SIMPLY SUMMARISES - Monday 30th October
I have recently come to the conclusion that I hate football. What a rubbish sport. Gardening is far more entertaining and has a lot more passion involved. Unfortunately it's my duty to talk about the most recent week of football, so let's just get this over with.
This week of football was by far more lacklustre compared to the previous week as it marked the return of the almighty Carabao Cup. Arsenal youngster Eddie Nketiah saved the Gunners from being knocked out by Norwich, Crystal Palace's woes continued as they were battered 4-1 by Bristol City, Jesse Lingard helped Manchester United to a comfortable victory over Swansea and Manchester City could only defeat Wolves on penalties. Pep Guardiola blamed the Mitre ball, which apparently was the reason as to why his £566.55m side struggled to score a single goal in 120 minutes against a Championship side. Clutching at straws a bit there Pep...
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The two remaining Carabao Cup games were played on Wednesday night as Chelsea hosted Everton and Tottenham entertained West Ham. Chelsea advanced to the quarter-finals as expected with a comfortable 2-1 win over the Toffees, and Tottenham easily breezed past the Hammers with a very comfortable 2-0 win, much to my delight! So moving on to the weekend... ah all right, fine. I won't hide from this. Time to face this like a man and discuss that atrocious second half.
At half-time Spurs were 2-0 up against West Ham, in complete control of the game. West Ham had barely threatened all half and looked nailed on to lose. I'm sat here now at work currently struggling how I put into words what on earth happened in that second half. I can't really describe it but, basically, Tottenham bottled it. They absolutely bottled it. As soon as André Ayew equalised to make it 2-2 I instantly knew West Ham were going to go on and win the game, which is exactly what they did. "It's only the Carabao Cup" claimed Spurs fans on Twitter, pretending not to be bothered by the result. I'm sorry but losing in that kind of manner against West Ham of all teams, at Wembley, was incredibly embarrassing.
West Ham could now go on to get relegated this season but because they beat Tottenham it would be a successful season for them. I guarantee Slaven Bilic won't be sacked during the remainder of the year due to winning this cup final. No I'm not bitter, you are. The Carabao Cup must be fixed anyway. The live draw on Thursday evening was delayed, and eventually pre-recorded. Manchester United got Bristol City. Not suspicious at all.
This weekend I was away in Brighton, wasting all of my money at Brighton Pier for most of it. After a morning of pouring 10p coins into a broken arcade machine in an attempt to win a fidget spinner, I eventually located a pub to watch the early Saturday game. It was a quiet pub, not so many yer da's were out in full force, but as long as I was being supplied with Strongbow Dark Fruits I was satisfied. With the news of Harry Kane missing out, and after Wednesday night's disaster, funnily enough I wasn't too confident for this game. I expected the game to be a boring cagey affair, and that's exactly what it was. After a few half-chances for both sides the deadlock was finally broken in the 81st minute. A simple long ball from David De Gea was flicked on by Romelu Lukaku, which put Anthony Martial through on goal to slot away into the corner. Just minutes before, Dele Alli had missed a glorious chance that even Vincent Janssen could've put away... ok that's a slight exaggeration, but it was an awful miss. The game ended 1-0 and that was that. What a terrible morning. I couldn't even win the fidget spinner from the arcade to cheer myself up.
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Checking the results on my phone later in the evening to see that Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea had all won didn't exactly cheer me up, however seeing that West Ham had bottled a 2-0 lead away to Palace was almost enough to make me grin.
On Sunday morning I travelled back home from Brighton just in time for my Sunday league match, where we won 5-1. Maybe things were starting to turn around this weekend? Anyway, the first game of Super Sunday was Brighton v. Southampton. I know that this fixture is a derby but I wasn't really expecting a decent game of football. The game ended 1-1 and all I've got to say is this: if you don't have Pasal Groß in your Fantasy Team, what are you actually doing? He seems to be the only player in my team that always manages to get a goal or assist and is an absolute steal for his price.
The last game of the day was Leicester v. Everton, where the Foxes won 2-0. Everton now sit in 18th place. Guessing this tweet was just a bit of banter from my old mate Richard.
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So there we have it. It only took until my 3rd article for things to take a depressing turn but that's football for you. Luckily Tottenham have an easy fixture against an out of form Real Madrid side coming up this week, so hopefully they can win 1-1 again and produce another DVD to cheer me up. Once again any feedback is appreciated, and make sure you have a better week than Spurs!
