Liverpool and Manchester City always deliver and we were once again treated to an absolute spectacle of a game in Anfield, unfortunately, Pep won’t agree with that so much. Arsenal’s solidarity as a team is continually growing even when they don’t put in the best performances and Real Madrid proves who’s boss in Spain.
SORRY PEP…
Liverpool hasn’t been in the best form coming into the game in the Premier League, but a solid display of defensive resilience was enough to put Man City off. Salah finally broke his Premier League no-show and all the blanks to give the winning goal and Alison with the winning assist, turning one of the league’s best defenders in Joao Cancelo into an absolute novice, getting past him and finishing cooly against Ederson.
There’s always going to be controversy coming into a game of this magnitude and the VAR drama to deny Phil’s Foden goal seems to be the top of it. The referee seems to continue play which made sense after a round of needless fouls, but when City scored he decided to go review one of those and chalk the goal off. Pep raged, Bernado raged and we know all the City fans as well, but at their cost, the consistency of the referee decisions was below par and we seem to be receiving this at a steady rate in the “best” league in the world, so poor.
Erling Halaand just gave us a show that he’s human after all. Liverpool was tight and compact, top performance for Virgil Van Dijk kept him silent for most of the match. Probably a slight malfunction for the robot, but we are sure Pep has his engineers working on it as we speak.
ARTETA GETTING THE JOB DONE
Arsenal is FOUR points clear of the top of the table, the fans are literally in a pinch-me mood and heading to their job on Monday morning with big smiles on their faces but more proof of how solid defensively and their all-around game has improved under Arteta. The Arsenal we knew, they would have lost yesterday, conceded a penalty, was pressed heavily by Leeds in the second half and then escaped a sending-off for Gabriel. Things are changing, or a more proper way to say it is “Things Have Changed”.
Are they title contenders? Of course, they are! They’re top and they can scrap out maximum points in games like Leeds also as we saw against Liverpool last week, they can attack and also defend properly. Gary Neville may feel differently about this team, but we feel he’s just bitter because this is everything he wanted in a Manchester United team and they haven’t still achieved, even as shown in their game against Newcastle yesterday when they lacked that edge.
Like it or not it’s a massive improvement from the Gunners who have picked up a massive 27 points out of a possible 30 points in the league this season and are perfect in their Europa League group. We don’t know how far they’ll achieve this season but only a blind man will keep shut for the progress so far.
REAL CLAIM EL CLASICO BRAGGING RIGHTS
Barca fans didn’t expect this for sure. Drake’s OVO logo was made to appear on their shirts after he hit 50 Billion Streams on Spotify, the first artist ever, and with that, a huge bet was placed on both Arsenal and Barcelona to overcome for him to claim about $3.9 million. This brought mass hysteria among both sets of fans as the “Drake Curse” was put into effect.
Arsenal overcame and Barca fell short but Barca could hardly blame anyone for their shambolic performance. A well-engineered victory for Real against a Barca side that played badly in their last game against Inter as well was pitiful. A reminder that you don’t buy your way to success. Laporta may have felt differently apart from the game as he went for the referees but he should be going to ask Xavi for explanations instead. A work in progress, yes, but facts speak facts and Real Madrid is still ahead of this Barca side.
BRENDAN RODGERS & STEVEN GERARD
2 Names, 2 Coaches, and 2 Teams and they share so much in common. Leicester and Aston Villa has heavily underperformed this season. Rodgers and Gerard haven’t gotten their sack letter up till now for reasons we don’t know of yet. 2 Fanbases yearning for their owners to implement a change of any sort into the team.
Leicester was so poor against Crystal Palace as they couldn’t bring a spark while playing in front of their home fans and the banners were all over the stadium. Gerard has been poor all season long, though yesterday he was forced to another loss as Kepa Arrizabalaga brought out his monster to repel everything Aston Villa had to throw at him, the most expensive goalkeeper in the world for a reason, right? Just a matter of time and we know both sets of fans will get their request granted if things go on this way, and it looks to be that way for a while.
HAPPENING TODAY
IT’S THE BALON D’OR CEREMONY… Never are we going to get a more straightforward answer as to who will get their hands on this massive personal award this year. We’ll keep it subtle and act all surprised when it happens to have a little fun.
