IT'S KEBAB TIME
I made an auspicious start to the season, swindling Tom out of 4
points and Christy out of £2million. With these errors corrected,
I'm hoping things are a little better this week, but it's always worth
checking that I've given you what you deserve.
Even without the 4 points owed from last week, Tom is this week's top
dog, gold medallist and cake snaffler. A 32 point bag was mostly
earned by hat-trick Pukki, whose first effort will possibly end up as
goal of the season. He looks like a genuine bargain for £4mill.
Ceballos and De Bruyne each chipped in 4, but there were no significant
defensive contributions, as Everton and Sheffield United were the only
clean sheeters. Kebaberdeen move up to 2nd.
Holding on to top spot are Yusef's as-yet-unnamed team of (probably)
monkey bastards. He also has Pukki and Ceballos, plus the man we
can no longer call "bog-brush," Raheem Sterling, who restricted himself
to a single goal this week.
Bronze medal and cake crumbs are split
in a low scoring tie between Krul and the Gang, and Hamlet Academicals.
Mike's Shakespearians also boast the Fearsome Finnish Finisher, Pukki,
though their next best efforts come from Maitland-Niles, Flappyhandski
and Monreal, who each bagged 2. Gary's Krul and the Gang, a
cultural reference that may give you some idea of how ancient Gary is,
have goals from Mane, Ings and Mount, and would have been a clear third
if Wolfie Coady hadn't decided to boot Pogba round Molineux.
WEEK
2 REPORT
BO' SELECTA
It seems I was a little hasty in pinging Tom's Kebaberdeen last week,
as the spreadsheet had been updated erroneously and they didn't, in
fact, qualify for the Bo'Selecta club. Well, we don't have VAR in
the office, so there's no retrospective adjustments and grovelling
apologies and Kebaberdeen will stay on the list. Tom's a big boy,
he'll learn to live with it. This week I have just the one victim,
as Richard and William's Balls of Steel leave no fewer than three
goalscorers on the bench. Ndidi, Ings and
Hernandez all sat and watched as their
replacements Lingard, Abraham and Jesus stunk the place up and bagged no
sausage, for a loss of 12.
PLAYER
OF THE WEEK
Teemu Pukki takes the honours with a 13
pointer that included a superb hat-trick. As a man who likes a
pie, he was delighted to be joining Delia's club, and also to be playing
in England instead of Scotland. We're not sure exactly what he's
celebrating here, but it may well be pie related.
REFFIN' HELL
More
hassle at Man City, as Michael 'More Please' Oliver and his
Ragamuffins fail to spot Lamela bundling over Rodrigo in the area and
award nothing, and neither did VAR. City's displeasure was
exacerbated in the dying seconds as an apparent goal by Jesus was ruled
out by VAR for handball by Laporte. As IFAB (International
Football Association Board) have decided that any handball, deliberate
or not, in the build up to a goal, will rule that goal out, the Jesus
decision was correct. But we now have two classes of handball. An
attacking player handling the ball, even accidentally, will be
penalised, but a defending player can escape any censure by VAR.
Witness the blocking of Watford's free kick against Brighton by Glenn
Murray, who was leaping in the air with his arms crossed in front of his
body when he deflected the ball away. A more 'unnatural' position for
his arms would be hard to imagine, but the VAR decision was no penalty.
So, the ball accidentally brushing Laporte's arm IS handball, but
Murray's deliberate leap into the path of a free kick is not. It's
something of a miracle, isn't it, that the lawmakers have taken a system
designed to let everyone know what has happened, and twisted it, stomped
it, melted and reformed it, so that it is even more blatantly unfair
than the system it is replacing.
SECRET SQUIRREL'S DIARY
Watched the SuperCup between Liverpool and Chelsea on
Wednesday. Both teams had a go and it was quite a good game, until
Tammy Abraham performed a comical dive in the area, and the Ref
awarded a penalty. OK, so there was VAR to correct clear errors,
except, in this case, VAR didn't. The VARef decided that the
featherlight brushing of a glove against Abraham's knee - and even
that was not clear - was enough to bring the strapping young man
crashing to the turf. Now, a more cynical man would think that the
decision was taken to uphold the Referee's decision, at least in part,
because, for the first time, the officiating team were all women. I
do not subscribe to this view, I just think the VARef was a complete
idiot and incapable of refereeing a game of tiddlywinks. Justice was
served, however, during the penalty shoot out. Everyone had scored
when the aforementioned Abraham stepped up to take Chelsea's last
effort. The result was a weedy scuff of a shot, straight at the
keeper. Even though he was diving out of the way, Scouse keeper
Adrian saved the shot with his foot and Liverpool celebrated. The
fact that both his feet were off the goal line when the kick was
struck was not mentioned by anyone, much to my surprise, as I had
thought VAR was supposed to check this as a matter of routine.
Apparently not. "You've got to feel sorry for the young man" carolled
Glenn, over pictures of Abraham trying desperately not to cry. "No,
you haven't," I shouted back at him, "He's a cheating fuckwit."
I was rather surprised to see an interview with
Daniel Farke, the Norwich boss, not by what he said but by his voice.
Let's be honest, the bloke looks like a Bond villain who eats babies for breakfast,
so it was a bit of a shock when he opened his mouth, and out came a German tinted Joe Lycett.
TRANSFERS
The new Premium players were snapped up as follows. Moise Keane,
Everton Striker, went to Yusef for £11m: Lo Celso, Spuds, Midfield
went to Christy for £23m: Cancelo, Man City Def, went to Tom for
£22mill: and Pulisic, Chelsea mid; went to Gary for £25.6m. Despite
bidding for three of these guys, I ended up with nobody, so feel free
to have a good old larf at my expense.
PREDICT A £MILLION
Well, I buggered this up last week. For some reason when I
checked the scores, Christy's and Gary's predictions did not appear.
Gary didn't matter, his predictions were nearly as bad as mine, but
Christy had the winning score. So I've given her the £2mill she
should have had. Corrected score table is below. This week
was a different matter, Yusef running away with the cash for an
excellent 16 points. Runner-up was Adam, who nicked the £1mill
from Gary by 1 minute.
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