It was a bit windy as well.
The week starts with the signing of Andres Garcia from Levante. He’s a right-back, he’s 21 and he cost £6 million. Less good for eighties nostalgists is that Le Coq Sportif, purveyors of kits to European champions, have filed for bankruptcy.
Much better news is the revelation that we’ve smashed into the top twenty clubs in the world, straight in at number eighteen in the Deloitte Money League. “Vindicated!!!” screams a jubilant Tom Fox.
Much more laughable news comes as West Ham have upped their ‘offer’ for Jhon Duran to £57 million. What a lovely club they are, to be sure.
It seems that Fenerbache and Wolves are in for Diego Carlos. A slum city on the edge of civilisation, populated by half-crazed fanatics, or… yes, you knew what was coming. I’m sure he’ll choose wisely.
And then we head out to the jet-set tax haven of Monaco, to play our next sacrificial victims in the Champions League. It was a shame that they didn’t know that, and had the audacity to go ahead early on. Still, no problem. We like doing things the hard way and plenty of time to put it right. One out of two ain’t bad, except that the one we got correct was that there was plenty of time. We didn’t put it right and we didn’t look much like we were ever going to.
We had a couple of chances before half-time but in the second half they came closest to scoring while we spent far too long having to defend. Fortunately a lot of the other results went our way but that still doesn’t excuse what was generally reckoned to be our poorest performance in the competition. We’ll have to improve next week.
Diego’s chosen Fenerbache for £8.5 million, which is a fair old loss but with PSR it’s probably a profit, or something. Thanks for all you did for us, and although we’re now short in the middle of the defence it’s not like we get many injuries.
The cost of Spurs cup tickets is £25 and £10 for kids, which is finally something the powers that be can be congratulated on. Well done, powers that be.
Not so well done the gods of weather, bringing a storm to Villa Park on the day we play West Ham again. We started off like we meant business, with Jacob Ramsey getting an early goal and Morgan Rogers having one disallowed two minutes later. We could have scored another couple and then came the most predictable event of the afternoon, with the possible exception of the directors box having to be disinfected after our guests had departed. Tyrone Mings went off injured and with him went our composure and gameplan.
Lucas Digne did his best as a makeshift replacement but West Ham were well on top for much of the second half and their equaliser came when Emiliano Martinez hesitated in coming out for a cross. They could have got a late winner but luckily the ref did something right for a change, although with the flag up straight away he didn’t have much option. Another two points dropped, another chance to make up ground gone.
