Mostly I feel West Ham are going to make me regret putting my faith in them. Also dipping my toe into some F***ing Spurs Failed Banker waters. Arsenal haven’t been good lately so I’m hoping to jinx them into life by predicting a loss at recently-lively Newcastle. Hoping Chelsea’s eye will be on the Champions League ball instead of the Premier League ball.
Children’s literary powerhouse Julia Donaldson is to release Liverpool FC themed versions of her famous classic stories.
Donaldson was quoted as saying, “I really liked Vegard Heggem as a player and was really sad he had to retire.” When asked about the recent criticism regarding the club’s now abandoned plan to join the breakaway Super League, she said, “I’m not interested in all that. I think it will be a wonderful experience for Liverpool fans of all ages to see their heroes transported to magical lands, and Roy Evans drawn as an owl.”
The initial run of titles will include The Grobbalo, The Heighway Rat, Stig Inge Man, What the Lawrenson heard, N’gog and the Flying Doctors, Room on Benayoun, and Mølby Puzzle.
The BBC has announced a shake up of its signature radio call in show, 606, replacing incumbent presenters Robbie Savage and Chris Sutton with the highly controversial Video Assistant Referee system.
“Whilst Robbie and Chris are well known for their left-field opinions and occasional hatred of modern football, we felt it was time for a new face for the programme,” said a BBC spokesperson. “VAR speaks to the younger listeners, those who understand that pixel-level offside decisions are the way of the future.”
Privately, senior BBC staff have discussed if Savage and Sutton would be able to conform to new OFCOM rules regarding Bantz~! levels, which are due to come in to effect on June 1st. It was felt Sutton’s generally more angry approach would meet the new standard, but Savage would be unable to dial back his bantzometer.
This is the first time VAR has taken on a role where the public can interact with them. “I may not be able to tick a box that asks ‘Are you a human being?’ on a website, but I’ve got this uncanny ability to draw lines on the screen and really suck the joy out of proceedings. And given that misery loves company, 606 felt like the perfect place to try and build a better relationship with the fans.”
An angry Sutton has refused to comment. Savage released a statement saying, “WOI OIIII!”
Tough round this week. Leno’s already cost me dearly with that howler. Should have seen it coming as well, last time I was reading about Arsenal’s amazing home record against a specific team, it was against Burnley, and history just went and repeated itself. Cheers, history, you wanker. I think last time I banked on Leicester they got battered by Leyton Orient or someone shite. Don’t mess it up this time, lads!
I don’t believe anyone complaining about the European Super League is naïve enough not to believe that football’s all about the money. For as long as there has been chairmen to extract profits from clubs, football has been about the money. The Premier League emerged from the era that housed Ken Bates’s electric fences, Thatcher’s persecution of the poor, and Alan Sugar’s desire to sell more Amstrad Satellite dishes. Treating the fans like dirt whilst happily accepting their coin has been the Modus Operandi for the people at the top of the game since time immemorial. The idea that the Premier League was simply a “rebranding” because of football’s bad 80’s vibe is laughable.
So what’s different this time? The transformation of the top flight from “glitzy repackaged Division 1 games featuring Ronny Rosenthal” to “money-making powerhouse featuring all your favourite stars and Nicolas Pepe” was not instantaneous. It was a gradual gentrification, a country and a culture so intrinsically mistrustful of foreigners, slow to change its inward-looking ways. It wasn’t until the ’94-’95 season that we saw more than one foreign import in the top 20 most expensive transfers[1], according to data from transfermarkt.co.uk. Whilst there were many dissenting voices about the formation of the Premier League at the time – perhaps most notably Alex Ferguson, which has been mentioned elsewhere today – it was not a root and branch destruction of the very core of its being. All about the money, yes, a repackaging, yes, but it’s essence was the same.
What the gradual change has allowed to happen is a strange communal cognitive dissonance, in that because things didn’t change an awful lot when we went from point A to point B in 1992, and then things didn’t change that much when we went from point B to point C, and so on ad infinitum, we’ve been able to convince ourselves that relentless extraction of money that football became wasn’t that bad, because the change from what it originally was so slow. And now, worrying that they won’t have access to neighbouring wells to run dry at some point in the near future, the breakaway clubs have decided that they can create a new, safe, endless well of money that will secure the wallets of their owners for all time.
It was inevitable from the day Alan Sugar informed BSkyB of the value of ITV’s bid for the inaugural Premier League TV rights, and told them to “blow [ITV] out of the water.” It’s all about the money. It always has been, and it always will be, and the fans can go whistle. It’s the natural culmination of a sport that’s become obsessed with money above all else, and the most surprising thing is how surprised people seem to by this absolute “revelation”, which was really something everybody knew all along.
[1] Cantona from Leeds to Man Utd isn’t counted as an import
Off to a flyer already this week, cheers Jose! I’m sure Wolves will pop a draw in this week after me having predicted 17 for them already. Brodge is getting stuck down Big Sam’s mine.
In what has already proven to be the most tumultuous of seasons, the game of Football has once again disappeared from view in the middle of a set of fixtures.
Having last been seen in London on Sunday evening during Man Utd’s 3-1 win over Tottenham, Robbie Savage and Chris Sutton noted on BBC Radio 5 live that “the game’s gone” after yet another contentious VAR decision. It’s not yet known if this will affect the results following this game, however Sheffield Utd’s caretaker boss Paul Heckingbottom is thought to be considering his options following his side’s 3-0 defeat to Arsenal, where the game was still yet to return.
“I don’t think it’s fair to continue playing the game after the game’s gone,” he told reporters. “It’s affected our players, the game being gone like that. Oli McBurnie got distracted thinking about what crisps were on offer in Tesco. It’s not right.”
Southampton, Everton and Brighton were all unable to locate the game in time for Monday night’s fixtures. It’s not yet known if West Brom scoring three goals in a match against someone other than Chelsea is a sign that the game might come back, or a potential warning that it might not return before the end of the season.
The game has gone missing multiple times this season, after several increasingly ludicrous VAR decisions caused uproar amongst fans and the punditocracy. It quietly returned in time for football to carry on as normal the following weekend, but it’s feared this most recent incident may cause a longer disappearance.
If you have any information regarding the game being gone, please dial 0 and ask for the FA.
Bit of a mixed sausage, this week. I don’t think you can read too much into Liverpool’s demolishing of Arsenal last week, we’re terrible. I think we’ve got enough to draw with Sheff Utd though.