Have to take my daughter to training Saturday morning’s so always miss the lunchtime kick offs any time we’re scheduled in that slot. Normally this has me grumbling away to myself about having to miss the game but as Saturday approached I actually felt massively relieved that I wasn’t going to have to sit through it. I just felt from the moment Fwank got the chop nothing good was going to come of this game and so it proved.
Players who haven’t tried a leg in months suddenly start playing like it’s the World Cup final, crowd screaming for everything, kick and rush a thousand miles an hour, zero football gets played in the game and you lose to a set piece.
When I got home it was the 83rd minute so got to watch from there plus the six additional minutes - 13 minutes in total. I’d say the ball was in play for a maximum of 4 of those minutes and that’s being generous
Dinosaur arms got booked for time wasting then continued to time waste for the remainder of the game knowing he wouldn’t get a second yellow, players falling over buying cheap free kicks then staying down pretending to be injured, no ball appearing for our throw ins then magically 2 balls are on the pitch, Zinchenko getting booked for being hauled down by the neck onto the ground.
Pretty much everything I expected the game was going to be like all week condensed into 13 shit fucking minutes. They could still be playing out there now and the score would be 1 nil. Just the fucking sheer inevitability of it all is what makes it so depressing.
Next 2 games are at home - season will hinge on what happens in those matches. Even though in reality I think there’s very little chance of us wining the league I’ve stupidly allowed myself to dream a bit these last few weeks. Going into that faithful day at Birmingham I also started to believe and when Welbz got that last second winner at home to Leicester I felt the same only for it all to go to shit after those games in both seasons.
That’s only twice in the last 20 odd years I’ve dared to dream. This year is a strange one because absolutely nobody saw us competing for the title so to be in that position is a massive overachievement in itself. Head says city, heart says Arsenal, buckle the fuck up and give it everything from here on in.