Rich Cooper doesn’t know anything about football, but he works in an office full of people who do. This is his attempt at making sense of the weekend’s football without watching a single match, based purely on hearsay and speculation.
You know what they say: Moyes will be Moyes.
It was a second weekend of defeat for Sunderland boss David “Bad” Moyes II, losing to Middlesbrough in the famous “One-Horse Town” derby. At home in the Wherever Sunderland Play Stadium, the Barbershop Boys only managed to come away with a single goal, one less than Boro, who scored two. According to The Penguin Book of Football Rules and Trivia that I got for Christmas in 1996, this means that Middlesbrough won.
Moyes was forced to admit that Sunderland may already be looking at a relegation scrap, which is the kind of vigorous optimism fans want to see a mere two games into the season. Subsequently, plans for an inspirational reworking of Thin Lizzy’s 1976 hit, entitled “The Moyes Is Back In Town”, have been permanently shelved.
Photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images
It was a different story for Moyes’ former club Manchester United, who’ve continued their rollicking start to the season with a comfortable win over Southampton. Pogba may have been the big news of last month, but Zlatan Ibrahimović is proving himself to be the real headliner at United, netting goal after goal after goal after goal after goal after goal until he was asked to stop as the match had finished some hours ago.
The former Prison Break star turned professional footballer saddled up with Pogba and Juan “Hakuna” Mata to form the most intimidating threesome in football since Vinnie Jones struck it lucky at the FA Christmas party, with a great supporting turn from… Fellanili? Fillaneli? I think it’s Fillaneli. I usually write these things down, but I was at a rather boozy barbecue during this game and forgot. Top sausages, though. Really nice.
West Ham and Bournemouth jointly carried the Olympic legacy into a new era by christening the freshly-converted London Stadium with one of the dullest exhibitions of football in modern history. Look, it’s difficult to write about a sport you don’t know very well, but it’s even harder when literally nothing happens. You could count the shots on target on the finger of one hand, with many fans selecting the middle digit to do so.
In the end someone scored, probably. It’s hard to say who as even the match officials had packed up and gone home by the second half.
Photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images
At the other end of the spectrum, Arsenal met Leicester in what I assume was a spirited, enterprising and ultimately goal-filled match, full of exciting chances and in no way a grinding bore. Neither team fared particularly well last week, and with Leicester defending a title and Arsenal keen to shift its reputation for listless incompetence, it’s safe to say that both teams gave it their all and avoided, say, a 0-0 draw.
After such a thriller of a game, there was only ever going to be one contender for Man of the Match and of course, it went to the bloke with the ride-on lawnmower who made all the zig-zags on the pitch. Speaking at a post-match press conference, the bloke admitted that the intricate design was the result of a “sustained period of madness” and that he hasn’t slept in days.
Not much to report from Burnleyl FC this weekend, but I did hear that they’ve just signed a great new player from Liverpool. Apparently he’s a Christian, though the significance of that has yet to be made clear to me. Nevertheless, with the power of the Lord on their side, it’ll take a miracle to stop the fearsome Burnleyl this season. It’s still all to play for!
Do you like football? There’s not much point following Rich on Twitter if you do, but what’s the point in anything these days? @richcooper
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