Electric Six
Danger! Danger! High Pressing! When you score. When you miss.
Kick Off
Hello friends. I’ve been rubbish with this newsletter this year haven’t? Especially when we’ve had such events as Arsenal beating Liverpool or that ridiculous 4-4 between Luton and Newcastle. But nevermind, I’m here now and that’s what’s important right? Right?
Anyway despite the things I’ve missed it was quite the weekend of football, for a start my three main lads won (Arsenal, Dortmund, Milan for uninitiated), with differing degrees of scoreline and excitement admittedly but more of that later; we also had the conclusions of the Asian Cup which Qatar won for the second time in a row which is, hmmm, it’s not right is it? And then of course last night AFCON concluded with a win for the hosts, Côte d'Ivoire who left it late after Nigeria took the lead in the first half.
The winning goal was scored by recent cancer survivor Sébastien Haller, whose recovery has been beautiful to witness. Whether you were glad Ivory Coast won, or were sad Nigeria didn’t, you can’t help but be delighted for Haller.
Over in Europe it was a big weekend in Spain and Germany as the top two took each other on in both La Liga and the Bundesliga.
In Spain the fairytale story of the season so far is Girona (*disclaimer, they’re owned by The City Group…) who’ve come from low to mid-table mediocrity to challenging for the title.
Unfortunately Real Madrid came along and fully burst that bubble, beating them 4-0 with goals from Vini Jr, Rodrygo and of course, a brace from Jude Bellingham, our anti-VAW hero. Madrid are now top by 5 points with 14 games to go, so it’s still potentially in the balance but only time will tell.
In Germany, it was the battle of the Bayer[n]s (shut up) as the unbeaten league leaders Bayer Leverkusen took on the juggernaut that is Bayern Munich.
There’s something special about this Leverkusen team. They’re fast, they’re fun, they’re handsome (genuinely an underrated and true facet of champions) and they’re coached to within an inch of their lives.
Sure you can and indeed should, slag off the Bayern performance but Leverkusen ended up as 3-0 winners with a final goal from Jeremie Frimpong that made me YELL. It really does feel like their year, but we said that last year about Arsenal and even up until the last day, about Dortmund, it’s not over until it’s over.
In Italy Inter are still top and Milan beat Napoli 1-0 and honestly that’s all I know about that. I’ve fallen off watching the late weekend Serie A games lately, we watched MI3 this Saturday instead (it was fine, better than the previous two) and as it’s Pottery Throwdown season that takes up my Sunday.
As for France, I have no idea what they’re up to, only that I checked the table to see that PSG were 11 points clear and promptly fell asleep. The only thing that would perk it up (no pun intended) would be if Monaco could drop some points so we had Nice Brest in the table *sigh*
I guess that means we need to come home and to the Premier League then.
Oh but before we do, a shoutout to the FA Cup replays and this goal from Enzo Fernandez. A moist maker if ever there was one.
Anyway, back to the Premier League; it started on Saturday lunchtime with an early kick off between City and Everton. A tie that with all due respect to both parties, did not fill me with any kind of giddy glee. And I was right. A perfunctory win by City with only one incident of note, DCL throwing Ruben Días to the floor like he was a piece of trash 🥵
In the 3pm games, perhaps the most notable result was everyone’s darlings Luton falling to sandwich hating Chris Wilder’s Sheffield United, a disappointing result all round, except, I assume, for Everton fans (and Blades fans obviously).
Elsewhere we saw a win for Liverpool after a minor nervous moment when Burnley equalised, Fulham and Brentford pulled it together to give West London two wins and Spurs beat Brighton with the last kick of the game.
The late game between Forest and Newcastle was another stupid game involving the Mags with the score ping-ponging between the two before Newcastle finally got the winning goal. I was flicking between this and the Leverkusen game so don’t have massive insights (do I ever?!) but I was thrilled to see Thirst Trap alumnus Sven Botman and Fabian Schär combining to score.
And here’s a picture of Fabian Schär just because it’s Monday and we need it.
On Sunday Manchester United beat Villa 1-2 in the late afternoon kick off and I had a lovely nap. Which was needed after all the excitement of the earlier kick off…
In which Arsenal beat West Ham 0-6. Yep, you read that right, Arsenal, with no recognised striker, boring boring Arsenal, Arsenal who just can’t find the net, won by a margin of six goals to nil.
I’m not going to lie, for a while it felt like we weren’t going to score. And the game seemed to be lasting an age. At around 19 mins I looked up expecting it to be nearly half time, but no. Then at last, after 32 minutes, William Saliba headed home to break the deadlock. Nine minutes later Arsenal were awarded a penalty and everyone, even the haters because everyone loves Saka, held their breath when he stepped up to take it, but it was a glorious thumping pen, 0-2. Then two further goals followed, firstly from goal machine Gabriel Magalhães then a beauty of a strike from the Lego loving sweetheart, Leandro Trossard.
About five minutes into the second half West Ham looked utterly spent, they’d given up fully and left so much space on the pitch, let so many balls be snatched back off them with barely an attempt at a fight, they misplaced passes and were dragging themselves around the pitch. Which is why it’s a shame the scoreline ended how it did, there was the opportunity to smash 10 past them without blinking, so maybe we do need a striker…
What we have though is an amazing winger in Saka who put the fifth goal away beautifully making it 50 goals for the club.
And we have a defensive midfielder in Rice who scored another of his worldies that made me clap and honk like a seal, then refused to celebrate and ehhhhh, I dunno man, it was such a good goal, be happy! I sort of get it, sort of think it’s a bit childish. As long as you’re not rubbing it in the face of your former club (hello Adebayor lol) then why not?! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As it stands then, Liverpool sit top of the tree, with City second with a game in hand, a game they play next Tuesday, Arsenal third on the same points and Spurs fourth, five points shy of Arsenal.
With City being City it’s difficult to avoid cynicism and to view this as “a title race” but the points do suggest it is and only when we get to May will we know.
Half Time
Again I do not have the will nor the desire to get into any kind of Discourse that’s been happening on God’s Green Internet so here are a few tidbits from my non-football activities.
The start of the year is always good for films because all the Oscar bait movies come out in the UK. As such I’ve watched All Of Us Strangers, The Zone of Interest and American Fiction. All very different and all excellent. All Of Us Strangers has affected me profoundly and I would encourage everyone to go and watch it, I sobbed, not cried, sobbed, from start to finish; it’s utterly beautiful.
I’ve also watched Anatomy of a Fall, Saltburn and the less recent Aftersun, all of which I’d also recommend. Am I easily pleased? Yes. But did I genuinely enjoy all of these films? Also yes. I know it’s got mixed reviews but I really enjoyed Saltburn and the font is a banger. I’ve also got tickets for The Iron Claw this week, Bottoms next and Dune: Part Two on the 3rd March, with a few others lined up to watch on streaming (May December, Past Lives, Nyad).
Anyway, I rarely give anything less than 4 stars, except Benedetta which I also watched recently and was trash, but if you’re arsed I have a Letterboxd here.
Last week saw the 20th birthday of Franz Ferdinand’s eponymous debut album. I’m listening to it right now and it stands up. Also makes me feel sick that I was 25 when it came out. Time man, what a bastard.
Finally a podcast rec and a long read.
As you know, for better or worse, I love a bit of true crime and I found Murder in Boston to be a really good take on the genre. Looking at a story of how one man’s lie turned a community upside down it focuses much less on the crime itself (which is detailed in many other places) and instead on the people it harmed outside of the murder victim herself; the falsely accused, the community at large, even a photographer. It’s really interesting and I’ll be hunting out the HBO documentary as well.
The long read was all over Twitter last week so you may well have seen it, but it’s so worth reading. Patrick Radden Keefe’s A Teen’s Fatal Plunge Into The London Underworld is an astonishing stories of lies, money and London today. It’s a truly sad story but so gripping and disturbing. I could have easily read an entire book about it.
Full Time
Camden and Islington United are my heroes/allies of the week for forfeiting a cup game against an opposition team with, well, just read the article, the way my eyes popped out of my head when I got to the team name.
OK so this guy’s name is pronounced Rakkish and not Raykish but come on, it’s still a name for the ages.
Absolutely top notch content from the Bristol City admin here, starting with the below tweet. And they won on Saturday!
Some important information, and he got sent off in the 69th minute. A situation/tweet crafted entirely for me.
The Matildas announced their squad using Katrina Gorry's daughter Harper and it’s so cute.
Sergi Reguilon outdid himself with this
Good old Sharon. Sky tweet here for Full Warnock.
Drip of the Week
There have been a lot of contenders for this while I’ve been “away”. So here’s a selection of the Good Shit™
Firstly, non league side FC Maybank from Newcastle-under-Lyme released their third shirt, based on an iconic Biggie Smalls sweater [via the Culture Ultras Football Podcast]
Milan have done it again with these gorgeous special edition shirts, but as always, don’t buy them and boycott Puma!
Manchester United released their Stone Roses collab with Adidas and it is stunning, I particularly like the track jacket; Gary Neville wore it on an episode of the Overlap last week and it’s beautiful.
The warm up top is also sweet af
Thirst Trap
In all honestly the only Thirst Trap I care about right now is Paul Mescal. I once read that [peri]menopause was like being a teenager because of your hormones and yeah, it seriously is. I LOVE IT.
That aside, there should probably be a football based thirst trap for this week, so here’s one who is actually not someone I find especially attractive but who I know holds a special place in so many hearts of friends and readers.
It’s the possible winning manager of the 23/24 Bundesliga and potential Jurgen Klopp replacement, Xabi Alonso. And let me tell you, if anyone has designs on him good luck, going through his insta to collate pictures for this I’ve never known such a Wife Guy.
And with that we’re done for the week (or however long it is between this and the next edition…).
Wishing you a wonderful seven days and fingers crossed I’ll be back on Monday. Mwah!