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Saturday Apr 10: L 2 Villa 1 Fucking hell we’re making hard work of everything this season aren’t we? Even when we win it usually isn’t much fun. I enjoyed the late winner but there’s not too much about today that provides a great deal of encouragement for Wednesday night or indeed the rest of the season. We were alright today. It’s better than we’ve played in most home games over recent months but it was still a massive slog. Everything is just so fucking hard isn’t it? That said, that winner from Trent just felt really sweet. It might be a turning point for us and help us kick on to sneak into the top four but I wouldn’t be putting any money on that. Not the way the forward line looks. Even when they don’t play bad individually it’s just not what we had when we were at our best. Mo has generally been fine, Jota has been a real bonus and Firmino didn’t play badly today. Sadio still looks shite though and wasted a great chance at the end. But you compare how it looked to a couple of years ago and it’s just nowhere near. We’re pretty solid defensively though. The Villa goal only happened because of another blunder from Alisson. Aside from that, and a Trezeguet shot that hit the post, we defended well and that’s been a rare positive this season. The defensive collapse the was predicted when we kept losing all of our centre backs has never happened. It’s just a shame we’re showing shite at the other end now. Still, I was on a little mini-high at full time due to the dramatic nature of the winner, and it actually gave me a little bit of interest in what was happening elsewhere. For months I’ve only paid attention to our game and often didn’t even know the other scores until it came to doing the Round Up on Thursday. Today though, after we won I thought “I might have a little look at Chelsea’s game at Palace. Could be a good result for us there”. So our game finished, I went to make my tea and missed the start of the Chelsea game. Ten minutes in and they were 2-0 up so I just put the golf on instead. I’m going to stick with the policy of watching our games and avoiding everything else until I have to do the round ups. Sunday Apr 11: Had a few little bets on the Masters and one of them was a 110/1 shot who I did each way. He came 5th so I won £23 and I’ve re-invested two quid of it on Big Nat to get the first goal on Wednesday night. 50/1 it was. I know it won’t happen but there is logic to it. As long as it’s 0-0, any time we get a set-piece I’m going to have that little bit of excitement and anticipation, and that’s worth a couple of quid of anyone’s money, surely? If the game ends 0-0 then I’ll have had 90 minutes plus stoppage time of hoping that the bet might come in. *taps nose* There’s a good reason for him being 50/1 though as even though he wins every single header anywhere else on the pitch, when he goes up for set-pieces he’s just like a blind bull in a china shop, just charging around bumping into everything and causing mayhem. I don’t think I’ve seen him get his head on a ball in the opposition box, which is mad really considering how good he is at attacking the ball. It’s a completely different skill though. Look at someone like Craig Dawson who isn’t big at all and isn’t especially dominant in the air defensively. When it comes to set-pieces though he always seems to be on the end of things. Virgil is great in those situations too and we’ve probably missed that as much as anything he does defensively. We’ve coped at the back but we’re zero threat on set-pieces now, which has hurt us a lot as over the previous couple of seasons we were by far the best in the league on that front. Hopefully Nat can make himself a hero and make me a hundred quid. Monday Apr 12: Just watched some highlights of the u18s 6-1 away win at Leeds from the weekend. The kid from Derby looked boss. He scored two, one of which was pure quality, but he was also winning the ball really high with his pressing. If he’s good at that then that will fast track him if the rest of his game is as good as the hype suggests. He can’t play in the youth cup unfortunately though. A shame that as the kids have got a good chance of going all the way in that this year. They knocked the Mancs out in the last round and will take some stopping. Probably end up playing City again in the final. So many good players in this squad though. Just having a look through news now to what’s being talked about, and Gini is now being linked with Bayern. I could see that happening actually. The Barca thing seems unlikely to me because they’ve got no money and Koeman’s future isn’t certain. He obviously doesn’t like the contract we’ve offered, but who is going to give him a really big salary in the current climate? He’s not going to sign for someone just for the money so if he goes it will need to be to a top club. Bayern would make sense. I still say we should be giving what he wants or at least coming close enough to make him think about it. I don’t think he wants to go, he just wants to be rewarded for what he’s done since he’s been here. We already need to rebuild the midfield anyway because Keita needs fucking off and I don’t see much point in Ox hanging around any longer. Plus Milner doesn’t have long left now and Hendo is always injured. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, having to replace Wijnaldum in addition to all the other issues we have just seems like something we should be avoiding at virtually all costs. Tuesday Apr 13: I said after we lost last week that this tie was over and there was no way we were turning it around in an empty Anfield. I still feel that way but I’m not as completely sure about it as I was. I’m now thinking we’ve got a 10% shot at doing this, because we only have to win 2-0 and that’s definitely achievable if everyone plays well. We won’t be at our rampaging best because it’s basically impossible to do that without fans and in our current form, but if we’re at 80% and get a bit of luck then we could do it. Meanwhile, while reading a piece about something else I stumbled across some quotes from Richarlison about what happened with him and Thiago. Just when I thought it was impossible that I could hate this cunt more than I already do, he comes out with this… “The last game I made that challenge on Thiago and got sent off. My goodness. Then I went on Instagram to apologise and such. He only saw it. I said ‘I’m going to delete this message too, since he doesn’t want to reply’. Then I went there and deleted it. He didn’t answer, no.” “Then there was the derby now, at their home, he didn’t look at my face, I didn’t look at him, either. The game goes on. He ignored the pigeon (Richarlison's nickname from Brazil).” What a massive fucking twat he is. Honestly, I hate him more than anyone else in football. I’m with Thiago, I can’t look at the cunt’s face either. It’s the most punchable face I’ve ever seen. If he wanted a reply from Thiago he shouldn’t have apologised on social media, because like I said at the time that’s all about being ‘seen’ to be doing the right thing rather than a sincere gesture of actually just doing the right thing. I’m not defending Pickford for what he did, but he apologised to Virgil at the time and then at the end of the game he asked Hendo to pass on his apologies again. He didn’t go straight to instagram to make himself look good. All Richarlison had to do was ask Firmino or Alisson for Thiago’s number and then send him a text. Maybe then he’d have got a reply. Fucking cunt. Wednesday Apr 14: L 0 Real 0 Ah well, that’s that then. We could have actually won this had we not continually wasted chances but it doesn’t really hurt as much as it usually would because we got what we deserved. There’s no sense of being hard done by or that we were unlucky. We were fucking crap last week and we were wasteful tonight. Didn’t deserve to go through. What really stood out to me tonight was what a difference fans would have made. It’s easy to say “yeah Liverpool are missing the fans” but it’s the extent that the players are missing the fans that isn’t being given enough recognition. It was so glaring tonight. I’m talking about specific moments in games that would have been pivotal with a full house in attendance, but ended up being irrelevant due to fans not being present. The obvious thing that people will point out is that players get more motivation and energy from a full stadium. That’s far more important to a high energy, ‘heavy metal football’ team like us than it is to a suffocating, possession based, death by a thousand passes Man City. City aren’t missing crowds at all. In fact, they’re helped by it due to the impact an empty stadium has on the energy levels and motivation of their opponents. That’s not to make excuses for us surrendering the title to them so meekly. City would have won the league this year with or without fans in stadiums. We would have put up a hell of a better fight than this though and we wouldn’t be behind United either. They haven’t lost in twenty odd away league games which is the longest run in their club history. Sorry, that’s not happening in full stadiums. We recently lost six home league games in a row. Not even the worst teams in our history had done that and this is most certainly not one of our worst teams. Not under normal circumstances anyway. We also lost at home to Everton which, again, is something that never happens. We even went 12 hours or something without scoring a goal from open play at Anfield (Salah scored a penalty). None of the above happens with fans in the stadium. I can say that with 100% certainty because you only need to look at the history of the club to see what a complete outlier all of that is. Visiting teams don’t need to fear Anfield anymore. It isn’t Anfield. It’s A field. This team can’t function at 100% without the 12th man. This game highlighted it perfectly. It isn’t just as simple as “they miss the energy the fans give them”. There’s way more to it than that. Firstly, the streets would have been lined with thousands to greet the team coach. So the lads would already be on a massive high even before kick off. They didn’t have that. Well, there was a half arsed attempt at it and some tit smashed the window on Madrid’s coach, but it wasn’t the same as a normal European night. So straight away, advantage Madrid. Then there’s the lack of atmosphere and anticipation when the players warm up, and then take the field for kick off. YNWA is utterly pointless in an empty stadium and is only being played because of tradition. It doesn’t lift the players when there’s no-one there to sing it and it doesn’t put any trepidation into the hearts of the opposition. Many a team has crumbled even before kick off in a packed Anfield. I’m not saying Madrid would have as they are packed with experience and players who are used to big time games. But so were Barcelona. And Dortmund. And Juventus. And Chelsea. And plenty of others. Players who played in those games have all spoken about how difficult it was because of the crowd. It isn’t always about the crowd intimidating the opposition, it’s more about how they inspire our lads to almost superhuman performances. But it is also about rattling the opposition. It’s human nature. Barcelona’s players have seen it all. They’ve been in every kind of situation you can imagine and the team was packed with experienced superstars. But when that second goal went in they still completely shit themselves and there was just a wave of momentum that everybody sensed was going to end up with our lads performing the seemingly impossible. Our players knew it, so did Barcelona’s. But Real Madrid didn’t have to face any of that. When Mo missed that early sitter in an empty stadium two things happened. Our lads were disappointed and the Madrid players were lifted. If that happens in a packed Anfield it’s completely different. The fans wouldn’t have seen that miss as a setback, they would be hugely encouraged by the fact we carved them open and almost scored. The roof would have come off and our players would have been lifted by it and would then have been flying around trying to win the ball back to go again. That in turn makes the opponent nervous. Madrid’s response to us creating - and missing - chances was to calm it down by keeping the ball for five minutes and feigning injury any time there was any sort of contact on one of their players. You do that in a packed Anfield and the whistling and jeers are deafening. Barcelona keep the ball better than any team on the planet but they couldn’t take the sting out of the game because of the manic atmosphere. We’ve seen it before. One chance gets the crowd right into it and the momentum just builds from that until the opponent just can’t cope with it and eventually breaks. In an empty Anfield there was no momentum because the players can’t generate those adrenaline levels themselves. That isn’t a criticism, it’s just physically impossible to do it. Let’s not forget that the Anfield atmosphere turned Divock Origi into Superman. With each and every chance we created and squandered, our players became more dispirited and Madrid’s players became more comfortable and confident. You could visibly see it. The players really tried to raise their intensity and at times they were able to do it, but they couldn’t sustain it and for most of the second half you could see they had lost belief that they could turn it around. The missed chances sapped their belief, but as I say, with a full house it does the opposite. Even with just a couple of minutes left and needing to score two goals you can’t rule it out at a packed Anfield. Just ask Dortmund. We’ll never know for sure just how many points the lack of fans has cost us this season but I think it’s clear that we’d comfortably have a top four spot virtually sewn up by now just because we wouldn’t have lost those six home games on the spin. Win just three of those and we’re sitting pretty in third and thinking about catching United for second spot (actually you can probably knock ten points off their tally so we’d be well clear of them!). Instead we’re below West Ham. Thursday Apr 15: Always a sad day but it feels even worse with lockdown. Like last night for instance, not being able to pay our respects inside the stadium and people not being able to gather today because of social distancing. Just fucking grim. Friday Apr 16: Big win for the kids in the Youth Cup tonight as they smashed Leicester 5-1. James Balagizi is one of the stars of the side and he bagged a hat-trick tonight. Max Woltman scored the other two. I should also point out that the infamous “H Davies” who has been appearing on CL team sheets recently played in goal, so Harvey is actually getting some games and isn’t just the mascot or one of the coaching staff’s kids making up the numbers. Another Harvey had a good night too. Elliott scored the winner for Blackburn and took his shirt off to reveal a ’96 YNWA’ message. It’s impossible not to love this kid, I really hope he becomes what we all hope he might be. You know the lack of tolerance I have over silly haircuts and over the top fashion, but I like this kid so much that I’m not even going to pass any comment on this…. You be you, Harvey, son. Meanwhile, this has passed me by until now as frankly I tend to just ignore all this “European Super League” stuff because it’s usually just nonsense. Now it looks like it’s about to happen though. They want to scrap the CL Groups Stage and have a 36 team league instead. That doesn’t mean you have to play 70 games though, they’ve cone up with some weird seeded format where you play 10 games and then the top eight go through and then loads have to go into playoffs or something. I don’t know, I read through it once, found it confusing as fuck and didn’t want to spend any more time trying to figure it out. It sounds SHITE though doesn’t it? The people who run football just keep coming up with new and novel ways to make it worse and far less enjoyable. This is a terrible idea but it’s obvious what it happening here. This so called “Swiss format” appeals to the organisers because it gives them scope to add more matches in future. In other words, that 70 game thing I mentioned could one day happen. Ok, maybe not 70, but 35 certainly. That’s clearly their goal here. A big fuck off European League. There is a small part of me that thinks “Yeah, fuck it. Let’s do it and leave all these bent English refs and shitbag teams like Everton and Burnley behind”. Most of me though absolutely hates the thought of this. It’s not that I’m against change completely. I don’t pine for the days of the old European Cup because I think the change the CL format with more quality teams competing has been a really good thing. The group stage works for everyone in that it allows teams to play enough games to make money, it still offers the possibility of unfenced teams going through and it just keeps things ticking over nicely until the real business of the knock outs starts. It doesn’t need changing. The cunts in charge need changing because they’re just going to turn people off football completely the way it’s going with this shit and VAR. And that was the week that was…..

One of the many downsides to us being shit is we can’t even enjoy a City defeat anymore. They lost at home to a late winner from ten man Leeds and I got absolutely zero pleasure from it. Imagine how that would have felt last season or the season before. Rooting for West Ham to lose to increase our chances of finishing fourth just isn’t the same. Hell of an effort by Leeds that though. Dallas gave them the lead after being set up by my boy Bamford. Cooper was then sent off after VAR told the ref to check the challenge he made on Jesus. Such a modern football red card that. He won the ball and then wiped out Jesus with the follow through. Some players made their living off those challenges back in the day. And when I say back in the day, I don’t mean the 70s or 80s. Carra and Stevie loved those ones too. They get the crowd going, they let the opponent know you mean business, and there’s fuck all wrong with it. At least there never used to be. You can’t do it now and the refs actually got this one right based on what they are told to do. So Leeds were down to ten and my boy was sacrificed so they could get an extra defender on. Torres equalised late on but City looked vulnerable to counter attacks and Raphinha was giving them all sorts of problems. He should have scored but was denied by Ederson. He then nearly set up Alioski following another swift counter, and then right at the death Alioski picked out the run of Dallas and he fired through the legs of Ederson to win it. That XG thing I mentioned last week. Leeds had an XG of 0.13 even though on the Dallas winner he was clean through on goal in the centre of the pitch. The first goal he scored was a low percentage chance as it was a shot from the edge of the box. But even if we disregard the other chances they had, does that mean they had a 13 percent chance of Dallas converting that one v one? Don’t answer that as it’s a rhetorical question. I couldn’t give a fuck what the actual answer is. I already know that XG is utterly pointless and MOTD should stop bowing to the stat nerds and fuck it right off. Load of shite. Interesting that City have fallen behind six times in the league this season and haven’t won any of them. They’re miles better than everyone else currently but they’re nowhere near as good as they were. Something I noticed in this game that has been a recurring theme all season. You can do whatever you like on set-pieces now without being called for it. The amount of shirt pulling and grabbing from defenders on set-pieces is at an all time high, when you’d think it would be the opposite because of VAR. Stones was blatantly hauled back by the shirt right in front of the ref, and VAR looked at it too and gave nothing. There’s clearly been a directive sent out to not give any penalties for this kind of thing as you could easily give a penalty following every single corner if you wanted to. Some degree of holding and shirt grabbing needs to be allowed but there have been loads of incidents when a player has been prevented from reaching the ball because he’s been yanked back by the shirt. As much as this is irritating, on a list of things that need fixing about the game in its current sorry state, it doesn’t even make the top 100. Plenty of things that need addressing before this. Speaking of which, was it just me or did the silences for Prince Phillip at the weekend seem longer than a usual silence? Was it two minutes? If so, just what the fuck is that about? It wouldn’t even be acceptable if it was the Queen herself, but nothing shows just how fucking backward this country is than the reaction to this fella popping his clogs. I’m not even massively anti-Royal. Don’t get me wrong, I find the whole idea of a Royal Family ludicrous and outdated but I don’t hate them individually or wish any harm on them. Other than Andrew and Charles, obviously. Pair of cunts. But no, it’s concept of it that I have the problem with rather than the royals themselves. It just blows my mind the way so many people fawn over them. They aren’t movie stars, athletes or pop stars. They haven’t ‘done’ anything to get the status they have, yet people will line the streets just to get a half arsed wave from them as they drive past in limos. There’s nothing weirder than a “Royalist” to me. I just don’t get it. But what possible justification is there to have any kind of silence for Prince Phillip at a footy match, let alone a longer one than you’d get for ANYTHING else? I’d love someone to try to explain it. All they have is “he was married to the Queen”. Ok, so tell me why that makes him more important than anybody else? The only people involved in games this weekend that would give a flying fuck about it would be Roy Hodgson (you can just tell Roy loves the royal family), Scott ‘Scotty’ Parker (flew Spitfires in WW2 for King and Country) and Mark Noble (loves the Queen, gawd bless ‘er). Everyone else, especially the foreign lads, will have been wondering just what the fuck all the fuss was about. Like I say, it just seems completely mental to me. When MOTD were showing the silence at the various games, they lingered on it way longer than they normally would too. And the irony of the silence for Phillip being immediately followed by players taking the knee for “BLM” was off the fucking charts. It was a bad couple of days for the Palace as not only did Phillip kick the bucket but Chelsea ran riot at Selhurst. That pissed me off as Palace are one of those weird teams that no-one really wants to play because you always think it’ll be a tough game, yet they always seem to finish around 15th so they can’t be any good. Still, I’d convinced myself this was a really tricky game for Chelsea and that we might make up another three points on them after our dramatic late winner over Villa just before. I was actually going to watch this game but by the time I’d made my tea and settled down to watch, 10 minutes had gone and Chelsea were already 2-0 up. Fucks sake. Time to put the Masters on. Havertz and Pulisic got the early goals and some of Chelsea’s football was top drawer. They were just passing and moving their way through the packed Palace defence and it looked easy for them. Havertz almost added a brilliant third and he’s finally starting to show why he was so highly rated when they signed him. Zouma headed in number three and the Palace goal was leading a charmed life. Benteke thumped in a header to give them a glimmer of hope but Pulisic made it 4-1. Last week's shock defeat to West Brom gave us hope but Chelsea are better than us at the moment and catching them wont be easy. Fulham are doing all they can to ensure Newcastle’s survival. If they could just win a couple of games the Geordies could be in trouble but they keep fucking losing. Based on performances they should be about 10th but it doesn’t seem to matter how they play, they just lose. They're losers. Willian Jose headed Wolves ahead from a Podence cross. At least that’s what he thought. VAR ruled that Podence was offside and this is up there with the absolute worst of these farcical decisions. Honestly, this is the biggest threat the game has ever faced. If they don’t fuck this shit off fans are going to desert the game in their droves. What should happen to make up for these last couple of years of complete fucking horseshit we’ve had inflicted on us, is we should have a public flogging of Mike Riley and anyone else who has their fingerprints over this shite. I’m not even joking. Justice was done in the end as Traore raced clear to smash home a late winner. His first goal in 48 games. Thats dogshit that. How can a player with his talent, shooting power and physical attributes go 47 games without scoring. He should be fucking ashamed of himself. I’m 48 in a couple of months but give me a dozen games and I’d score at least once even in the terrible shape I’m in. And if I could body swap with Traore I’d score 50 goals a season. He doesn’t deserve that body and that talent. Sunday now and the West Ham v Leicester game was a tricky one for us. On the one hand, West Ham losing would help us in the fight for fourth, but on the other a Leicester defeat brings them back to the pack and means there may be two CL spots up for grabs rather than just the one. My preference was for West Ham to lose because they are more of an immediate concern than Leicester, but that didn’t happen and when I look at the table now I’m thinking that the Hammers picking up those points might actually have been the best result for everyone else, including us. A little over a week ago we were ten behind Leicester. We’re only four back of them now, and if they choke like they did at the end of last season then maybe we don’t need to finish above Chelsea to make the top four? That’s assuming we can catch West Ham, which is by no means certain. I’ll never get used to writing that. I don’t think I’ll be able to get used to Jesse Lingard suddenly emerging as one of the best players in the league under the coaching of Moyes either. Of all the crazy things about this season, that’s up there with anything. Lingard has been genuinely fucking brilliant since arriving at West Ham. It didn’t take him any time to find form either, he just hit the ground running so he must have been in decent nick already, even though he barely had a look in at United. Nice job Ole. He scored twice in the first half. The first was a volley from the edge of the box that found the bottom corner. The second was a tap in after Bowen beat the offside trap and put it on a plate for him. He’s had some off the field issues and mental health problems so I really want to wish him well and be happy for him. Then I see his face. And him dancing. And it’s just really, really fucking hard not to hate him. Bowen made it 3-0 just after the break and Diop thought he’d made it 4-0 from a lovely floated cross by Lingard, but he was marginally offside. No need for the lines on that one. That Iheanacho cunt then scored a couple to put the wind up the Hammers but it was too little too late. Brendan had taken the decision to drop Maddison, Choudhury and that Ayoze Perez loser for some kind of covid related breach of discipline. Anyone remotely surprised that Maddison was involved? Just seems like a tit. A Diet Coke Jack Grealish. Burnley should have had a penalty when Mee got to the ball first and a Newcastle player booted him on the back of the calf. VAR looked at it and didn’t give it. I mean what the fuck? We had that pen given against us when Robbo caught Welbeck, but this was way more of a foul than that. It’s just fucking bullshit. Vydra scored very soon after so the decision didn’t hurt Burnley, but it’s hurt me as I’m sick of seeing this shit week after week from these useless cunts. Newcastle were then denied a pen when Tarkowski booted Longstaff in the head. It was unintentional and he was just clearing a bouncing ball in the box, but his foot is head high, Longstaff goes in to try and head it and gets a boot right on his fod. That has to be a penalty. If it’s the other way around and an attacker scores with a high boot as a defender tries a header, the goal never stands, so what’s the difference here? Bruce sent on Saint-Maximin and Wilson and it paid off immediately, as Saint-Maximin teed up Murphy to rifle in the equaliser and then put them ahead with a brilliant individual effort. I like him, I think he’s worthy of ‘my boy’ status. Arsenal got back to winning ways with a comfortable 3-0 success at Bramall Lane. Lacazette broke the deadlock, Martinelli tapped in the second and Lacazette scored again to put the seal on it. Arsenal just annoy the fuck out of me. They’ve got Callum Chambers playing for them again now. They knew he wasn’t good enough about six years ago and kept loaning him out, but he’s still there and still getting games. This would be like us still picking Nathaniel Clyne. Meanwhile, the fallout from United’s win at Spurs was just sensational. Absolutely fucking hilarious. Mourinho has destroyed Solskjaer and in the process did a pretty good job of deflecting away attention from just how fucking shit Spurs are under him. No team has benefited more from the absence of fans as there’s just no way they’re getting away with the shithouse tactics in a full stadium. Solskjaer was fuming about Son’s playacting and as much as I don’t like the little goblin faced oik, he seems to be the only person in football who can see Son for the little cunt that he is. Just because he smiles a lot and always seems happy doesn’t make him sound. He’s not. He’s a fucking cunt. The problem was that Solskjaer tried to highlight it and set the narrative but he went about it the wrong way and it backfired spectacularly. For those who missed it, check this out…. Mourinho isn’t the complete sociopath that he often portrays himself as. I’m 99% certain that whole thing was a charade. He saw what Solskjaer had said and must have thought it was Christmas day. The narrative went from Son being a diver to Solskjaer being an awful parent who starves his kids when they misbehave. I bet the second he left that room he was pissing himself laughing at the performance he’d just put on. And to be fair, it was magnificent. Solskjaer won the points but that’s the only thing he won. Mourinho done him like a fucking kipper there. It all stemmed from a pathetic decision to disallow a Cavani goal for a supposed foul by McTominay in the build up. Son came to close him down and grabbed at him. McTominay pushed his hand away and then accidentally brushed Son’s face. It was the tiniest hint of contact but predictably, Son hurled himself to the deck. If the ref had seen it and been conned that’s something you can live with as it is difficult for the officials when players are looking to cheat at every possible turn. The ref didn’t give anything though until he was told by VAR to take a look at it. Incredibly, he then disallowed the goal. Son was down for ages too. Horrible little shit that he is. To rub salt in the wounds he then put Spurs ahead just before half time. Spurs collapsed in the second half like Son in a light breeze. Fred equalised, Cavani headed in number two and Greenwood wrapped it up with the last kick of the game. Actually I’ve changed my mind. I said no-one had benefited more from empty stadiums than Spurs, but clearly it’s United. They’re unbeaten in 23 away league games and there’s no way in hell that happens in full stadiums. Not a chance. You can tell from watching Spurs that there are big problems there though. Imagine having Kane, Son and Bale and playing football as negatively as they do. They start off well, get the lead and then ‘Mourinhoball’ kicks in and it all turns to shit because they aren’t good enough defensively to just sit back and hold what they have. There’s talk that Kane wants out this summer. Who can blame him? He’d get in any team in the world as he’s that good, but I don’t know who could even afford him in this market. City or United probably could but will he be at the top of their shopping list? If there was any way whatsoever we could enter the Kane sweepstakes I’d be all over that, but we ain’t paying big money for anyone, let alone someone who will be 28 in a few months. Very few people hate Kane more than me but I don’t allow that to blind me to his ability. He’s just absolutely fucking brilliant. That supersedes the slobbering goon aspect of it and I’d sign him in a heartbeat if possible and whatsmore I’d sacrifice any of our current forwards to make it happen, even Mo if his contract negotiations are going to be a problem. I reckon he’s going to be stuck at Spurs though. Let’s hope so, because if City or United get him then that’s a game changing signing. It’s depressing to think that Kane, Mbappe and Haaland might all be up for grabs this summer and we won’t be near any of them despite all the success we’ve had the last few years and the spending power that ‘should’ have brought. Finally, Monday night. West Brom’s recent revival continued as they spanked sorry Southampton. Pereira’s penalty set them on their way after they had overcome a shocker of a VAR decision when the gimp at Stockley Park appeared to draw lines from the wrong player when he ruled out a Baggies goal. They’re outdoing themselves on a weekly basis now. Yes, it’s the twats who are using the technology that are more of a problem than the technology itself, but that’s a red herring. “VAR isn’t the problem, it’s the people implementing it”. Ok, so if those same people are back next season (which they will be) then how is this going to get any better? It isn’t, and even if all these shit refs were sacked they’d be replaced by more shit refs. VAR needs fucking off because even with competent people at the controls (which isn’t even an option) it would still be fucking shit. And unless there are plans in place to sack all of the sub standard officials then that argument falls down anyway. Get rid of it for fucks sake. But it’s all well and good the likes of me moaning about it to a limited audience. That’s not going to change anything. You know the only people who can change this? The clubs. Nobody wants this. How many players or managers are speaking out in support of it? I haven’t heard any. They all hate it. So therefore, the clubs need to band together and demand that VAR is fucked off at the end of this season. They have the power but only if they unite. Anyway, where was I? Yeah, West Brom 1-0 up from the penalty spot. Phillips then made it 2-0 with a back post tap in and Callum Robinson wrapped it up with a nice finish. His first ever goal against someone other than Chelsea, so at least you won’t need to hear that nugget from commentators (and me!) every time he misses a chance. West Brom have surely got too much to do to save themselves as they can’t win all of their own games and therefore need Newcastle to lose pretty much all of theirs to have any chance. Given a choice between them or Newcastle going down I don’t know what I want. Ordinarily it would be Newcastle all day, but I can’t be doing with the whole “Big Sam has never been relegated" thing. So I think I’ve answered my own question. Also on Monday, Bissouma caught the eye in Brighton’s 0-0 draw against the Blueshite, which considering how crap some of our lads have been against them is a decent enough reason to sign him. I don’t know if he’s good enough for us but he won’t be cheap if we do sign him. Our midfield does need a revamp so maybe this lad can help. I have no real opinion on Bissouma either way but it irks me that we’re going to have to spend £30m to replace Gini who we are allowing to leave for nothing. That’s not good financial planning and flies in the face of how we usually operate. Everton are just truly pathetic though. They were lucky to get a point and their record since they had the chance to go above us is truly laughable. Never change Everton. Never change.