Andy Dawson: 10 things we learned from the wonderful midweek football

The Profanity Swan is back to spare no one’s feelings on the week’s footballing action...

 

We need more midweek top flight action

With two midweek Premier League programmes in the past month, I’ve found myself aroused by the cold, dark nights, the harsh beam of the floodlights and the tightly compacted fixtures and damn it, I want more of it. The Carabao Cup is, let’s be honest, a dead duck, and the early stages of the European ties have limited appeal unless you’re a fan of one of the participants.

Football is permanently in need of a good, hard shake-up, so let’s switch some of those less exciting Carabao and Euro matches to weekends and have a few more midweek Premier League night feasts for us to gorge on instead.

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We need a new 3+ goals rule

While I’m on with my one-man overhaul of football… even though Manchester City are strolling away with the league title, it’s a delight to see them banging in so many goals once they get into top gear.

It’s time to encourage more of that sort of swashbuckling football, and if teams were to be rewarded with a bonus point for scoring three or more goals in a match, it would lead to more fun and more of what football desperately needs… CHAOS!

Sergio Aguero is not a marrow

Ahead of their demolition of Swansea on Match of the Day, Jonathan Pearce noted that ‘Sergio Aguero is rotated in…’ as he read out the Man City line-up.

No. Stop that. Stop that at once. He’s been recalled. He hasn’t been ‘rotated in’ – it’s not crop rotation, where vegetables like cucumbers, pumpkins and marrows are grown in different parts of your allotment in order to balance the nutritional content of the soil. Stop it.

Riyad Mahrez – crazy hair, crazy goals

Ever since he bleached the top of his mop a couple of weeks ago and started looking like a reject from a shite East 17 tribute act, Leicester’s wizard can’t stop scoring, and every one is what I believe the kids call a ‘worldie’. Are you paying attention, Romelu Lukaku? Perhaps you should get down to Superdrug and fork out £3.99 on some wash-in bleach…

Of *course* Everton won at Newcastle

All the ingredients were there – the Magpies in a tailspin, the return of Sam Allardyce, who lasted just seven months at St. James’ before being binned by Mike Ashley, and the inclusion of Wayne Rooney, who has scored more goals against Newcastle than against any other side.

Throw in Everton’s new ability to protect their goal and you should really have piled all your money on a 1-0 win for the Toffees. And of course, that’s what happened, with Rooney bagging the winner.

There’s something fishy about the Newcastle takeover

Whether it’s because I’ve got a sixth sense for dodgy deals or just because I’m a Sunderland fan who enjoys taking the piss out of the Geordies (from my Wearside position of, erm, extreme weakness), I’ve got a horrible feeling that the trolling of Newcastle fans by Mike Ashley is set to continue.

Fast forward to 27th December, just before Newcastle play Man City. On to the pitch walk Ashley and would-be bidder Amanda Staveley, seemingly to announce the sealing of the deal. But then Staveley whips off her mask to reveal that she’s actually… Joe Kinnear!

Cue an 8-0 win for City and an outpouring of grief and Yuletide horse-punching on Tyneside.

The Arsenal board should have bombed Wenger out in the summer

They could have been bold and called time on Wenger’s reign but instead they shrunk from the responsibility of such a major decision and now look at it. It’s last season all over again but with the distinct possibility that two of their best players will soon leave for nothing.

A 0-0 draw at West Ham will do nothing to distract Arsenal fans from the reality that their team are becoming increasingly shit.

Burnley are the new Arsenal

Remember when Arsenal used to grind their way to glory with strings of 1-0 victories? Yeah, we respected them for it too, even though the tediousness almost killed us. Well that’s Burnley now, and I’m praying they can keep it going and finish second in the Premier League. Sean Dyche deserves it.

Palace fans moaning about their performance should pipe down

Even though they came back from a goal behind against Watford to win with some late drama, I’ve heard griping from Palace fans about the nature of it.

Have they forgotten that just two months ago they were being managed by a frightening, motionless wax doll that had been shipped in from Holland? At least their new frightening wax doll gets up and down from his seat and has a bit of a shout now and again.

David Wagner is being played by a different actor

Or maybe he has a twin who is filling in for him. Hmmm… it can’t just be me that’s seeing that, can it?

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