Seven days, two matches, six goals and six points.
Another big week starts and there’s more injury news. Tyrone Mings will be out for around seven weeks with a hamstring injury.
According to ‘sources’ we have scouts in Brazil, looking at some Brazilians. Nice work if you can get it.
Super John McGinn has signed a new contract which’ll take him up until he’s 34. The next one will be for life, then there’ll be an extension to it.
Two days to go and the police briefing says there will be multiple ticket checks and a no-fly zone over the ground, just in case you were thinking of hiring a helicopter to watch the match. Then again, they also say there’s going to be 40,000 there, which is clearly nonsense.
The day itself starts and there’s flags, banners, placards and schools closing early. There’s also a lot of police, extra stewards, people who don’t know one end of a football from the other and others who think a GoPro and a mobile make them a ‘journalist’. There’s a protest at either side of the ground and a depressing handful of our supporters who think a chancing midget is someone to look up to.
The match was about as interesting as what happened before it. Our reasonably-strong team struggled against a collection who wouldn’t have looked out of place in League One. Then Morgan Rogers laid the ball off for Ian Maatsen, whose immaculately-placed shot looks better with every viewing.
That was just on half-time and there was optimism that we’d get a few more goals in the second half. We got one, and that was a debatable penalty when Ezri Konsa went down and Donyell Malen scored from the spot. Youri Tielemans was one of the subs to come on and he looked a class apart. It was a pleasant end to an unpleasant saga that at least meant it was easier than usual to get home.
Looking at the aftermath of the night before, the police are in the pockets of the Islamists and also protect Zionists. Villa are anti-semitic and Islamophobic. It was a night of shame, of horror and of fireworks going off, which in itself is worthy of front page headlines during the first week of November.
Emilian Buendia’s won Goal of the Month for October, which is the first of many awards we’ll get this season.
The weekend begins well as the women’s team beat Manchester United 1-0. It gets better when Bournemouth roll into town. They’re roughly where we want to be in the league and from the off we show every intention of doing something about it. Emiliano Buendia is running the show, Ollie Watkins is running everywhere, the rest of the team are doing what they’re paid for. It took longer than it should have to score but Buendia’s free-kick was worth the wait. That was good; Amadou Omana’s second on half-time was better, both in build-up and execution.
Bournemouth came back into the game after half-time so it was time for the other Emi to show how good he can be, twice over. Ross Barkley came on and scored, Donyell Malen came on and scored, Lamare Bogarde came on and showed that he’s going to be a bit special. We went up a few places and then another one three hours later, which is modern football. At the moment there’s not much to argue about with it.
