SIMPLY SUMMARISES - Monday 6th November
"Ole! Ole! Ooooooleee!" All of a sudden I love football again. Welcome back to another instalment of Simply Summarises. With the return of the Champions League and a cracking Super Sunday lined up, this week of football promised to be a good one.
Monday nights have produced some proper dull games recently and yet again last Monday's fixture disappointed. Burnley faced Newcastle at Turf Moor. This game just screams "6-5 thriller" doesn't it? Unfortunately it was a very boring affair, however we did get to witness at least one goal thanks to Jeff Hendrick who managed to grab a winner for Burnley. Yay.
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After finally waking up from that snooze fest it was time for the Champions League. Tuesday night saw Manchester United face Benfica and Chelsea play away to Roma. Manchester United won 2-0 comfortably with help from the young Benfica keeper (again) and Roma absolutely battered Chelsea 3-0, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Chelsea's defending that night was an insult to all Sunday league defences, utterly embarrassing. Even my Sunday league team defends better and we usually leak goals in for fun.
The other three English clubs were in action on Wednesday night; Liverpool dispatched Maribor 3-0 at Anfield, Sergio Aguero became Manchester City's all-time scorer during an entertaining 4-2 victory away to a strong Napoli side, and Tottenham smashed Real Madrid 3-1 with ease. "Tottenham smashed Real Madrid 3-1 with ease". Never in my 21 years of living on this planet did I ever imagine I would type those very words. Rival fans can make all the DVD jokes they want, I'm not forgetting this one anytime soon. Have you ever chanted "Ole!" every time your team completed a pass against the European Champions whilst being 3-0 up?
I wonder if Real Madrid will be able to hold onto their players now as I imagine they might want to make the step up to Spurs. For that to happen Harry Winks would of course have to let Luka Modric out of his pocket, and to be honest I think that Cristiano Ronaldo would struggle to secure a starting place in the team over Moussa Sissoko. I'd like to give a big shout out to the greatest of all time, Mousa Dembele, for kicking the sh*t out of Sergio Ramos that night. A pure joy to witness. Seeing a Real Madrid fan cry in the stands is exactly why I love this sport. Must be so tough supporting back to back European Champions, can't imagine what she's been through.
Everton got knocked out of the Europa League after losing 3-0 to Lyon and Arsenal advanced to the knockout stages with an exhilarating 0-0 draw to Red Star Belgrade on Thursday evening, not that anyone really cares. EastEnders was more dramatic and intense that night. However the Europa League did provide something to talk about for a change. Before Marseille played Vitória Guimarães (think I've spelt that right) Patrice Evra karate kicked one of his own fans. The club has now suspended Evra. FATALITY...
Leicester vs. Stoke was the early game on Saturday, which ended 2-2. Peter Crouch came off the bench once again to rescue a point for the Potters. Get that giraffe on the plane Gareth! All the 3 o'clock kick-offs were dreadful, each one ending 1-0, so I'll swiftly move on to the evening game. West Ham hosted Liverpool at the London Stadium and once again they were humiliated as Liverpool won 4-1. The poor Hammers must've still been hungover from their cup final win against Spurs in the Carabao Cup. I placed a cheeky bet at 1-0 predicting Liverpool to win 5-1 and I was confident it was in the bag, but the Reds missed a handful of chances at 4-1. Typical. Also Slaven Bilic has just been sacked as I'm writing this so it looks like I was wrong, beating Tottenham doesn't guarantee you your job as West Ham manager!
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Finally Super Sunday arrived, the pick of the bunch obviously being Everton vs. Watford. The early game was Spurs vs. Palace at Wembley. I missed the first half of this game, as I was too busy recreating Bale vs. Maicon at the San Siro in my Sunday league cup quarter-final. Luckily I didn't miss much as it remained 0-0 at half-time. After beating Real Madrid I'm pretty sure every Spurs fan wasn't surprised to see that we were struggling against bottom of the league at home. You're not really a true Spurs fan if you thought we'd walk this. Eventually Heung Min Son got the winner for Spurs in the second-half and I could finally rest easy. Not a bad week for me really?
Next up was Manchester City vs. Arsenal. Alexis Sanchez seemed to be linking up well with his future City teammates after giving away possession on multiple occasions, with Kevin De Bruyne eventually breaking the deadlock. Nacho Monreal gave away a penalty in the second half, which Sergio Aguero slotted home, and that looked like game over. Alexandre Lacazette came off the bench for the Gunners and got them back into the game, only for Gabriel Jesus to come off the bench for City to secure the 3 points. This fish has had enough...
The final two games of the week kicked off at the same time, Chelsea vs. Manchester United and Everton vs. Watford. A bullet header from Alvaro Morata cemented a 1-0 win for the Blues, leading to further Twitter debates from Chelsea and Man U fans about whether Romelu Lukaku is a donkey or not. Funnily enough Everton vs. Watford was the best game of the day. Watford ended up bottling a 2-0 lead, losing 3-2 to the Toffees. Leighton Baines scored a 91st minute penalty that looked like to be the match winner, only for Watford to win a penalty for themselves. Tom Cleverley stepped up and cleverly slotted it away... wide of the goal. Chin up Tom, at least you got the winner against Arsenal a few weeks ago.
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Unfortunately it's the international break this week so I beg all of you to avoid watching England at all costs and get to the pub. I'll make sure to purchase the "We Beat Real Madrid" Tottenham DVD and watch it on repeat for the rest of my life. Feedback is appreciated as always, and enjoy your week fellas!
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