns into fucking Didier Drogba when he faces us. He probably won’t score again all season, the twat. I haven’t seen anybody else mention this, but I don’t like what I saw from Alisson on the goal. I’m not saying he should save it, but just standing there and watching it go in isn’t a good look. Put it this way, Mignolet would have been fucking slaughtered for that. It’s not the most powerful shot in the world and if the keeper’s angles are right he should at least have a chance at reaching it. Standing rooted to the spot isn’t what I want to see from my £65m keeper, but maybe that’s just me. After that equaliser, we looked spent. Lifeless in attack and vulnerable in defence. West Ham missed glorious chances when Rice and Noble both missed the target, while all we had were a few hopeful curlers from Salah that went straight to Fabianksi. There seemed to be no confidence or belief within the team and there was a real lack of urgency in their play. Passing it around on the halfway line in stoppage time summed up the entire night I thought. We probably need to change the approach to defending free-kicks now too. It’s worked great all season as 90% of the time we’ve caught about four players offside. The problem is that some opposing coaches actually do their homework and Pellegrini exposed our set up repeatedly. We always set up for the first time ball in but West Ham didn’t play it like that, they had a player take a touch to throw the timing off and they kept getting in behind us. Klopp said the poor set-piece defending was down to making three changes. Nope. It was down to a coach identifying what we have been doing and figuring out a way to counter it. What will happen now is other teams will copy that approach. I’m not saying we’ll be wide open for an Antonio type goal all the time, but the days of us catching loads of players offside by just holding that high line are probably over. Find another way, Jurgen. And while you’re at it, sort the attacking tactics out too as this is shit and too easy to defend. The build up is too slow and I don’t know how many times I’m going to write this but I’m sick to fucking death of seeing us trying to go through the middle over and over and over. It’s like trying to jam a marshmallow in a slot machine. Utterly futile. The opponents know we’re going to try and play little one twos and they just pack the centre and snuff it out. The space is out wide but we rarely use it. The only width we have is provided by the full backs and when they do manage to get in behind and whip crosses in we always look dangerous. How about giving them a fucking hand, eh? Watch some videos of Man City and study how they do it. 80% of the goals those cunts score come from low balls across the six yard box and they actually managed to score the exact same fucking goal THREE times against Arsenal at the weekend. Granted, Arsenal’s defending is a joke, but the point stands. It’s been going on for most of the season too. For months we were talking about how “it wasn’t clicking” up front but it was great that we were still winning because of our badass impregnable defence. I think we let in six in our opening sixteen games or something. Then the arse fell out of the defence and suddenly we’re dropping points all over the fucking shop because the unstoppable attack of last season hasn’t shown up for most of this year and we don’t have any realistic alternatives to freshen things up. I said after Leicester that I’d rather see Origi come off the bench than Sturridge but ideally I’d rather see neither of them. When Bobby is as horrific as this though we have little choice. He had to come off and he was lucky to last as long as he did. Absolutely fucking brutal he was. I lost count of the number of times he passed it straight to a West Ham player. Inexplicably shit. Origi isn’t good enough and brings back memories of our last two title challenges, when our attacking cover was David Ngog in 2009 and Iago Aspas in 2014. Origi and Sturridge are distinctly better than those two (and both have made contributions) but there’s still too big a drop off between the starters and the back ups. Big Shaq has been quiet of late too, which is worrying as he’s the ‘wild card’ and the only game changer we can call on outside of the first eleven. The less said about Keita the better. The only thing he seems to do well is take the ball effortless past a couple of players in midfield, but there’s little point to that when he either runs into a third and loses it, or passes it to nobody. The fact he was probably our second best attacking player on the night tells you all you need to know about how bad the rest of them were. If Divock had put that chance away in the dying seconds I’d have been over the moon (particularly because of the fume it would have caused given he was a yard offside), but it wouldn’t have allayed the fears I’ve got over how we’re playing. Forget the results for a second, it just doesn’t look right at the moment. It’s a lot like it was earlier in the season except we were keeping clean sheets then and that covers for a multitude of sins. Now we’re leaking shite goals every week and other than the Palace game we’ve been unable to overcome that because it’s not clicking in attack. Last season Salah was a 10/10. Firmino was probably a 9.5/10 and Mané was an 8/10. This year you can knock two points off Mo and Bobby’s score. Sadio is the same or slightly better, but overall the front three haven’t hit the heights they did last season. Part of it is on them, part of it is probably tactical. The switch to 4-2-3-1 hasn’t worked but we don’t look right when we revert to the 4-3-3 either. I don’t have the solutions. I’m not sure Jurgen does either. He looked rattled during this game and his post match interviews did little to inspire confidence. Singling out the officials after that game? We were given an outrageously offside goal and if Origi had taken his chance we’d have also benefitted from a clearly offside last second winner too. Kevin Friend wasn’t even bad. He didn’t get every decision right but on a list of reasons we didn’t win the game he wouldn’t even be on it. Even mentioning him at all smacked of clutching at straws. West Ham had far more reason to be pissed off with the officiating than we did. The linesman who missed the offside for our goal was as woeful as his haircut. He probably shouldn’t be allowed to run the line in a Premier League game when he displays such bad decision making. I mean if he thinks that haircut is acceptable then how can we trust his judgement on anything? There seems to be two camps developing in the fan base now. There are those who are all doom and gloom and terrified that we’re going to blow it (and those who think we already have) and there are those who are getting all pissed off at the negativity from the other camp and are at great pains to point out that we’re top and everyone needs to stop being such bad shithouses. I really wish I was in the second camp. I imagine it’s a much happier place to be than where I am right now. I’m not fully in the first camp but I’ve got one foot in there. I can’t help it. I want to be brave and to believe and to trust the players and if I was in any way encouraged by what I was seeing I would be, irrespective of how many points we’ve dropped of late. I need to see us playing well. We need a convincing win to get things kick started again. We’re still three points clear and we’d all have taken that when the season started. A three point lead having only lost one league game all season is hardly cause for panic but it isn’t telling the whole story either, as form has to be a consideration. Had we drawn our first two games and won both of these last two to go top we’d be buzzing because momentum counts for a lot and right now we’ve got none. Being three points clear in February would have seemed like dreamland back in August, but how would you have felt if prior to the trip to the Etihad (when we were seven clear with a chance to extend to ten) you were told the lead would be down to three in a few weeks time? We won’t even be three points clear for much longer as I’ve never been more sure of any result than I am about City winning at Goodison this week. Even if Everton shock everybody and actually give it a go it won’t matter because they’re a terrible team. Nailed on three points for City, which will put them ahead on goal difference having played a game more. In seven days we’ve gone from having a chance to go seven points clear to probably finding ourselves in second place (albeit with a game in hand and our destiny still in our own hands). It’s torture isn’t it? I want to enjoy being in a title race but it’s just not fun because there’s too much riding on it for us. We want it too badly. There will be twists and turns all over the place between now and May and we’ve still got a great chance of winning it, but only if we snap out of this fucking slump we’ve been in since we battered Arsenal. It needs to happen quickly because if not we could find ourselves out of it in the blink of an eye. On paper Bournemouth should be a routine home win, but the way we’re playing? Anything could happen. They’ve got a style of play and forwards that can hurt us if we show the kind of sloppiness that’s been on display recently, and the crowd are probably going to be a fucking bag of nerves if we’re not two goals up in the first ten minutes. After that we go to Old Trafford, which as I’ve been saying for weeks is something I’m dreading with every fibre of my being, especially now that we’re looking vulnerable and United will smell the blood in the water. These are really testing times and we have to find a way to get through it as unscathed as possible and then hope we run into some form again and get some players back for the run in. Star man is Mané again. He wasn’t brilliant, but he’s one of the few who is playing anywhere near his best level at the moment. Team: Alisson; Milner, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Keita, Lallana (Shaqiri); Mané, Firmino (Origi), Salah:
    1 point



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