2-2: Many Broken Hearts

2-2: many dreams can be broken in two.

Kick Off

On Saturday, Brighton fell victim to the joke that is Premier League refereeing (be it on pitch or VAR), and not for the first time either.

In the BT Sport Score studio, Brighton fan Jules Breach, who helms the show, barely kept it together. But she did, remaining admirably professional.

Yesterday, while admittedly very much not helming a popular football round up show, I did not.

Football is the greatest sport in the world, it gives us so much, but the flip side of this is that it can be the most painful thing in the world too.

I’m genuinely finding this difficult to write, suffering as I am from the hangover of the game, my stomach still swirling with anxiety. Forgive the dramatic confession, it was a draw after all, it could have been way way worse but it could also have been way way better.

Unless you’ve been under a rock you’ll know I’m talking about Liverpool v Arsenal yesterday. Normally I leave the Premier League to the end but I need to get this over and done with 😅

It started amazingly. Arsenal played beautifully, were fully in control and went 0-2 up in the first half hour. It should have been more.

With minutes to go before half time, Liverpool scored thanks to Salah. It felt like it had been coming and, you’re welcome to your own opinion here, while it had an effect, I’m not entertaining the notion that it was Xhaka’s fault or that he’s a liability. Anyone thinking that hasn’t been watching him under Mikel.

The second half was a struggle for Arsenal, let’s not pretend with the game fully killed for Arsenal when Bobby Firmino scored on the 87th minute to tie the game. However I seem to have blanked most of the rest of it out, whether through the stress I was feeling at the time or the despondency I felt at the final whistle, so you’ll just have to take my word for it, I’m sure most of you were watching anyway.

A final word for Aaron Ramsdale though. Without him it’s entirely plausible that Arsenal could have lost the game. He’s a warrior.

While everyone was cooing over the game and how brilliant it was, there was an unsavoury incident at the end of the first half that needs mentioning.

As everyone was going off Andy Robertson, and I’m going to be definitive here because come on, was elbowed by assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis. Of course PGMOL are looking into it and hopefully there will be consequences; it’s unacceptable. You can’t ban players (fairly I think?) for 8 games for touching the referee when your colleagues are doing this.

So that was that, I’m glad to have got it out of the way because honestly, I have yet to find my rational, calm senses yet. There’s so far to go but yeah, let’s leave it there.

One thing that cannot be said about Arsenal though, not this season, is that we’re a banter club. We have truly served our time in that category so I think it’s only fair that the baton is passed and someone else takes up the mantle.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Chelsea Football Club.

On Tuesday, after Lampard was spotted at the Bridge for the Liverpool game I made the following joke

Hahaha we all thought. Frank back at Chelsea! Please I begged, I need this.

On Wednesday rumours took hold that actually he was going to be appointed interim manager. Give it Frank til the end of the season if you will. Surely not we all said, not Frank. Frank Lampard? Really?

When Thursday rolled around it was announced that yes, Frank was going to be appointed. Luckily his appointment coincided with the explosion of Barbie movie memes.

His first game in charge was Wolves away on Saturday. Which ended in a 1-0 victory for Wolves. It was the result we all wanted and all needed (except you Chelsea fans, I know).

All I want now is for someone to rescue my babygirl Enzo and put him in a functioning side and it’ll be perfection.

Elsewhere in the Premier League, the earlier kick off on Sunday saw the Hodgsonified Crystal Palace batter Leeds 1-5. I’ve enjoyed Leeds a lot since they came back up to the Prem two years ago and I really hope they don’t get relegated. However, that being said, they were utterly woeful and didn’t deserve anything from the game, capitulating as soon as Palace equalised, despite having a half time in which to regroup almost immediately after.

On Saturday, United cruised past Everton 2-0, putting them momentarily 3rd, until Newcastle, in what was a bonkers game for Ivan Toney (disallowed goal, missed pen, scored a pen), managed to overcome Brentford 1-2, pushing them back up. into the coveted spot

West Ham meanwhile gained a valuable win over Fulham, despite posting the most batshit pre-match graphic. Perhaps this is the key? Maybe on Sunday they’ll post something where the players are photoshopped into the American Civil War, defending canons and they’ll beat Arsenal?

Villa kept up their form, beating Forest 2-0 with Ollie Watkins scoring a last gasp second goal to bring value to my FPL side, while Bournemouth squeaked past managerless Leicester. Apparently a team near the top of the table also beat the team at the bottom and some guy added to his goal tally, I dunno.

Finally, we come of course to the controversy of the Spurs Brighton game I alluded to earlier. I was genuinely astonished by some of the decision making when I watched Match of the Day. As a very vocal Arsenal fan I know that my opinion on this can be easily dismissed but I can assure you I’m normally pretty relaxed about refereeing decisions, being more inclined to view the rules they operate in as useless.

Which brings us to the Mitoma hand ball. Yes, to the letter of the law it was “hand”ball. Yes I would have been mighty relieved if that decision had been made on a goal against Arsenal. But do I think it should be like that? No. He gained no more advantage controlling it with his “arm” (shoulder) than he would have his chest, it was no Hand of God. It’s a nonsense nonsense rule, especially when it’s supposed to take “the t-shirt line” into account (we will revisit this when we talk about Serie A.)

Then there was the penalty decision, again featuring Mitoma, a clear clip by Hojbjerg. I can accept the on field referee missing it. I can accept that the outcome would have been the same if we didn’t have VAR but we do. And yet again PGMOL had to apologise to a club for the oversight.

What the solution to this is I don’t know, but I can give a few suggestions. Pay referees better. Their wage isn’t horrible in the grand scheme of things but in an industry awash with cash it could be a lot better. Train them better, both on the tech and with just using their eyes. You get out what you put in.

Of course you’re never going to completely eradicate human error, the only thing we can truly do that for, which is a resounding success (when it’s turned on) is goal line technology, which is a blessing and a boon to the game. So I guess until we teach Chat GPT to be the VAR we’re stuck with what we’ve got.

Over to Europe then where it will be a whistle stop tour, even though for the first time in ages I have actually watched some of all of Serie A, the Bundesliga, La Liga and Ligue 1 this weekend.

France first, where PSG remain six points ahead with eight games to go, after Lorient held Marseille to a draw on Sunday. They are shaky though so I remain hopeful (but not confident) someone will pip them.

In Germany everything at the top is pretty much as-is, although with Dortmund beating Union, they and Bayern are pulling away a little from the pack now, with just two points between them.

In beautiful scenes in the Dortmund game we saw two cancer survivors play and then swap shirts at the end.

Serie A then, where of course Napoli remain on top and beat Lecce and their gorgeous track jackets 1-2.

Inter fell to a 90th minute equaliser by Salernitana, who, I only noticed on Friday, have a seahorse logo which I adore.

Milan also drew but after what I am going to call a pathetic handball decision against Olivier Giroud after he scored late into their game against Empoli (who are always a bastard team for them if memory serves). It was very similar to the Mitoma decision on Saturday. It was very obviously above the t-shirt line, it very obviously gave Oli no more of an advantage than it would have if it had come off his broad, muscular chest just inches to the left. What it was, was a joke.

Inter’s stumble does mean that Milan remain in the Champions League spot however, with Lazio still in second and Roma sneaking up into 3rd.

We can’t leave Italy without mentioning the abhorrent racism suffered by Lukaku and Cuadrado this weekend and let’s be honest, every weekend, whether they are the targets or not.

Every country has issues with their football fans, no-one is without sin, but the situation in Italy and Spain with the racism suffered by the aforementioned players, by Vini Jnr and by many many others is despicable to watch. I’ll be mentioning this at ‘Half Time’ too but you just don’t need to do it. It’s revolting, it’s illegal, it benefits no-one.

Lastly we travel to Spain, where the big news of the weekend was not only that Villarreal pulled off a win against Real Madrid, but that afterwards Real’s Fede Valverde allegedly waited in the bus garage after the game and punched Villarreal’s Álex Baena in the face.

I don’t want to condone this, I want to laugh at the thought of the adorable Fede Valverde fighting, but reading about what Baena is alleged to have said not only on Saturday but at a Copa game in January, I can honestly say, I can’t blame him and he probably should have hit him harder.

(You can get all the info via theMadridZone’s tweets, I won’t put screenshots here because they’re not graphic but they are abhorrent and deal with pregnancy issues)

Let’s end on a high shall we? For England Women fans anyway.

On Thursday it was the inaugural Finalissima Femenina at Wembley. The Finalissima is contested between the winners of the Euros and the winners of the Copa America. Last year Wembley hosted the men with Argentina easily dispatching Italy and this year saw England take on Brazil for the women.

It was a tricky game for England, Brazil are good and at the end of the 90 minutes the score was 1-1 after Ella Toone opened the scoring after 23 minutes and Brazil added theirs, via Alves, on 90+3.

Beautifully, unlike most tournament football, the game went straight to penalties. The first to miss was Ella Toone but then Mary Earps saved from Tamires. My darling Rafaelle was the next to miss, hitting the bar, but England scored their next three, with Euros hero Chloe Kelly sealing the deal.

All I’m saying is, after winning their Finalissima, Argentina men won the World Cup…

And that, my friends, is that for this week’s round up.

Half Time

After all the stress and emotion of yesterday, it was so heartwarming and filled me with so much pride to see these tweets.

The replies from some saying we shouldn’t be thanked for this are absolutely true, it should be a given, but I also think it’s important to show that it is possible to go to a game and not be vile. I’m pretty sure I also saw a tweet saying we didn’t do any poverty chanting and I’m so so grateful to the travelling fans for this.

While City and Chelsea are mentioned here specifically (and Chelsea do have a horrible track record with silences) I don’t want this to be seen as an attack on anyone who supports these clubs. I know that no-one I’m friends with or follow on Twitter or who is reading this (I hope!) would dream of joining in with any of those abhorrent chants. Chelsea as a club are strong on fighting against the discriminatory chanting they themselves are subject to, which makes it all the more galling that their fans do this.

Arsenal, and I’m sure many other clubs, prove my point that you don’t need to do it. Nobody wants it and nobody should have to be pathetically grateful when they don’t.

From North London to Merseyside, #JFT97 always and forever

Full Time

I could apologise for lots of these being my own tweets but on the other hand I have been on fire this week. What I will apologise for is that they’re not embedded links. Not that I should be apologising, it’s not my fault, we all know whose door this lies at…

March 21st 2022 and not a peep in 2023. How quickly we forget.

All the eyes emojis over this probably (?) false yet very amusing story

Scenes

Would absolutely smash this

The only discourse I’m prepared to get into regarding the Xhaka/Trent incident

Beware. The Devil lives among us.

Shirt of the Week

I mentioned the new Nike Women’s World Cup shirts last week but had somehow missed this one for Canada. It’s so nice. Love the airbrush look and the geometric pattern with the black maple leaves. Gorgeous.

Thirst Trap

This week’s Thirst Trap is a gift to my Newcastle supporting pals. I felt convinced he’d already been on here but my spreadsheet tells me no, I think I was probably thinking of his appearance in my World Cup Hot List as England’s entry.

So here he is, Callum Wilson. A beautiful man, owner of what falls into the category of “a nice face”b (e looks kind doesn’t he? Like a nice guy.) Gorgeous arms too and isn’t shy about scoring goals either, or doing the Macarena to celebrate.

We come to the end of another issue. I hope those of you who can have been enjoying your Bank Holiday Monday and that those who can’t or live somewhere that doesn’t have a holiday today, are having a nice day all the same.

Until next week!

Oh and remember, I’m on Mission 1000 before the second anniversary of this little publication, so do get all your friends, family, colleagues, lovers and enemies to sign up 🩷