Hello everyone, welcome to Monday, and bar a couple of results, you’d have to say that was a thoroughly delightful weekend of Premier League football.
Swansea had to go and spoil it by being absolutely rubbish, allowing that lot to thump a load of goals past them, but aside from that it was good fun. Even Chelsea winning, a thing I’d normally enjoy about as much as an evening at the theatre where a dolphin is singing the entire works of Phil Collins, was made very amusing by the final few minutes.
Sergio Aguero’s assault – and there really is no other word for it – on David Luiz, sparked a melee and saw the City striker pick up a well deserved red card. Given that it’s his second of the season for violent conduct, he’s now facing a four game ban and misses the game against us in a couple of weeks time. Of course City are still very strong, but you’d much rather they were without him because he’s just so good.
Fernandinho also got a red card after some classic Cesc Fabregas. The former Arsenal man gave the Brazilian a crafty little slap on the cheek, then kept a straight face when he was strangled over the advertising hoardings. He’s probably going to get done after the fact, or they’ll mitigate Fernandinho’s red card, but it was all tremendously enjoyable to watch.
Let’s face it, if 90 minutes of football is too much for people to concentrate on these days, this is the kind of stuff that will get the ratings back up. Yes, it’s sport, but there’s also some handbags and violence. The inevitable Premier League – UFC crossover is not far away folks. A guest appearance from Conor McGregor and a post-game interview in which he insists on pronouncing ev-ery-syll-a-bul of ev-ery word and making sure the T sound is especially prominent. What larks it will all be.
Yesterday Liverpool blew a 3-1 lead over Bournemouth to end up losing 4-3. A great result for us, no question, and whatever else you want to say about the Mugsmashers, despite new owners and new managers over the years, their commitment to finding the worst goalkeepers on the planet is really quite something. I only saw highlights but Jack Wilshere looked to be well involved for Bournemouth, and obviously the fact Liverpool dropped some points is a bonus for us.
Then, at Old Trafford Goodison Park, Manchester United were held to a 1-1 draw by Everton, despite leading until the 89th minute. To help defend their one goal lead, Jose Mourinho sent on Marouane Fellaini and within two minutes of coming on, he’d given away a penalty from which Leighton Baines equalised. The best thing is I thought it was quite a generous penalty too, a clumsy sort of a tackle, but I think the Everton player jumped into him a bit.
Not that I’m complaining, you understand, it just adds another layer of sweet, sweet hilarity to the delicious laughter pie that if I were a room service waiter at the hotel Mourinho lives I would deliver to his room at 3am as he lay sleepless desperately trying to figure out how to make his team win again. Chow down on that, you goblin-eyed bath-tub Admiral.
So, all in all a pleasant weekend of football for us, or the ‘neutral’, but I don’t care about that fella. It leaves us just three points behind Chelsea, who are leading the way and looking pretty good, and it’s worth remembering that we’re there having played quite a bit more football than they have, what with Champions League and all that.
Which is what we have to contend with this week, of course, as we face FC Basel in the final game of the group. It’ll be interesting to see how we approach this one. On the one hand, there’s the possibility that we could top the group if we win and PSG drop points against Ludogorets. It sounds unlikely but they did just get beaten 3-0 by Montpellier this weekend, so it’s not impossible. A win for us if they fail to do likewise, and we’d win the group, for all that might mean when the final standings across all the groups are known.
On the other hand, there might well be some room for rotation, keeping some key players relatively fresh for the weekend’s Premier League game against Stoke. Given that it’s a Tuesday night game though, there’s a bit more room for recovery, so we’ll have to see what shape everyone is in after Saturday. There may be some aches and strains that will play a part in Arsene Wenger’s decision making, so the press conference later on should give us a better idea of what he’s thinking. We’ll have all the team news etc over on Arseblog News throughout the day.
We’ll also have what should be a very enjoyable podcast for you later on as well. James and I will be looking back at the weekend and all that entails, as well as previewing the Basel game, and answering the questions you send us on Twitter to @gunnerblog and @arseblog. We’re recording around 11am, so we should have it up and ready for you around lunchtime.
So, how was your weekend then?!
