It’s that time of week again, when together we explore the peaks and troughs of the EPL. This week we have derby days in North London and on Merseyside; we take a trip to the capital of football known as Manchester; continue the almost fairytale-like season up in the North East and pay a visit to the Midlands, where Villa are playing as if they are being funded to research the most successful way to get football fans to fall asleep. So hold on tight, and away we go….
First stop on our magical, mystical tour is the home of the Beatles, the European capital of Job Seekers Allowance, Merseyside. Now I’ll give the scousers something, which is rare for me, but they very rarely produce a boring derby game. And for the first 23 minutes, the sides went at it like there was a shellsuit and moustache cream prize for the winner. That is until Martin Atkinson sent off Jack Rodwell for what turned out to probably be the best tackle of the game. This made the game something of a non-contest, as the neutral knew that it was only a matter of time before Liverpool broke them down, which they did, courtesy of the little and large combination of Carroll and Suarez. So it was the red half of Merseyside which currently own the bragging rights in the City, as they have for the past god-knows how many years. Why don’t Everton just give up?
The other big derby game saw Arsenal take on Spurs at White Hart Lane. If there is one thing this fixture has provided us with in recent time its been goals, by the absolute hat full. So it was unfortunate for Spurs that Arsenal went into the game with one of the best defensive records in the league. Oh no wait, that was 1996. In reality they have Per Mertesacker and a whole squad of comedy defenders. Before the game, all talk was focused on Emmanuel Adebayor and his first North London derby for the White half. All signs were pointing to him adding to Wenger’s misery in some kind of Robert Maxwell wet dream. It didn’t really pan out like that, although Spurs did run out winners. But I think the major thing that the Spurs fans will take from this game is that for the first time in a long time, they are legitimately the number one team in North London. They have a better squad, better fans and a manager who hasn’t lost the plot. Arsenal have a 60,000 seater morgue where their fans sleep on matchdays.
We move swiftly on to Old Trafford, where United met Norwich is what SHOULD have been a fairly one-sided contest. However, Norwich took the game to United and really should have been 2 or 3 up by the time Anderson scored in the 68th minute. United will need to do better if they hope to sustain their brilliant start to the season. The blue half of Manchester faced to non-entities of the EPL, the team that make Benny Hill look like a politician, make the Chuckle Brothers look like University Professors, the Rovers of Blackburn. Citeh demolished Blackburn 4-0 at Ewood, where someone really should put Steve Kean out of his misery. If he was a dog, he’d have gone to live in that farm in the countryside where my childhood pal went to live… what?
Up in the North East, its most certainly a tale of two contrasting seasons so far. Sunderland, who spent big in the summer and who had high expectations held against them for kicking on to the next level, have so far struggled in the EPL. This trend continued as they drew 2-2 with another of the leagues under-achievers in West Brom. It was more bad news on Monday as Niall Quinn stepped down as Chairman and moved into a different role. Bad times at the Stadium of Light. Not so much at St James Park, where the bar codes are hitting all the right notes with their semi-naked fans. They showed all the traits of a top team on Saturday by having a blatantly obvious goal against them disallowed as they snuck a 2-1 win away to Wolves. Erm, can the real Alan Pardew please stand up?
The pies certainly hit the fan this weekend in Wigan as the football team dropped into the relegation zone by going down 2-0 to boring, boring Villa, and the rugby team went out of the Super League playoffs to arch rivals St Helens. Martinez and big DW are in big trouble this season, with relegation a serious threat. Good, I can’t stand nothing teams like Wigan who just try to survive each season with nothing more. Fuck off back to the lower leagues and let someone with passion for the game take your place. Another North West team in big trouble is Bolton who got hammered 5-1 at home to Chelsea. Daniel Sturridge looked in fine form against his former team and compounded Owen Coyle’s miserable start to the season. The Mighty Whites, as they are known by their fans, played more like the Shitey Whites (ED – Come on, try harder) and sit rock bottom of the EPL.
We finish our round-up with two teams whose fans must have been in raptures on Sunday Evening. Fulham finally started their season by destroying QPR 6-0 at the Cottage. Not a bad way to secure your first win of the season. This was made even better by Andy Johnson’s first hat-trick since the 90’s. Maybe it was the new shipment of scalp wax he was trying out? But that’s enough of the jokes, and yes, they were supposed to be jokes. I’m going to finish up this week with news of a revolution in Wales, where Swansea are undefeated in four games at home, conceding NO goals and scoring five. It’s almost a shame they have to play in England at all, where they have lost all three of their games with a goal difference of -8. Wait a minute, the ‘E’ in EPL stands for English? and Swansea is where? Oh…
