It’s peak Spursiness. It’s textbook. Just days after an exhilirating, possibly season-defining draw at the Etihad in which Spurs seized an early lead, were pegged back and the fell behind, found an equaliser, and then conceded only to find a dramatic late equaliser against Man City, they hosted mid-table West Ham under the uber-cautious David Moyes and found a way to lose. To quote Giorgio Chiellini, “it is the history of the Tottenham.” They are the gift that keeps on giving.
Continue readingGooners are all Villans after their famous victory! All hail Emery’s—wait, what? We’re next in line?

Man City went into Villa Park shorn of the services of the suspended Rodri and Grealish and came out on the short end of a 1-0 scoreline, resulting in a fourth Premier League game without a win for the first time since the 2016-17 season, Pep’s first with the club. Did Emery have an edge on his longtime rival? No. Emery’s record against Guardiola going into this one was a woeful 0W 4D 9L. We should thank Emery and Aston Villa for not only taking all three but also for exposing Man City’s soft underbelly. I can’t think of a single downside to this result.
Continue readingArsenal have just put Man City and LIverpool on notice…

I’m not going to insult our hosts with any backhanded compliments or faint praise. They earned a point if not all three on Tuesday, and if they’re this brave and this tenacious all the time, they’ll do more than stay up. While we had our moments and even our spells, the Hatters gave as good as they got and then some. Still, once all the dust’s settled, we’ve escaped with the kind of dramatic late win that the actual journos might declare as evidence that we’re for real. There might be something to that, but there are still 23 matches to play, and we know full well the risks of counting chickens at this point in the season.
Continue readingBut can they do it on a cold, wet Tuesday night in…Luton?

Okay, okay, so we’ve got three out of the four of that old adage. It’ll be cold and wet and Tuesday for our visit to Kenilworth Road to face Luton, but Luton are not (last I checked), ankle-snapping Orcs nor are they a two-hour drive from London. Still, their fans will be in full throat. A crowd of just 10,356 (minus the away fans) may not sound like much, but we’d be mistaken if we underestimate their passion or their volume, not to mention the Hatters’ own prowess. It was just a month ago that Liverpool needed a stoppage time goal to escape with a draw. We’ll have to go in wary, to say the least…
Continue readingRivals’ Roundup—all in all, a tolerable weekend…

There wasn’t much to dislike this weekend. Man City dropped points at home and saw Rodri and Grealish get booked a fifth time each, Tottenham dropped points from a losing position, Man U lost…yes, it’s true that Newcastle and Liverpool won, but you can’t have everything, can you? I mean, where would you put it all? The upshot is that we’ll spend another week top of the league, having padded our admittedly fragile lead over CIty by two points only to see Liverpool overtake them. I guess we have a three-horse race on our hands, don’t we? Let’s get to the roundup then.
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