Place Your Hands

Sorry for any errors, this has taken me forever and I simply cannot be arsed to proof read it <3

Unless I’m feeling completely unhinged I normally name these newsletters after songs or films, so a new thing I’m gonna do is post the song link when it’s a song. This is a banger from my youth.

Kick Off

And so to the football.

The title of this week’s newsletter is pointed. Three televised matches on Saturday, three games with handball penalties awarded. All of them rightly so, under the current laws, all of them frustrating (though I beg you to watch the footage of the Michael Keane one because he did that on purpose).

I’m mentioning this now to get it out of the way really. There will be and will continue to be endless chat about handball, which frankly, there should be. Yes we’ve had VAR blunders, yes there’s inconsistency in refereeing, but the bad things about handball are coded in the rulebook and could very easily be changed. I’ve written extensively on this over the 2.5 years of TWUTAB (2.5 years wtf?!?!) and I’m sure I will again, but for this week let’s leave it at that.

Right then, Spain.

What’s happening in Spain? No seriously, I haven’t paid a single second of attention to it other than to see the Girona score (5-2 against Almeria, which keeps them second behind Real) and Marc Guiu’s family losing their shit at his goal (I haven’t even seen the goal). The thing is, sometimes things (good and bad, good in this case) happen in your personal life and distract you from La Liga and Ligue 1 and you just need to be honest about it to the majority non-paying readers of a newsletter you do in your spare time for fun but still feel like you’ve let down somehow.

So yeah, I don’t really know what’s going on in Ligue 1 either other than the fact that Lyon got beaten by Clermont Foot and are rooted to the foot of the table having not managed to win yet this season. At the other end Monaco are top and PSG are third behind Nice. It’s nice to see Nice doing well, mainly because Aaron Ramsey played for them last season and it’s nice saying ‘NICE’ when they win.

So what have I paid attention to this weekend? Well I watched Dortmund huff and puff their way to a win on Friday evening against Werder Bremen thanks to a Julian Brandt goal.

Dortmund are having a similar season to Arsenal for me, they’re doing well, they’re unbeaten! But it just doesn’t feel like that’s the case. Both teams need a really big, convincing win. Sure Arsenal beat City, let’s not write that off, but we need to thump someone, a delicious 5-0, that kind of thing.

I look at teams like Newcastle and Villa, both of whom have had, by Arsenal’s standard, a less successful start to the season but whom I would much rather tune in to at the weekend. They’ve both had hefty defeats sure but they’ve also both had extremely fun, big wins in entertaining games that have left the fans rocking. Maybe I’m just too close to Arsenal and Dortmund but I feel so much less joy than last season.

Dortmund won then, but so did Bayern, Levrkusen and Stuttgart (0-3 against poor Union who are in the mud this season) which leaves them fourth in the table. The good thing however is that Leverkusen are top and Stuttgart second, with Bayern “only” in third. There are only two points in it however so right it’s anyone’s title. (And of course it’s only October but why let facts get in the way of a dramatic tag line?)

In Serie A, Milan had the chance to go to the top again even with Inter winning, however a wily Juve and Manuel Locatelli in particular, ended those hopes, as did a careless tackle from Thiaw resulting in a red card just before the end of the first half. This left Inter at the top of the tree, though much like Germany there are only two points in it.

We come full circle then to the Premier League and the Day of Handballs. Three. Three handballs. Not really that many but each with its own level of consternation.

We start at Anfield where the first Merseyside derby of the season took place. Again I’m going to have to let you down here because I was out having a tiny ghost tattooed on my arm so I missed the first half entirely. Despite getting regular updates from a Liverpool fan, like a personalised livefeed, all I can really tell you is that Ashley Young got sent off for a second bookable offence and it ended 0-0.

In the second half the slog continued and it took until Michael Keane deliberately stuck his arm out to stop the ball in the penalty area, for Liverpool to score via the penalty that was awarded. Mo Salah, occasional penalty bottler, stepped up and smashed it home. A lovely pen straight down the middle. Put that on your bottle Jordan!

A second for Mo followed in the dying embers of the game after a stunningly beautiful and unselfish pass from Darwin set up him.

As for Konate? Hate me all you want Blues/Liverpool haters, but I just don’t think the second incident was a yellow so it was fair he stayed on. I haven’t commented on whether Ashley Young’s was because I haven’t seen it but you know I’d be fair about that if I thought it was wrong.

We had five 3pm games to contend with this week. Let’s start with Manchester:

City won.

Down in London, Brentford managed to exorcise some of their poor perfomances with a stormer against Burnley, winning 3-0. Yes, it’s Burnley, they’re bad this season, it’s a bit of a gimme playing them but still, it wasn’t just that Brentford won, they won well and I’m glad. Always got time for Thomas Frank.

In other ‘promoted sides’ news, Luton scraped a draw against Forest with a 90+2 goal that keeps them out of the relegation zone. Of all the promoted teams I think we all thought Luton would do the worst. They have a hot manager and a great kit though so I’ll allow it.

Wolves meanwhile overturned a 1-0 deficit against struggling Bournemouth and left the south coast with all three points.

Up in Newcastle the Toon glided past Palace, scoring after four minutes with Kirby mouthed Jacob Murphy putting away a Trippier pass. Goals from Anthony Gordon and Sean Longstaff followed in quick succession on the stroke of half time and Callum Wilson sealed it with a 66th minute strike. Newcastle are, whatever you think of their ownership and how they achieved it, fun.

In the early evening kick off Arsenal went to Chelsea, luke warm (well, it has been an international break) on the heels of their victory over City and jesus christ. What an abysmal performance. Whilst talking about it online I described it as giving me the ick and I stand by that. It was sluggish, the weather was offputting and awful, the atmosphere was weird, it was just all round a strange strange game.

Chelsea took the lead after Saliba handled the ball in the area and yeah, I was fucking annoyed but I can’t very well complain about it after my strong stance on previous handballs. Cole Palmer stepped up and we finally conceded a goal away from home.

In the second half Mikhailo Mudryk of all people made a speculative shot/cross and scored a gorgeous goal to put Chelsea two up. I don’t know why Misha would do this to me; I’ve been one of his strongest defenders and he fucks me over with that the bastard.

However, it was Declan’s time to shine… with a stunning half volley that caught Sanchez off his line. I wish I’d taken a selfie because my face was a picture, my jaw was on the floor and I found it impossible to type in anything but CAPS for about five minutes. And I’d just calmed down when Trossard leveled things with another lovely goal. And that was how it ended, a shitty, weird game with an abject Arsenal performance that somehow included two absolutely stunning goals.

Finally on Saturday a truly dreary game between Sheffield United and Manchester United. Yet another penalty was given and Oli McBurnie stepped up and scored beautifully. Manchester United snatched it though with a banger from Diogo Dalot.

Afterwards Ten Hag gave an incredibly weird interview that was soft and kind and magnanimous, so weird I had to message my Dutch correspondent to check that I wasn’t going mad and he was being strange. She confirmed as such!

On Sunday there was just one Premier League game and it was a banger of a match. The battle of the clarets, the betting scandals and the betting sponsors: Aston Villa v. West Ham United.

Villa took the lead after 30 minutes via Douglas Luiz, who Peter Drury was at pains to point out wears the number 6 and yet scores regularly. As if Drury was in fact some kind of sage, Luiz then stepped up to take the penalty Villa were awarded, for, shock, not a handball. Obviously he scored.

Just four minutes later Jarrod Bowen clawed one back for West Ham, only for Villa to get a third from Ollie Watkins and then sealed it with a fourth from Leon Bailey

Villa are such good fun and good value this season. Like I mentioned earlier it may be that their season isn’t as “successful” as Arsenal’s but I was extremely envious of this and of Newcastle’s 4-0. I miss the vibrancy of last year’s team but I’m glad there are teams out there who are still immense fun to watch and who cause me much much less stress than my own team!

I won’t repeat them again but you know all the usual outlets for your women’s football fix but I did want to take a second to say how great it was to both see Katie McCabe on a banger scoring tear yesterday (well, two goals and we won, it’ll do) and of course, more importantly, Vivianne Miedema back on the pitch for a couple of minutes for the first time in 310 days. Sure it was nice to see Beth Mead back last week and to be there, but I was thrilled to see Viv on the pitch, especially as one of her first actions was to make a beautiful pass that so nearly lead to a third goal.

So there we are, that was last weekend!

Half Time

A very quick one which I will tackle at some point in the future in more depth, but Arsenal have put out a statement following the criticism of the lack of diversity in their women’s team and I’ve just put on Twitter what I wanted to see so have the screenshots:

Full Time

Footballer Fits, which is a great instagram follow btw, posted pics of Jack Grealish being disgusted, correctly, by a pair of shoes worn by someone to training with City. I have to say I’m with Muaz Shaikh here and can definitely see Rodri in them.

Kvaradona got married during the International Break and had what was the coolest footballer wedding I’ve ever seen. His wife’s dress is s.t.u.n.n.i.n.g.

Andy Carroll scored a banger in Ligue 2 this weekend. Look at the way it bounces up into the roof of the net 😮‍💨

I mentioned this on Twitter too, as is the case with most of the content in this section, but the graphic Chelsea put out for their game against Arsenal on Saturday was really nice. It’s just very cool, got that 60s Pelican paperback vibe and Robert Sanchez is hot.

Scenes as we witness a text based Lampardian transition

Pep out Pepped himself in his press conference on Friday.

Ben White by name… (seriously though look at what an amazing dye job that is. I’m constantly yelling [on Twitter] at footballers to use toner and get rid of their awful brassy tones but this is sublime)

Martin and Laura, good afternoon

Bukayo wearing the captain’s armband. No you’re crying!

Shirt of the Week

No shirt of the week this week, instead we have multiple Jackets of the Week.

First up this Roma number as modelled by the delicious Paulo Dybala. Roma are knocking their fashion wear out of the park this season and this jacket is the peach of the lot. Stunning.

Secondly we have, and I hate admitting this, a beautiful launch from Chelsea including this utter banger of a track top

Thirdly, and finally, this stunning tracksuit from Olympique Lyonnais. The OL badge moves me so much.

Thirst Trap

This week we have a thirst trap based mostly on my deep seated love for this player. I just love him. Love love love him. He’s funny and handsome and brilliant at his job and did I mention I love him? I love him.

It’s {Tequila starts playing} William Saliba:

So there we are, much like Dortmund, Arsenal and United I’ve huffed and puffed my way to the finish line. I wish everyone a peaceful and happy week and that we’re treated to some brilliant European football. Please.

I’ll be at the Ballers x Studs event on Friday for England Women v. Belgium Women. I don’t know if there are tickets left (it’s free!) but come down if you can and say hi because I will be on my own!

Until next week, au revoir!