That'll Do Pep, That'll Do
The Week In Ball
Karim, Karim, Karim. Where else to begin. What a baller. What a player. (And yes, what a convicted criminal). Hat-tricks back to back in the Champions League and two goals of astonishing quality against Chelsea last week.
But football moves on quickly and I’m on a self-imposed deadline, writing this on the bus to work, so let’s instead dive straight into the leagues.
First up Germany. On Friday Dortmund beat Stuttgart 0-2 with a brace from Julian Brandt. I didn’t watch it, so I’ve no idea if it was a good game but at least they’re winning again. Bayern of course also won so while mathematically there’s a “title race” it won’t happen. I will eat my hat if it does (I don’t wear hats, so I’ll make a hat shaped cake and it will be delicious so come on Dortmund…!)
In France yet again PSG pulled the big guns out of the bag with an Mbappé and Neymar hat-trick against relegation fodder Clermont Foot. Neymar’s third an act of selflessness from Mbappé who could easily have scored himself but passed to secure Neymar’s triple.
In Italy, Milan are clinging on to the top spot by sheer will alone, having drawn with Torino last night. Juve continue their Jason Mamoa creep up the table after beating Cagliari 1-2. Inter and Lazio also won while Napoli fell to Fiorentina who are keeping themselves in European contention.
Before we hit the Prem let's finish our European tour in Spain. At the top, Friday saw Sevilla beat Granada 4-2 to temporarily push them into second, with Madrid of course winning to consolidate their top spot. Atleti however, perhaps hungover still from Europe, lost to lowly Mallorca which pushed the island team out of the relegation spots following Cadiz's loss to Betis.
In the game of the weekend however, Barcelona were rescued yet again by renaissance man and super sub Luuk de Jong, who came on and scored on 90+2 to secure the match against second from bottom Levante.
Before that Barça were being held 2-2 after Levante who were incredible. It was a breathless game, end to end, exciting and there were three penalties awarded, all in favour of Levante. If I was listening to the analysis after the match properly these are the first (second and third) penalties Barcelona have given away all season.
Two of those were scored, with the middle one hit weakly by Roger and saved by Ter Stegen. Barca came back though first with a goal from Aubameyang, who up until that point had been basically anonymous, to which I say who cares really? If he's going to pop up in the important moments and get the team back in a match good on him.
The second shift occurred when Xavi brought on Gavi and Pedri, the wunderkinder, who immediately changed the game. Within minutes they combined gloriously for Barcelona's second. They're just so good.
This pushed them back up to second, with that game still in hand, to continue with the Xavi turnaround, especially after a superb game against Eintracht in the Europa League that they couldn't quite kill off.
So to the Premier League.
We started on Friday with a frankly boring game between Wolves and Newcastle. I was hoping for some Friday Night Chaos similar to when Wolves played Leeds, but alas, it was not to be.
Instead Newcastle stuck at it, with Bruno Guimarães making his first start and proving why he should always be in that first 11. They were eventually rewarded with a penalty which Chris Wood scored. This win leaves them ten points clear of Burnley in the third relegation spot and should mean they're safe.
Speaking of Burnley, after beating Everton in the week by the skin of their teeth, they ended up losing to Norwich via one super early goal from Lees-Melou and then an 86th minute beauty from Pukki.
Elsewhere at the bottom both Leeds and Brentford won as indeed did Everton. For me, with my personal Premier League Club Likability Rankings the first two results are good, I want neither of those to go down, they bring a lot to the league and I like a lot of the players, whereas the third was, well. It was funny because it was against United but also, I would laugh a lot if they went down as well. In an ideal world Norwich would pull off a miracle and it'd be Everton, Burnley and Watford facing the drop (sorry if you support these teams, but the heart wants what the heart wants!).
In 'Teams Everyone is Panicking About But Should Actually Just Chill' news, Chelsea tonked Southampton 0-6. By all accounts (and by my watching of MOTD) it should have been the annual 9-0 but for the will of Fraser Forster. We can only imagine what would've happened were Alex McCarthy in goal.
Now we come to the stage where I have to address my previous comments about Spurs and how I enjoy watching them. STOP IT. STOP BEING GOOD FOR THE LOVE OF FUCK. YOU'RE SPURS, BE SPURSY MY GOD. The only good thing to come of this was the fact I captained Deki in FPL after stripping Mo of the honour.
I shan't be addressing Brighton v Arsenal 😌
OK so finally we're here, the big game, the "Greatest Rivalry The Premier League Has Ever Seen" (apart from all the genuine, proper rivalries of course). Yes my friends, it's time for Manchester City v Liverpool.
I went to the pub for this (shout-out to Ewa and Christina who accompanied me) and goodness me, what a time. Considering I live deep deep in Arsenal territory there was an enormous number of Liverpool supporters there, decked out in a variety of this season and vintage shirts and one very brave City supporter proudly wearing their colours (Christina, a City fan, represented them with her fab hair).
It was packed and it was loud and the noise when City scored their first goal was off the scale. Ewa and I, neither red nor blue, were shrieking at the spectacle. Suffice to say I didn't really have much time to watch the game as properly as I might have liked but we can definitely say these are two extremely well matched teams at the top of their game.
The biggest incident of the game came however when Ederson fluffed a back pass and the ball nearly rolled into his net. Calm as a cucumber though, despite the oncoming swoosh of Diogo Jota, he flipped the ball off the line and spawned a picture which is currently being memed to death.
What this does for the title race is well, it does nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing has changed, no-one has any additional advantage. Every one of the next seven games counts. It's exciting and it's tense and I cannot in all good conscience recommend living with a Liverpool fan during this period!
Football 'eritage
With rumours swirling last week that if Erik Ten Hag joins Manchester United he'll appoint Steve McClaren as his assistant I think it's time to address the entry on my spreadsheet that simply says 'Steve McClaren'.
McClaren started off as an assistant to Alex Ferguson from 1999-2001 before going on to manage Middlesbrough, his longest appointment at five years. He then managed England for a year or so from 2006-2007. For more sensible analysis on this I recommend Grace Robertson's excellent England breakdown from last Summer (it's for paid subscribers only to which I ask, why are you not already a paid subscriber?).
What I will say about his tenure is that he gave John Terry the captaincy and also hired Max Clifford to help with his somewhat poor PR. He also dropped David Beckham. After failing to get England to Euro 2008 he was sacked and until the advent of Sam 'pint of wine' Allardyce, held the record for the shortest reign as England manager.
However what he's probably most remember for is two things. The first is illustrated nicely in the above picture (which I stole from Grace's newsletter, sorry Grace) when he became known as 'The Wally with the Brolly'.
The event occurred during the aforementioned ill-fated Euro 2008 campaign. England played Croatia and just to avoid defeat to go through. They didn't, they lost 3-2 and during the match McClaren opened his umbrella on the touchline. He was warned off it by assistant coach Terry Venables but if there's one thing we know about Steve McClaren it's that he'll do what he wants. He was sacked the next day.
But perhaps his greatest legacy is his time at Dutch side FC Twente during which he appeared to put on an off Dutch accent and communicate with Dutch gestures. The video is below and having re-watched it, it's not that bad accent-wise but it is just extremely cringe in general.
The {Offside} Thirst Trap
There is no explanation needed for this week’s Thirst Trap. I mean look at him, he’s SO HANDSOME. So ridiculously handsome. And those eyes.
Yes, it’s former Barcelona, Dortmund and now Betis centre back Marc Bartra.
(I really feel like I've included him before but he's not on my lists or the insta?)
Merch Stand
As modelled by Ian Wright himself and off the back of @prefervoldemort's tweet, get your 'They're Lesbians Stacey' t-shirt here! There's only a couple of days left to secure the bag!
Out next week from Merky Books, A New Formation: How Black Footballers Shaped the Modern Game, edited by Calum Jacobs, aims to show the influence and the role of Black British footballers in the game. I've pre-ordered my copy and you should too.
Extra Time
This has to be first on the list this week. I don't know if this is the og video but it's the first version I saw and it's so, so good, the tension! I was therefore DELIGHTED to see that Wolves decided to do their own version, god it's great. They're all such a treat. Moutinho is way too into it, Neves means business, Hwang is having a great time, Killman is clearly the punching bag of the group and Neto, as I tweeted, looks like an emo teenager forced to come out of his room to join in with family activities.
As with Wheels and Doors I'm now begging other clubs to follow suit and challenge their players to do this. Imagine Jack Grealish doing it, or Sergi Reguilon or Fabinho. It'd be gold.
Newsletter favourite Musa Okwonga interviewed star boy Bukayo Saka for GQ and the result is beautiful. Have a read here.
Kevin de Bruyne has joined TikTok and the two videos he's posted so far are adorable.
The Design Museum have an exhibition of footballing creativity, Football: Designing the Game, which is open now and on until late August. I'll be making my way down there at some point before it closes.
That's it for this week, have a lovely Easter and I'll be back to give you something to do on Easter Monday when you're lying on your sofa in a chocolate induced stupor!
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