Leaderboard

Saturday Nov 9: Klopp pours cold water on the Mbappe rumours, or at least he tries to. “I don’t think there is a club in the world that can buy Kylian Mbappe from PSG, that is how it is. We cannot do it, it is as easy as that. OK, from a sporting point of view, there are not a lot of reasons to not sign him, what a player he is. But it is about the money of course. No chance. Absolutely no chance, sorry for killing that story!” No chance right now, and possibly no chance next summer either. PSG don’t need the money so they don’t ned to see. But Mbappe is not spending his whole career in France and at some point in the next couple of years he will move, and it might be as a free agent. Ordinarily we wouldn’t be able to compete for a player like that, but Spain’s big two have issues and England is now the place to be. And what is the most attractive club in England right now? Us. Mbappe would want to come here, of that I’m pretty certain. So as Klopp says, it comes down to the money. And for me, that’s where Nike come in. They give him a massive sponsorship deal, we give him the same wages as our top players or even a bit more, and maybe a deal can be done. Nike are going to pushing our ‘brand’ all over the world, with LeBron and Serena Williams and all their other stars helping to promote it. Messi and Ronaldo aren’t going on forever and Mbappe looks like the heir apparent. If you’re Nike, why wouldn’t you want to get your big star at your flagship club? It’d be a license for them to print money, and to sweeten the deal for them maybe we hand over all image rights for him. Look, I don’t know exactly how these things work, but I do know that if Nike think they can make more money from having Mbappe at Anfield then between all parties they could work something out. So in short, Jurgen can say whatever the hell he likes but he’s not killing my buzz on this. Meanwhile, the u18s were 6-0 down after 40 minutes to West Brom today. It ended 6-3 after they rallied, but fucking hell, Aston Villa’s first team must be licking their lips about that quarter final now. Some of these kids (Kometio, Cain, Clarkson, Norris I’d guess) will be involved in that because there is no other real alternative. The u18s seem to concede a shitload of goals but they score loads too. Their games are wildly entertaining, they’re like the first team pre-Virg. In fairness they’re usually a fair bit younger than their opposition as there are loads of 16 year olds in the squad. Conceding six in one half though, that’s not good. West Brom’s 16 year old centre forward was dynamite though. He scored four and really looked the business. There has been some talk that we’ve got an interest in him and want to nab him before he signs pro terms with them. Makes sense from our point of view. The last time we did that was Bobby Duncan, and while that ended badly we actually made money on the deal. It might not be the smartest thing of the lad though. Jerome Sinclair came from West Brom too, and in hindsight his career might have turned out very differently if he’d where he was and broke into their first team instead of coming here and letting money influence his career path. Sunday Nov 10: L 3 City 1 Fair to say we’ve had worse days than this one! Great result, great performance, great atmosphere. This team just delivers relentlessly. I didn’t want to make any predictions prior to the game because it usually blows up in my face, but honestly, I’d have been genuinely amazed if we’d lost. I thought it was possibly that we might smash them everywhere and we almost did. We could have been up by four at half time, even though City played well. That’s the thing though. They’ll always play well because it’s impossible to restrict their possession and stop them creating chances. It just can’t be done because they’re so good with the ball. It’s a combination of great players and Guardiola’s unique style, but for all their lovely football they have weaknesses, and nobody can exploit those weaknesses better than us. I thought this was a tactical masterclass by Klopp. We genuinely looked like scoring every single time we attacked them. Klopp knew where the spaces would be and he ensured we were able to exploit those spaces every time we won the ball back. It’s funny how Guardiola is seen as the tactical genius while Klopp is labelled as Mr Motivator. The truth is Klopp is just as good tactically as any manager out there. We’ve been saying for a while now how we’re in Man City’s heads. From top to bottom they seem obsessed with us (Kevin De Bruyne being the obvious exception, as he’s never got involved in any of that shit and is always complimentary). Guardiola seems to spend every waking moment worrying about us and to his credit he doesn’t pretend otherwise. He’s openly admitted it multiple times. It’s one of the few things I like about him actually. When he describes us as the best team in the world at the moment, he’s not lying. We’ve outperformed City over the last 12 months and when he says Anfield is the toughest place int he world to get a result, he’s not just blowing smoke up our arses, it’s the truth. So while a lot of people mocked him for saying this was one of the best performances he’s seen from his team, I get where he’s coming from. City played well today. Their finishing could have been better, but generally I’d assume they did everything their manager wanted. Here’s the thing though. We’re really, REALLY, fucking good. And our strengths match up beautifully with City’s weaknesses, which is why we looked like scoring every time we crossed the halfway line today. If City play like that against virtually anybody else in the world, they win the game. Against us, it’s not enough. That’s why I think Guardiola was so complimentary of his team. All that being said, he’s a terrible loser and is the first one in football to point at the officials any time he doesn’t get his own way. His “TWIIIIICE” meltdown on the touchline was hilarious, but the way he make a tit out of Michael Oliver on the field at full time was not. I’m annoyed by that. Few people have a lower opinion of referees than me and there were a few things Oliver did today I didn’t like. But it’s fucking hard. The pressure in these games is massive and sometimes there are decisions that aren’t black and white. You can give a decision that will split opinion, but unless it’s an obvious mistake a ref shouldn’t be hammered for it. Oliver was probably an 8.5 out of 10 today. Maybe even a 9. Yet instead of receiving praise for his display all we’re hearing is this bullshit talk about City being screwed by the ref and VAR. Why? Because Egghead Pep threw a strop. His actions dictated the storyline. It should have been about Klopp’s tactical masterclass and an excellent refereeing display. Instead it’s all about Guardiola feeling like he’s been shafted by the officials. Still, never mind eh. Nine points clear of them even though our fixtures have been much harder then theirs. Happy days. Monday Nov 11: Hahahahaha fucking hell, Sterling has been dropped from the England squad after he went for Joe in the canteen. This is so funny. As I said, we’ve got that entire club rattled to fuck. Sterling was an angry little bastard all day yesterday (and he had his best game against us, so maybe he needs that aggression?) but he had all night to sleep on it and calm down, yet his head was still kettled when he joined the squad nearly 24 hours later and now the whole world knows it. He’s 100% in the wrong here and that’s obvious. Southgate suspended him from their next game and said it was a decision the entire squad were behind. He didn’t punish Gomez though, which is telling. Sterling is arguably England’s star player and he’s certainly the most high profile. The easiest thing to do for Southgate would have been to let it go, or to punish both players. For him to take the action he did just shows how out of order Sterling must have been. I’ll tell you exactly what will happen now though. Man City’s press office will be holding emergency meetings right about now trying to figure out a way to limit the damage to Sterling and find a way to pin this on Liverpool. I’m 100% sure of that because that’s how they operate. I’ve spoken to a few people who’ve had dealings with them and honestly, they’re fucking loons over there. Manchester City operate in the same way Abu Dhabi the state does. They see everything as a PR war and don’t like anyone standing up to them. They’re obsessed with what they see as favourable media coverage we get, so this Sterling stuff will be causing ructions over there, especially as it was an LFC player involved. Meanwhile there was a mad rumour today that we have done a deal to sign my boy Ryan Fraser in January. I actually know where it started because I was listening to Talksport in the car when they broke their ‘exclusive’. It was a bookie who ‘broke’ the story’. He rang in to talk about odds on different stuff and then said he had an exclusive transfer story. Adrian Durham then rolled with it as though it was fact and was encouraging people to call in and discuss whether it’s a good signing or not. I knew instantly it was bollocks because transfer exclusives are not broken by bookies ringing up radio stations. It was quickly shot down by Bascombe and from what I hear the club were not impressed at all. It was clearly fabricated to get clicks and callers for Talksport, but there’s another element to this kind of shite too. Bookies take bets on these things. It stinks to high heaven. Speaking of Durham though, he’s outdone himself today by claiming that not only can Tom Davies be Everton’s answer to Stevie Gerrard, but that he can actually be better than him. I mean just fuck off. Clickbait in radio form at it’s absolute worst. I understand the ploy of saying something controversial to get people to call in, but Durham annoys the fuck out of me because when he isn’t being a massive troll he’s a good listen and he makes some great points (and he was one of the best out there when it came to fighting the fight for Hillsborough). I’ll always have time for him for that but unfortunately he’ll come out with this shite and is happy for people to think he’s a massive bellend as long as it gets people talking. Not even the most blinkered of Evertonians would claim that Davies could be better than Gerrard. Where’s your professional pride man? You’re better than that, stop being a tit. Tuesday Nov 12: Sterling issues a statement (not an apology) saying it was heat of the moment stuff that lasted 5-10 seconds and that him and Joe have now put it behind them. No-one seems to be picking up on this, but that shit he put out there today is a fucking disgrace. He committed an unprovoked assault on a team-mate. That team-mate did not react, did not call for him to be punished, accepted his apology and has actually done him a big favour. The statement should have read “I apologise unreservedly to Joe, my team-mates and to Gareth for my actions, which were inexcusable. Joe did nothing wrong and I am 100% responsible for what happened. We have talked it over and me and Joe are fine now and want to put it behind us.” Anything less than that is unacceptable, but what he actually said is far worse. Honestly, it’s fucking appalling. Let’s break it down bit by bit: “First and foremost everyone knows what that game means to me!” - Bigging himself up. “Everyone knows that I am not that way inclined” - Again, self praise and a refusal to accept responsibility. “And more to the point. Both Joe and I have had words and figured things out and moved on”. - This makes it look like it was a two way thing rather than one person attacking another without cause or provocation. “We are in a sport where emotions run high and I am man enough to admit when emotions got the better of me.” - Look at me, I’m a big man. I can admit that I got too emotional, but remember, it’s only because I care so much. “We move on this is why we play this sport because of our love for it” - You play this sport so you can attack a team-mate almost 24 hours after a game just for saying hello to you? “Me and @joegomez5 are good we both understand it was a 5-10 second thing” You and Joe are good because he is a sound lad who hasn’t made things worse for you. And which 5-10 seconds do you mean, Raheem? The 5-10 second thing on the pitch, which was perfectly ok as it’s heat of the moment, or the 5-10 second thing that occurred the next day, without provocation, in the cold light of day when “the heat of the moment” was in no way a factor? “It’s done we move forward and not make this bigger than it is.” - Thats not for you to decide you arrogant, unrepentant little cunt. Seriously, how is he not being fucking panned for that shambolic excuse of an.. I was going to say apology but there is no hint of him being sorry in that…. so I don’t even know what to call it. They were both in training today, and Gomez has a massive scratch on his face and neck. Not surprising, those little dinosaur talons are sharp as fuck. Wednesday Nov 13: And right on cue, from today’s Telegraph: ”How years of vilification after Anfield exit may be at root of Raheem Sterling meltdown”. Bit disappointed to be honest, I thought City’s press office would be a bit more creative than that but it was obvious they’d somehow find a way to put a “this is Liverpool’s fault” spin on it. If Sterling had kicked off immediately after the game then I could buy into the whole “the crowd made him do it” explanation. Where that all falls down is that they sorted out the problem at full time and reportedly spoke afterwards. It was all fine. Then almost 24 hours later, Joe walks into the canteen, says ‘hello’ and Sterling goes for him. And that’s because of the crowd booing? Sure. The shit fed to the Telegraph wasn’t just portraying the fans as the cause though. The real purpose of this became clear with the insinuations that LFC are responsible for all the bad press Sterling gets because they portrayed him as the villain when he left. He WAS the fucking villain when he left and I’m getting sick of history being rewritten. Yes, he’s booed because he left us to go to City, and yes he gets called a greedy bastard because he more than doubled what we were offering. Personally I’d like to see “one greedy bastard” put into the retired chants home, and while we’re at it, stick the Chelsea “you ain’t got no history” one in there to keep it company. While the money was a big factor in him leaving, it makes us look like dickheads considering he’s won two Premier Leagues and a load of cups since he went there. The only reason for keeping it going is that it seems to rattle him. But I digress. The point I wanted to make was that it seems to have been forgotten by those who rush to condemn Liverpool and the fans for the reception Sterling gets when he comes to Anfield, but the main reason his departure was so acrimonious was because of how he and his slimeball agent went about getting it. He did an unsanctioned interview with BBC where he spoke about why he wanted to leave. He did this on the eve of an important game away at Arsenal. So yeah, a lot of people think he’s a twat and they let him know about it whenever he comes back. Mostly though, I just think the booing has carried on because it’s clearly put him off his game. As long as that’s the case, it will continue. It’s pretty far fetched to claim that’s the reason he attacked Joe though. Sterling was pissed off with everyone during the game (even leaving a snide one on Big Virg late on), but by all accounts it was sorted at the full time whistle. I reckon he’d put it to bed until he saw how much he was being mocked on social media for being manhandled by Gomez and his macho pride was hurt. His mates were probably telling him he’d been ‘disrespected’, hence him attacking Joe and saying “still think you’re the big man?”. There is actually no defence for this, no explanation that can be put out there to justify what he did. He just lost his head and made a tit of himself. It’s not even really a big deal. Football is a testosterone filled environment and this kind of thing happens all the time. The thing that bothers me about it isn’t so much what Sterling did, it’s how he’s not taken responsibility and apologised for it, and how his club are desperately trying to pin it on Liverpool’s (by that I mean fans and club) treatment of him. It’s actually amusing how City are looking to make us out to be the bad guys when the irony is that but for our captain, Sterling would be at home now and not with the squad preparing for next week’s game. Hendo went above and beyond to sort this mess out, because he’s a top lad and England’s unofficial captain. Kane has the armband, but Henderson is the captain, make no mistake about that. Oh hey, guess what? The FA have finally announced that Bernardo will serve a one match ban. Well that’s one part entirely predictable, and another part what the actual fuck? Announcing it this week was so obvious, I’ve been calling that for weeks. He was never getting banned before Anfield. It’s not about helping out City though, it’s purely about not having one of the biggest stars in the league missing the biggest showpiece game of the season. That’s why they delayed the ban. As for why it was only one game though, I can’t give an explanation for that. I honestly thought he’d get six games, maybe reduced to three of them suspended. He got a lesser punishment than Harvey Elliot got for calling Kane a mong when he was only 15 years old. Embarrassing. Thursday Nov 14: City have lodged an official complaint about Michael Oliver’s handling of the game at Anfield. Fucking hell, this is just a whole heap of cringe. There have been so many hideous refereeing performances but it’s rare for any club to do this. Whatsmore, City have done it after the referee actually had a really good game. Refs are human and if I were in Oliver’s shoes now, I’d be thinking “next time I get you cunts I’ll really give you something to fucking complain about”. If he doesn’t think that way then he’s a far bigger man than most. They’re so consumed by this ‘rivalry’ with us that it’s impacting on everything they say and do. They’re having a collective mental breakdown because we beat them. I genuinely wish we were playing them again next week as it might tip them completely over the edge. There was more fire fighting on Sterling’s behalf in the press today. Of course no-one is stupid enough to defend his actions, but some are at great pains to try and give us reasons for them. Reasons like social media provocation. Well firstly, don’t fucking go on social media if you know you’re going to get abuse and you don’t react well to it. But more importantly, unless Joe Gomez was trolling him on there, what the fuck has that got to do with anything? “Some Liverpool fans are calling me names so I’m gonna go and scratch Joe Gomez”. Sorry, I don’t know how you join those dots. Social media abuse is a serious issue and well worthy of discussion. It has fuck all to do with this particular incident though and it’s embarrassing to see some sections of the media enabling Sterling’s behaviour. Part of the problem here is other sections of the media have been horrible racist cunts towards him, so now you have people going the other way to try and compensate for that. Plus you have City briefing to try and limit the damage to his (and by association, their) reputation. Manchester City are not a football club. They’re an oil state, used to having things their own way and completely intolerant of anyone standing up to them. It shows in everything they do and the way they attempt to manipulate the media coverage. What they aren’t realising is that despite their wealth and recent success, Man City are small potatoes in England and nobody really gives a fuck about them. They’re so insignificant that their neighbours and so called biggest rivals would rather they won the league than us because they’re just not that important in the grand scheme of things, and never will be. The funny thing is that if they fall off the pace and / or Guardiola leaves, Sterling will want to be on the first plane out of there to Spain. If they think he has any loyalty to them they’re kidding themselves. He left QPR because we were a better proposition. He left us because City were. He’ll drop them like a fucking stone if he thinks he can do better, and all their fans fighting his corner now will be giving him the Milner treatment when he returns to the Etihad playing for Real Madrid. On a more positive note, Hendo is the guest on Carra’s new podcast and it’s absolutely fantastic. If you haven’t listened to it yet, you have to. Hendo’s such a great lad and so humble. There’s some great stuff in this that I hadn’t heard before. Like 21 year old Hendo having a row with Suarez in training and “wanting to fucking kill him”. The next game, Suarez says to Lucas that Hendo will set him up for a goal because he’d lit a fire under him. And he did. After that they got on great and are still mates now. And then there was Carra revealing that back in the summer of 2012 when he was doing TV work with Roy Keane, they were having a chat about different stuff and they got to talking about Hendo, who hadn’t made the best of starts at Anfield. Keane said “don’t ever bet against that lad”. I reckon that’s a huge deal, as Keane generally thinks everyone who isn’t him is shit. Praise from Caesar, and it tells you all you need to know about Henderson’s determination and ability. Finally, Gomez was booed when he came on as a sub for England tonight. Not by everyone. Not even by a majority. But by enough that it was audible and caused embarrassment for the non-neanderthal element of the crowd and anger within the squad. Players were angry and Southgate was seething. Gomez is said to be very upset about it as he had family in the stands. See, this probably came as a shock to him, because no normal, rationally thinking, decent individual would boo a player who did nothing wrong and actually behaved admirably under severe provocation. Normal rules don’t apply to “Little England” though, and someone should have tipped Joe off that this was going to happen, because it was never in doubt. Friday Nov 15: Sterling’s tweet last night defending Gomez looked like a nice gesture, on the face of it. He took full responsibility and said Joe did nothing wrong and the booing was unfair and wrong. You won’t be surprised to know that I have a big problem with this. It smacks of him trying to reclaim some high ground and have people praising him. And it’s worked. Now it’s all “very classy from Raheem” and “fair play to him”. No, fuck that. If he’d have put something like this out earlier in the week (I’m completely to blame, not Joe, there is no excuse) instead of the arrogant, non-apology he sent out, then even I would accept it at face value and say well done. This just fucking reeks of spin though. He wanted people to think he’s the good guy and it will work, because most won’t see it for the opportunist, insincere shite that it is. If he’d said this instead of that self praising shite he posted the other day, maybe Gomez wouldn’t have been booed tonight. I hope someone points this out to Joe and he isn’t taken in by this phoney shite he put out after the game. Staying with City (seems like the entire week has been about them, but there’s fuck all else happening so what can I do?), looks like FFP is dead in the water because City are getting away with a fine according to the Athletic. I guess the threats to tie UEFA up in court for the next ten years did the trick, because the breaches of FFP are as blatant and as serious as you’re ever going to get. If that isn’t enough to get them a ban, literally nothing will. They might as well just carry on cheating if the consequences are only financial. If UEFA aren’t doing anything then you sure as hell know that the Premier League / FA won’t, as they’ve got no fucking balls at all. Let’s just end the pretence and acknowledge that teams can spend whatever the fuck they like from now on. At least everyone knows where they stand and won’t be clinging to the faint hope that cheats will be punished. I’ll end with Roy Keane talking about the Sterling / Gomez fight…. “The manager said we were a disgrace. To be fair to Peter, HE apologised” Hahahaha! …..and that was the week that was

This week’s round up will be like the semi-final stages of the Champions League - a Man City free-zone. We played them on Sunday so that was covered in the match report. All the fall out from it - and there's a lot - will be in “the week that was” due to be posted up at the weekend, so this will cover all the other games. May as well kick things off with the two sides who are now the closest of the chasing pack. First up, Chelsea beat Palace in the early game to temporarily go second. Kevin Abraham broke the deadlock in the second half with a composed finish and Pulisic wrapped it up late on to give Chelsea six league wins on the spin. They haven’t played anyone decent in those six games, but you still have to win and they have. Pulisic is looking really good now and Lampard has introduced another youngster into the side, Reece James, who was terrific and completely shut down Wilf Zaha. He probably shouldn’t be allowed to play again until he’s been the barbers though. Dreadful state of affairs that. It looks like a tarantula orgy. James’ hairstyle apart, Chelsea are looking good and next up they’ve got a certain side who I’m not talking about, which could be a cracker of a game. Defensively they’re suspect but they’re great going forward and their style is attractive to watch. If they get it right tactically and that’s going to be interesting. Palace were shite, because Palace are shite. Been saying it all season, but it’s only a matter of time until they’re in the bottom six. Chelsea’s stint in second spot was short lived as Leicester rolled over Arsenal to leapfrog them. Arsenal losing again was no surprise though. It was away and they travel about as well as BA Baracus, plus Leicester are much better than them. Throw in the fact they were up against Jamie Vardy, a man who has embarrassed the Gunners in recent years almost as frequently as Arsenal Fan TV, and there was nothing down for them really. Leicester smacked them around and it was far easier than the 2-0 score suggested. Arsenal only had one shot I think. They were pitiful. They were lucky not to concede an early pen when Guendouzi grabbed Soyuncu by the shoulder as he attacked a set-piece. VAR didn’t over-rule the ref on that, which again just makes you wonder what’s going on. It’s 100% a penalty and it deserved to be punished for sheer stupidity alone. How are they not giving that? Maybe they were influence by the likelihood that Soyuncu wasn’t even going to reach the ball, but that makes what Guendouzi did even worse. How thick do you need to be to do that? That incident was Arsenal in a fucking nutshell though. They do shit like this every week. If it’s not Xhaka it’s David Luiz. If it’s not David Luiz it’s Guendouzi. Next week it will be Torreira or Bellerin or Kolasinic or Mustafi. They must have the thickest squad of players in the league. Absolutely no discipline whatsoever. Vardy eventually broke the deadlock after the break and Maddison quickly added a second. Maddison is having a great season but the more I watch him the more I can’t stand him. He reminds me of Jack Grealish as he just looks like a massive twat who you’d love to slap. Maddison is a class player though. Grealish might be too but he’s playing for Villa so it’s more difficult to judge. Maddison has the England spot while Grealish keeps getting overlooked. It would be interesting to see them do a job swap to see who is actually the better player. Bit disappointed in Vardy’s celebration though. After last week’s “Flapping Eagle” impression after scoring against Palace, I thought he might have fired an imaginary cannon to wind up the Arsenal fans. Maybe he only trolls when he’s away from home though. And am I imagining it, or is it always absolutely fucking pissing down when Leicester play? It's like they have a permanent dark rain cloud accompanying them everywhere. A Claude Puel if you like. Southampton appeared to have hit rock bottom when they conceded nine at home to Leicester a couple of weeks back. After all, it can’t get any worse than that, can it? Well yeah, you could lose at home to Everton. Fucking hell Southampton, just what is it going to take before you ditch that manager and give yourself a chance at survival? With the players they have they just shouldn’t be this shit. There’s talent in that squad and they have a goalscorer in Ings, who has six goals in his last seven games. But if you can’t beat Everton at home then you may as well just fold the club and send everybody home. The St Mary’s crowd weren’t happy and let the players know it. And just like that, it made sense. Everton never win away but with all that booing their players will have felt like it was a home game. Tom Davies headed them in front before Ings tapped in an equaliser. Richarlison got the winner and went to kiss the badge before changing his mind and biting it instead. Wise move, not even Evertonians would be buying that shit and they’d be using that photo against him for the rest of his life, depending who he moved to. Staying with the Blues for a sec, I was in my Mum’s the other day when they were showing the Davies goal on Sky Sports News. “He’s a funny looking little thing” she said, before adding “he looks like he should be sat in the garden holding a fishing rod”. Nailed it. Again. Newcastle had a good win on Saturday, coming from behind to beat Bournemouth at St James’ Park. Our boy Harry put Bournemouth ahead with an accomplished finish to round off a wonderful training ground set-piece. Great goal that, so clever. Newcastle kept going though. Saint-Maximin and Almiron are lively and cause problems, but they just can’t score. It’s funny as fuck to watch though. Saint-Maximin looks the more likely of the two, although that’s not saying much as Alan Shearer looks more likely to score for Newcastle now than poor Almiron. He must have thought he was finally about to pop his cherry when he latched onto a loose ball after the keeper had dived at the feet of Saint-Maximin, but his goal bound shot was blocked on the line by….. Saint-Maximin! He's never going to score, he's the Rob Jones of strikers. Despite the lack of goals from the forwards (Joelinton isn’t scoring either), Newcastle found a way to get the job done. Yedlin’s flying header got them back on level terms and then Clark somehow bundled in the winner despite barely making any contact on the ball. Huge win for the Geordies and for Steve Bruce. Lascielles has been ruled out for the season now though, which is a big blow for their survival hopes. Tell you what though, there were loads of empty seats there. You never see that at St James’, but there were more gaps in that crowd than in Guardiola’s defence the next day. Ah fuck, so much for being a Man City free-zone. Sorry, just couldn’t help myself. Moving on, Spurs’ woes continued as they were held - and outplayed by - Sheffield United at home. “Poor Sonny” gave them the lead and was all smiles again. Three goals in four days for him since “the incident”. Trauma? What trauma? He’s the type of heartless fuck who’d get remarried before his dead wife was even cold. The Blades thought they’d equalised almost immediately through McGoldrick, but VAR had other ideas. This one looked dodgy as fuck. It was a worse decision than the one we had at Villa Park, because it wasn’t even the goalscorer that was given offside. Shit, it wasn’t even the guy who crossed it for him. It was a player involved in the build up, and that technology didn’t prove anything. The picture was so blurred the lad looked like he had Sideshow Bob feet. They took one line from the end of his blurred, clown shoe-like boots, but the other line was from the middle of the knee of the defender. Nobody wants to see this shit. The technology isn’t a perfect science on these things, and therefore goals shouldn’t be ruled out like this. When it’s that close and you can’t prove it either way, give the fucking goal. They didn’t let their heads drop though and they got their reward when a cross by Baldock eluded everyone and snuck in at the back post. No-one saw Sheffield United being this impressive. I certainly didn’t and there’s no way it’s going to last. They look like they’ve got enough to survive, but currently they’re in fifth place. FIFTH PLACE!! It’s mad. I didn’t foresee that, but the two biggest errors of judgement I’ve had so far this season is over-rating Norwich and Arsenal. In the early weeks of the season I thought Norwich would survive comfortably, especially after they knocked off City (ah shit, I did it again. That's twice now. TWICE.... TWIIIIICCCEEE), mainly because of their home form. I don’t think they’ve won since, and on Friday night they lost 2-0 to the bottom club, Watford. Deulefeu scored one and made one, and you have to say he’s far too good for Watford. He is to them what Zaha is to Palace. He'll be in the same boat as Zaha too at the end of the season if Watford stay up. He'll fancy a move to one of the big boys, but which of us would pay what it takes to get him? Maybe Arsenal, they love a diminutive attacking player who doesn't offer anything defensively. Norwich are fucked though. Nailed on to go back to the Championship. Watford may join them but it wouldn’t shock me if they started to pick up a little now they’ve finally won a game. My boy Troy will be back soon too, which will obviously help. They’re keeping a bottom three spot warm for West Ham, who were thumped by Burnley at Turf Moor and are in a massive slump. That wiseguy goalie who is standing in for Fabianski needs to be sleeping with the fishes soon or West Ham are going to find themselves in a whole world of trouble. He’s horrendous and he’s killing them every week by letting in soft goals. I just don’t know what they were thinking when they signed him as one look at him should have been enough to know he was dodgy as fuck. Roberto doesn’t even look like a keeper. I could definitely see him hanging around the Bada Bing wearing a white vest and a big gold chain, always wanting to impress the bosses but constantly fucking up and having to take a beating. Maybe he took one beating too many and turned rat? Maybe he’s in witness protection and they set him up as West Ham’s back up goalie, thinking he’d never be needed because they had Fabianski? What? That’s more plausible than the idea that this guy is actually a professional goalkeeper that West Ham scouted and signed to replace Adrian. He’s an absolute train wreck and was directly to blame for two of the three goals conceded. You can probably argue he should have done more on the other one too. Ashley Barnes ended his barren spell by prodding in the opener from a corner. Chris Wood then thumped in a header to make it 2-0, or so he thought. VAR had other ideas. Close, but it looked like they got that one right. I hate all this bullshit though with the lines being drawn between one player’s toe and another player’s bollock. It’s just shit. Said it before and I’ll say it again. Scrap that rule and just use each player’s standing foot as the marker. Much more simple and fair if it’s done that way. Wood was unlucky with that one but he did get his goal not long after when he took advantage of a ridiculous throw out by the Hammers’ hapless keeper. His attempt at stopping the shot was pathetic too, but as bad as that was he outdid himself soon after when he punched a corner kick into his own net. Mama mia! Declan Rice said afterwards that they were bullied all over the pitch and they need to be honest with themselves. They’ve had a really easy start to the season but their upcoming run is brutal and by the time we get to Christmas they might be bumming around near the drop zone. Fabianski isn’t back any time soon, and Lanzini just busted his collar bone. Pellegrini might be on the hot seat by the New Year. Onto Sunday now and the Mancs had a much needed win at home to Brighton. I’ve got nothing else to say about it as I didn’t watch. I actually forwarded through the highlights so I could get to the Midlands derby. Me not watching United games was a common thing a couple of years ago but that was because it just wasn’t good for my blood pressure watching Mourinho’s side churning out ugly, undeserved wins to stay ahead of us in the table. That’s not the case anymore and I didn’t watch them just because I couldn’t really be arsed. They’re just not on my radar anymore. So finally, Wolves just edged out Villa in the “Smalltime bellend fans Derby” game at Molyneux. Imagine being in that stadium listening to those two sets of fans trying to ‘outbantz’ each other. *shudders* Villa left Neves all alone on the edge of the box for the opener. Why? Why would you do that? Of all the players in the league you might leave alone on the edge of the box, he’s the absolute last one you should leave. They deserved to lose the game on that alone. Jiminez made it 2-0 late on before Trezeguet gave Wolves a very late scare with a stoppage time goal. Wolves battered them really and should have been out of sight before that last ditch consolation. They have definitely recovered from that bad start and are looking like a top six contender now. My boy Adama Traore is having a great season so far. He’s added end product to the ridiculous pace he has and now he’s a right fucking handful. Wolves are actually better than Arsenal and United. I don’t just mean they are currently playing better, I mean they’ve got better players. They might actually finish fifth if Spurs don’t get their act together. Guess there’s a lot to be said for player trafficking.