Its been only two weeks but it seems like beards since we’ve seen our favourite lids in royal blue take to a park and play that beautiful togger game that you obsess too much over for a person of your age.
Thankfully that’s the back of the England circus and poorly timed international breaks for quite some time. Of course that won’t stop the media playing up England’s chances all winter but them going to Brazil is as futile as the NHS glass wearing World of Warcraft playing nerd kid turning up at the Youth Club Disco. They’re both ultimately going home to a rage indused crywank all on their own.
The City defeat was fair despite one or two moody referee decisions, we failed to capitalise on a good start and when the opposition contains genuine world class players like theirs it’s a matter of time before opportunities are created and unlike previous seasons they actually took them. Its not post defeat folly but for some decent periods we showed that there’s no much in the league to scare us, and that was done without much of a centre midfield too.
Of course there is no harbinger of doom in professional football like consecutive defeats, an all conquering team can go to absolute sh*te and crisis in the eyes of media and fans alike when the sugar rush of victory is taken away. Actually while my mind is thinking while typing I was telling a lie there about there being no harbinger of doom like it. I recently made the mistake of doing a symptom check on Google, surely a few of you have done this? Christ, what an utter monster Dr Google is. Basically any ailment you have can and will be directed to your own personal mortal clock on countdown. Lay off the NHS because when robots are diagnosing us we´re done, what happened to a two aspirin every eight hours and two days off school?
For this it’s a return to the three o´clock Saturday kick off. You know exactly what you´re getting, where you will be at certain times, who with and where you’ll eat and drink. It’s even more palatable when it’s a team that you stand a very good chance of beating although it obviously doesn’t always work out that way.
This week we “welcome†different opposition to our little dog turd streeted Mecca in recently promoted Hull City Tigers. From the fixture list you’d think we’d been pitted against a sponge hand mobbed hockey team but no, Hull actually decided to give themselves that particular suffix, as if their tiger striped kit from a few years back wasn’t cringey enough.
Does anyone actually know the connection between Hull and Tigers are they’re a peculiar bedfellow aren’t they? A little internet research – non medical based thankfully – shows that their fans were unhappy with the mad new owner changing the name and referring to City as dull. Yet these same fans last time they were in the top division celebrated a goal by doing tiger mauling impressions with their hands. It was all there in glorious technicolour and was the sole reason why I wanted them relegated before anyone else.
They say you get the club you deserve and if you have spent any time around Hull fans for a period you’ll see why. Lets just say that I wouldn’t blink an eye if Jeremy Kyle turned up in their home end with a microphone and feigned face of indignant outrage. Collectively they absolutely hum in their egg stained jarg adidas equipment t-shirts and Bon Jovi haircuts.
Rather cruelly, Everton have decided that it’s a Retro Day theme for the visit of the TIGERS. Which is being a fantastic host as the opposition still lives in a city where its 1987 for most things, including fashion, cars and lack of effective deodorant. The country’s biggest consumer of Spam the minty little bells.
Hull City isn’t their first team either, its usually United or Liverpool, it only takes precedence when Hull make it into the top flight so they can feel part of something worth being part of. The city is a tip but we shouldn’t overlook its potentially positive attributes in which it would be an effective east coast deterrent should the Vikings get their sh*t together and start world domination again. Imagine landing in Hull? The sea air around it carries chlamydia for twenty nautical miles before you’ve even seen land.
They’re doing well though and I’m pleased for them, they are going to be continually patronised by the bigger clubs – including myself like – but they have a tight team that will grind out moody results which is a valuable commodity in the Premier League. We’ve all stared for more than twenty seconds at Steve Bruce’s nose, which looks like its six months pregnant on its left side. In a classic twist of post modernism he’s topped it off with the most regal of all TV haircuts: a Cagney & Lacey special.
A quick look of the team shows few players of genuine class but they’re on seven points from nine and as a group will be tight and difficult to grind down. Our worst type of opposition basically. They possibly welcome back their real star man Robbie Brady from a hernia injury, it’s a bit touch and go if he makes it but is a credible goal threat from wide.
In a lesser known fact, Robbie Brady and in fact nine of the other players on the pitch are not footballers but technically satellites who are caught up in the gravity of the fat wap revolving in the centre circle that they call Tom Huddlestone. He can pass dead boss though and shoot well on the rare occasions he manages to get within forty yards of the opposition goal.
Defence won’t shake any trees and is marshalled by the once ten million pound player Curtis Davies, testament to Aston Villa’s perpetual ability to vastly over pay for average players. On looking at the rest of their players I think I made a huge error above in trying to enthuse about them being difficult to beat, we should be bench pressing these right off our green, green grass and packing them on their way in their colour TV featured executive coach back home under absolutely no illusions that we own their very soul.
But then this is Everton, and Hull are only a point behind us.
The international break wasn’t kind to us with a serious injury and two games in a week for many of our players, usually in dead rubbers.
The good news is that Lukaku will return to the number seventeen shirt and be absolutely ripe for defence rape, being fed and cajoled into all sorts of wrongness by boss Ross Barkley.
Midfield will very much welcome Gareth Barry back and his deadline night signing just became even more astute with the news that Darron Gibson will miss most of the rest of the season with a cruciate ligament injury. Drats, I was looking forward to both him and Barry playing together at some point. I seen some sharp comments about Gibson being the next Whiteside which isn’t a cruel comparison as Norman was a fantastic player similar to Gibson. I just wish the lid well and a quick return to the team as he plays soccer in an Everton style and that’s no bad thing.
What a difference two games have made for James McCarthy, he’s had all sorts of internet weirdos scrambling to profess they “get him†now and that he’s boss. Aye he’s a decent player so I’m looking forward to more of him but we need to swerve everything being either sh*te (Kone) or the best playa eva (McCarthy as of Oct 16th). Form comes and goes, I would say for McCarthy his talents aren’t always too apparent but that would underplay his value to the team. You sometimes forget he’s just there like when you’re searching frantically for your phone in your pocket without realising you’re actually on the phone to your mate with your other hand pressed to your head. There’s a compliment in there somewhere James so well in and just swerve giving away daft penalties and we’ll get on fine.
Looks a little too early for Pienaar which is a shame but we may see him as a sub. Mirallas needs to find some form or he’ll be getting subbed in the 63rd minute before losing his place to the Catalan lad with the most un-Spanish face I’ve seen. Expect to see Naismith or Osman on the opposite side to the Belgian.
You know the score with the defence and in goal. Our full backs should pilfer their wings at will here.
And that’s that for this week, uncalled for cruel words about the opposition washed down with the usual useful-information-void caused by a mere passing interest in all football not involving Everton. That’s why you swerve the trying too hard words and look at the arl photos right?
TL;DR – have these Everton, these are s***e.