Readers of our article from Friday will notice that the title of this piece isn’t; “If only hindsight were foresight”. In fact, we were only ever 50% of the way there as we were correct in half of the top six team’s results.
How, you may wonder, could we be half right about five games? Actually, it wasn’t so much about the games as the teams. We were let down, as the North-West usually is, by London, with Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham all failing to provide the desired results, whereas Manchester City, United and Liverpool were true to OUR word.
In the North London derby, Arsenal suddenly remembered how to play football while Spurs, unfortunately for themselves and their fans, also suddenly had a memory flash, but theirs was to remind them that they never beat the other top teams and, consequently, they continued that theme.
A 2-0 victory for the Gunners wasn’t even flattering as they could have had more but this result keeps them in touch with the top four which, as we all know, is the height of stubborn old man’s ambition.
This was a game we thought Spurs could have taken something from and, with a little luck, that something could even have been three points but, as usual in the big games, the wrong Tottenham Hotspur turned up.
First let-down of the weekend and by both teams! Spurs were supposed to draw or win and Arsenal were supposed to do neither.
Next Chelsea hammered West Brom at The Hawthorns. Our theory in this one was that there would be a reaction from both Tony Pulis and his team to the criticism they have been receiving this season and to the reports that he had two games to save his job.
He had already warned the club that they would struggle to find a better manager than him so it would have been nice of him to actually try and prove it on the field.
If there was a reaction we must have missed it because, although we didn’t see the game, 0-4 sounds like a pretty easy, and certainly convincing, win for the visitors.
Tony Pulis now has one game to save his job so it is fairly safe to say that he will be out of work in the very near future and The Baggies will be seeking a new manager.
Second let-down of the weekend, this time by Chelsea because they weren’t supposed to win!
Things started to improve dramatically once our attention returned to the place of our birth, (the North-West).
Firstly, Liverpool beat Southampton 3-0 which was not entirely unexpected but, then again, anything can happen with a team managed by Jürgen Klopp.
Southampton are another team with an under pressure manager and that is entirely their own fault. They should have stuck with Claude Puel who had done absolutely nothing wrong and will prove his worth with Leicester City.
First correct guess of the weekend, an easy win for Liverpool.
Talking of Claude Puel, he was involved in one of the games we watched live and his Leicester team were soundly “Pep-ped” by Manchester City. This was another 0-2 game where the margin of victory could have been greater but, as we have been seeing all season, only conceding two goals against this City team is quite an achievement in itself.
Puel will console himself with the well-worn and vastly overused consolation that he only has to play Pep Guardiola’s team twice, (in the league anyway).
Second correct guess of the weekend, City win quite easily.
Finally, we sat through the late kick-off which saw Manchester United take on Newcastle at Old Trafford.
Paul Pogba back in the team, Rojo and Ibrahimović on the bench, happy days! What could possibly go wrong?
Well, having a back four made up of two wingers, a vegetable and a donkey allowed Newcastle to take the lead and, at the time, it wasn’t against the run of play!
United did manage to grasp the initiative and, by half-time, had turned it round and by full-time had returned to the good old days of four goals per game at Old Trafford.
It was an important win as it kept United a mere eight points behind leaders City and, thanks to results elsewhere, there is now only a four points gap between second place and seventh!
So this was our third correct guess of the weekend, a win for United.
Not too bad really because although we were only right with 50% of the teams, we forecast 60% of the games correctly. Now that was a result!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 