hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but I have it
Kick Off
They say it’s the hope that kills you and maybe that’s true, but the worst thing is when that bubble of hope is burst, especially when you’ve allowed it to grow and grow and strain at the edges; when you begin to believe this is it, this bubble won’t burst, it’s going to take off and do something beautiful, then BANG, you’re back down to earth.
And so it is that there are currently bubbles of hope inflating across London, Manchester and Liverpool. Sure the Liverpool fans are probably the most cynical, the most doom filled, but I’m sure deep down they still believe; it’s Jurgen’s last season! It’s meant to be! Over in Manchester they have the kind of belief only the perennially successful can have. They don’t believe, they know. Four league titles in a row for the first time ever in the top flight? A second treble? Sure. And here in London, well, it’s been twenty years. Twenty years since we last won a league title, twenty years since we went invincible. Some say this team is the best they’ve seen since those days, maybe better; wouldn’t it be nice if we won? On the anniversary? We’re all hoping.
There are bumps in the road though. “Not for City” everyone will tell you and yes, they have the easiest run in on paper, no derbies (Liverpool and Arsenal still have one each, Arsenal have two if you want to count playing United as one), nearly all mid-table teams, their squad is packed, fit and healthy. But they also have to play European football, we’ve seen they can be beaten, that they can be stopped from scoring and that they’re occasionally porous. All it takes is for a team to take advantage of the gaps, and to keep a tight ship at the back and they’ll drop points.
The trouble is, Arsenal and Liverpool might too. I worry, always, about playing Spurs, especially away. I fear Chelsea who are unpredictable and chaotic. Villa are having a wobble but on their day they can be tough. United? Well, if you think Chelsea are unpredictable and chaotic let me introduce you to a little team managed by Erik Ten Hag…
As for Liverpool, they too play Spurs, they play Everton at Goodison and they also have Villa.
The TL:DR is that no-one knows and no-one can predict anything. All we have is hope.
Which brings us to the weekend and what actually happened.
It started predictably, sort of. Well no it didn’t did it, it started with our old friend Hope, after Palace took the lead over City, via Mateta, after three minutes in the lunchtime kick off.
Of course it was too much to hope that they’d hold on, you can’t be scoring against City after three minutes and expect them to just fold and you definitely can’t expect Palace not to ship goals. And so it was that Kevin De Bruyne scored a wonderful goal, Rico Lewis made it two, Haaland got his tap in and De Bruyne bookended the scoring with a fourth. Edouard got another for Palace which is all good for goal difference but basically meant nothing at that stage.
Over to Arsenal then and a game at the Amex or whatever it is we’re supposed to call it now. It wasn’t a great first half, I was tense and nervous. I tweeted that it felt like Brighton had 15 outfield players so hard was it for us to move the ball properly and flow in the beautiful way you know we can. A penalty after 33 minutes opened the door though and despite the old* maxim that hell is watching Arsenal defend a one goal lead, it at least gave us some breathing space, despite Enciso’s best efforts.
*I know, it’s a tweet from like, ten years ago, it’s still Lore though!
The second half was much more enjoyable. Yet again we were proven to have thrown £60 million down the drain when Kai Havertz popped up to dink a Jorginho cross into the net to double our lead and then, to counteract the boos from the babies at Brighton when he came on, pocket rocket Leandro Trossard ran over half the length of the pitch (iirc, don’t pick me up on that, no I can’t be arsed to watch highlights) to chip Verbruggen and make it three.
The final game in the title race was the United Liverpool head to head on Sunday afternoon.
Long term readers and followers will be aware that I’m married to a Liverpool fan, a Liverpool fan who is going through it in much the same way I went through it last season, only this time with the added spice of his wife supporting his team’s closest challenger. So you can imagine the atmosphere on the sofa at 15:30 yesterday…
It started off terribly, within minutes United had scored, but wait! There was the delayed offside flag. And relax. (Well, for him, not me or any United fans).
Then, after 23 minutes, Luis Diaz scored for the visitors who held on until half time. The stats at half time made grim reading for United. No shots on target, 0.0xG. Of course, this lead to everyone and his dog tweeting that of course United would score with their first shot on target and, well:
After a blunder by Quansah, Bruno Fernandes took advantage and walloped the ball over the fingertips of Kelleher to draw level.
At parity again it all went a bit wild. It was a fast and furious game, both teams were clumsy and lacking organisation and Liverpool simply couldn’t finish, but no-one could have predicted what would happen on the 67th minute when Kobbie Mainoo scored a stunning goal to put United ahead.
Of course the drama didn’t end there and on the 84th minute Liverpool were awarded a penalty after Wan-Bissaka took down Harvey Elliott in the box. Naturally Salah converted and that’s how it ended, honours even.
To circle back to the start of this newsletter, this left Arsenal on top on goal difference, with City just one point behind. Seven games left…
Elsewhere it was quite a fun weekend overall, unless you support one of the losing teams or otherwise had any preferences that didn’t go your way. (Probably a caveat that didn’t need to be stated but hey ho).
Everton managed to scrape past Burnley via a comedy goal scored by Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who gave us one of the best pics of the weekend. Of course, due to the nature of it, everyone was comparing it to the goal scored by Darwin on Thursday but DCL didn’t use his anus so we all know whose was better.
West Ham beat Wolves in controversial fashion after a late equaliser from Wolves was chalked off by VAR for keeper obstruction. And frankly, I’m with Gary O’Neill on this, it was a really really dubious call; I’m with Ian Wright, Dion Dublin and Gary Lineker that it’s a pretty ridiculous rule. I’ve long been a believer in VAR, despite all of its obvious issues, but sometimes it really tests me, and this was one of those occasions.
[Full disclosure, we have a knitted dog who supports Wolves, because his name is Willy Bully, he’s a bulldog, and he was either named after or linked to Willy Boly when he played for Wolves, anyway shut up we all have our reasons we like certain teams (Gary O’Neill being a slowburn hottie too *cough*)]
Oh! And I’ve just been reminded that JWP scored an Olimpico! (A goal straight from a corner). He was very gracious on MOTD when the interviewer suggested maybe Storm Kathleen should be given an assist and he conceded that yes, he’d accept that and let her have it.
Villa were cruising against Brentford until a ten minute period where they shipped three goals and suddenly found themselves trailing. Thanks to Ollie Watkins however, they drew level and that was how it ended.
This of course had implications on the Top 4. Spurs played their moved MNF game late on Sunday and despite a few moments where Forest looked up for it (literally a few moments, they weren’t great), they breezed past them 3-1 with a horrible own goal by Murillo and then two great goals from the delicious Micky Van de Ven and the toothy Pedro Porro.
The win put Spurs into the fourth, the only way a team can guarantee they’ll get into the Champions League, with no certainty that we’ll be awarded an additional spot for next year.
Newcastle beat Fulham and the only thing I can really think of to say about that is that I was annoyed that Schär’s goal got disallowed because I would’ve liked the FPL points.
Finally then, we go to Luton, somewhere I never thought I’d be excited to arrive at, to witness Luton v. Bournemouth.
We like Luton don’t we? They’re fun, they have a nice coloured kit, their ground is stupid, they’ve overcome horrible on pitch experiences… and, what? *earpiece crackles* oh, yeah, they have a smoking hot, charming manager too. I think that’s probably why we like them so much isn’t it? No, no it is all the rest as well. Isn’t it? Yes. OK good. Glad we’ve got that settled.
So, Luton. Bournemouth. Bournemouth are decent. They’re OK. They spanked Luton quite recently, rather rudely under the circumstances (the game being rearranged after Tom Lockyer collapsed in the original match) but now they were on Luton’s turf. The first half went by with nothing to separate the teams and then Marcus Tavernier scored for Bournemouth. Luton never give up however and they equalised via Jordan Clark on the 73rd minute.
And then, having come so close earlier in the game, captain Carlton Morris scored the winner. And he cried, and good for him. More emotion in the game! More celebrating! And because it’s the rules, here’s some Rob Edwards celebrating too.
Unfortunately, the win still leaves Luton in the relegation spots, but they are on level points with Forest and I would dearly love them to stay up.
Well, that was a somewhat mammoth round up of the Premier League (I’m making up for all those weeks I couldn’t be bothered to write) and we still have Europe to go.
Let’s start with Germany.
Firstly we need to talk about the fact that Köln won with two goals in stoppage time and the admin of their English language account lost their mind.
It doesn’t take them out of the relegation zone as Mainz also won (thumping Darmstadt 4-0) but as per Luton, CELEBRATE! Enjoy the wins!
This was something Leverkusen managed to do via a solitary Florian Wirtz penalty against Union. They now only need to win one more game to win the Meisterschale and hold tight for six more to do it without losing a single game. And of course, not to make this about me and Arsenal but… and I genuinely get choked up about this:
My boy. My wonderful, beautiful, much much missed boy🥲
Leverkusen’s march to the title was helped by a dramatic comeback by Heidenheim in their game against Bayern.
Bayern went 0-2 up in the first half thanks to Harry Kane (of course) and Serge Gnabry. They then lost concentration and allowed Heidenheim to score two quick goals, on the 50th and 51st minute via Kevin Sessa and Tim Kleindienst. Kleindienst then popped up to get his brace on the 79th minute and Heidenheim, having had four shots on target and scored three goals, held on to win.
In Italy, Inter basically have their name engraved on the Scudetto already, they’re 11 points ahead of Milan in second and have a game in hand, which they play this evening.
I don’t really have much else to say about Serie A other than we put the first half of Monza Napoli on between the Old Firm derby and United Liverpool and I dropped off at 1-0, only to wake up and find the channel had been changed and when I checked the score, it was now 2-4.
Speaking of the Old Firm. I don’t normally watch Scottish football if I can help it, with apologies to any Scottish readers or those who support Scottish teams I find the quality appalling, almost sub Championship. However, the game on Sunday, a 3-3- draw at Ibrox, was very very funny for the neutral (as neutral as one with Catholic blood, if not beliefs, can be of course)
Over in Spain, the main news was the triumph of Athletic Club de Bilbao winning the Copa Del Rey, defeating Mallorca on penalties and bringing home the club’s first trophy in forty years. It also lead to this adorable photo of brothers Nico and Iñaki Williams celebrating the win <3 And if you want to watch something heartwarming I can highly recommend a scroll through the club’s Twitter timeline.
Half Time
Just a couple of brief but important things to mention this week. CN rape and racism if you’d rather skip past.
Firstly, Dani Alves was recently released from prison in Spain, despite still being a convicted sex offender. The Athletic did a really good explainer as to the legal reasons why but more importantly the impact this will have on others who experience sexual abuse both full stop and at the hands of the wealthy and perhaps most importantly, what it will do to the victim.
It felt like such a huge step forward that someone of his status could be convicted and jailed when so often these cases either never reach court or if they do return not guilty verdicts yet here we are, in a position where someone can effectively buy themselves out of jail. The fact that bail can even be offered post conviction is wild in itself to me but alas, we still don’t live in times where victims are centred, only the needs of the rich and powerful.
Secondly, Hull City manager Liam Rosenior this week spoke out about the racist abuse he’s been subject to on social media and the fact this has been seen by his children. I found what he had to say very moving and very positive in terms of his attitude and his belief in equality, but the fact is it’s not good enough. This season we’ve seen players reduced to tears and say they don’t want to continue playing because of the abuse and here we are, still just taking the knee (something which started off as a strong and powerful statement but in the way it’s used here has become somewhat diluted) and wearing natty pin badges as a gesture to anti-racism, when what we really need is action. We need fines and boycotts and solidarity. Players need to walk off the pitch. More fans need to be sanctioned for their actions on social media. White players, managers and club staff need to step up. We need to fight.
Actually, a quick third thing. The evening game fast break for players taking part in ramadan. This is a resolutely Good Thing. It’s done with such a lack of ceremony and fuss, a quick break to take on some food and water and then on with the game. It normalises it, gives people the chance to explain to those who don’t know what’s happening; I often balk at ‘education’ being cited as the greatest tool in the fight against discrimination as most people know what they’re doing, but in this case I think it is a great educational moment. And as I tweeted, anyone who has a problem with this needs to think about all the times we’ve had VAR checks that took longer than these breaks and whether or not they approve of warm weather breaks in games.
On that note, it was lovely to see Jeremy Corbyn with Mo Elneny at the Emirates hosted iftar last week.
Full Time
This didn’t bang, fine. FINE. But the og tweet made me laugh so much I nearly cried. Maybe you need to have seen Spaced (“that was research!”), I dunno but even so, the image of the Chelsea admin reporting a goal against them then demanding everyone bogles sure did tickle me.
My Scran of the Week (post from Footy Scran I noticed and QTd) is this frankly delicious looking battered sausage and chips from Redhill FC. Now, it costs £6.30 and the reaction to this made me feel like Bill Gates because I think that’s fine? But people were losing their minds about how expensive it is?? Have I been in London too long? Am I paid too much?
Not only did the midweek games gift us Darwin scoring with his arse, it also gave us the hilarious Chelsea Man United game, which in turn gifted us with this screenshot.
(I missed this first time)
It was the anniversary of Ray Wilkins’ death last week and Chelsea posted this fantastic picture on instagram
It was bound to happen and here we are. Raya Hive Rise!
Here is a spectacular goal from the J League
Drip of the Week
Without question, the drip of the week this week goes to Virginia Dream FC, who play in the NPSL in the US and will be doing so in this utter beauty (do click through to their instagram too where you can see they regularly have stunning shirts).
Even the numbers are absolutely gorgeous. Should you so desire, you can order the shirt here from Friday (I’ve no idea if they ship internationally).
Following on from France’s kit last week and, I think, England’s too, I’m a big fan of the current use of texture and pattern in the main body of shirts.
Also have to give a shout out to Simone Inzaghi’s sweet af Kappa jacket😮💨
Thirst Trap
This week’s Thirst Trap is a simple and obvious one. It’s the spectacularly handsome, beautiful, Callum Hudson-Odoi, CHO, Calteck. Do I really need to explain? Just look at him! Watch him in games! Google him! He’s s.t.u.n.n.i.n.g.
And that my friends, is it for another week. Thank you for sticking with this in the lean times and for sticking with this specific newsletter which is very long indeed.
I hope you all have a lovely week, get what you want in Europe (unless what you want is an Arsenal loss) and I will see you all back here next Monday.