Twas indeed another interesting weekend of football. Some big results, some boring rubbish and the odd complete shock. Of course that is the beauty of football and why us mere mortals find ourselves drawn to it. The massive highs, followed by the crushing lows. Just another week as a football fan.

Let’s start our round up with a look at the Chelsea vs. Watford game. In a nutshell, Watford completely f***ed it up. They missed several chances to go 3-1 and 4-1 up in the match. But for their lack of quality finishing they paid the ultimate price. Conte’s astute substitutions of Batshuayi and Willian were the key moments in the game and Chelsea stormed to victory in the last 20 minutes. Its a matter of what might of been for Watford. Still they are very impressive and will continue to improve.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I would have never predicted Huddersfield would pull off a miracle win against Man United. NEVER. But, United really only have themselves to blame. 78% possession and only 9 shots in the entire match. They were unable to deal with the exact same tactics they deployed at Anfield only a week earlier. The only difference this time, Huddersfield were willing to try and score on the counter attack and did.

For me a tactical flop by Mourinho. Firstly he starts with two defensive midfielders in Herrera and Matic, in a match he must have known they will have most of the ball and do most of the attacking. AND he starts without Rashford and Mkhitaryan. I don’t know what goes through the mans mind sometimes. I wonder are United fans yet concerned with “the special ones” tactics? Feel free to make your comments below. I am a grown up, I can handle it.

As for Huddersfield, first win against United since 1952. I bet they had the party of all mother f***ing parties on Saturday night.

Do I really need to discuss Man City? Really? They weren’t at their absolute best, and Burnley made it difficult for them. But even on an off day they managed a comfotable win. I will say it again for clarity. Is there any team who can stop Man City winning the title this season? I seriously doubt it.

On Sunday, once again, Everton were an absolute disaster. I can imagine that Liverpool fans who live in the city are currently thanking God, Buddha or any other celestial being that Everton’s disastrous start to the season is keeping Liverpool’s own obvious problems somewhat in the shade. Back to Everton, poor, poor, poor.

At the moment you just can’t see where they might conjure a win from. I don’t like to see managers lose their job. But I would be extremely surprised if Ronald Koeman survived this one. I said before this weekend that this would most likely be his last game in charge at Goodison and I will stand by that. On the other hand, Arsenal were pretty good. Ozil decided he felt like playing for once and had a very good game. The Gunners were sharp, dynamic and looked creative. Maybe there is some light at the end of the tunnel for Arsenal fans.

And… now… Tottenham vs. Liverpool. I don’t want to say too much on this match as the “huge gaping wound” is still quite fresh. Tottenham were excellent all over the park, I won’t deny them that. But Liverpool in defence were atrocious. How any professional football team in the world can defend that badly is beyond the realms of my understanding. Defensive mistakes led to all four Tottenham goals. It was absolutely shocking.

I will give credit to Klopp for one thing though. At least he had the balls to pull of Dejan Lovren who was having possibly the worst day in his entire career. I doubt the poor lad will survive that performance and I would be shocked if we see him in a red shirt any time soon. Full praise to Tottenham though. Fantastic team, fantastic manager, fantastic performance. Enough said.

Just as a final point on the Premier League, Hammers fans I left out your match on purpose. You are in enough pain.

In Italy it was a pretty “rough” weekend by their standards. Ten matches with six red cards. Is Italian football finally toughening up? I hope no hair follicles were damaged.

Sampdoria moved up into the top six after a crushing 5-0 win over Crotone. Good result, but not much of a shock let’s be honest. I get the sense both teams took a cautious approach in the Napoli vs. Inter match. About as even as a match can get there were only six shots on target in the whole 90 minutes. Still on the whole a good result for both, even though as a spectacle it was a bit of a snooze fest.

Leonardo Bonucci’s difficult start to life at AC Milan continues. He was shown a straight red mid way through the first half for a quite savage elbow on Genoa’s Aleandro Rosi. I had to review it a couple of times but for me definitely a red, no doubt. And the new VAR system agreed. However, even with ten men, Milan still had the better of the game and should have won. A pretty poor Genoa hung on for a point.

Fiorentina were very good in their away win against Benevento. The newcomers to Serie A should enjoy this season as I am pretty certain they will drop back down come June 2018. I think they got quite lucky to gain promotion in the first place. There was also a pretty comfortable 1-0 win for Roma against Torino even though the Romans were far from being at their best.

Udinese got spanked by Juventus even though the bianconeri had Mandzukic sent off for a second bookable offence in the 26th minute. Now I know they were playing Juve, but surely with a man advantage they could have made more of the game of it. Quite bloody shocking if you ask me. They must sack Del Neri immediately. I am joking of course, but after losing 4 out of their last 5 matches who knows. After a decent start they are slumping big time.

The final word in Italy goes to Lazio, who continued their great start to the season with a 3-0 win over Cagliari. But don’t get carried away Lazio fans. Had it not been for the finishing of Ciro Immobile you might have had a bad day at the office. Cagliari put up a very decent fight.

Just a reminder, not that you will need it, there is football mid week both in the Italian Serie A and also the EFL Cup in England. If your team is in action, good luck.

*** Just as I published this post the news was confirmed that Ronald Koeman has been sacked as manager of Everton football club. Sad news but it was coming…

http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/41683786

https://ozuncut.com/index.php/2017/10/16/football-round-up-premierleague-seriea/