❤️Make A Pass❤️
❤️Football is for Lovers ❤️
The Week In Ball
Hello long time readers and new subscribers, I do hope you enjoy this as much as my silly viral tweet! Apologies in advance for all the tedious Valentine puns and references. I couldn't help myself, I love Love! ❤️
I enjoyed going through what I'd watched game by game last week so I might try and stick with that format as a basic rule, however it's effectively been a 'double gameweek', to borrow Fantasy Premier League parlance, since my last mail out, so first off I'm going to do a quick run down of the midweek games.
So, on Tuesday I opted for Manchester United v. Burnley. Maybe not the wisest choice given the result at St James' Park but hey, we live and learn. I don't actually have much to say here other than to be thankful to Burnley, as an Arsenal fan, for keeping United at bay.
The aforementioned game between Newcastle and Everton ended 3-1, a much needed and cathartic win for the Magpies against the beleaguered Toffees. I'm still looking forward to seeing Bruno Guimarães properly and I hope Kieran Trippier keeps banging in free kicks like he did*. Maybe Newcastle are going to be OK? But are Everton? (Probably yes).
Elsewhere on Tuesday West Ham beat Watford 1-0 but let's not talk about that eh?
On Wednesday the chaos was unleashed both in London and Birmingham. Sadly it didn't manage to make its way to Norwich or Manchester where the Canaries managed a draw against Palace after a terrible and terribly unfortunate penalty by Wilf Zaha (I was discussing this with a mutual on Twitter and he was lamenting how sad Wilf looked during his MOTD interview, and he did! Poor lamb) and a perfunctory win by Man City against Brentford.
However, Villa v Leeds and Spurs v Southampton really brought it all to the table. I watched Villa Leeds, both teams that I find extremely good fun and I was not disappointed. The goals were spread pretty evenly throughout, with the first strike from Daniel James at 9m and the equaliser from Diego Llorente for Leeds at 63m. This was after Villa went in 3-1 up at half time. It was a dizzying, end to end game and a real tonic after a personally extremely shitty early evening.
Now I was going to go through the games I watched this weekend, as I alluded to above but I went out on Saturday and stayed out far too late and so my viewing has been erratic and with little concentration. However! There is still plenty to say.
Starting on Friday, there was a crucial top of the table clash between Arsenal WFC and Chelsea WFC at Kingsmeadow. It ended 0-0 but was end to end and both teams had cause to think they should have won. The result leaves Arsenal at the top but Chelsea have a game in hand so we've definitely got a tasty fight on our hands for the title.
On Saturday we began with Manchester United v. Southampton. As has been a continual problem, United played a game of two halves, showing little grit or determination at the setback of Southampton drawing level. This was another good result for Arsenal who remain behind United but only by a point and with two games in hand.
As we know United are in something of a mess at the moment and there are plenty of people out there who can give you a detailed analysis of what's going on, why and what they need to do to sort it out. However, as I've seen expressed on Twitter recently there is also a tendency towards the dramatic when it comes to United. As an Arsenal fan (with a sideline in other chaos teams in Europe) I can relate to this but there's so much huffing and puffing that it's difficult to know what the fans actually want anymore. Sometimes you just need to accept your team is going through their flop era and that this can last a long time.
I missed MOTD so I don't really have anything to contribute about the 3pm kick offs, however I do want to talk about the afternoon kick offs in Germany.
Vfl Bochum hosted champions-in-waiting Bayern Munich and quickly went behind to a Lewandowski goal. Bochum though... well, they didn't lie down and take it and by half time they were 4-1 up. They held on, with only a small blip of letting in another Lewandowski strike at 75 minutes, and left with all three points.
The most delightful thing about the win was this tweet from Gladbach, this season's main Bayern Slayers.
After Dortmund's win against Union Berlin on Sunday this narrowed the gap at the top to 6 points. I doubt it's possible for Dortmund to close this, there is time of course but Bayern are bound to find form soon and Dortmund are just so leaky at the back. Would be fun if we could have an actual contest on our hands though and stop Bayern getting their tenth Bundesliga in a row.
On Sunday I managed to drag my hungover self out of bed in time for Milan v Sampdoria. Milan took the lead early with a goalie assist from Maignan who played the ball directly to Leão, who then skipped around the defender and put it in the net. A case for long ball if ever there was one.
This put Milan at the top of Serie A and back in contention for the Scudetto, after Inter were held by Napoli, although Inter do have a game in hand. It seems that Milan are benefitting massively from Giroud hitting form, Leão coming good and just a general sense of togetherness.
In the Premier League Newcastle beat Villa 1-0 after a free kick from Kieran Trippier (*yes he can), Liverpool beat Burnley, Wolves hilariously beat Spurs (sorry Spurs fans) and West Ham and Leicester shared the spoils.
Over in Spain, chaos ruled. Wild scorelines, last minute goals, double handball, several reds... This delightful screenshot of the matches says it all
Starting with the Atleti Getafe game, I was busy singing along to a quite inappropriate amount of Linkin Park at karaoke (note: not my choice) and my phone kept flashing with LiveScore alerts of this game. Not for the first time Atleti chose to just stop defending and yet get out of jail. This nonsense leaves them level with Barcelona, but in the Europa place due to goal difference.
In Levante Betis, Betis were by far the better team, Nabil Fekir is having a fantastic season, and went three up with ease. Levante's first goal back however was one of the most excruciating nutmegs I've ever seen. Dani Gomez's shot went straight through Rui Silva's legs to give the bottom placed club a glimmer of hope. Sadly for Levante, Betis scored yet again, despite Levante also getting another, putting the game to bed, but not before a high tackle got Levante's Roberto Soldado dispatched.
Finally, the Barcelona Derby, Espanyol v. Barcelona. I chose to watch Pottery Throwdown over the first half of this and of course that meant that I missed watching my son Pedri score after two minutes. Luckily you can see whatever you want on the internet these days, so I was able to watch a beautiful series of passes completed with a little hop and kick by Pedri to open the scoring. It also meant I didn't miss him and my other son Gavi doing a very cute little handshake to celebrate
Unfortunately, by half time Espanyol had drawn level. If you think that tweet about hell being watching Arsenal defend a 1-0 lead is accurate then I humbly suggest watching the current incarnation of Barça doing the same...
Gavi scored a cheeky little goal not long into the second half, only for it to be chalked off because of Frenkie de Jong ambling along, unaware, in an offside position. Then of course Espanyol took the (legitimate) lead with a goal from RDT (not to be confused with screenwriter extraordinaire RTD) on 64 minutes.
For the rest of the game Barcelona battled but couldn't get through and it felt like it was going to be another one of those games. There was even a 90+2 melee which culminated in a player from each team (Nico Melamed and Gerard Pique) being sent off, Melamed being escorted off the pitch by his Barcelona namesake Nico Gonzalez and hitting the grass like it was that who'd punished him.
BUT THEN... on 90+6 Luuk de Jong popped up to head in an equaliser to share the spoils, probably fairly over the course of the action. Espanyol's Manu Morlanes was also sent off at 90+7, though I didn't see why.
My final note on this is to rave about Espanyol's tunnel. It's so cool.
And that's it for the weekend I think? We have a rogue Premier League game tomorrow between United and Brighton but otherwise it's all about Europe during the week. PSG v Real Madrid, Liverpool v Inter and almost all of the Europa League playoff fixtures look tasty (and with lots of irritating clashes!).
Kick Off
This week I thought I'd do a very brief section on what you need to do to become a referee in England, considering they're a much maligned species that are often accused of not knowing what they're doing.
You may recall from my very first newsletter (and me wanging on about it on Twitter), that in 1991, aged 12, I completed the first course you need to take in order to become a ref.
It was several weeks of entirely classroom based learning. I wasn't the only girl there, there was another woman, but it was mainly men in their 30s and beyond.
From the research I've done it seems like now you have to be at least 14 which makes sense, what 12 year old should be allowed to ref a football game? For most people there's a world of difference between what you're like at 12 and what you're like at 14.
Most of the information is here and here. So while it is quite easy to get a foot in the door, there are many levels you need to travel through to get to be a Premier League referee and you need lots of practical experience and a dedication to the job that isn't going to pay a living wage for a long time, so has to be fitted in with other work. This explains why so many high level refs are massive nerds or, like Jon Moss, own record stores.
Level 1 – National List (Football League and Premier League)
Level 2a – Panel Select (Conference Premier)
Level 2b – Panel (Conference North and South)
Level 3 – Contributory (Contributory Leagues)
Level 4 – Supply ( Supply Leagues)
Level 5 – Senior County (County Leagues)
Level 6 – County (County leagues)
Level 7 – Junior (Amateur leagues)
Level 8 – Youth (Junior Referee below age of 16)
Level 9 – Trainee
So there you go, a brief insight into how to become a top ranking official. Don't worry, this isn't referee propaganda and I'm not being sponsored by the PGMOL, we all know there's plenty of room for improvement in both the men's and women's games, but maybe on this Love Day we should extend just a tiny bit of that to the men and women who officiate the one true love of all our lives, football matches.
The {Offside} Thirst Trap
As you know this is an equal opportunites newsletter and indeed the writer is bisexual, so it seems only right that we finally have a female thirst trap. This sought after accolade is going to Arsenal and England's Leah Williamson.
I love Leah. Not only is she gorgeous but she's great fun too. Have a listen to her on Wrighty's House last week, she's fantastic. And she's cool, look at her at the Brits last Tuesday in that stunning Gucci suit. I love it and I love the combo with that lilac bag and her make up? MWAH. (And let's not ignore how fire Alex Scott is looking too)
Congratulations Leah, I hope you appreciate this auspicious title!
Football 'eritage
Last Friday saw the release of Amazon's Wayne Rooney hagiography "Rooney". I've previously given a rundown of his tweets in this section and this week, please just bask in these two tweets from the peerless Grace Robertson.
It's not an exaggeration to say I could barely breathe with delight at this.
Merch Stand
I mention Football v Homophobia a lot but they're great and do really good work. This week they're here because of this gorgeous t-shirt
I have my continual complaint that the sizing of merch ends far too small but otherwise it's a beaut.
Elsewhere PSG released their fourth kit which I like! I really like the motif shape on their shorts, which follows through all their kits
They also have a full range with Jordan including this nice splattery training kit
Along with various other 'lifestyle' items, that all have a strong basketball theme running through them.
SEXtra Time
It's ❤️Valentine's Day❤️ today so please enjoy this round up of the love based tweets from European football twitter ❤️
CD Leganes sent an email today which, even by Valentine's standards, was pretty fresh when translated
England were feeling the love with a bromance tweet which left out the current kings of the bromance, Aaron Ramsdale and Ben White and also neglected Dele Alli and Eric Dier. Shameful ;-)
BT Sport also went down this road, with a couple of excellent choices (Mo & Dejan and Tom & Dom) and also very open mindedly included a thruple
Classic Football Shirts wooed us with...well, Hearts
Dortmund gave us this piece of art from Erling and Jude
Sevilla understood to true meaning of the day
Finally, let's end on a warm and fuzzy note. Whatever your current love-based status, why not check out my L'Amour playlist and bask in 2hrs 30mins of what I consider to be the finest love songs out there. Including of course, the cream of the crop, the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Maps 💕💞💕
(eagle eyed readers may notice that, including the subjectline there are 11 heart emojis in this newsletter, one for every position on the pitch...)
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