And it wasn’t a bad one at all.
The week begins with the most laugh or you’ll cry story of the year, or decade, or possibly the century. Chelsea have been fined £10 million for making under the counter payments over eight years, during which time they won eight trophies including the league twice and the Champions League. Why do we bother?
Alysson’s out injured for another couple of weeks, like that makes a change.
If you believe what you’re told the whole of England was plunged into depression as a string of our clubs get knocked out of Europe. If you’re like us, you pissed yourself laughing.
And as the most important couple of matches for a long while get underway, it’s time for Damian Vidagany’s rallying cry: “We need you in this crucial week. Time to reset and go ahead.” He’d have got on well with Ron Saunders.
In the end we didn’t need him, at least not for the first one. John McGinn was starting, as was Tammy Abraham. They both had chances in the first half but there wasn’t all that much to get worked up about, which is fair enough when you’re in the lead from the first leg. Then early in the second half the best keeper in the world, who for some reason was getting the Lille supporters worked up all match, launched a big kick directly to Jadon Sancho, who laid it off to McGinn, who did what it was obvious all match he was going to do.
Leon Bailey came on and scored, Sancho and Morgan Rogers had good chances and at the end of the game you could see the belief returning to players and supporters alike. It was a workmanlike performance against limited opposition and off we go to Bologna in the next round. It’ll be quieter than Rome.
The England squad is announced, with Ollie Watkins unsurprisingly dropped, while Ezri Konsa and Morgan Rogers keep their places. Not even an England manager could do any different.
Meanwhile, on a planet far removed from reality, the inhabitants are getting upset about Matty Cash doing a Polish advert for some film about a gang of shoplifters and street criminals. One day they’ll be gone, and then what will we have to laugh at?
Two days of good results for us so it was time to undo everyone else’s work when West Ham turned up. After all, that’s what usually happens. But not now. For the second time in four days we put in a totally professional display, dominant without trying too hard. McGinn scored the first goal after fifteen minutes, which is only to be expected, and again we could have got a few more.
Midway during the second half Ollie Watkins got another, Youri Tielemans had a run-out and in the end it was all very straightforward. The results kept going our way later in the day and somehow we’re not that much worse off than we were a month ago. Keep this up and before long maybe we’ll be able to make our own rules up as well.
