Leaderboard

Like many children from South America, Roberto Firmino was football mad from a very young age.And like many of these children, he was born into a life where danger lurked around every corner.Basically Football was the truest form of escapism from a life without any luxuries that most of us take for granted.Firmino was born in late 1991 in Trapiche da Barra, a township in the borough of Maceio which is the largest city of the coastal state of Alagoas.When you think of Brazil, you think of smooth sand, crystal blue waters and sun kissed residents.The reality is much, much different.The neighbourhood of Firmino was situated near a polluted lake in a poverty-stricken shanty town.Violent crime was a every day part of life. A far cry from playing in front of the Highest Premier League attendance. Despite this, all a young Bobby wanted to do was kick a round ball in the back streets emulating his hero.Bruno Barbosa dos Santos a childhood friend of Firmino told the BBC how his mother was very wary of letting the youngster out onto the street’.“It has always been violent here and Roberto's mother was very protective of him.“He was football mad, but it was difficult for him to be let out, so he would jump over the wall to come play with us in the street. “One time he fell and had to get stitches in his knee. He still has the scar."The throwing of stones on the roofs of houses was usually the call-out that a game of street football was imminent.Friends also found a stepladder for Firmino to sneak out without his mother’s knowledge.Another old friend Dedeu, said even in his younger days, Firmino had that trademark grin that Liverpool fans love to see and true determination to succeed.“He was quiet and timid - he just smiled - but he was football crazy. “Even when he didn't have a ball, he'd be doing keepie-ups with an orange. “His dream was to be a professional, but where we live it's very difficult to achieve these things. That's why I am so happy for him. "He deserves all his success."Jose was a street vendor in the neighbourhood who sold bottled water and it was the only source of income for the Firmino family.But he said young Bobby had grand plans for his nearest and dearest.“His dream was to get his mother, father and sister out of here."The young lad who idolised Ronaldinho and Ronaldo honed his craft on a concrete pitch which was lined with discarded waste.His headmaster at the Escola Estadual Professor Tarcisio de Jesus, Ari Santiago confessed that the school needed a change of approach, a sense of positivity for youngsters to ‘dream big’ especially with the violent death of some students.That was when he started a school football team and as you can expect, a 14 year-old Firmino was at the heart of it. “He was a very quiet boy, very calm, but always asking for a ball. “I remember the balls were only available to the kids at certain times, but he would come and smile and make the sign of the ball with his hands. “Sometimes I gave it, sometimes I didn't.“It was hard to say no to that smile."The talented Firmino won a contract with CRB (Clube de Regatas Brazil) and the club youth coach Guilherme Farias was instantly impressed.“What immediately caught my attention was the quality of his game. “Roberto was quiet, but the way he struck the ball was exceptional. I took him to the field and within three plays, I stopped him and said: 'Get your papers ready, you're coming to play for us.'"One of Firmino’s true trademarks is his workrate, basically doing what very few forwards like to do.The unfashionable things like tracking back, tackling and winning the ball for teammates.This hard work element of his make-up was undoubtedly ingrained in him from his early days where he travelled hundreds of miles for youth tournaments and never complained despite a battered body and also learned the discipline needed to become a deep-lying midfielder.It was in 2008 at another trial at Figueirense Under-17s where coach Hemerson Maria believed he was in the presence of something special. “Generally trials last a maximum of one month, but depending on the player it can be less: two weeks, 10 days, etc.“Roberto's trial lasted only 30 minutes - he was exceptional. "He practically did nothing wrong, showed immense technical quality, and to top it off scored two bicycle kicks. “Afterwards, everyone was talking about him and I realised we had a very special player on our hands."It was then where Maria decided to move Firmino closer to the attacking part of the pitch.While homesick, Firmino was determined to make the trial a success and told friends he will only return home when he was successful.Despite his talent on the pitch, Firmino was a quiet lad, so much so that Maria was calling him by the wrong name (Alberto) for two weeks and was not corrected.Firmino’s long time friend Luciano Lopes who was the best man at his wedding, relayed a humorous anecdote. “Soon after I took Roberto to Figueirense, I got a call from the base coordinator asking if he was mute, because he was so quiet. “I called him and said: 'Roberto, you have to speak, ask for the ball, talk to the staff.' “He didn't say anything, he just laughed.”While he was shy, on the pitch his talent shone. Europe, and more specifically Marseille called in 2009 but it was an ill-fated experience.His journey to the south of France involved a stopover in Spain and it was there where things quickly went downhill. Despite the fact Firmino was only changing flights, immigration at Madrid-Barajas Airport accused him of trying to enter the country without prerequisite paperwork and he was deported in tears.While there was obvious disappointment, Firmino was undeterred and he eventually got his trial with the French club.However, they refused to pay his 1m euro (£860,000) release clause.It was a decision which club officials have since said was a clear mistake.Firmino returned to Figueirense and won a number of personal accolades and got his team promoted from Serie B.A big move to Europe was finally settled when he moved to German club Hoffenheim where he spent five seasons and steadily improved season upon season and claimed the Best breakthrough player award in the Bundesliga ifor the 2013/4 season.Those performances led to his Liverpool move for just under £30 million and the rest they say is history, earning a number of individual accolades along with team and international honours since joining the Reds.He has never forgotten his formative years and in July 2018 he returned to his former school in Trapiche, taking with him 500 food hampers for local families, as well as toys and a trampoline for the children. He has also made making monthly financial contributions to a hospital in Santa Catarina, and donated £60,000 to pay a family's medical bills, showing the kind spirit he has in spades.Despite all this, Firmino seems to be somewhat underrated and understated in his homeland.For instance in the Museum of Sports at Estadio Rei Pele, among the bronze busts of Alagoan heroes Mario Zagallo and Dida, there is nothing to commemorate the superstar who was, literally, born just down the road.But in the township where he learned his trade there is no doubt as telecommunications worker Sergio Araujo says:“Roberto is the best Brazilian player in the world right now,“He would never say it, but I will: “Neymar is not fit to lace his boots."

Saturday Mar 7: L 2 Bournemouth 1 The result we needed if not the performance we wanted. It wasn’t bad and we deserved the points, but on the way home I was thinking how mad it is that a team that is so far ahead and has such an incredible record, has hardly battered anyone all season. We seem to win by a single goal all the time don’t we? I’m not complaining of course. I just think it’s funny how things have worked out. I think we all expected that when we finally won the title it would be dramatic, heart stopping and would probably go down until the final kick of the season. That’s how we tend to do things after all. So this is weird. The biggest lead any team has ever had at the top. The title could even be wrapped up already in the unlikely even that City lose their next three games. So, from that perspective it’s been a stress free ride, right? Wrong. We don’t have the stress of the overall race (just the stress of whether we’ll all be allowed to finish it) but we’ve had a shitload of games that we haven’t been able to enjoy because they’ve been tight! We needed the heroics from Milner to preserve the points today, although I do feel that had that been a goal we’d have rallied again and won it. This shouldn’t have been as close as it was, especially as I was under the impression that VAR was brought in to help us win the title. Where was it today when Wilson shoved Gomez in the back? Absolute farce. Thankfully we forced a couple of mistakes and that was enough for us to overturn the deficit and record our 22nd straight home league win. What an incredible achievement that is. These last couple of years have been unreal. Man City set a bar that was higher than anything we’d ever seen, and Klopp just pole vaulted right over it. Three more wins now. Two actually, as City won’t beat United tomorrow. We’ve broken City, they’ve given up and aren’t playing with any intensity at all in the league now, plus United’s negative, counter attacking style has given City kittens twice already this season. Almost there now. Almost there. Also today, there was a good interview with Harry Wilson on BT before the game where he spoke about the decision he’s going to have to make this summer. Ordinarily I’d be happy for him to make that decision himself and for the club to just go along with his wishes. I don’t think it’s that straightforward though because of some unusual circumstances. Firstly, if Mo goes to the Olympics then we’re short on the right wing. Shaqiri will probably leave and Elliott is probably a year or two away from pushing for that starting spot. Secondly, we’ll be without Mo and Sadio for 5-6 weeks in the winter due to AFCON. We’re going to be short handed and personally I’d keep Wilson around even if it means he won’t play much when everyone is available. It’s not fair to him but needs must I’m afraid. Something else from today that I didn’t notice until watching the highlights tonight. The handshake thing was excrutiating to watch because the players didn’t know what to do. Instead of scrapping it altogether they made them go through the whole routine only without shaking hands, so what you got was a load of lads looking really uncomfortable and not knowing whether to make eye contact with each other or just walk past. The Bournemouth keeper was wanting to make eye contact and you could see him looking at all our lads as they went past, and if anyone looked at him he gave a little nod. Everyone else just looked embarrassed. I was telling Adrianna about it and she said “that’s nothing, you should have seen what happened at our game this morning”. Her footy team played but I couldn’t watch because I was at Anfield. So she tells me what happened and it’s fucking hilarious. Just like the PL teams, they didn’t do the handshake, but just like the PL teams they still went with the charade of one team having to walk past the other. Where they differed was instead of just walking by, they were told to touch boots instead of a handshake, and it made for absolute carnage, as they had to hop from player to player and half of them ended up losing their balance and falling over. I wish I’d gone to her game now instead of Anfield. Sunday Mar 8: As I expected, City lost again, meaning it’s now just two wins required. Unless Arsenal actually do something worthwhile for once in midweek and beat City, which would mean we only need one more win. So yeah, two more wins then. Always nice seeing City lose, but not so much when it's United beating them. I'll take it of course, but I was enjoying the misery of United fans and this little run they've had has got them all chesty again. Meanwhile, Werner is dropped by Leipzig amid claims it’s because he keeps fluttering his eyelashes at Klopp. Surely a more likely explanation for them leaving out their top scorer is that they’re keeping him fresh for the Champions League game with Spurs on Tuesday? That doesn’t make for a juicy headline though, I guess. Monday Mar 9: Sterling is getting stick for dismissing the notion that the Reds are going to dominate for years to come. What do people want him to say? Look, I know he’s a bad tit and there are plenty of things to pull him up on, but this is just silly. He says City will have a massive response next season and it’s going to be more difficult for us. If he said anything less than that he wouldn’t be doing his job. The only thing that made me raise my eyebrows was him talking as though he’ll still be at City. The only way that’s happening is if Aidy can’t talk anyone into buying him and matching the salary he gets at City. Actually, thinking about it, he’s probably not going to have a choice about staying there. No-one is paying the fee and wages it would take to land him, so for once he isn’t going to be able to jump ship at the first sign of bettering himself. He’s David De Gea’d himself hasn’t he? Speaking of De Gea, his future has been called into question after Solskjaer said he wanted Dean Henderson back at United next season. He’s been better than De Gea this season, no question. But that 350k a week salary is going to be difficult to shift, especially for a keeper who has been a bit shit for the best part of two or more years now. Meanwhile, Werner is talking again. Not just about us this time. Fuck me he was hedging his bets. Publicly discussing the pros and cons of moving and using different teams for examples of what he’s thinking. He also mentioned the possibility of staying put. Not gonna lie, he’s annoying me now. Just shut up as you’re coming across as a right attention seeking tit. And speaking of attention seeking tits, Solskjaer reckons United’s performance yesterday would have been good enough to beat Liverpool. Shame you weren’t playing us then, eh? Why is he even talking about us anyway though? United are fucking embarrassing these days, constantly trying to claim these tiny little victories. Their fans were bouncing round twitter with their dicks swinging tonight because Carra described Wan Bissaka as the best one v one full back in the world. When’s the parade, you fucking losers? Funny how the protests have stopped in recent weeks though isn’t it? Guarantee the next time they lose, it’ll start up again. In all seriousness, I think it’s probably for the best if that entire club just gets closed down now to save them further embarrassment. As a fanbase they just aren’t equipped to deal with not winning. They can’t cope and they’re just making everyone else cringe at how pitiful they’ve become. Tuesday Mar 10: I watched the Leipzig game tonight to run the rule over Werner. I decided before the game I was going to watch it and make a definitive judgement one way or another as to whether I want him or not. And my verdict is…. *drum roll* avoid him at all costs. Not good enough. Ok, I’m not entirely serious as it’s too small a sample size for me to be making sweeping statements about a player who everyone seems to think is quality. However, tonight was the first time I’ve watched him since the World Cup when he was massively underwhelming. Apparently he’s come a long way since then, but tonight he looked exactly like the player I remembered - Dirk with pace. Some would see a faster version of Kuyt as being a dream player and in some teams he would be. Not this one though. I want us to sign a player as good as or better than what we have, and Werner isn’t even close despite his goal record. Now, if Klopp has plans to tweak the style or system then maybe he would be as good an option as what we have, but I don’t see how he comes into this team right now and improves it. Why do I say that? Because he’s not very good technically, hence the Dirk comparison. He’s not bad, but he’s a bit too ’bull in a china shop’ for me. That approach in most teams, but we’re faced with blanket defences every week and to break them down takes skill and guile. It gores without saying I’d prefer Mbappe but I think Sancho is a better fit for us too. Of course I look forward to you all being able to drag this up in a year’s time to poke fun at me when Werner hits his 30th goal of the season for us. I’ll take it on the chin happily. As of now though, he’s shite and I don’t want him. In other news, the corona virus has hit it’s first Premier League as tomorrow’s game between City and Arsenal is off. Now, while this is a serious issue and I shouldn’t be making light of it, I have to say that this is the most Arsenal thing ever. All the talk has been about postponing games or playing them behind closed doors to protect the fans but it ends up being Arsenal’s players who brought football to a halt. I made a quip in a group chat that Ozil is no doubt locked away like the boy in the bubble, sat there in a fucking deep sea diving suit complete with helmet. I was well pleased with myself, until one of the lads (Browny) completely trumped me by saying “Ozil will have rung Kolasinac and asked him to fight the virus for him”. Upstaging bastard. Maybe he should be writing this diary seeing as how he’s such a funny cunt. Wednesday Mar 11: L 2 Atletico 3. Fucks sake. What a massive kick in the balls. Not so much the going out part, but actually losing the game. If we’d gone out on away goals then ok, but to actually LOSE a game in which we played like this is really hard to accept. That was a brilliant performance. Almost perfect. Right up until the moment Adrian gifted them a goal this was such a mature, dominant, accomplished display from the lads. We bossed the game and never lost our composure or patience. We just kept playing our footy, kept knocking on the door and eventually we put ourselves in position to go through. Ox was sensational and Gini was like Superman. Everyone was good but those two (and Mo) were on another level. It was shaping up to be another great Anfield night that we’d remember for years to come, and then Adrian happened. I feel so sorry for the players who have been absolute heroes for years in this competition but instead of having three winners medals they have one because of inferior goalkeepers undermining all their good work. I don’t want to dig out Adrian too much as he’s the back up to the world’s best keeper and that’s a difficult job. He did well for us at the start of the season and if he’d not been called upon again then he’d have left a favourable impression. Unfortunately he’s had to play again and he’s been found out. He cost us against Chelsea in the cup and he’s the reason we’re having to relinquish our crown as Champions of Europe. Usually I’d take the view that it’s a team game and there’s always plenty of blame to go around, but not this time. It’s him. Just him. No-one else. I don’t like saying that but there’s no getting away from it. We’d fought tooth and nail against the most resilient opponent we’ve faced in years and we finally got ourselves in front, and then Adrian does THAT. Under no pressure. The kick was terrible on two counts. Firstly the kick itself was crap, but even worse was the decision to even kick it away first time when he had time to take a touch. It just looked like panic. That was bad enough, but the pitiful attempt to save the shot was something else entirely. All keepers will have kicks like that from time to time, but the basic lack of fundamentals in that attempted save says much more about him. That’s not a mistake, it’s just awful technique, which tells us he’s just not very good. What can you do though? Really good keepers don’t want to sit on the bench, especially when there’s no hope of winning the shirt because of the quality of the number one. Who actually has a top class back up? City’s back up isn’t all that. Spurs have been moaning about Gazaniga all season. Caballero at Chelsea is shite. I don’t even know who Arsenal’s back up is. Romero at United is meant to be the best, but if he can’t beat out the mess that is De Gea these days then he’s not that great is he? Loads hated Mignolet and thought he was shit. I didn’t, but it doesn’t matter anyway because he was too good to sit on the bench and we couldn’t keep hold of him. I don’t know what the solution is other than to hope that Alisson never gets injured again. I hated losing this game but I have a weird feeling about going out of the competition. I wouldn’t say it’s relief, as I wanted to go through. But I am thinking that going out relives us of the headache of what’s to come in terms of completing the competition. Put it this way, there’s absolutely no way people are going to Istanbul for the final and we wouldn’t be having any special Anfield nights either as it’s only a matter of time before we won’t be allowed in. Thursday Mar 12: Ok this is starting to look bad now for our title bid. Most of us assumed we’d go to the behind closed doors option before the games stopped altogether, but now players are getting it and so Arteta has too. Initially the PL declared that games would go ahead but after the Arteta news they’ve ordered an emergency meeting tomorrow. There’s no way games are getting played any time soon, and with players now getting it then the behind closed doors option isn’t there anymore either. 30 years we waited for this and we get within touching distance and a fucking worldwide pandemic gets in the way. And there we were thinking the Gerrard slip was the worst way of having a title taken away from us. I can’t get my head around this, it just doesn’t seem real. I dread to think what we have ahead of us for the next few months. I just hope that our title bid is the main thing I have to worry about and nothing more serious happens. Friday Mar 13: So they had that meeting and footy is suspended for a few weeks. Virtually nobody thinks it’s starting back up at the proposed date though and the general consensus is it will be months before we’re in a position to resume. What a fucking nightmare. 18 clubs said they wanted to play the season out to it’s conclusion whenever that is possible. Two clubs wanted to just void the whole thing. Spurs and West Ham. Absolute fucking “I’m alright Jack” Tory cunts. Fuck both of them. Spurs want it scrapped because if this season doesn’t exist in the record books then it means they’d be in the CL when the new season starts. West Ham obviously want it abandoned to save their fucking worthless Tory arses. I badly wanted West Ham relegated anyway solely because of their owners and that Karen Brady twat, but after this I reckon most of the country will want them down too. It shows them up for what they are when you have other clubs like Bournemouth, Brighton etc who would benefit from that but they instead wanted to do the honourable thing. I saw one of the lads from the forum make a quip on Twitter that he wants footy to restart asap because he now wants to see West Ham relegated even more than he wants to see us win the title. He was joking, but I can relate to it because them going down is now a close second to us being crowned Champions. I feel bad for West Ham fans as it’s not their fault, but as long as that cunt Brady is there along with the Dildo Brothers, I wish them nothing but misery. This may be the last diary for a while because I don’t know if there’s going to be anything to write about. I’ll play it by ear and if stuff is still happening that’s worth commenting on then I’ll do it, as with no match reports or round ups on the horizon I need to do something to keep myself busy. and that was the week that was….

Not the most interesting of weekends this, but City lost again and Everton were humiliated at Chelsea, which was nice. Both of those were on Sunday so I’ll get to them in a bit. On Saturday Arsenal had an undeserved 1-0 win over West Ham at the Emirates. The Hammers were the better side and even Arteta admitted that. So far I don’t mind him, he seems alright considering some of the dubious company he’d been keeping before taking the job. There’s absolutely zero chance his hair is still naturally that colour though. It’s so black it’s almost as shiny as his mate Pep’s chrome dome, albeit in a different way, obviously. West Ham were coming off a much needed win last week but they’re still in big trouble at the bottom. They could have really done with a result here and if they knew how to finish they’ve have got one as they had so many chances. Bowen hit the post, Haller wasted a great opportunity due to a dreadful touch and my boy Antonio somehow put one wide from a yard out. He was also denied by a great save by Leno and all those misses would come back to haunt them as substitute Lacazette converted an Ozil nod down. Initially it was given offside by Sian Massey but VAR correctly over ruled it and gave the goal. Moyes said afterwards, “we had one of the best referees in Europe and two excellent linesmen (his mates Keys and Gray will be proud) who had very good games today, so I’d have been happy to trust their decision and I don’t think we needed to go to someone else”. WHAT??? He wasn’t joking either, he was deadly serious. What a piece of work he is. That’s one of the most ludicrous, not to mention hypocritical statements made by any manager all season. Let’s just completely disregard the VAR if it means the wrong decision goes in your favour, eh? We’ll see how happy he is to ‘trust their decision’ when it goes against him, the crying twat. How come Lacazette is only on the bench these days? He’s lost his place to that Eddie Nketia kid, which seems odd as it’s not like Nketia is some wonderkid is it? He’s alright but he’s not that good. Obviously Lacazette isn’t either. He should be so much better than he actually is. He’s underachieving massively, so he’s at the perfect club really. Arsenal’s midweek game at City was then postponed because some of their players quarantined themselves amid fears they’d contracted corona virus. I know this isn’t a joking matter but I’m not even joking when I say if you’d told that there’d be one team unable to play a game because of a situation like this, then Arsenal would have been number one two and three on my list. Someone probably sneezed at training and before you know it Mesut Ozil is like the fucking ‘boy in the bubble’. Turned out the players were all fine but Arteta has it, which was a bit random like. Several players throughout the league have since tested positive for it, which seems a bit disproportionate doesn’t it? There aren’t THAT many cases nationwide, yet there are about half a dozen premier league players / managers with it. Kind of suggests that football is quite high risk, yet they don’t seem to want to put the league on hold for $om£ r£a$on. Newcastle picked up a huge three points away to Southampton. The Saints were up against it when Djenepo was red carded early on after a VAR review. He over ran the ball and left his foot in on Hayden. Not malicious but it was dangerous. The ref gave him a yellow but VAR recommended he take a look and after checking the pitch side monitor he upgraded to a red. That’s how it should be. The VAR ref could have given it but it’s much better this way. So why then, a bit later, did VAR award Newcastle a penalty for a debatable handball? Surely you’d once again just ask the ref to take a look? It probably was just about a pen but surely everyone would be much happier if the ref on the field was making that call? At least when that happens fans know who to yell at and Conor Coady doesn't look like a massive ballbag by bitching to officials who had nothing to do with the actual decision. Matt Richie (facing Southampton as a Pompey fan and former Pompey player) saw his spot kick brilliantly saved by McCarthy. Newcastle must have been thinking they were never going to score as their last goal came back in September (or something), but with ten minutes to go Saint-Maximin robbed Valery and found the bottom corner. I like him. Exciting player (albeit erratic as fuck) and he’s got a good sense of humour based on his tweets after that fan whipped his lash out. The Geordies are virtually safe now and Steve Bruce deserves credit for what he’s done there. It’s not been very pleasing on the eye but considering loads of people thought they’d be relegated he’s done a good job. The best description I’ve seen of it was on Twitter when someone said he’s like a replacement bus service, in that he’ll get you where you need to go but it won’t be an enjoyable experience. There was nothing more nailed on than Watford losing this weekend. Having beaten us 3-0 I knew they’d shit the bed at Palace. Its a recurring theme. We’re getting everyone’s best effort even though the games before and after they do nothing. In fairness to Watford they should have got something from the game as they weren’t bad, but Ayew got the only goal of the game and Watford are still right in the relegation mire. Palace are well out of it now though after three consecutive 1-0 wins. The league is so mad that three wins just completely changes everything. You go from relegation candidates to being on the cusp of the top six. MOTD posted up some stats from since Hodgson got to Palace, and in that time they’re ninth in points total. Don’t ask me why because they’re very clearly shite. Meanwhile, Sheffield United continue to grind out wins and stay in the hunt for a CL spot. They just about edged out Norwich at Bramall Lane thanks to a Billy Sharp header and needed a heroic triple save from Dean Henderson to preserve the victory. How shit are Spurs? And how shit is Hugo Lloris? And how shit is Mourinho? The answer to all three is “extremely shit”. Mourinho went the full Mourinho at Burnley and selected five centre backs. FIVE!! And they still couldn’t stop Chris Wood from scoring. They equalised from the spot when Lamela was clumsily brought down by Ben Mee and Dele Alli put away the pen. Burnley should have been awarded a pen of their own when Sanchez went through the back of Wood, but Fat Jon Moss wasn’t interested. He loves Spurs, the fat fuck. Mourinho threw Ndombele under the bus afterwards. There was much discussion about whether he was justified in doing so or not. Doesn’t really matter does it? It’s what he does these days. Always deflecting blame from himself by pointing the finger at certain players. There was a time when his players would have run through walls for him, but at his last three or four clubs he’s ended up being hated by everyone, the obnoxious twat. Wolves were well below par in their goalless draw at home to Brighton. My boy Traore has been in and out of the side lately with a shoulder injury and when he’s not playing they miss him. He came off the bench and sparked a late flurry for it wasn’t enough and Brighton picked up a really valuable point in their fight for survival. The manc derby was bittersweet. Sweet because it’s always funny seeing City lose, but the flip side of that coin is that United winning isn’t pleasant, even when it helps us. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted City to lose (and expected them to) but United's fans are getting a little too chesty for my liking of late. They deserved this win though as once again City found it really difficult against them. United's style is suited to playing City as their strength dovetails nicely with City's weakness. It helps when the opposing keeper goes the full Adrian though. For once the horror show involving Ederson had nothing to do with his face. His performance was as brutal as his grid. He was beaten at his near post for Martial’s opener, then he almost did a Peter Enckleman and was incredibly lucky to get away with it, and finally he threw the ball straight to McTominay who stroked it back into the empty net. Aguero had a goal disallowed and it was just about the right call. There was a penalty incident too but VAR stayed out of it and just went with Mike Dean’s incorrect decision. Otamendi kicks Fred on the shin. Fred went down. Mike Dean produced a yellow card for a dive. I can see why Dean thought it was a dive but VAR needs to be overturning that as probably a penalty but it’s defo not a yellow card. City losing was great for us because it brought our ‘wins needed’ down from three to two, but United are starting to get a little full of themselves and need bringing down a peg or two again. This run they’re on looks better than it actually is as they’ve played some shite in there and they really ought to have lost to Everton a week ago. It’s a house of cards but it’s enough to make them jib the protests. “Green and Gold, unless we’re good”. Fucking sad cunts. One of the many things I hate about United fans is the way they’ll come up with some fucking awful song, and then sing it repeatedly on a loop for half an hour in their boring, droning, nasal manc voices. There’s no worse sound in the world than a smug Man United crowd. How funny was that Everton game though? They got snotted everywhere by Chelsea and 4-0 flattered them massively. Mount set the ball rolling with a lovely turn and finish. Pedro and Willian increased the lead before big handsome Olly added a fourth. He’s a sexy big bastard isn’t he? I honestly reckon if I was Olivier Giroud I’d just walk around naked all the time and just encourage the world to marvel at my magnificence. The best player on the pitch was that Gilmour kid who got man of the match against us in the cup. It’s been a great season for Chelsea on that front. Mount, Abraham, Tomori, James and now this lad. The season of rebuild with a novice manager couldn’t have gone much better for them, as the teams who they should have been battling with a top four spot have mostly been a disgrace. If they qualify for the CL in a season of transition then it’s a huge win for them. The Blues though, fucking hell. You can tell they’ve got the derby coming up because none of the cunts even broke sweat, let alone put a tackle in. All their focus was on next week’s clash with us and you know they’ll be all fire and fucking brimstone and will be everything they weren’t in this game, the fucking phoneys. The reaction to it on EFC twitter was comedy gold. Those Paddy Power Fan Denial videos are great but the best ones always involve Everton. They must love it whenever the Blues have a bad result. Michael Keane seemed to be the target for most of the criticism, with the best one being “is Michael Keane buffering or is he actually that slow?”. Bet he finds an extra yard of pace for Monday night though. They’ll be like men possessed, especially if City lose this weekend and we have the chance to win the title at Goodison. I don’t think we’ll be in that situation, but if we are then it’s going to be fucking carnage there. Imagine how big this game would be if we hadn’t lost at Watford. Finally, Monday night. Villa look fucked now don’t they? They got battered by Leicester and when you see the run of games they have coming up it’s entirely possible they’ll be bottom soon. Pepe had an absolute nightmare, but the only surprise to me is that people are surprised. Because of his popularity no-one seems to want to say it but the truth is he’s been shite for an entire decade now. Villa were hard done by with the penalty against Mings though. Sick of seeing players punished for being hit on the shoulder. It's a fucking joke, but at least that's one thing that the authorities are going to do something about for next season. Whenever next season will be. Because come what may, they need to complete this one before starting another. You can't just scrap this season because there'll be legal issues all over the fucking place. You can't have no promotion or relegation for a start. Then what happens with the CL places? Then of course there's the issue of our title. A number of clubs might be in favour of scrapping the season and starting again, but they won't be so keen when supporters and TV companies / sponsors ask them to return all the money they made from a season that 'doesn't count'. So take a break for as long as is necessary, and then let's get back on with the business of seeing us crowned as Champions and Villa sent back to the Championship with their tails between their legs. It's a shame we're going to have this delay because I'd have loved to have seen them relegated on Stevie's birthday in May.