The Rule of Three
Kick Off
Three hattricks, three different players, three home wins scoring three goals. It was a weekend with trios of goals galore and players balling out.
We start at the end (sort of, in the Prem anyway), with my boys.
It’s felt like a while since I’ve been able to write a post like this, where I feel giddy and joyful and excited about the team. Sure we won the Community Shield but this felt so much sweeter.
I am, of course, talking about Arsenal’s 3-1 victory over Manchester United at the Emirates. It start promisingly, but with no killer instinct, and then, absolutely predictably and against the run of play, Marcus Rashford scored a lovely goal to put United 0-1 ahead.
Almost immediately however, captain, my captain, Martin Ødegaard, evened the score with a beautiful, classic Ødegoal.
We then had 60 minutes of stomach churning tension until Alejandro Garnacho put the ball in the net and my loss prediction felt nailed on. But wait! The VAR gods were on our side and it was ruled out. I’m being flippant of course, offside is offside is offside. You may hate VAR but for offside, I’m sorry to say, it works well. You win some you lose some.
And so we went into eight minutes of stoppage time. It’s OK, I thought, a draw is fine, I’ll take a draw, they beat us this time last year too and look what happened, it’s FINE.
It wasn’t though was it… for Manchester United 😏
In the 97th minute a corner came swinging in and much like the 97th minute in another game (the 3-2 against Bournemouth, keep up) a hero emerged and bundled the ball into the net.
Declan Rice, scoring his first goal for Arsenal and in what a moment!
(Obviously the best thing about this photo is the Gunnersaurus on the right, I’ve never yet attended a game at the Emirates where I haven’t seen a kid clutching a brand new cuddly Gunner)
Regrettably, afterwards, the inevitable happened.
It wasn’t over though! Anthony Taylor simply would not blow the whistle, so on 90+ELEVEN, Fabio Vieira passed to Jesus, who was in space and scored a goal of breathtaking beauty. As many have mentioned, Diogo Dalot is still sliding to try and stop it.
It was wonderful. I screamed, I laughed, I very nearly cried; I felt.
Elsewhere in the Premier League some other lads were having a jolly old time too.
City won.
Spurs put five past Burnley despite going down 0-1 after four minutes, which we can only put down to a hangover from Tuesday in the Carabao. They soon got their act together though with goals from Son (the hattrick king), Cuti and James Maddison.
The third hattrick of the weekend came courtesy of Brighton who demolished Newcastle at the Amex.
Both teams got really tasty draws in their respective European cup campaigns in the week but it was Brighton who showed their group mates that they should be feared with a fantastic performance.
The goals came solely from the incredible Evan Ferguson who pounced on the first after a fumble from Pope and some extremely clumsy defending, scored a banger second goal and then finished off Mitoma’s hard work with a deflected shot that left Pope on his knees.
On Sunday the Palace Wolves game had a scoreline that made it seem like the most exciting game of the day yet it was actually really quite boring and I don’t have much love for Palace and a soft spot for Wolves so yeah, it was 3-2, Palace possibly deserved it but that’s all I’ve got to say about it really.
The other game on Sunday was Liverpool v. Aston Villa. Liverpool have done some good transfer business this window but their latest recruit, Ryan Gravenberch, despite travelling to the stadium on the coach with the rest of the squad, sat watching.
And to be fair, he was treated to a Liverpool masterclass. I’m not saying I watched it but if anyone asks I was ‘in Spain’ for those 90+ minutes and may have caught a glimpse…
The scoring was opened after only three minutes with a lovely strike from new boy Domink Szoboszlai (more about him later), gifting him his first goal for the club.
The precedent was then set and Liverpool remained in control, leading to a Matty Cash own goal, deflecting a Darwin effort, just 19 minutes later. The win was sealed by a Mo Salah goal in the 55th minute. It was maybe, maybe not interesting to note that after a day of speculation that Al Ittihad were going to make a world record bid for Mo, he didn’t massively celebrate his goal, but maybe sometimes players can’t be bothered?
I need to quickly mention that West Ham won against Luton, as was expected, at the first game back at Kenilworth Road and Brentford drew with Bournemouth, while Forest held on at Stamford Bridge to beat Chelsea 0-1 and push them into 12th.
Which leaves us with just one game, the Saturday lunchtime kick off between Sheffield United and Everton. I don’t wish to sound like I’m on Love Island but on paper it didn’t sound like it was going to be any good, but oh how wrong we were.
It was a game played at a furious pace, or, as I heard more times than I can remember “like a cup tie!!!!!!” Doucouré opened the scoring for Everton after only 14 minutes, with Cameron Archer evening things out again on the 33rd minute.
And then, AND THEN.
Remember when Arsenal played Villa last year and Emi Martinez scored an own goal when the ball rebounded into the net after hitting the post and bouncing off him? Pickford saw that and fancied a piece of the action. It was Cameron Archer again whose shot came off the post, only for everyone’s favourite emotional volcano to provide the finishing touch. Fair play to him for laughing after.
I will of course take you on a tour of Europe now but with so much happening at home it’ll be brief.
In Spain Madrid beat the vile Getafe, just, thanks to, yep, Jude Bellingham. He will slow down, he has to, doesn’t he? Surely? But for now it’s so glorious seeing him just thrive in Madrid. He looks like he’s having a wonderful time too, not just as a player but in general. I couldn’t be happier for him, he seems to be such a good kid and deserves it all.
Elsewhere Barcelona and Betis squeaked past Osasuna and Rayo respectively, while Sociedad and Granada played the fixture of the weekend which ended with La Real winning 5-3.
In France, Lyon sit at the foot of the table after four losses on the trot and were taken to task by the ultras at the end of the game yesterday. Now maybe I’m just too much of a woolly liberal or something but I don’t like it. I didn’t like it when it happened in Italy last year to Milan and I don’t like this. It just smacks of utter entitlement and yeah, I dunno. It doesn’t sit right with me.
Monaco still lead the pack but PSG are catching up so we can probably stop bothering with Ligue 1 now.
In Serie A my lovely Italians (all the more lovely now they have Ruben Loftus Cheek) beat Roma on Friday while I was out dancing, which was a nice notification to come out from a basement club to, while in the Bundesliga my stupid German boys let a two goal lead over new guys Heidenheim slip, ending with a 2-2 draw. That was less of a nice notification to come out from a basement club to.
Inter are top of the Serie A tree with Milan second due to goal difference and Juve just behind. They all look good so while it may be a team that’s recently won it we might just see yet another inability to defend a title over in Italia. Serie A is good and despite the coverage on TNT being ruined by the axing of Golazo, do not sleep on it!
In Germany, Bayer Leverkusen are top. It’s bittersweet for me, seeing Granit thriving. I will not and cannot just ‘get over it’. I miss him. But I’m glad he’s happy. But he should come back.
They also have Victor Boniface who has scored four in four and is currently setting my timeline alight. One to keep your eye on if you’re not already.
And that’s where we’re going to leave it for this week’s round up I think! What a weekend!
Half Time
You know what I honestly can’t be arsed this week. There’s so much shit going on, Greenwood stuff still, men making jokes about the Rubiales situation without any consideration of how unpleasant that is, rapists are still being transferred to clubs with big fanfares and are still scoring for their clubs while abusers still play on the regular. On a different note we’ve had endless VAR discourse and refereeing consistency discourse. Fans have committed homophobia, racism and assault, players are making statements against their managers and Saudi Arabia are still looming large in the transfer market and will continue to until Thursday.
But it’s sunny, Arsenal won and we’re going into the International Break, so I want a breather from the heavy stuff. It’s still there and I still won’t stop talking about it, but for today? No.
(And remember you can still donate to my Women’s Aid fundraiser all month. I am keeping it up but for some reason cannot save my activities!)
Full Time
A truly spectacular stat about James Milner
Yes it’s my own tweet but you know the drill by now; this, I thought, was very very funny and yet you can never predict what’s going to pop off and what isn’t
Whereas this absolutely banged and is, imo, nowhere near as good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You need to see this one really so here, click through
And to end you should watch this because it’s completely lovely.
Shirt of the Week
Shirt of the Week this week goes to Fulham, who revealed this tasty third kit last week. OK so it might already be cursed as Man City put five past them while they were wearing it but I think it’s really nice! I like their trio of black and white, shocking pink and this more subtle pink and black. It’s a proper collection.
We also need to mention Chelsea’s away kit, which is stunning, I really like it, but which was introduced as being “90s” in the most 80s way possible, sending Gen X and Millenials into an untold fury.
Thirst Trap
The European transfer window(s) closed on Friday which means it’s time to do a little round up of the hottest transfers to have taken place over the Summer. For ease I’m going to restrict this to Premier League (and one WSL) incomings.
There was a suggestion I should do a ranking but frankly there are just too many so this is simply my pick of the bunch:
Catarina Macario to Chelsea
I confess, I haven’t been keeping as close an eye on the women’s transfers as I have the men, but Catarina certainly caught my eye. Just… yeah… very nice.
Kai Havertz to Arsenal
I’ve fancied Kai for years. Beautiful curls, gorgeous eyes, killer cheekbones and the softest of soft bois, I just can’t find anything to dislike about him.
Callum Hudson-Odoi to Nottingham Forest
CHO immediately elevated Forest’s hotness quota by about a thousand percent. He’s just so outrageously good looking. Fair play Forest.
Pau Torres and Clement Lenglet to Aston Villa
Gorgeous, Husky eyed Pau and the exceedingly French Clement find themselves in a team that’s quietly building something of a cabal of hotties.
Sandro Tonali to Newcastle United
Come on. Do I really need to explain this one? Look at him! LOOK AT HIM!
Domink Szboszlai to Liverpool
My WhatsApp has been dominated by conversations about Dom this weekend. He is HIM. A presence, the hairiest man you’ve ever seen, the lips of a god, curls (god how I’m a sucker for curls), a smile like sunshine. It has to be said that for all of Chelsea’s chat it is in fact Liverpool who “won” the transfer window.
Brief mentions also to Christopher Nkunku at Chelsea, Divock coming back to the Prem, the always cute Mo Dahoud at Brighton, Micky Van de Ven at Spurs and of course the poor, ACL’d Jurrien Timber at Arsenal.
That’s all for this week! Enjoy the sun if you have it and don’t hate the heat (the heat is a lot but it’s nice for it to be bright), indulge your non-football hobbies while the internationals are on and I’ll probably be back next week if I can find enough to write about, if not I’ll see you in two weeks 😘