WELCOME TO THE
GW31 REVIEW –
HEADLINES
Well, what a week of football that was; big games, big results, big headlines:
“Bielsa Bests Pep”
“Lucky Liverpool Leave it Late”
“Arsenal Remember How to Play Football”
“Ole Leaves Jose Waiting for His Dinner”
“West Ham Continue Their Charge for Champions League”
“Harry Kane Wants To Win Something, He is Going to Have to Leave”
“McTominay Shares the Secret of his Devastating 1 Inch Punch”
…are some we could have seen after this weekend’s matches, and what a set of matches they were.
Pep pepped us all again but will not stop conceding, Jesse Lingard steps up, Brendan dropped some bigboys for having a party and peoples benches really came into play.
There were a lot of big scores from lesser-known players this week, I had another absolute shocker (becoming fairly standard now) but I have seen a lot of people scoring well, how did you do and how many of the Kings Of The Games Week did you own?
Right lets have a look at some of the big matches and see how these points were accrued.
Well, there is really only one place to start as Leeds took on the Champions in waiting Manchester City. Seeing how City have been playing there was really only 1 team winning this and as such we saw a huge swathe of ffukers put our mate Dallas (17) on the bench. KDB didn’t get on the pitch and Leeds only had two shots, Stuart Dallas had both and saw the back of the net bulge twice. Leeds managed to beat Man City with only 10 men on the pitch. Is Bielsa a genius or is he just lucky? 17 points for Dallas, a sight that enraged the many who had benched him.
The day before the Street’s Scotty Parker donned his match day cardigan (2 sizes too small) and led his Fulham team into battle at Craven Cottage against the visiting Wolves. It was all set for a nil – nil, a result that whilst not perfect would still see Fulham in with a chance of staying up. These hopes were dashed as a late Traore (8) goal looks to have sent Fulham down. Dry your eyes mate.
Chelsea ruined Crystal Palace 4 – 1 Pulisic taking home 15 points but still no clean sheets. All without a striker as well, Timo’s form has finally put paid to his first team place, Tammy and Big Ollie Giroud aren’t even getting a look in. Rumours crows are starting to circle about Aguero pulling on the Chelsea blue and whilst this a scary thought for the rest of the league I cant help but feel ol’ Sergio will have his sights set much higher.
This is probably Roy’s last season in charge and yet again he has Place in mid table not even worried about the relegation battle happening well below them. The football is poor but the results are inarguable. I wonder if Palace fans would swap the dreary football for the stress of relegation woes? We might find out next season.
Newcastle beat Burnley two one with Alan Saint-Maximan starting to fulfil his promise with a goal and an assist taking home 12 points. It was lucky that Newcastle won as they were denied the clearest of crystal clear penalties as a defender’s high foot was ruled to be the attackers fault for stooping (he didn’t) this was all at least 6 feet above the ground. I don’t know what is to become of VAR but the fact we talk about it every week really does show that humans are unreliable despite all the help they can be given. The sooner the robots are in charge the better in my view.
We saw Liverpool take on Villa minus Mr mini-shinpads Jack Grealish and it looked as though this was going to be a draw with Salah (7) and Watkins (8) the boys on target for a one – one, Villa doing their best without their talisman held Liverpool well but the man of the moment Trent Alexander (11) stepped up to bang one in just before the final whistle “are you watching Gareth Southgate” you could almost hear him bellow to the heavens as he ran off in celebration. Martinez (4) was unlucky to be on the losing side but 8 saves kept his owners slightly satisfied. I still think he is performing well above his level, but hey I’m not even in the top 150 so what do I know?
Liverpool look like they are back in the race for the CL places in one of this years most unexpected struggles and Salah doesn’t just look like his head is in Madrid, he is already looking forward to tucking into some well-deserved Galactico-paiella, but will he get his wish with Haaland, Neymar, Mbappe, Lacazette and Harry Kane all looking to move this summer?
Next Ole’s high flying Manchester United took on Jose’s defensively minded Spurs. Yet again, VAR reared its ugly head as United had the first goal chalked off for a miniscule coming together a long time before the goal. McTominay’s hand brushed against Son “he’s not that type of player”s face about 15 minutes before the move that saw Cavani finish with aplomb. Son went down, Son stayed down and the goal was rescinded. Absolute jokeshop. Son managed drag himself off the floor, weirdly just after the goal was ruled out and scored 10 minutes later . Tottenham went in one nil up at half time. Something that fills Tottenham fans with dread these days as they are top of the league for relinquishing points from a leading position. Manchester United scored 3 very nice team goals in the next 45 and solidified their grip on second place with Cavani (11) showing us just how good his movement is he made Dier look like he was standing still as he skilfully found the bottom corner to taqke the lead, this could have been because Dier was in fact standing still. Pogba was immense and Greenwood put the game to bed in injury time beating the ever-fading Lloris at his near post. The cries for Jose to go become ever louder from the Lilywhite fans. The best bit of this match was still to come with Ole going on a very strange rant in his post-match interview telling us if his kids behaved like Son he wouldn’t give them any dinner. Jose responded in true Jose form telling us that Sonny’s dad was obviously a better Dad than Ole as you should always feed your kids even if you have to steal. Ole’s son has now entered the fray telling us “it’s ok, Ole does feed me”. This is journalism in the year 2021 ladies and gentleman. Dear o dear.
If you haven’t seen these interviews please do indulge here: https://youtu.be/cBeDwFUA3sc, I just have no words.
If Jose is to go I will miss him and his crazy interviews massively, but it does seem his brand of dinosaur defensive football is done, it might even force Harry Kane to leave. LOL.
Moyes’ West Ham continue to flout all preconceptions with Messi Lingard (14) really showing Manchester United fans what the last few manager shave failed to tease out of him. This purple patch has really started the transfer speculation, will his ego let him join West Ham will he return to fight for his place. I even read one about him coming to the mighty Arsenal for 30 odd million pounds, I was a little sick in my mouth and have filed that depressing thought under “please be clickbait”. Anyway West Ham look good and despite trying to throw away another 3 goal lead they held on to beat Leicester three – two Iheanacho again on target for the foxes taking home 13 points a late Easter treat for owners country wide.
Arsenal finally remembered how to play some football and beat the doomed Sheffield three nil Lacazette top scoring with 13 points. All without Aubameyang who has apparently caught flu, no mean feat in these times of self-isolation, bubbles and minimal contact. I do hope all is ok between him and Arteta but its not looking good. Xhaka put in an imperious performance at left back cementing his position as one of the best utility players in the world. Not really, but I am pleased he has started playing well as he really does get a lot of undeserved flack. There were three nice goals and Wengerball was back for a minute, however fleeting this moment of magic may be it was very enjoyable to see some actual football being played by the boys in the red and white. I can only pray it wasn’t a fluke and Arteta might actually have a plan.
Monday saw Fat Sam’s West Brom beat the ever-fading Southampton three nil but surely its too late?
All eyes were on Birmingham vs Villa as the last game of the week drew closer. All those still in the Conts League watched anxiously for team news. It was a bit of a damp squib, DCL didn’t play and a dull nil nil closed the week with a whimper.
All of this did not help our mate Trevor Dennison as his team “Send Dem Come” are unceremoniously ejected from the Conts. A score of 48 not enough this week, Trev had Dallas and his 17 points on the bench. Bugger. Well done all who have got this far, very impressive.
Its tight at the top As Stevie Cronin rips back the lead, Daron Russell and our very own Chris Galloway are close behind. The front three have opened a thirty-point gap over the chasing peloton with Chris Smith in fourth. Mr Smith’s team is called “Bin Chickens” I love this, it makes me smile every time I see it and I don’t even understand it. Thanks for making looking at the top of the league slightly less depressing for me matey.
The main headline for this week is that the pubs are open, I will drown my sorrows on my poor showing this season but on the upside it looks like the End of Season do is back on.
Im already excited.
Mark “its only a game dickhead” Tarbox (165th)
FFUK 