I would like to begin by expressing my deepest sympathies towards the families of Leicester City chairman Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, and the four other individuals who sadly lost their lives in that tragic incident at the KingPower stadium last Saturday night. Additionally, I want to send my best wishes to Glenn Hoddle as he recovers from a heart attack. Get well soon.
When Fulham were promoted in May, they gained many admirers who thought they justified their newly-appointed Premier League status through the pleasing style of football they played over the course of the season.
Now with £100m spent, they have conceded 28 goals in 10 games after the 3-0 defeat at home by Bournemouth. With Chelsea and Liverpool away soon to come, perhaps playing “Good football” may not be the vital component required to avoid a swift return to the Championship.
Arsenal’s run of 10 games of consecutive wins was ended at Crystal Palace, where Wilfred Zaha’s ‘brilliantly‘ executed dive had a large say in the result which finished two apiece. Aaron Ramsey came on as a substitute in the second half.
We later learned a few days later that Arsenal will allow Ramsey to leave on a free at the end of the season. Yet they plan to continue paying Petr Cech £100k and Henrikh Mkhitaryan £200k a week. Not only that, Carl Jenkinson is still employed by the club. The latter made his first start for nearly TWO years when Arsenal beat Blackpool 2-1 in the League Cup on Wednesday night. How is he even a footballer?
NFL London proved to be quite the success, with a new record attendance of 85, 870 set during the Philadelphia Eagles versus Jacksonville Jaguars game on Sunday. Little did we know, it continued on Monday night as the Tottenham Hot Spurs ‘hosted’ the Sky Blues of Manchester City.
The short time between both games meant that the pitch was left in poor shape, with the NFL markings clearly visible. It was not Wembley or the FA who was to blame for the pitch embarrassing state of the pitch. The blame rested solely on Tottenham’s incompetence in the building of the ‘new’ stadium. In-form wide receiver Riyad Mahrez scored the only touchdown of the 90 to send the City fans home delighted.
Romelu Lukaku is clearly somebody not in form. He was benched for Man United’s surprise 2-1 win over Everton. Anthony Martial capped off a fine individual performance by scoring the decisive goal of the game. However, it was the long, long, run up from Paul Pogba leading up to his penalty that produced the biggest talking point of the game.
Frank Lampard endured an unhappy return to Stamford Bridge in the League Cup as Derby County manager. It was supposed to be a comfortable win for Chelsea, at least on paper it was. Instead, Derby went there with nothing to lose and gave a really good account of themselves. Ultimately, the game finished 3-2 to the home side.
The first four goals weren’t scored by a single Chelsea player, as Derby scored two own goals through Fikayo Tomori and Richard Keogh. That goalscoring machine known as Alvaro Morata put the icing on the cake by grabbing a goal for himself to send Chelsea through to the next round.
Raheem Sterling has allegedly agreed a new £300,000 a week deal. He now plans to set up an academy in London for children from deprived areas in the capital. More feel-good stories like these please, journalists.
There have been reports circulating in the past 24 hours that 11 clubs have been in negotiations over the possibility of replacing the Champions League in three years time with a new ‘European Super League‘. And 5 of the 11 clubs are English, who has been named as Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Manchester City.
Let ’em. Just make it clear if they leave, they have no chance of coming back. They’ll all be crawling back once they had enough of playing the same old teams. A bit like Celtic and the SPL.
It almost feels wrong to want Cardiff to win today as a Cardiff City supporter. But nevertheless, it has to be done. Before and after the match, I stand with Leicester City. I am sure us Cardiff fans will show those watching we are not so bad. We will stand together with Leicester in remembering and appreciating a great man who put the hopes and dreams of fans back into football. But once that first whistle goes, it is game on.
