SIMPLY SUMMARISES - Monday 23rd October
"WAKE ME UP, BEFORE YOU GO GO, WHO NEEDS BALE WHEN YOU'VE GOT SISSOKO?" Welcome back to the 2nd instalment of Simply Summarises. The feedback I received from my very first article was positive and I'm grateful for all of the support. At the end of my previous article I warned everyone to "expect a far more depressing summary next time". Well, about that...
The Champions League was finally back this week, but firstly we all had to endure a thrilling 1-1 bore-draw between Leicester and West Brom on Monday night. Craig Shakespeare was sacked the next morning, with Michael Appleton taking over as caretaker. Personally I hope Tim Sherwood gets the job, purely due to the amount of endless memes that'll be produced on a regular occurrence.
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Tuesday night eventually arrived. Manchester City defeated Napoli and Liverpool were rampant away to Maribor. Meanwhile Tottenham faced back-to-back Champions League Winners Real Madrid at the Santiago BernabΓ©u. Many predicted Spurs to get smashed 5-0 and after Cristiano Ronaldo hit the post within the first 5 minutes I did start to think to myself "sh*t, this is going to be a long game". However, something incredible happened. After some great play from the English Iniesta (also known as Harry Winks by most mortals), Serge Aurier was played down the line and his cross was flicked in by no other than Harry Kane. Well that's what I thought for a good seven seconds, until seeing that it was actually a Varane own goal. But none of that mattered; Spurs were winning against Real Madrid in their own back yard. Unfortunately Real Madrid equalised just before half-time from the spot, and after some ridiculous saves from Hugo Lloris and Keylor Navas during the second half, the game ended 1-1. What. A. Point. Cannot wait to get my hands on the DVD, merchandise, open top bus parade tickets, etc.
Wednesday night saw Manchester United win away to Benfica thanks to a bit of help from the young Benfica keeper, who literally carried the ball into his own net, and Chelsea could only respond with a 3-3 draw against Roma after a humiliating defeat to Crystal Palace. Nowadays I spend my Thursday nights at football training or watching EastEnders, but you have to remember that the Europa League is still there for the smaller teams. Olivier Giroud scored a spectacular over-head kick to secure a late win for Arsenal in Serbia. In the future when Giroud's sat down with his grandkids, showing them the goals he scored during his career, I'm sure they'll be convinced that he was one of the greatest players to ever grace the planet.
Everton lost (again) 2-1 against Lyon at home in the other Europa League fixture as Ronald Koeman slowly morphed into Phil Mitchell from the touchline (who has now been sacked as I'm writing this).
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The only highlight from this game was when the Everton and Lyon players began to brawl with each other around the 63rd minute. A man in the crowd also got involved, attempting to land a couple of right hooks on the Lyon players, whilst holding... wait for it... his own son in his other arm. This man is the dictionary definition of 'yer da'. He ticks every box there is. The man was later banned from any future games at Goodison Park, much to his delight. Will probably do a bit of good for the health of his son too, who won't have to grow up watching Everton on a weekly basis.
I still find football on Friday nights a strange concept, but nevertheless it was West Ham vs. Brighton this time round. Some people may have been surprised to see Brighton destroy the Hammers 0-3 at the London Stadium, but I'm sure many weren't, including West Ham fans. To be fair to West Ham they do have a huge cup final coming up against Tottenham's reserves in the EFL Cup this Wednesday at Wembley so it was always going to be hard for them to focus on the current task at hand. Ah, looking forward to that comment backfiring on me this week... I still do see us getting the win though.
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The early game on Saturday saw Chelsea beat Watford 4-2 at Stamford Bridge. The score line was rather deceiving as Watford were on top for most of the game but Chelsea eventually won the game late on. Michy Batshuayi came off the bench and contributed with two goals, sprinting to his phone at full-time demanding an inform card on FIFA Ultimate Team. It was a quiet day for Manchester City in the afternoon fixtures as they managed just the three goals in a win against Burnley. The shock of the day was definitely seeing Huddersfield defeat Manchester United 2-1 at the Kirklees Stadium. An even bigger shock was witnessing Jose Mourinho actually admit that his side were fairly beaten, stating that Huddersfield were the better team and deserved their victory. The late game on Saturday was Southampton vs. West Brom. That just screams "exciting end-to-end football" doesn't it? The only highlight from the game was Sofiane Boufal's incredible solo effort where he sent multiple West Brom players for a burger & chips, before neatly slotting the ball into the corner, securing all three points for the Saints.
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My Sunday league team managed to pick up our first point of the season yesterday morning, where we equalised in the last minute of a game that we must've had a good 16% possession of the ball. Lovely stuff. After celebrating two draws in one week it was time for the Europa League derby between Everton and Arsenal. Rooney gave Everton a glimmer of hope after putting them ahead, but Arsenal always looked likely to score, and eventually it was a walk in the park for the Gunners. Jordan Pickford did well to concede only 5, making around 1,736 saves during the game. Weird situation for Everton: it's as if selling your best player and replacing him with average players doesn't seem to work... wonder where us Spurs fans (and also Liverpool fans) have seen something similar? *Cough* Bale *cough* Suarez.
The final game of the day was Tottenham vs. Liverpool at Wembley. Spurs hadn't beaten Liverpool since 2012 despite always finishing above them in the league. Even after winning 1-1 away to Real Madrid earlier in the week I wasn't entirely confident going into this one. How silly of me. If Dejan Lovren never plays a professional football match for Liverpool Football Club ever again, the blood will be on Harry Kane's hands. The Croatian had an absolute mare at the back for Liverpool as Spurs took an early two-goal lead. He was eventually subbed off around the 30th minute as the Liverpool end went wild, being replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. I was right to be weary of Mohamed Salah's pace as he got Liverpool back into the game with a rather scuffed effort, only for Dele Alli to restore the two-goal cushion for Spurs just before half time, much to my relief. Another error this time by Simon Mignolet gifted Kane his second goal of the game, and that was pretty much game over. Liverpool's only other good chance came from Philippe Coutinho, as Hugo Lloris tipped his long-range attempt onto the post. Diego Maradona was watching from the stands so he got to witness the real hand of God. Lloris was so good that he could even have saved Gemma Collins from falling off the stage at the R1 Teen Choice Awards. What a man.
Overall it's been a rather entertaining week of football, looking like it's up to Spurs to put the pressure on the league leaders once again in this season's title race. As always any feedback is much appreciated and I hope everyone has a great week!
