Well that was fun! Our educated guesses, (which is what they have become since we retired from the predicting game), weren’t a million miles out. They were a few hundred thousand miles out but hey, who’s measuring?
Having suggested that City would return to their free-scoring ways they free-scored a whole TWO goals and it took them 96 minutes to manage that!
We also thought that Chelsea would take a stroll with Swansea as the almost-innocent bystanders. A 1-0 win for the home team is hardly suggestive of a stroll.
Antonio Conte was sent to the stands in this game and, in a moment which displayed all of his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Stamford Bridge geography, had to be directed to where they are!
He then proceeded to have less effect, from that viewpoint, on a team he is now managing for his second year than a certain Sam Allardyce had on a team he is now managing for his second day!
Arsenal scored five goals before the 90th minute which kind of belied our belief that they would score a 97th minute winner, (they left that one to Manchester City).
And Liverpool! What happened with Liverpool? They were supposed to concede as well as score but obviously Stoke weren’t aware of that fact and found that being unable to score, at home and against THAT defence, is almost as embarrassing as getting walloped 4-0 by Everton, (actually, 1-0 by Everton and 3-0 by Wayne Rooney).
So that was Wednesday night’s football in a nutshell and we are proud to say that we were only wrong on one outcome, which was Liverpool’s win at Stoke. The rest may have been woefully inaccurate as far as the scores went but the results of the games were spot on!
And so to other news and José Mourinho is planning a trip to Madrid. Why? Because he wants to speak with Antoine Griezmann, that’s why. It could also be that he likes Madrid and just wants to visit old friends there but, according to tribalfootball.com, (who cite their source as Don Balon, proving that writing an article about somebody else’s article is certainly much easier than trying to be original), he wants a chinwag with the Frenchman.
Again why? That’s an easy one this time. He thinks he can talk Griezmann into moving to Old Trafford rather than the Nou Camp, which he probably can.
He also thinks that Romelu Lukaku needs a big new deal to wear somebody’s football boots. He doesn’t really care who but the big black ones with no name on them are clearly no good and need to be binned as soon as possible.
United will trigger the option of extending Daley Blind’s contract for a further year but only so they can sell him for a fee. Obviously, if they were to leave things as they are, Blind could walk away for nothing at the end of the season.
Whilst he has been a good squad player Blind has never really been given much of a chance in his preferred position which may come back to bite United at some stage.
He is an international holding midfielder and both Louis van Gaal and José Mourinho have used him as a centre back or a left back. He has performed well in both positions but is now likely to find himself surplus to requirements as the club will probably, (at last), buy a decent left-back and they have several good options at centre back with the exception of donkey Smalling.
And finally, We now know what Pep Guardiola was screaming and shouting at Nathan Redmond about at the end of City’s win over Southampton. Believe it or not, (and the fact that it is reported in The Sun won’t help you with that), he was telling him what a good player he thought he was.
So using reverse logic, if Guardiola is your boss and you want him to remain calm with you at all times then just keep doing everything wrong!
Hasta mañana!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 