It seems like not a week goes by where I have not written about a Premier League manager getting the sack. And the unlucky recipient to be relieved of his duties this time round is.. Ronald Koeman (Can you believe it?). Everton spent £140m this summer, and found themselves in the bottom three after losing 5-2 at home to Arsenal. It was probably the least surprising sacking to date so far. Depending on how you look at it, he could not have had a worse Sunday than Dejan Lovren. The Croatian had a nightmare 30 minutes for Liverpool at Spurs just prior to Koeman’s farewell game, being responsible for the first two goals.
Forget Leicester City’s so-called impossible title triumph a couple of seasons ago, Manchester City have already eclipsed that by achieving the impossible impossible (Yes, impossible impossible). Despite winning the Premier League before Christmas being mathematically impossible, Manchester City have only gone on and done it! Another game at the Etihad, another win. Sean Dyche’s Clarets made the short dash over the M6 to be on the receiving end of three goals, with Bernardo Silva’s dive to win a penalty the main talking point after the game.
Was it really a dive? No. Could he have stayed on his feet? Certainly. The topic of should he or should he not go down after receiving contact in the box is riddled with contradictions. I’d wager that any manager would encourage their own player to try anything to win that penalty, especially if it means saving the manager’s job. I don’t believe it’s right. However, football has always suffered a lack of sportsmanship, through time wasting in particular.
It’s no wonder Mauricio Pochettino was cracking open the bottle of wine following Tottenham’s League Cup exit to West Ham. Argentine soprano Pochettino, who has never won a trophy as a manager, is quoted as saying “I’d rather win ‘real trophies’ than the FA or EFL Cups.” Well, that message clearly got through to his players when West Ham came back from 2-0 down to beat them 3-2 on Wednesday night. A much-changed Crystal Palace did nobody’s sanity any good, when they gave Bristol City’s social media team free reign to post more painfully irritating gifs following each goal, all four of them. What kind of sick world do we live in, when we are subjected to seeing footballers getting forced into participating in strange animations?
The Carabao Cup forced the remaining teams in the hat to wait a tad longer than planned, after a long delay to the start of the draw. It was just another story to add to their collection of royal f*** up’s this year. Take your minds back to round one. League One’s Charlton Athletic were drawn twice, there was then home/confusion for round two. And for a financial incentive, the third round was of course made in China, 4:15am UK time. If that wasn’t bad enough, they had Pep Guardiola complaining that the Mitre ball they used in their win over Wolves wasn’t good enough. It was smaller than what they’re used to in the league, though it was Mitre. Never complain about Mitre.
You have to wonder why nobody takes this seriously with avoidable mistake such as these. To me, it’s a great competition. It enabled myself and 40,000 other Cardiff fans to witness one of the proudest moments I have had as a football supporter, watching big Ben Turner swirl his shirt after a late equaliser against Liverpool at Wembley five years ago. I later missed the coach back home until it returned for me an hour later, however the adventure to the final was brilliant. That is irrespective of Kenny Miller missing a sitter to win us the whole bloody thing, and the agony of the penalty shoot-out.
Until next time.