Andy's Glasses

I don’t think the late, great Kurt Cobain, when he penned those words, had in mind the current culture of sacking football managers, but its nonetheless rather appropriate. In fact I don’t think Kurt had ever heard of David Moyes at the time he wrote Smells Like Teen Spirit. I don’t think anyone knew who the pale and insipid Scotsman was unless they supported Dunfermline Athletic or whichever third rate Scottish league team old Moysey was then plying his trade for. (For the record, so as not to offend Dunfermline Athletic; all Scottish football is ‘third rate’).

David Moyes knew he was in trouble. He had been for months. Almost since the start of the season. When the league champions team he adopted (or rather, which adopted him) got off to a nightmare start to the season. Losing at home to both Manchester City and Liverpool is never likely to endear any manager to the crowd at Old Trafford and at that point, really, he was doomed. From then til now its just been about harnessing that anger, collecting evidence to focus all of the team’s shortcomings on one man and waiting for the inevitable coup de gras. Which arrived yesterday morning.

About a day after everyone else in the world seemed to know about it.

Which you would normally put down as ‘the grapevine’, or a minor leak, or an aggressive press. But not when the Glazer family are concerned.

At another time, having a terrible season would be put down to ‘adjustments’, to ‘teething troubles’, to ‘adapting to new ways’. But sadly we don’t live in those times any longer. Patience is zero. There’s just too much money at stake for any considerations of anything other than instant success and gratification.

Bizarrely, the Manchester United share price had been climbing steadily over the last couple of months as expectations grew that Moyes would not last the season. How odd. That losing a manager is not seen as a destabilising event but a positive move forward. Even before they know who the replacement might be. There again Man U. are listed on the New York Stock Exchange, where they know as much about football as they do about making proper tea or Morris Dancing.

And yet that may be naive to assume. Because the Glazers are all about manipulating funds. Its what they do. Their infamous ‘leveraged buyout’ of the club is still the main reason why the richest club in the world is cash-strapped and still massively in debt. But you can’t sack the owners. You couldn’t afford to. Abramovich couldn’t afford to.

News of the sacking yesterday thus raised the share price to an almost record high. A situation in which a lot of people can make a lot of money. Which is why the NYSE are investigating the ‘leak’.

I’d have bitten your arm off if offered David Moyes last year to manage Spurs. And not in a Hannibal Lector way. But he’s deemed insufficient for Manchester United. After just 10 months.

Football is such a hateful game. That’s why I don’t waste my time with it. I’d rather watch the royals at Ayers Rock.

Happy future career David Moyes. You’ll have to eke out that measly 5 million payoff and make it last. What with the price of coal…

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx

How nice to have a long weekend. How lovely to know that the world (well, round here anyway) has officially stopped for 4 days to rest, relax, recuperate and re-incarnate. I passed on the latter. In fact I passed over on the latter, but that’s another story. This is how my 4 days of rest panned out:

out to dinner 1
out to lunch 1
friends over for dinner 1
alcohol consumed moderate to ‘don’t drive’
tennis played 2
Spurs matches attended 1
Tai Chi classes 2
Flower markets visited 1
Wuthering Heights 1
long walks 2
football watched on tv- not enough
coffees drunk- countless (though only 1 a day from My Waitrose; bless ’em)
lawns mowed 1
hours of paperwork that I’ve put off for 6 months- 3
studies tidied up- none (managed to avoid something this weekend at least)
ice creams eaten 1
Easter Eggs bought before they stop making them for another 9 months- errr… lots.

I mean; how restful is that? But on the ‘change as good as a rest’ principle, it scores highly. And rewarding. And I managed to do it all without the paparazzi interfering.

So my weekend was better than the Waleses. That’d be Wills and Catherine then. And I suppose we better include little George.

Whilst on their tour of the 3rd World (New Zealand and Australia) they have attended functions, been to galas, visited hospitals and hospices, had trips to the zoo, all accompanied by the massed ranks of the world’s press, recording their every move, every wave, every dribble down George’s chin, every wedge heel Catherine wears on the beach, and every curl on her glorious brunette head. And the deal is, as it always is, that they will be filmed, videoed, snapped, selfied and recorded at each and every step, they will pose and smile and sit and face those cameras constantly. BUT. And there’s always one o’ them. The quid pro quo is that on their single, solitary, only day ‘off’, that they be left alone.

So what do they do? Those uncultured, uncouth, slap-another-prawn-on-the-barbie, make mine a Fosters, cheers-mate, cork-hatted, Aborigine-killing, Republic-seeking Aussies? They send helicopters up and spy cameras with 90 foot lenses out to spy on the Royal couple. And His Royal Sprogness. Film them walking hand in hand. Video their normal, unroyal movements.

And that is simply not playing the game. We should disown Australia immediately. Cut them off from the Commonwealth. Steal their resources, rape and pillage, declare war and confiscate the Ashes.

Its an affront. Its not nice. And sanctions must be taken. But proper ones, not like the Russian ones where you treat them as badly as you can without disturbing the gas supply.

Yours indignantly,

Major General, Sir Andrus of Glenfiddich, VC, QC, WC

xxxx

Its rather ironic, possibly even a tad moronic, that I absolutely haaaaated English at school. Despised it. All that riy-tin they made you do, couldn’t bare it. Wouldn’t want to be writing all the time, would I? And readin’. Who needs it? I didn’t voluntarily pick up my first book to read until I was 24. (Exodus by Leon Uris, if you’re interested). And since then I’m never without a book. In fact the same book. Read it 19,426 times so far…

Now whether this English hatred stemmed from my mild dyslexia (how is any dissleksic supposed to spell that wrod?) that we didn’t know at the time, or whether this was attributable to the dire standards of teaching at London grammar schools, which managed to poison Shakespeare and every other wonderful book we ‘read’ at school, I don’t know.

I think it stems from the disappointment of discovering that the subject ‘English’ was all about words. Whereas I’d thought English class would be about eating bacon and eggs, hating Germans, revering Bobby Moore, drinking warm beer, singing the national anthem and getting Union Jack tatoos on your legs.

And for O-level English literature (which I failed due to total lack of enthusiasm and the discovery of ‘girls’) we read Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte’s finest. In fact her only. Whilst her sisters were busy churning them out as fast as the cow operated the flour mill, Emily only contributed one. That one.

So here’s three sisters, stuck out on’t Yorkshire Moors, in the bleakest of bleak (I’ve been to Howarth House, years ago, Mel made me go), with nothing to do and nowhere to go that wasn’t a three-day journey and no-one to see who wasn’t either family or some dim-witted Yorkshire yokel, so they created their own fictional word of passion, of love, of pain, suffering, cold and ice and all those other rotten, nasty things that can collectively be termed ‘life up north’.

I studied the book for a whole year and yet had no idea what the story was. Surely it would have been advisable to read the bloody thing before dissecting it to shit under that sharpest of scalpels; Lett’s Notes. But no. Start with the dissection at line 1 so the story never really unfolds.

But last night we went to a ‘fringe’ production, over a pub in Islington, of Wuthering Heights. And it was bleak and it was passionate and basically, a girl’s in love with her bastard step-brother (before you go ‘eeeuuuww’; it was her step-brother, it was up north and it was long enough ago that incest was as popular back then as invading Ukraine is today), she marries someone else, dies in childbirth but haunts the bastard step-brother, who marries her sister-in-law in revenge, has a son, who marries her daughter, sings a wierd song whilst prancing round like Marcel Marceau on tranqulisers.
In other words, typical life in Yorkshire. Where Mel grew up. Hmmmm…

Great production. Even though Kate Bush never made an appearance. I love theatre pubs, they’re just great. Still not sure about Wuthering Heights though. its no 50 Shades.

Happy sunny, bank holiday Monday

A xxxx

I love this time of the football season. Its the sharp end. The business end. The time when aspiration becomes either realisation (Liverpool) or constipation (Spurs); when promise becomes delivered or reduced to more lies; when real men stand and get counted, and the preening overpaid ponces wither on the vine of also-ran-dom.

So yesterday, White Hart Lane was looking resplendent in brightly coloured kebab shops and fish’n’chip wrapping paper littering the floor. Ahhhh, home. Back again to the land of my people. And to welcome Fulham.

I don’t know about you but most teams give me an instant effect just at the mention of their names. Normally its a bad effect. Sometimes its a good one. Fulham is the latter. I like Fulham. The most inoffensive (and sadly ineffectual) team in the league. But possibly not for much longer. There’s something genteel, something pleasant about Fulham. Nice ground, lovely fans, nice team. Ahhhhhh. And ‘nice’ will get you??? a. nowhere; b. relegated; c. all of the above.

Because Fulham were not just bad but completely awful. They even made Spurs look quite good, and trust me, we aren’t. Not at all. What Fulham also are is very forgiving. We give them ball just outside our area because we can’t defend for shit, and they just pass it gently back to us to give us another chance. Again and again. Other teams are less forgiving, but not Fulham. And so, in their honour, we played like Stoke. But without any of the characteristic violence. Long balls down the middle, goals from set pieces, all scored by players deep at the far post, one yard out, who, when facing other teams, would never haver received the ball; it would have cut out yards before. But Fulham don’t like to defend too well, they like to give opportunities to others. And, for once, Spurs actually managed to take advantage of them. Free points, in da bag.

Chelsea weren’t so lucky. Though luck played no part of it. Just, according to the ever-more-hateful-with-each-point-dropped Morinho, horrendous refereeing. I used to have lots of respect, bordering on love for Jose, but not now. Its always someone else’s fault and his team were unjustly robbed by circumstances beyond their control. Bullshit. Chelsea were shit, couldn’t score goals and got beaten by a desperate and justly rewarded Sunderland. So Jose, I’m afraid you should just FUCK OFF AND STOP BEING SUCH A DICK. That should cover it. Chelsea have become the North Korea of the Premiership and that makes the little Portugezer Kim Jong Un. Not a good place for anyone to be.

Liverpool go top, Arsenal beat Hull to keep up the quest for that unimportant 4th place, and just in case you missed it (or care) Spurs won brilliantly-ish.

Happy wet Sunday

A xxxx

Tomorrow night Fargo is on tv. Not the movie, but a new, 10-part tv series.

How do they do that? Why do they do that?

Why take one of the most perfect movies ever made and ‘adapt’ it; re-work it, modify it, extend it, re-do and add bits on? Oh, for money, of course. Like Breaking Bad (didn’t see it), like True Detective (didn’t see it) and so many other tv series, they are massive and thus extremely lucrative.

I’d like to say that I’ve already set my record thingy and series linked it for Fargo.

Yet part of me, the purist, the artistic, the critical, the pompous, pretentious, movie-snob, tosser part, is totally opposed to this blatant exploitation of a true wonder of cinematic perfection.

Fargo is simply a wonderful film. Its dark. Darker than dark, almost black. It has sick moments (dead hit men in wood grinders) it has the best hero(ine) ever, in Frances McDormand’s oscar-winning heavily pregnant police detective. It has the wonderful William H. Macy as the nebach’s nebach. The man for whom nothing ever goes right. A plot that is simple and elegant, a plan that ‘can’t go wrong’ and yet it all turns to shit. And all in the frozen bleakness of North Dakota’s snowy wastelands. It even has Steve Buschemi at his most ugly, evil and nasty. And for a man who has made a career out of ugly and evil, that says a lot. Fargo is in my top 5 ever movies. Just don’t ask what the other 4 might be because they could become 40.

And so 20 hours of tv ‘based on’ a 100 minute movie. I remain unconvinced. So by monday morning I’ll either be totally hooked and addicted and saving up for the box-set, or appalled and disgusted of London, writing to the producers demanding my money back.

And although there’s so much more to discuss, Spurs are playing early today and we have to get going.

So happy Saturday, and may your best team win. As long as they play in blue and white at White Hart Lane.

A xxxx

What: you can’t read Russian? Or is it Ukrainian?? Is there a difference? Anyway, let me help you with the translation. What this little leaflet says is:

“Dear citizens of the lovely city of Donetsk; we hope you’re having a nice day and supporting the Russian cause by shooting any pro-Ukranians you can find and joining the cause to revert to the motherland, where glory, love and Putin will be our just rewards.
Meanwhile, any members of ‘the Jewish Nation’ need to register all their assets and property with the pro-Russian governors immediately, for a fee of just $50 (and please don’t try to negotiate, haggle of ask for a discount for cash). Failure to do will result in you being deported to… er… well, deported anyway, let’s leave it at that.”

No word of a lie. Except the ones I made up. The Russians are demanding that ‘members of the Jewish Nation’ have to ‘register’ with the authorities. And you simply have to ask yourself why? Not just the paranoid among us, not just those who have read holocaust tales all their lives and know that you have to know your victims before you can persecute, isolate and whatever to them, but any right-minded person has to ask the question Why????

Never mind that the jews aren’t a ‘nation’. They are a people. There is a Jewish Nation; its called Israel but probably isn’t even recognised by the anti-semites of Donetsk. Jewishness is a religion, a culture, a lot of great food, but a nation? No. That its not.

But the Jews of Donetsk are having to do this on threat of this ‘deportation’ even though they are Ukrainian citizens, as they will have been for generations, and they are fully integrated into the full richness of Ukraine life. Whatever the fuck that might be.
There are about 15,000 jews in a population of about one million in the city, 1.5 million if you count all the inbred farmer types and agricultural, knuckle-dragging peasants from the whole region.

So why this sudden need for registration? The only reason is to identify this group so that ‘something’ can be done to them/ with them/ about them. And registering their possessions and assets is only so it can be stolen, ‘removed’, ‘repossessed’ or ‘borrowed’. Just like the nazis did. So what next; yellow stars to be worn? Forced removal to ghettos? ‘Confiscation’ of all property?? Crystalnacht all over again???

I don’t know why Eastern Europe is so terribly anti-semitic. But it is. Jews just want to work hard, enjoy family life, eat fatty foods and pray now and again. They don’t evangelise, they don’t eat babies, they don’t riot (only in my house) and they are generally peaceful, law-abiding folk. Yet time and again they are persecuted, robbed, evicted and murdered.

So yes, as they say, ‘just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re NOT out to get you’.

This leaflet, whether you can read it or not, is pure fucking evil.

Not again.

Happy Good Friday; may your eggs be chocolate, your prayers answered and your Russians rot in hell.

A xxxx

Was chatting to an old (very old) school mate the other day. He’d been at the Emirates to watch his beloved West Ham (I said he was old, never said he was clever) lose to the Arse. And he was complaining. Ok, all football fans complain, all the frikkin time, its what we do. That’s the purpose of football; to balance out lives that otherwise would be too perfect, too dreamy, too filled with joy and happiness and North Korean haircuts. Football grounds us. Ok, it depresses us. And West Ham fans have been so depressed of late that they’ve been booing their manager ever when they’ve won matches. Which is somewhat unusual, even for football. Almost nonsensical. And yet…

West Ham have a ‘history’, like Spurs have a ‘history’. Sadly for both, that’s always where the best stuff happened; historically. History is also subject to revision, to editing out the bad bits, to the rose-tinted selective memory syndrome that sends us longing for those sepia-coloured ‘glory days’ of old.

And West Ham have a ‘history’ of being a team that play exciting, attacking, fast-paced, lovely football. Though you need a long memory to recall those days. Certainly a memory that stretches past the Big Sam era. Because West Ham no longer play ‘nice’ football. They’re no longer nice to watch. Certainly not very exciting. Liverpool are exciting, Manchester City can be exciting, West Ham are more… agricultural. Less Ferrari, more Garbage Lorry. More Allardycian.

Spurs similarly have an ‘ideal’ an image of how a Spurs team should be. And, like West Ham’s, its based on history, certainly not on current state of play. And it goes back to the 60s (when everything good for Spurs began and sadly ended), and then the wonderful 70s, when Glen Hoddle and Ossie Ardiles ruled the park and played such football that the angels would come stand on the Shelf with me and me mate Stan. And then our Champions League season, just 3 years ago, with Bale and Modric and Lennon flying and Van der Vaart…

Ahhhh. Its not about winning. Its about playing in a certain way. Its about style, class and excitement. Something absent from both Spurs and West Ham of late.

Last night I watched some of the Copa del Rey final. They play that in Spain. For some reason. Spurs aren’t allowed in it. And there, upon that very stage were Gareth Bale and Luca Modric, still wearing a lillywhite strip, but this time the one belonging to Real Madrid. And they were wonderful. Still wonderful. Bale scored the winning goal. And what a goal. Safe to say, only he could have scored it. Ran half the pitch, outpaced fouling, hacking defenders and kept sufficiently cool to slot the ball home.

Gareth has scored 20 goals in 39 games for Real. I know, Spanish football is like Scottish football, pretty much just shite with a few teams scoring all the goals and always winning the glory. But still. Playing Barcelona is never easy, though with Messi in (relatively) indifferent form of late, Barca are suffering. What’s the point of having 70% of the possession if you don’t score goals?

I miss Gareth. I miss his goals. We miss his goals. But what I really miss is that 20,000 volt charge that you get when he gets the ball. Lots are players are brilliant and skilful. Very few are just wow! Worth 85 million of anyone’s money.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx

A group of men wearing white robes and hoods, trawling the streets after dark holding flaming torches. If this was in Tennessee this would be completely normal behaviour; the only questions would be ‘where your cross??’ and ‘who we gonna hang tonight?’
But its not in the Deep South, well not of America. This is in Spain and is the Catholic Brotherhood’s way of celebrating (celebating, perhaps?) the Holy Week prior to Easter. So, if Jesus does choose to make his Second Coming, he’ll find himself face to face with a bunch of KKK impersonators. This practice dates back to the 14th century (or thereabouts; long time ago anyway), but I reckon they only adopted this choice of fashionware after seeing Mississippi Burning. I could be wrong.

Meanwhile, in other parts of Europe, Nigel Farage, head of UKIP, the thinking man’s nazi party, sorry, the Drinking Man’s nazi party, and make mine a pint please, is accused of being a bit naughty. A touch ‘creative’ with his accounting. The irony of being the most anti-European in the European Union has proved too much for Nigel and he’s managed to claim his maximum £15,500 a year from Brussels in ‘expenses’ but can only account for about £3000 within the rightful use of it. When anyone questions him about the money he just shouts at them. In German. Ok, maybe in English. But it does seem a touch hypocritical for Nigel to gain from an organisation he desperately wants to pull Britain out of. Its a bit ‘feeding from the hand you really want to bite’.
There are also new allegations about another mistress for Mnsr Farage, a foreigner, no less. Presumably for Nigel this is a more acceptable type of European Union.

Always nice when Britain comes top in something. We don’t win the football, we struggle with being the richest nation, the cleanest, we’re condemned for our foul air quality, we don’t do well in education, struggle with health, but now we’ve topped a chart. We are the most sexist nation on the planet. According to some daft bitch from South Africa, a professor, no less, who has been here and studied us for 3 weeks. Wow, that’s comprehensive then. Apparently we have a ‘boys club’ mentality. Well she’s not joining mine. Has this woman never heard of Saudi Arabia? I despair. But still, always nice to top the charts.

And to Kim Jong Un. The funniest man alive (who has control of atomic weaponry, which dims the humour a little).
A barber in London put a picture of the tubby little North Korean leader in his window with a message saying ‘bad hair day?? get 15% off your haircut in April…’) And the North Koreans went round there and demanded he remove the item as ‘disrespectful to their leader’, issued veiled threats and reported the barber to the police. Who don’t give a shit because its not a crime to make jokes of leaders here, in fact it what we probably do best, other than sexism.

But how dare these North Koreans hassle hard-working Londoners? How dare they make threats here just because they come from a land where humour, along with decent haircuts, is banned? In fact, why do we even allow them to have an Embassy here? They’re horrible, nasty, evil, war-mongering people and should all be sent home, rather than try to ban one of the essential freedoms that this nation enjoys: freedom to take the piss out of dickheads. Its written in our contstitution (if we had one) along with the sexism and jaywalking. Its what makes our nation proud.

Happy Wednesday,

A xxxx

BBC4 to the rescue again last night. What a fabulous tv channel that is. They have a back catalogue of 284 million of the best documentaries the world’s ever known and they just rotate them. And loads are about music.

We had ten round for dinner last night. To tell the story of the passover. As ya do. And we told it. The correct way. By eating lots of symbolic and traditional foods (matzos, bitter herbs, blood of Christian babies, teriyaki lettuce…) and then we ate a proper meal and we adhered to the universal Jewish rule of ‘keep eating until you feel sick/ready to burst, then eat loads more’. So afterwards, once the table was cleared and the guests all gone, you can’t just go to bed. You need to sit, relax, have a cup of tea (me), drink half a bottle of vodka (Mel), enjoy a full bottle of gin (Rachie) and digest. And watch tv. Its essential.

And once again, 690 channels of total rubbish, and golf (same difference); and BBC4.

American Rock Legendary Tracks. With the usual talking heads describing how the songs came about, what they meant, how they have to give you goosebumps to really achieve legendary status, and, 30 years on, how stupid old men look with unnaturally black hair wearing sunglasses in a darkened room. Like Gene Simmons, although Kiss didn’t actually make a ‘legendary’ tune. And Gene wasn’t on it because, like all good Jews, he too was relating the tale of the exodus from Egypt whilst eating chicken. Though the programme was probably made a decade ago.

Rock music started with the Kinks. I’d never really thought of that, but that’s what it is. Which I love because not only are they English but they are London through and through. Muswell Hill, to be precise.

The first ‘legend’ was Born to be Wild. Ok, fantastic track, great driving music, headbanging essential, but for me at least, no goosebumps. Similarly Alice Cooper’s School’s Out. Brilliant anthem for every schoolkid in the world, where they can pretend to be fuck-you rebels whilst still achieving straight As.

Meatloaf. Yeah, ok, ish. But then the glam boys came, in the late 70s, early 80s. And there we find some serious goose bumpage.
I wanna know what love is. Fantastic track. Made with a full choir singing its collective heart out. But is it ‘rock’ or just ‘power ballad’???? Ooooh, that’s tricky, as if anyone cares at that point.

Don’t stop believing. Simply brilliant. Always was. Even featuring on ‘Glee’ couldn’t kill that one off. Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger, from Rocky. Powerful, driving, METTTTTTALLLLL.

The problem is that I’ve always struggled with Journey, Foreigner, Toto, Survivor, because they all look and sound exactly the same. In fact they were just one band, one haircut (or not cut), one sound. But heh, it worked. For (all of) them. And for me too.

Living on a Prayer. Can you be a ‘serious rocker’ when you’re as pretty as Jon Bon Jovi??? A question philosophers will ponder for all eternity.

And my own absolute fave of that genre, coming a little later, but mind-blowingly brilliant; Smells Like Teen Spirit. The ulitmate rock song. Mel and I were shaking heads on the sofa so violently I can’t move my neck this morning. Well, metaphorically.

Happy heavy Tuesday

A xxxx

So often as we watch our beloved game, its the big matches that disappoint. They’re either dull and slow and overly-cautious, or one team swamps the other and its 5-0. Which can be amusing, depending who’s on the losing end, but its not ‘a great match’, just a lot of goals.

Yesterday’s game between Liverpool and Manchester City was a great game. A great match. It had almost everything. It had first half dominance by Liverpool, it had an amazing second half by City and it had a deciding goal of spectacular quality. It also had one of the 3 errors that the normally immaculate Vincent Kompany makes during an entire season. But he’s not fully fit so arguably may have been better off not playing, dispite his always massive influence on any game. A captain’s influence. As Stevie Gerrard has for Liverpool. For both teams ‘the captain’ is a role almost beyond the player. Its a 12 man (relegating ‘the crowd’ to ‘the 13th man’ then) as both of these guys are brilliant footballers and exemplary captains. 2 in one.

At Spurs we generally give the armband to the player who’s grandmother has a birthday that week. Nice. But loses a vital ingredient. When Arsenal had Tony Adams they won things. Chelsea have John Terry, who, apart from being a vile, scummy, pikey, nasty racist, is in fact a fantastic captain of his team. Even I have to concede that. Reluctantly.

The other factor in yesterday’s big match that elevated it to a ‘thing of greatness’ was the referee. Mark Clattenberg had seemingly made a decision not to award a penalty, and to try and avoid sending anyone off, within reason. Because both of those events detract from the event, and red cards ruin big matches, full stop. Of course there was one slam-dunk penalty that was missed, when Martin Skrtel handled the ball intentionally but no-one saw it (only 47 tv cameras) so who cares?

The second half did at one point degenerate into a diving competition with players leaping around like Nureyevs in the box looking with that pathetic plaintiveness at the ref, who just ignored them. One of Suarez’ many dives at that time really should have been a booking. But as the Uruguayan was already booked ealier, that would have meant sending him off, so Clattenberg just cautioned him.

Unlike in Chelsea’s game when the blue vermin ganged up on their ref, in that horrible way they have, that the FA simply must act to stop, and had a Swansea defender sent off. Horrible.

At the very end of the game at Anfield, Jordan Henderson was sent off, but it was too late to have any effect on the game and no-one can complain about it, even though there was no intention of malice. Just a horrible and careless tackle.

So now Liverpool are really top of the table and its ‘theirs to lose’. Which is so often what teams do. Lose it. Its all a mental game from now on. In fact, its all mental.

Great game

Happy monday

A xxxx