Reiss Lightning ⚡️
Yeah so I teased a Halloween title on Twitter but then this came to me so... sorry not sorry?
Kick Off
What a weekend of football eh? The closer we get to the World Cup breaker the madder it seems to be getting.
Frankly I can barely even remember what happened in the Champions League and Europa League (oh wait it's coming back to me, there were some big VAR calls and all the Spanish teams bar Real were knocked out) so if you want to read or listen about that then seek your content elsewhere.
For now, then, let's talk about the domestic leagues across Europe this weekend.
I'm going to start in Spain because I seem to have really lost track of/my handle on what's going on in La Liga and it's probably my least watched league so far this season.
I suppose the biggest news is that lovely, lowly Girona held big boys Real Madrid to a draw in a game which saw 32-year-old Toni Kroos receive the first red card of his career. I don't know what led to it but it happened in 90+1 so I'm assuming there was some kind of melee.
Barcelona on the other hand beat Valencia at the death with a 90+3 winner from Robert Lewandowski, after Valencia scored early on and had it disallowed. This puts them within 1 point of Madrid at the top of the table.
Sevilla's poor run of form continued with a 0-1 loss to Rayo Vallecano which left them in the relegation zone. It's tight down there though, with four teams on 10 points, separated only by goal difference.
Over in Germany, things remained basically as-was. Union are holding on to the top spot by a single point after beating Gladbach with a 90+7, last-kick-of-the-match goal from Danilo Doekhi. Maybe I'm just hormonal or something but the match report from Union's website made me quite emotional.
So to France where PSG made a meal out of beating Troyes, going behind twice before leading 4-2, only for Troyes to get a late third. They managed to hold on though and remain at the top of the table, a solid 5 points ahead of surprise package Lens, who beat Toulouse 3-0 on Friday.
In Italy, Napoli continued their dominance with a 4-0 win over Sassuolo and goals from both of their men of the moment, Osimhen, who bagged a hattrick, and Kvaratskhelia who popped up to get the third.
Atalanta also consolidated their strong start with a 0-2 win over Empoli, however it was in Turin that the real news happened.
Conceding two goals in quick succession and frankly performing way below par, Milan were unable to fight back against Torino despite getting one back on the 67th minute after an horrific fuck up between goalie and defender who simply ran into each other. This leaves them third but only by a single point, although they are now 6 points behind Napoli.
To the Premier League then and a weekend of chaos.
We began at the King Power where, despite their best efforts and despite me cheering them through gritted teeth, Leicester were unable to break City down and they went away 0-1 winners after a wonder strike from Kevin De Bruyne. This put them top of the table, for a day at least, and fear in my heart that Forest might do us.
A solid schedule of 3pm kick-offs meant a nice meaty BTSport Score and MOTD and luckily the teams didn't disappoint. We can probably ignore Palace 1 Southampton 0 and Brentford 1 Wolves 1 (except to mention that Diego Costa was sent off at the death, which, you probably won't be surprised to learn as you've probably seen it online, was his first Premier League red card), which means our first port of call is the south coast, and Graham Potter's Return To Brighton.
Now, before we go any further, can we please stop with this myth that going to Chelsea is what gave Graham his glow-up. There are receipts online, he spoke about it at the time. Sure, he does look a bit more like a tech villain now but he was still dressing at Brighton.
OK, I've got that off my chest so let's talk about the game. It did not start well for Chelsea after Leandro Trossard scored with just five minutes on the clock. This was followed by not one, but two own goals, one a piece for Loftus-Cheek and Chalobah.
Kai Havertz got one back just after half time but Chelsea were unable to build on this and Brighton managed to both hold on and put the nail in the coffin with a 90+3 goal from Groß.
Both Potter and Cucurella were booed soundly throughout which is perhaps a little unfair but what do you expect? I'm glad that after the match Graham was defiant and said he 'had nothing to apologise for', which is true.
Another team scoring four goals was Newcastle, putting their past Aston Villa who are apparently fully over their no manager bounce, even though they do now have a new manager in the form of ex Sevilla, Arsenal and Villarreal coach Unai Emery. He didn't take charge of this game due to work permit issues but I'm sure it showed him what a job he has on his hands.
On the flip side, Newcastle were excellent and while we can and should bemoan their ownership and the money they can now throw Newcastle's way, they haven't been especially flash and they have also just been really good, with Callum Wilson and Miguel Almiron finding form right when it was needed.
There was late drama at the Vitality as Bournemouth managed to squander a 2-0 lead over Spurs with sub Bentacur getting the winning goal at 90+3. Perhaps the most confusing team in the league, Spurs sit 3rd with no hint of them actually being a decent Top 4 side, other than their ability to eek wins when required.
Fulham and Everton was certainly a game of football that was played on Saturday.
Because the schedules are weird and we're cramming stuff in for the World Cup, there was late night football on Saturday and boy, it delivered. Liverpool v Leeds was a ridiculously chaotic, car crash of a game from the opening four minutes when Joe Gomez gifted Leeds their opener, through to the astonishing winning goal from the frankly adorable Crysencio Summerville, who celebrated his 21st birthday yesterday.
(We also need to talk about the fact that Sky interviewed him next to Meslier who is a literal foot taller than him)
The win lifted Leeds clear of the relegation zone and left Liverpool in 9th and a shadow of their former selves.
On Sunday it was time to see if Arsenal could find their form again after tricky games against Leeds, Southampton and PSV and well, I think it's safe to say they did.
Before the match they held up Pablo Mari's shirt and did a small tribute to him after the horrific knife attack he was caught up in last week. It's good to see he's home and on the mend.
So to the game...
My beautiful Brazilian son Martinelli opened the scoring after just five minutes, however not too long after Saka went down and despite hobbling through the pain for a while it was time for Reiss Nelson.
The lesser spotted Nelson came on with a mission and stormed in after half time with a goal after 49 minutes, followed by yet another just three minutes later. He then assisted Arsenal's fourth and the cherry was added to the cake via a sweet Martin Ødegaard strike.
The win of course put Arsenal back on top of the table, with Chelsea to see to next. All in all, as Reiss says himself, a good day at the office.
The final game of the weekend was between in-form Manchester United and on the way up West Ham. The Hammers had beaten Bournemouth earlier in the week and United were coming off the back of a Europa League win against Sherriff, a game in which Antony performed his spin which nearly made all the boring pundits across the land explode.
Despite it being a 1-0 win for United it was a good game with several players stepping up. Martinez was, as always, excellent, Dalot continued in his fantastic vein of form and De Gea had a great game.
The goal came after a drool worthy pass from Christian Eriksen (truly, no bias here lol) to Marcus Rashford who headed it home and scored his 100th goal for the club.
The best moment of the game for me, however, was this little turn from Benrahma. The noise I made. This clip is from the wrong angle and doesn't quite do it justice but live it was gorgeous.
Finally then, let's dip our toe into the warm, welcoming waters of the WSL. The games this weekend saw two 3-1s, a 3-0, a 2-1 and... an 8-0, or rather a 0-8 as Spurs smashed Brighton at the Broadfield Stadium. Of those eight there were three braces and two single scorers. It was also shown that Spurs could play someone called D Spence and have them be an effective player for them...
The other games went as expected in terms of the winners with United taking the 3-0 and keeping their clean sheet for the season; Man City beat Liverpool 2-1, Chelsea beat Villa 3-1, amid questions about Hannah Hampton and Reading beat Leicester in the other 2-1.
The final game of the day, the remaining 3-1, was Arsenal against West Ham. It started, well, it started badly for Arsenal. West Ham remained solid and kept Arsenal at bay, until a horrible gaff allowed Dagný Brynjarsdóttir to tap home the opening goal, the first concession in 10 games.
After Kim Little had to go off injured, Jordan Nobbs came on to instant impact, scoring with pretty much her first touch.
There were then goals from Stina Blackstenius and Frida Manuum in the second half, leading to a record breaking 13 wins on the trot for Arsenal. Unfortunately, due to the comedy goal for West Ham, they remain second in the table behind Manchester United but there's lots of games left and plenty of points to be won!
I'll leave you with Beth Mead doing Beth Mead things.
Half Time
At half time today I'm simply going to leave you with this message from the Socceroos about the World Cup in Qatar
The cute guy in the beanie with the black eye and the lashes is Jackson Irvine who is such a good egg. You can read all about him here.
Thirst Trap
I'm not sure how this happened but somehow, we're back at West Ham United for this week's Thirst Trap. For me, West Ham have always been a particularly unattractive team, they've rarely had a stone-cold hottie, yet now we find ourselves in a position of spotlighting not one, but two of their players, with the strong possibility of third (and maybe even a fourth!) to come.
The second person to stand out from 'the Hammers' is Saïd Benrahma.
One of the handful of successfully bleached hair players, Benrahma is just extremely pretty. Zoom in (or maybe you don't need to bother!) on this picture and tell me you're not wildly envious of those lashes. My god!
He's also got a stunning 'low centre of gravity' (see the bottom left pic in the collage) and a beautiful smile. Welcome to the Hall of Fame Saïd!
We're lucky enough to have a Thirst Trap Extra this week too. Rúben, good afternoon.
Merch Stand
Despite it basically being like April or May in England at the moment the Premier League introduced their new hi vis Winter ball this weekend. And no, this isn't an excuse to include a picture of Darwin (spoiler alert: it is).
I do not like to endorse Chelsea but I forgot to mention this last week and it's so good. Classic Football Shirts' Gullit Christmas jumper based on their mad 90's kit.
Full Time
Newsletter fave Musa Okwonga wrote this beautiful, poetic piece about Messi this week.
As we reach the end of the UK's Black History Month, Carl Anka has written about one of the least talked about areas where diversity is an issue, refereeing.
It's Halloween and Erling Haaland appears to have commissioned Barcelona's awful artist to create a terrifying half-man, half-robot for the festivities.
After left-wing candidate Lulu's narrow victory in the elections in Brazil, everyone on Twitter and, it seems, everyone in Brazil, has rushed to absolutely drag Neymar over it.
After their late winner on Saturday, Jesse Marsch did the worst, most cringe celebration ever. Luckily it seems he's also recognised that.
Don't mess with former Antony and Licha.
Adama Traore had some fun in Sainsbury's car park
This is an extremely good Halloween costume. (click through for the inspiration)
That's all for this week! Have a good one and see you next week, hopefully on time!
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