Absolute shambles
WHAT is going on at Old Trafford? Who thought it was a great idea to blow £58million on a barely fivefoot-nine-inches tall, or should that be short, centre half? Is there a coherent plan going forward? Heck, is there even a plan or are they just winging it? 0-4, 0-1, 1-2, 0-4 — the first two results were the final games of last season under Ralf Rangnick, the latter two the first two games of this season under Erik Ten Hag; not much has changed has it? The last time United lost the first two games of the season they won the title — can’t see that happening this time around.
Team of the week
Dean Henderson Forest, Kyle Walker-Peters Southampton, Kalidou Koulibaly Chelsea, Neco Williams Forest, Ben Davies Spurs, Kevin De Bruyne Citeh, Josh Da Silva Brentford, Rodrigo Leeds, Jesus Arsenal, Bryan Mbueno Brentford, Luis Diaz Liverpool.
Manager: Thomas Frank Brentford. It was only against Manchester United, but Frank set his Bees up beautifully to exploit United’s many weaknesses.
Goal of the week: it was only against Manchester United, but Brentford’s fourth goal in the 4-0 and should have been at least three more rout was a thing of beauty. If there’s a better counter-attacking goal anywhere else this season I want to see it.
This week’s games
Premier League today 2:30; Spurs vs Wolves. 5pm; Palace vs Villa, Everton vs Forest, Fulham vs Brentford, Leicester vs Southampton. 7:30; Bournemouth vs Arsenal. Tomorrow 4pm; Leeds vs Chelsea, West Ham vs Brighton. 6:30; Newcastle vs Citeh. Tomorrow 10pm; United vs Liverpool.
Selected Championship today 5pm; Reading vs Middlesbrough, Stoke vs Sunderland, Swansea vs Luton, West Brom vs Hull. Tomorrow 2pm; Bristol City vs Cardiff. Friday 10pm; Luton vs Sheffield United.
Selected Scotland today 2:30 Hibs vs Rangers. Tomorrow 5pm; Celtic vs Hearts.
Champions League final qualifying round second leg Wednesday 10pm; PSV Eindhoven (2) vs (2) Rangers. Europa League qualifying second leg Thursday 10pm; Hearts vs Zurich. Europa Conference qualifying second leg Thursday 8pm; Vyborg FF vs West Ham.
Game of the week: normally I would plump for Newcastle vs Citeh, aka the richest club in the world vs the second richest club in the world, but it just has to be Monday night’s clash between Manchester United and Liverpool.
Normally a clash between the division’s bottom club and the club in 12th place wouldn’t excite, but this is a massive must-win fixture for both clubs. As stated above United have been almost laughingly bad in their opening two fixtures and a third successive defeat would really light a fire under the owners, directors, management, and players at Old Trafford.
Liverpool, meanwhile, haven’t convinced in their draws against Fulham and Palace and are perhaps fortunate to not be joint bottom of the way too early league table alongside their hated near neighbours. Looking at the squads, you’d have to say that Liverpool are superior to United but they have injury concerns and their big money new striker will be spending the next three matches on the naughty step after being sent off in the Palace game. I still fancy a Liverpool win but I wouldn’t be too amazed if United nick a draw given Liverpool’s injury list.
Also worth watching
Leeds vs Chelsea and Fulham vs Brentford. I have a sneaky feeling that the game at Elland Road is going to be a spicy affair as per the good old days while the two West London clubs clash in what could be an entertaining no holds barred fixture that guarantees goals (00 it is then).
Get over yourself
A friend of mine reckons that Emma Hayes, the manager of Chelsea women, knows her stuff. All I know about her is that when co-commentating on the Premier League she’s about as interesting as Robbie Savage and about as insightful as Alan Smith, while her voice sends shivers down my spine.
Anyroad, jumping in on the back of England women’s excellent Euro 2022 win, she thinks it’s time that women’s football should have total independence from the FA and should look to either join the Premier League clubs or found a Premier League of their own as “there are plenty of sponsors queueing up” to throw money at the ladies and to bring this about she wants a “huge cash injection from the Premier League”.
I wish she’d make her mind up: if sponsors are “queueing up” as she says then why does the highly successful men’s game need to give a “huge cash injection” to fund her ladies? Could that be because there’s no money and little interest in the women’s game domestically as opposed to internationally?
No doubt Ms Hayes will waste no time in lauding the upcoming Wembley sell-out between England and the USA, but that’s to be expected when the European champions take on the best team in the world. But again we’re talking international not domestic and the latter has a very long way to go to be relevant. Still better than watching Middlesbrough though. (I’m hiding from Sue Hargreaves after this comes out.)
Moment of the week
Came when Graeme Souness said about the Chelsea Spurs game “It’s great to have real football back again”. The look on fellow pundit Karen Carney’s (144 caps for England women) face would have melted an iceberg.
The follow-up comment “It’s a man’s game” took her to Defcon one, but let’s get real here: he was talking about a game where not every tackle was given as a foul and even full-blooded tackles weren’t sanctioned in any way. That’s the way I like my footie and Souness, who was seriously filthy in his heyday, was merely referencing those times. (Definitely hiding from Sue Hargreaves.)
Irony alert of the week
Apparently 140,000 Chelsea fans (there’s no way they’ve got that many) have signed a petition calling for referee Anthony Taylor to be banned from officiating future Chelsea games because of his supposed bias against the club. The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is that they only want referees who favour Chelsea. What was that about bias?
And finally
Last week’s question: which is the lowest football ground in England? I suggested that Google shouldn’t be required because it was pretty obvious that the answer was going to be one of the clubs that is situated on the seaside, which brings us to Grimsby Town’s Blundell Park in Cleethorpes, which is just 23.6 inches above sea level. This week: what do the following have in common? Aris Salonika, Ajax,
Fortuna Dusseldorf, and Atalanta.