Weekend Premier League Preview
Let’s get something straight to start with.
Pegguy Arphexad is NOT a porn star.
I know, right? Those of you who even know who Pegguy is will be shocked at the news. He’s actually into the insurance game now and has been “forced” to deny the rumours. (I was less surprised by the porn story.)
So, now that we can all go back to watching PornHub without the fear of seeing an ex-Liverpool and Leicester reserve goalie popping up with his little fella out, we can have a look at the weekend’s fixtures for some more insight you won’t find elsewhere.
Saturday kicks off in a battle between two managers competing for the title of who can divide their own fans the most.
I have it on good authority from Everton fans that they’d be happy for Bobby Martinez to be sacked after collecting an FA Cup on his way out. Apparently Bobby himself is disappointed he’s not going to be able to pull off his relegation/FA Cup double this season and has had a falling out with Big Romelu for scoring too many league goals.
But the indecision of Blue noses everywhere is nothing compared to the divide at the Emirates where Gunners have now taken to fighting each other outside the ground to sort out their differences.
It’s a dispute resolution technique supported by the USA President-elect which seems perfectly reasonable to me and, no doubt, to Harry Hill.
Some Arsenal fans think Arsene Wenger is a genius who single handedly won them numerous titles and kept them in the Champions League every year while their state of the art stadium was being built, so should be granted more time to win another league.
Others think he’s a waste of space who should be sacked if he can’t win the league in a season when all of their main rivals are, well, shite.
Anyway, in-fighting aside, Everton to win at home at 7/4 seems like a good use of a tenner this weekend. Arsenal coming off the back of a gruelling week in which a Guedioura thunderbolt and a Danny Welbeck specialty open goal miss was followed by their bi-annual arse spanking by Barca.
Everton, meanwhile have been resting all week following their morale boosting win over Chelsea. Goodison Park might not be rocking at 12.45 on a Saturday, but any noise would be enough to unsettle the Arsenal lads who prefer to play their football in the relative peace and quiet of the Emirates.
Next up is one of 142 London derbies. Every one of them a special occasion…
The big question going into this match, though, is what’s going on with Slaven Bilic’s hair?
Slaven and his ‘definitely should be shaved by now’ style will be confident of delivering on a 9/2 payout with the Hammers (or the Irons depending on who you listen to – I’ve never been arsed finding out what that’s all about) against a Chelsea team with nothing left to play for since Roman and his Roubles rolled into town and started paying off match officials in 2003.
West Ham have beaten City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton and Blackburn away this season, so will fancy adding Chelsea to that illustrious list in pursuit of Champions League football to be played in their new stadium secured by brown envelope pay offs of their own (allegedly…).
The last match of any interest on Saturday is Palace v Leicester.
(Apologies to Stoke, West Brom, Norwich, Watford, Swansea and Villa fans, but no-one else is really arsed at this stage.)
What can I say about Leicester that hasn’t been said already?
Well, I could say they’ve been jammy bastards not getting any real injuries this season, and have had another stroke of luck that the one above average season they’ve put together has coincided with everyone else deciding to be shit in the same season.
But I’m not a miserable bastard so won’t say any of that…
I’m actually hoping they hold on and win the league, just so that we can witness the total carnage next season when all other club chairmen use them as a point of reference in every meeting they have with the manager they’ve just appointed:
“What are the targets this year boss?”
“Win the league, son.”
“But we’ve only just been promoted and we’ve got no money to compete wi…
“Look son, I’ve been watching some strikers in the North Cheshire league and think I’ve found the next Jamie Vardy who we can get for 20 Woodbines and a jumbo packet of Haribo.”
(In my head that owner has a thick Scottish accent. I’m not sure why.)
Standing in the way of lovely Claudio and his gang of no marks this weekend are Pards and his eagle-flying, glad all over, Adebayor inspired warriors.
The main problem for Pards is that Palace’s top scorer this season is Scott Dann.
Scott Dann.
(That might not actually be true anymore, but for the point of this piece I’m sticking with it.)
I can’t imagine Wes Morgan or Roberto Huth being too troubled by that thought when tucking each other in on Friday night and, despite their relentless march towards the unlikeliest of league titles, you can still get Leicester at 6/4 to win on Saturday afternoon in the London sun.
Pards will have a few grand on that himself then will take his ladies out for a night of witty stories and snappy chat up lines in Mahiki.
Pina Coladas and cleavage on draught.
Going into Sunday means offending Southampton, Liverpool, Spurs and Bournemouth fans. Again, lads, I can’t really be arsed and no-one really cares (and I’m a Liverpool fan!).
If Leicester lose to Pards’ Pretenders it’ll be interesting to see if Mauricio’s decision to throw the Dortmund game pays off but, until then, let’s focus on the two big derbies of the weekend.
First, a declaration of interest.
I’m one of those Liverpool fans who loves Rafa Benitez. I mean, like, really love him. I’ve got a photo with him somewhere after he’s signed a banner of mine and I genuinely look the happiest I’ve ever been (I say “look” in case my wife reads this, because the happiest I’ve ever been in reality is obviously our wedding day…).
Anyway, back to Rafa.
He’ll be looking forward to this match. He’ll know that Newcastle’s recent record in derbies is not up to the demands of the Toon Army (don’t get them mixed up with the Territorial Army – I once tried to sign up for the latter and couldn’t believe it when they told me to put my top back on and have the tattoo of Alan Shearer removed from my chest).
Rafa once came up against Big Sam and his Big Head when Sam was Newcastle manager. It was probably around the time that Sam thought he should be managing Real Madrid and wasn’t happy with these pesky foreigners coming over here, taking our jobs and being praised for using tactics and things to win games.
He never liked Rafa, so to show everyone how great he was he played 3 at the back and wing-backs high up the pitch.
Rafa told Harry Kewell (remember him?) to just go and stand where the right back should be and told Xabi Alonso to keep passing the ball to him.
After 10 minutes of the right wing back looking over to the bench asking what he should do to solve this conundrum of being persistently exposed, Big Sam realised he was out of his depth and switched to a back four.
Liverpool won and Sam’s hatred for Rafa was carved in stone.
Get on Rafa to secure his first piece of Toon folklore at 6/5 and Aleksandar Mitrovic to become the new Dirk Kuyt and score an any time goal at 21/10. I promise you won’t regret it.
The final match I can be arsed with is the Manchester derby, where unlike our first match of the weekend the two managers have united their clubs’ respective fan bases.
They’d both be happy to see the back of them.
I’ve got a mate who supports City and has an affectionate name for Pellegrini. I can’t repeat it here in case your kids are reading this, but it starts with “Old” and ends with a C word that rhymes with “blunt”.
Suffice to say he’s not a big fan.
It’s a bit mad with Old Pello, isn’t it? He’s basically won everything other than the CL but is just a bit, well, boring.
The Deidre Barlow comparisons don’t really help either.
As for LVG, he’s lived up to pretty much all of my hopes as a Liverpool fan. It could have gone worse results wise, but I could never have dreamed his style of football would be even worse than Moyesey’s.
And if Pello shows us that being boring can be your downfall in this league, Louis shows us that just being mad isn’t enough without the football and results to go with it.
The mad bastard.
Despite both teams being out of the title race, it’s still a massive game in the race for the top 4. City need to get there to make sure Pep doesn’t lose a year of their 3 year masterplan to win the Champions League before he even starts, and United need to get there to give whoever’s in charge next a fighting chance of stopping the post-Fergie rot.
City had a stroll in the park against Kiev midweek but have been gutted by the loss of their balsa wood constructed captain.
United, meanwhile, are coming off the back of a doing over by their arch-enemies and a jammy draw against West Ham.
I can see a draw in this game. Kompany’s injury should be just enough to bring them down to United’s level long enough for De Gea and Martial to do enough to rescue a point. 11/4 isn’t a bad price for a draw in what will be a tense derby.
So there you have it. Not much insight but a picture of Slaven Bilic’s hair and a vine I made myself.
What more do you want?
Article by Paul – @PredictTheSix. Pick 6 ANY TIME goal scorers for £1 to win £5,600. Our winners on average pick up at least 5x the bookies’ payout for the same bet. Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook and click on the link below quoting FOOTBALL to get matched free credits up to £30