2016 has turned out to be one fucked up year. Leicester win the league, ordinarily a terrific victory for the little guy, but we should've won the fucking league. And you know what, 'the little guy' cheated their way out of the championship by skirting a points sanction for an outrageous response to the threat of an FFP violation. Their income was not as much as their expenditure, the basic foundation of financial fair play. So Leicester tasked a company to find a sponsor that would balance the books. This company managed to find sponsors for a stadium naming rights deal of 11m pounds, a figure that dwarfed that of comparable clubs in the championship at the time. This 11m pounds was just enough to balance the books and ensure Leicester were not in contravention of FFP. When vetted, it was discovered that not only did the company tasked with finding the sponsor not exist, not even a fake website or phone number, but nor did the sponsor. It must've been like the scene in The Royal Tenenbaums when Danny Glover gets the whole family together, "Not only is there no Dr. Mcleur at Coby General, there is no Coby General". It turns out that the company that gave 11m pounds to Leicester's owners in exchange for naming rights to their stadium, was in fact owned by none other than Leicester's owners. Why they were given a break and escaped a points deduction I have no idea. Moving forward we have a whole bunch of gun violence, unarmed people shot in the street by police, protesters savaged by dogs and rubber bullets and mace, a rise in the white power movement, white supremacists founding towns all over the US, Brexit and of course this outrageous Presidential election with the worst political candidate in the western world since Hitler rallying the bottom 10% of the American gene pool into a frenzy. Mix all of that with a series of Arsenal related frustrations and you've got an awfully annoying cocktail. However, not nearly as annoying as my tenant's girlfriend's shrieking voice. Oh my christ, after 2 months away from home, facing perilous New Jersey suburban landscapes in the shape of my wife's family and a slew of other daunting stress inducers there's nothing quite like finally landing at home to be greeted by a brain piercing, high pitched cartoon baby voice, the owner of which is, as much as it doesn't stand to reason, in her early 30s.
This helps put the Middlesborough game in perspective. Annoying no doubt, 2 dropped points we'll hope won't come back to haunt us, but perhaps a point that will come in handy down the line. Since then, we beat Reading in the hilariously named EFL Cup. Maybe they should hire some Leicester City execs to find a new sponsor.
Now, I used to absolutely love the league cup. It meant watching football during the week and like all midweek games they're played under lights, something we all love. And we got to watch our kids hammer teams from lower leagues and down the table in the prem until we'd get knocked out by a team our youngsters just couldn't cope with. It was brilliant, watching Fabregas, Wilshere, Rambo, Vela, oh my god Vela, Theo, Diaby, Senderos, the Hoyt bros, Gibbs and co on a Tuesday or Wednesday night. It gave us all the warm and fuzzies, not just about our team and our boys, but about football as a whole. The more money pours into the game, the less in touch with the game we all feel. We watch ordinarily nice men do incomprehensibly cynical things with impunity, we watch managers field sides without a thought towards winning a game and we read about grown men throwing strops over birthday cakes because the million pounds a month they're paid is not quite enough. Seeing those kids play reminded us what it's all really about. Coming together for a cause, being a part of something bigger than yourself, dedication, fun, family, sportsmanship, quick one touch interchanges through a crowded midfield, 17 year old overlapping fullbacks and a good looking, young Mexican chipping one onrushing goalie after another. The Reading game was the closest we've come to that for a long time and I enjoyed it. 2 goals for the Ox as he works hard to play his way back to the kind of form he was in before injury and some bad games put him in a bit of a hole. Iwobi looked very good and Maitland-Niles, the occasional overplaying aside, looked pretty sure. Elneny was terrific (finally a squad player with some serious quality) and the back 5 looked promising. I had grander hopes for Rene-Adelaide but I'm sure he'll come good. Makes me wish we hadn't lost Gnabry, he really would round off an excellent generation of under 23s. Yes we should've scored more, yes Lucas took a kick which puts him out for 2 months, terribly unfortunate for him, but we finally look to have a team behind our first team that we can all be excited about.
Then we played Sunderland, maybe the worst team in the prem since that Derby team that got something like 8 points in a season. That didn't stop us from making it a touch scary, even if only for 2 minutes. We had a lot of the ball and were never threatened, but we didn't have the zip and verve and energy of a team that looked like tonking the other team. Having said that, Alexis's goal was terrific. Great dribble and cross by Ox man and a terrific diving header by Sanchez. We should've scored more in the first half but didn't. In the second half, the ref continued to have a poor game and denied us a clear penalty in the first phase of play and awarded them a penalty in the second. Cech fouled Watmore and it was definitely a penalty, except that we should've had a penalty a few seconds before. They scored and then Giroud came on and he got two good goals with his first couple of touches before Alexis got a fun training ground style goal, playing as if he was shooting into a small, collapsable goal. 4-1 in the end, points and a result we no doubt deserve. Sunderland will surely go down. I feel bad for Moyse, who every day looks more and more like my granny. But, fuck him, what do I care.
We stay second after City's win and pull away from the Spuds after they dropped points at Leicester. 3 more games and I think we'll see a top 7 shape up for the end of the season. Where we all finish within that top 7 will be up to how consistent we can be and how many points we can take from our rivals, nothing I really need to tell you. That's that, talk to you soon.
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