Land of 1000 Subscribers

aka 2-2 Much Too Young

I did it! YOU did it! On Saturday evening TWUTAB gained its 1000th subscriber and, well, I cried. I will never get over the fact that what started as a mad idea, encouraged by the group chat, that I assumed would only be of interest to friends, has grown to have a number of subscribers I can’t really comprehend.

So thank you: for reading, for sharing, for tweeting me about it, for commenting, for liking, for all the RTs and shout outs. I appreciate it all so so much ❤️

Kick Off

Unfortunately, however, Football missed the memo about the celebratory mood; all four of my teams ground out frustrating draws, two of which could have big implications on their respective title races.

It’s definitely fair to say it’s a different feeling from last week. I feel far less unhinged but I also, I think, feel flatter, sadder and more resigned to conceding the [Premier League] title. It’s football though isn’t it! Anything can happen.

So, the leagues.

Shall we start in France? Let’s start in France.

There was a top of the table clash on Saturday with second place Lens being hosted by league leaders PSG. Lens had a chance to close the gap at the top to just 3 points. As it was, PSG proved too much for them and ran out 3-1 winners to extend their lead to 9. There were goals from Mbappe (which put him top of the table as PSG’s all time top scorer, ahead of Edinson Cavani) and Messi of course but also a banger from Vitinha with his first for the Paris side. [An aside, Musk’s nonsense means we still can’t embed tweets so again there’s going to be a lot of links and pics instead which I hate but we have to work with it.]

Elsewhere in the reverse and not quite as good fixture of the greatest clash in Ligue 1, Brest beat Nice 1-0.

In Spain, Real dispatched with Cadiz while Barcelona ground out a disappointing 0-0 draw with Getafe. They’re still 11 points clear at the top but it definitely feels like that time of the season when teams stumble and stutter as the run-in takes hold.

On the plus side though, my darling little Scrappy Doo was At It from, to use a cliche, minute one.

That’s all I have to say on La Liga I’m afraid, other than to give props to Thirst Trap alumni Taty Castellano who scored in Girona’s 2-0 win over Elche.

Let’s go swiftly over the Bundesliga then.

You know I mentioned two of my teams getting frustrating draws that might have implications on their respective title races? This is the first.

Bayern welcomed Hoffenheim to the Allianz on Saturday with what you’d have thought would have been a straightforward win. However with discord in the camp perhaps weighing over them, they ended up with a draw.

This was Dortmund’s chance then to draw level with the current champions. Dortmund travelled to low lying Stuttgart off the back of their 2-1 win against Union and hopes were high.

It started well. Goals from Haller and Malen in quick succession and everything was looking good. Then Stuttgart had a player sent off for a second yellow (Arsenal “legend” Mavropanos). Dortmund held on. A Stuttgart goal was chalked off after a VAR check. Then Stuttgart scored. Then six minutes later they scored again. 2-2.

Then. 90+3. Gio Reyna. 2-3. This was it. The Bayern game was over. The chance was here for the taking.

90+7 Katompa Mvumpa scored for the home team with the last kick of the game.

This season has seen me screaming and crying with joy at 90+7 goals. Saturday was not one of those occasions. It was the first in a brace of ‘draws that feel like losses’ that plagued my weekend.

In this case I think we all know Dortmund were never going to do it, there was never the hope like there is, still(?) with Arsenal but this would have been a glimmer, a tiny chance. Massive props to Stuttgart though also, the mentality to keep fighting that hard with 10 men is fantastic, fair play to them.

In Italy, Napoli stuttered again, another league leader falling under the curse of a draw, drawing blank at home to Verona. They go into Tuesday’s Champion’s League game behind to Milan so this isn’t a great time for them to falter but we all know knock out football, especially knock out football at the Diego Maradona, with Osimhen back, is a very different beast.

Speaking of that tie, Milan were held to a draw by tricky Bologna who, for no real reason I can remember, I’ve made one of my Serie A enemies. They always seem to be a difficult game for Milan, home or away, and on this occasion Milan went behind, only for a point to be rescued via this golazo from Pobega.

In the fight for the Champions League spots both Lazio and Roma put three past their opponents (Spezia and Udinese respectively) while Inter also faltered, losing 1-0 to Berlusconi’s Monza at San Siro.

Juventus also lost but we’ll see this week whether or not their points deduction will stay enforced. If not they will shoot up to 3rd and really put a spanner in the works.

Finally then, we trudge sadly, yet again, to the Premier League.

Arsenal first. Another week, another 2-0 lead thrown away by my guys. I’m trying to be positive, I’m trying SO hard! But I hurt man, I hurt really bad. I think I expressed it best in the heat of the final whistle yesterday.

The players know what went wrong, we know what went wrong. We miss Saliba, we miss Zinchenko. Tierney is a fine player but his passing yesterday was poor. Even without the penalty miss some of Saka’s decision making was substandard. Apart from this delightful moment Xhaka was absent. (It’s not sarcasm by the way, the decision went our way).

Ødegaard was fantastic, scoring a brilliant goal, as was Jesus, but they were both subbed for far inferior replacements. I adore Fabio Vieira but I don’t think he was the player to put in against a brutish, physical team.

Also as I alluded to above, the original title for this was 2-2 Much Too Young, a reference to the age of the Arsenal squad, which is also something else to consider here. We have the second youngest squad and the youngest are bottom; our manager is young, in his first managerial appointment, our captain is young. We’re young!

It wasn’t our day, and like I said if these two results had happened in say October and February would we be so distraught? We still haven’t lost. But my god it feels like it.

Elsewhere in the Premier League, in a completely unexpected result [/sarcasm], Man City easily did away with Leicester. That the scoreline ended 3-1 seems flattering to Leicester who were very bad and probably deserve it for having John Terry on staff (a more perfect match of cunt and cunt club I’ve never seen though).

On the other side of Manchester, United cruised past Forest despite having no Varane, no Martinez and no Sabitzer. Hodgsonball continued to reap rewards, Fulham bounced back from last weekend and Lopetegui has finally got Wolves performing, with a goal from Diego Costa no less!

In the early kick-off Villa put on a barnstorming performance against high flying Newcastle who just couldn’t get into the game. Álex Moreno was fantastic and Ollie Watkins’ incredible form continued. It was a really really fun game to watch (unless you support Newcastle, sorry friends).

Then in the 3pms we had two delicious results (again, unless you’re fans of Spurs or Chelsea).

Frank Lampard returned to the Bridge to try and get Chelsea purring again against an impressive Brighton side. And for a while it looked like maybe even if they didn’t purr, they may at least get a result, after Conor Gallagher put them ahead after getting on the end of a lovely ball from Mudryk.

However Brighton equalised just before the break via Danny Welbeck and then a STUNNING shot from Julio Encíso sealed the game.

To the North East of the Bridge, Spurs took on Bournemouth who have been looking decent lately, despite Gary Neville’s continual insistence that they’ll go down.

In a blow to Gary’s credentials they managed to dig out a 90+5 winner to make it 2-3, a reverse of the fixture earlier in the season when Spurs won the game via a 90+2 winner.

Conte Stellini was quick to blame the players and while there is truth in what he says, it doesn’t take an idiot to work out that the issues at Spurs are bigger than the individual actions and motivations of players. That maybe it’s Stellini’s job to turn this around, that they can’t do this without proper motivation and sensible coaching.

Does this mean Poch should come back? I know Spurs fans desperately want it and on some levels I see it, but should you ever bring your ex back? Can it ever work?

So there we have it for another week around the leagues. Of course there were Women’s FA Cup games too, which saw Manchester United and Chelsea make it through to Wembley and much more besides I haven’t had the time, inclination or memory to write about!

As we come to the end of the season we have a packed schedule this week with Premier League, UWCL, UCL, UEL, UECL La Liga, Serie A and a whole raft of Championship games. Feast while you can because it’s going to be a dry June/July!

Half Time

This weekend a man playing football missed a penalty.

It was in an important game. It mattered. It could have changed the result. It was a frustrating miss.

The man wasn’t playing his best game. His manager probably needed a word, should probably have taken him off and left the captain on. We all make mistakes, we all make poor decisions. It happens. Sometimes it means nothing. Sometimes it means everything.

Whatever the outcome though, whatever the effect of these mistakes, no-one, no-one, should be subject to the kind of racist abuse Bukayo Saka received on Sunday and I’m sure, continues to receive.

We’ve been here before. Specifically with Saka but with so many other players who are simply doing their jobs and trying their best. You think they’re not beating themselves up over these errors? These are elite sportsmen with the highest of standards, they won’t take things lightly.

It’s difficult, for me, as someone who wouldn’t even consider a racist response to something like this (or at all) to get into the head of someone who would. Anger and lashing out I understand, some of it will come from that, and again, it would never occur to me to use racist language in rage, but I get that heat of the moment white light fury. The feeling for me though is that much of this abuse can’t even be explained (never excused, but explained) by this. Instead it often seems to be a concerted effort, a co-ordinated attack.

I would suggest reading this utterly beautiful piece by Amy Lawrence and listening to what Ian Wright says here.

I don’t have the answers, nothing anyone does has worked so far and it feels like nothing will in the current political climate but I’m here to say I stand in solidarity with Bukayo Saka, with Vinicius Jnr, with Ivan Toney, with Romelu Lukaku, with Cuadrado, with the hundreds of players I haven’t mentioned. With anyone who receives racist abuse whatever the context. It’s never OK and I will never tolerate it.

Full Time

In the aftermath of poor results I find engaging with any form of Arsenal media difficult but I liked this piece by Miguel Delaney (yes) about our form, how it should be viewed and how City fit into this.

I’ve avoided any Champions League chat but I have to mention Lisandro Martinez pulling up with a metatarsal injury and being helped off the pitch by his Argentina NT team mates playing for Sevilla. My heart, my goodness. Poor baby Licha.

Not only are Villa’s results looking up, they’re also making themselves known in the Thirst League too. Sure they’ve always had Mings and they used to have Grealish but there’s Douglas Luiz, there’s Coutinho, there’s the adorable Álex Moreno

And then there’s short king Emi Buendia whose eyelashes are practically illegal

Maybe both of those pictures could appear in my new book (speculative, nothing written except a title and some chapter headings). If you’re a publisher…📲📲📲

We were cursed from the start

At least we’ve got this eh? Right? It’s something! You’ve got to laugh haven’t you… *insert Marge Simpson staring into space here*

Loathe as I am to include City content I can’t let Haaland taking the piss out of John Stones’ pronunciation of Louvre pass by.

This is superb and extremely endearing

Antony reacting to Maguire. Absolutely golden.

Oh. More City content. Come on though.

Finally, please do listen to this beautiful episode of Wrighty’s House about the amazing work he’s doing with his former primary school and David Rocastle’s family and many others. It’s truly wonderful. An oral/aural companion piece to the Athletic article I linked above.

Shirt of the Week

This week’s Shirt of the Week is Carl Fearn’s Arsenal Pride shirt. Carl is co-chair of the Gay Gooners, a wonderful supporter group for LGBTQ+ supporters. They do brilliant work with the club and with their members (of which I am one!), if you’ve been to the Emirates you’ll have seen them on the big screens before the matches.

You may also be aware of Eighteen 86, another fan based Arsenal group. They go to all the games and take some wonderful 35mm and disposable camera shots of the day. This picture of Carl was one taken at Anfield and was featured on Arsenal’s website, Twitter and Facebook.

As is to be sadly expected these days, the picture was a target for masses of abhorrent abuse on Facebook. Well fuck those guys. Carl looks great, it’s a great shirt and you can’t keep us away. Football, Arsenal, sport is for EVERYONE.

Thirst Trap

This week’s Thirst Trap is one for the readers. I can appreciate that this man has beauty, elegance, a truly lovely face and gorgeous smile. But there are people out there (hi!) who I know are wild for him. I get it! He’s just not someone I would have necessarily considered without you. Sharing is caring though right?

Friends, this week: Tammy Abraham.

And that is it for the ✨1000 Subscriber Extravaganza✨! Enjoy it while you can as I’ll be charging £5 a month soon and quitting my job😎 (I jest, it’ll always be free).

Enjoy your weeks, enjoy the football and if we get any, which it’s threatening, enjoy the sunshine!🌞