So, Jose Mourinho only looks up the table, does he? If his Tottenham team continue to be so inconsistent then he might want to check the gap between them and those beneath. Are we now writing Gareth Bale off again given this was a game that he needed to turn up for and he spent 45 minutes hanging Matt Doherty out to dry? Mourinho suggested he might have been playing hide and seek rather than association football at the Emirates.
Jose would love the referees to have post-match interviews and I am sure most of us would love to hear what they are thinking. He was honest enough to admit how bad Spurs were in the first half and they did improve in the second half, but only because that’s all they could do.
According to Bakayo Saka, Yo-Pierre gets a bit ‘angry’ in training – maybe he got a little bit too angry for Mikel Arteta’s liking leading to the Arsenal boss benching his striker for their biggest match of the season. Arteta seemed to get it right though, Lacazette ‘winning’ and scoring the decisive penalty. The obvious question, and we probably know the answer, is whether it would have been given had Laca got his shot on target.
If anyone was playing Eric Lamela Bingo in the NLD then they would have had a very good afternoon – coming on as sub, getting the token rabona in (and even scoring from it) and then picking up two yellows is the absolute full house.
Martin Keown thinks the Gunners need four or five signings to become a proper team and rumours are starting to link Griezmann to the club if Barcelona decide to cut loose. Yet, once again, the young players from the Arsenal academy continue to impress – why not just stick with them?
It’s that time of year where everyone is having an opinion on who Manchester United should be signing – probably because there is minimal faith in their new ‘football director’ having an impact if they cannot even give him the correct job title.
Owen Hargreaves helpfully suggested that Erling Haaland is the missing piece. Harry Maguire wants the club to sign Ben White from Brighton because he speaks English. Roma’s Mancini is being linked and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is finally prepared to cash in on David De Gea about three seasons too late – meaning Burnley’s Nick Pope or Brighton’s Robert Sanchez might be Old Trafford bound.
By all accounts, Edinson Cavani won’t be offered a new deal but given their utter lack of goalscoring threat at home to West Ham United they certainly need to do something. Moyes’ loan signing Craig Dawson has been finding the back of the net frequently in recent weeks and he was at it again here, nicking home United’s winner.
There were no real upsets at Craven Cottage other than City’s win over Fulham meaning that Scott Parker’s blazer can no longer be considered lucky which could see it being put in the bin. Sergio Aguero got his first Premier League goal in 417 days and could well be off to Barcelona on a free to celebrate. It was Pep Guardiola’s 16th consecutive away win leaving the side needing a mere 14 points to get their title back.
Thomas Tuchel has got rid of Frank Lampard’s famous fine system at Chelsea, claiming the players are adults. Not so adult, however, that he won’t stop screaming at them for not doing what they are told on the pitch – mind you, even Leeds United’s Director of Football Victor Orta copped it at Elland Road. Equally, the pitch wasn’t to Tuchel’s liking and we can only assume the performances of Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner and Christian Pulisic will have gone down the same way. It was the first time Chelsea have switched to four at the back in the Tuchel reign and the result was pretty similar – a nice clean sheet for Mendy.
You can understand why Chris Wilder was so keen to get sacked by Sheffield United this week, given how utterly abject they were at the King Power. Leicester strolled to a 5-0 win over Wilder’s now-former side meaning they are looking good for the Champions League spots after all. Sheffield United’s promotion-winning gaffer was allegedly unhappy with the board wanting to bring in a ‘football director’ though Brammal Lane insiders are pushing the theory that the owners were happy to let Wilder do it any way he wanted but the manager felt like jumping from the sinking ship – just as long as he got some kind of payoff. Paul Heckingbottom takes charge whilst the funeral march continues.
There’s something in the Merseyside water at the moment as Everton managed to lose at home once again. That’s one win in eight at Goodison for Carlo Ancelotti’s Champions League hopefuls. The real emphasis in that sentence goes on hopefuls if you were wondering.
West Bromwich Albion will still be joining them and Big Sham will be chuntering away about the lack of a ‘natural goalscorer’ well into July. He must be living in a weird fantasy world where WBA are playing incredibly nice attacking football in which this fantasy striker would be thriving. The win for Crystal Palace should be enough for them to start planning for another Premier League season, most likely without Uncle Roy.
Brighton’s win at Southampton could well have been another game where Brighton walked off the pitch wondering how they had not won but this time, they won. Ralph Hassenhuttl claimed it was his team’s worst performance of the season which is saying something given some of their recent defeats.
