And breathe. Thankfully the transfer window slammed shut on Wednesday. The only regret I had is that it didn’t slam shut on Jim White’s cretinous face. Sky Sports News coverage of Deadline Day, or DEADLINE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! as they call it, was enthralling and to be honest, utterly brilliant. Not for the reasons they were hoping obviously but nevertheless fantastic viewing. It was modern football at its worst. Jim White was off his face acting like a child on Christmas Eve and his co-presenter like a timid shrew scared to interrupt incase he dribbled all over her as Peter Ndlovu completed a shock loan deal to Isthmian Premier giants Shepshed Dynamo and he screamed “MY SOURCES TELL ME”........”AS I UNDERSTAND”, you understand nothing you Scottish twat.
Sky really wheeled out the big guns for the event, the people’s pundits, the men the nation look to in times of crisis, Iain Dowie and Dave Bassett. Four words: sack the pundit booker. I’ve heard more sense out of a postbox than I’ve heard from those two combined. One of the highlights of the evening was Iain Dowie declaring that Owen Hargreaves was and I quote “arguably without doubt the best player at the 2006 World Cup in Germany”. Indeed Iain. Sky’s decision to sit these two on their deadline day panel was bemusing. It was the equivalent of the UN sending Saddam Hussein to replace Colonel Gaddafi. Baffling choices.
Further highlights were provided by north east correspondent David Craig who smugly announced that the FC Twente chairman had informed him that he’d just accepted a bid from Newcastle for Bryan Ruiz. You’ve got to ask yourself why a chairman of a Dutch club would accept a bid for one of his players and straight away think “you know what, I must ring David Craig immediately and tell him about this”. Does anyone believe this shit? I swear they make it up as they go along.
In general this year’s deadline day was textbook. Harry Redknapp car window interview on the way into the training ground (CHECK), Harry Redknapp interview car window interview on the way out of the training ground (CHECK), would it surprise anyone if it turned out Harry Redknapp just drives round the block for the whole of deadline day just waiting for a man with a camera? Liverpool player acting like a dick to force a move through to Chelsea (CHELSEA), Sky linking a player with Spurs who they won’t be signing in a million years (KAKA/CHECK), supposed helicopter on standby somewhere (CHECK), hoardes of odious children acting like scum outside training grounds across the country (CHECK).
There was a new element to this window though, Arsene Wenger’s Supermarket Sweep, a last minute trolley dash across Europe to try and recover from a faltering start to the season. Time will tell whether Wenger’s panic buys will work or not but one thing is certain Arsenal have downgraded this summer. Their squad is weaker than it was in May and they’ve still managed to spend £56,000,000 and somehow managed to add permacrocks Arteta and Benayoun to their already permacrock filled squad. Arsenal’s wacky Wednesday was best described by journalist Paul Hayward when he described how Wenger had turned into “Harry Redknapp with an economics degree”.
The domestic season takes a break this weekend as Ingurland are in action. So if you’re looking for me I’ll be sticking pins in my eyes and lying in the middle of the M57. Cheers.
Where to start, Manchester United 8 -2 Arsenal. Embarrassing. I mean how the fuck did Man Utd concede two goals to the worst Arsenal side since the 1800s. In all fairness Per Mertesacker should be a good signing for the Arsenal defence. That is until he spends five minutes with Arsene Wenger and Johan Djourou and they coach all defensive abilities out of him.
Man City fans praising performances – you’ve almost signed every fucking decent player around, I should fucking hope you play well.
Roy Hodgson on 0 points. Class. Still not his fault though. Not Uncle Roy. No. Never. Warning to West Brom fans – it will probably get a whole lot worse. At Liverpool we were consistently shite, by all accounts West Brom are playing well and losing. Oh dear.....
Finally I turn to my favourite topic, Harry Redknapp. The irony of the man complaining his pre season has been ruined by other clubs discussing his players. The fucking irony. This is from the man who has made a living out of doing that for years. He’s spent the best part of the last two years publicly tapping up Scott Parker and looks like he’s finally got his grubby hands on him and he has the cheek to criticise Chelsea for making bids for Luka Modric.
I played a fun game last night, put Harry Redknapp’s name into Google followed by the name of any player and nine times out of ten there is a result where he is discussing said player. For a man who on Sunday hit out at another club discussing one of his players take a look at the following interviews carried out by this Sky Sports News hanging out of his car window twat. You can’t make it up.
Charlie Adam
Redknapp told talkSPORT: 'Daniel rang me late on and asked if I like Charlie Adam. I said 'yes, he's a fantastic footballer'. He said do you want him, I said 'can we get him?'.
'We pushed on and tried to do it, Daniel was confident he could get it through. It went to the wire but we missed out by minutes.'
Redknapp added: 'Daniel dealt with it. Apparently the boy was definitely up for coming...apparently the chairman couldn't get hold of two shareholders who had to sign the forms as well. It's just one of those things.'
Phil Neville
“We made an offer to Everton,” he explained to Sky Sports News.
“If David [Moyes] doesn’t want to sell him then that’s fine. That is the only one that if anything was going to happen then it’s a possibility but I doubt there will be any business from us at all tonight.
“It’s up to Everton whether they want to accept the offer we’ve made.”
Andy Carroll
He said: 'I can't see Carroll coming here, he's a good player but Newcastle won't sell him.' Won't come cheap: Redknapp suggested Carroll was valued at £30m-40m The White Hart Lane boss also suggested that the Magpies' hefty valuation of the player put him out of Spurs' league. Redknapp added: 'He's a good player, he's a handful, you'd like to have him in your team. But we are nowhere near getting Andy Carroll. How much is he? You are talking £30million to 40million.”
It’s good to know even the Spurs fans have seen through Redknapp’s bullshit as seen in this superbly written piece, something I can only dream of writing. Please read.
It was only just over a year ago that the Arsenal fans came to Anfield on the opening day of the 2010/2011 season. That day they spent most of the game singing “still got Cesc Fabregas”, “USA...USA” in reference to Liverpool’s perilous situation on and off the pitch and “Thursday nights, Channel Five”. What a difference a year can make. If Arsene Wenger thinks the whole world is against him already, just wait till Thursday if things go pear shaped in Udinese. I’ve said it before that I like Arsene Wenger but it’s hard to have too much sympathy with his current plight because it’s largely self inflicted. Arsenal’s centre is as soft as a crème egg and it’s all down to Wenger.CescFabregas was one step away from the Nou Camp for years, Wenger knew it, I knew it, you knew it, random man in Outer Mongolia knew it, but Wenger’s wallet remains covered in cobwebs.
If Wenger wants to know the consequence of not replacing a midfielder as influencial as Fabregas he should look at how Liverpool went from 2nd to 7th in one season, two words, Xabi Alonso. Depressing times for Arsenal and that’s before they learnt that the referee for their trip to Old Trafford on Sunday will be Manchester United’s twelfth man, Howard Webb!
Following this weekend’s games I propose a showdown of sorts between Aaron Lennon and Theo Walcott. It can be an experiment to find out once and for all which of them is biggest pile of utter nothingness. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be watching either of them get themselves into dangerous positions before they remember they have the brain of a gerbil and cross the ball to Joe Bloggs in Row J. The pair of them have got about as much end product as a broken production line. Ingurlish football is in safe hands when they future is this pair of pacey lumps of shite and the likes of Harry Redknapp and Roy Hodgson being touted as the next manager. Diabolical.
We’ve now had two rounds of Premier League fixtures and esteemed pundit Mark Lawrenson has managed to predict NO correct scores. I however, have now managed to predict three correct scorelines. And he gets paid for this? Jesus Christ.
Lawrenson Me
Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool
Aston Villa 2-0 Blackburn Aston Villa 1-1 Blackburn
Bolton 1-2 Man CityBolton 0-2 Man City
Chelsea 2-0 West Brom Chelsea 5-0 West Brom
Everton 2-0 QPR Everton 1-0 QPR
Man Utd 2-1 TottenhamMan United 4-0 Tottenham
Norwich 2-1 Stoke Norwich 1-1 Stoke
Sunderland 1-1 Newcastle Sunderland 2-0 Newcastle
Swansea 2-1 Wigan Swansea 0-1 Wigan
Wolves 2-1 FulhamWolves 2-0 Fulham
After two rounds the score is Mark Lawrenson 10 – 15 Me. Surprise, surprise. Mark Lawrenson knows fuck all about football.
Philippe Senderos provided us with a chilling insight into what it is like playing against Joey Barton last night. He really is a disgusting animal............
Another week, another set of predictions from Mark Lawrenson. For the second week running he believes no team is going to score more than two goals. Likely. Naturally I take a lead into Round 2 of 6 pts to Lawrenson’s 5.
LawrensonMe
Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool
Aston Villa 2-0 Blackburn Aston Villa 1-1 Blackburn
