Arsenal 2-3 Spurs – Hollywood has nothing on football, which is generally why all attempts to make epic ‘sawker’ films have failed so miserably. It’s not that they’re unrealistic or clichéd – football itself is unrealistic and clichéd – It’s that we see the unimaginable happen so often for real that it fails to resonate properly when we see someone pretending. “What? Sean Bean comes off the bench to score a late brace against a Man. United team made up of fat extras from The Bill? Happens every week!” Football is infinitely more ludicrous than Hollywood, even with Sylvester Stallone in goal. The best thing Hollywood could do is take their plots from real football matches. But then there’s a fair chance people wouldn’t believe them.
If they did, the script for the 165th North London derby would be hot property right now. So choc-a-bloc was it of tantalizing sub-plots, bad blood, mixed loyalties and historical back story that it could fill up a mini-series worth of running time, and that’s without even considering the possibility of a Sex and the City style spin off featuring Danielle Lloyd and Alicia Duval (with Dean Gaffney in a supporting role as comic relief.)
It had everything; Goals, drama, comebacks (in both events and personnel) flying water bottles, the obligatory Gareth Bale fawning, even a Terry/Bridge handshake moment. Except in this case rather than spousal infidelity the reason was apparently ‘sitting in the wrong seat on a bus’. You see? You couldn’t make that sh*t up! If you could, you’d be a millionaire.
Man. Utd 2-0 Wigan – Speaking of films. You know that one where the young unknown Mexican prodigy arrives in the Premier League and starts scoring last minute winners before copping off with Anna Friel? Well as if to almost cosmically prove my point, the real life version seems to be playing itself out quite happily in Manchester without anyone batting an eyelid. Except unfortunately without Anna Friel (which is a shame, she was the best thing in it.) In fact if Javier Hernandez’s story was told in celluloid it would probably be lambasted for being too cheesy and overly heroic, eventually ending up in a DVD bargain bucket bin next to Soccer Dog – World Pup and Flashdance III – All’s well that ends weld. He’s netted three late or last minute winners so far, a goal on his debut against Chelsea, seven in all for United and international strikes against Spain, Argentina and France since he signed. He hasn’t even had to go through the obligatory ‘tough period’ where he makes bad decisions/gets unlucky and has to prove himself through a succession of training montages and humbling good deeds. On Saturday he played the hero yet again as he came off the bench to overshadow returning hero/villain (depending on where you were sitting) Wayne Rooney and grab another late clinching goal. Now if only I could get hold of Anna Friel I could start filming my remake. Though my version will be a lot racier. And we don’t really need Javier in it.
Bolton 5-1 Newcastle – Owen Coyle is doing little to dampen the growing motion that he’s not a naughty boy, buy may actually be the messiah, or a the least some kind of genius man-God as he guided Boltolona into the Champions League places, (if only for a day) continued to convince Kevin Davies and Johan Elmander that they’re in some way the spiritual re-embodiment of Garrincha and George Best, all whilst bringing himself on and scoring for the reserves, beating Chris Kamara at table tennis and shattering Big Sam Allardyce’s legacy of what should be expected at Bolton. If that’s not worth worshipping I don’t know what is.
Both Davies and Newcastle’s Carroll scored and looked impressive and on current form are England two best strikers by far. Which is an incredibly depressing thing when you think about it. Hoooof!
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Fulham 1-4 Man City – Replacing Bolton who’d in turn replaced Spurs in 4th, City recovered from their recent boo inducing goalless draws to torture former manager Marky Sparky Hughes with a performance of incredibly potent attacking vim. Carlos Tevez was again the driving force, with his sort of surrogate father and mentor Diego Maradona (who in reality would be the worst person to have as either, unless you were a self destructive drug addict) watching on in clear frozen discomfort, accompanied by a very bored looking blonde who’s sole purpose it probably was provide him with something to ‘do’ on the way home. After I’d figured out that nothing had actually happened to Gareth Barry’s face and that Aleksander Kolarov was in fact a different player all together, there was nothing left to do but admire City’s performance. If Bolton are playing like Brazil then City were playing like United, all while United were playing like City ‘were’ playing and Arsenal were bottling it like Spurs. What on earth has happened to football?
Birmingham 1-0 Chelsea – Is John Motson required by law to commentate on all of Chelsea’s games for Match of the Day? I was initially under the impression that he was limiting himself to London games so he’d never need to be too far away from his shed (or his carers) but an away at Birmingham shatters that theory. I wouldn’t mind were it not for his uniquely annoying pronunciation of Drogba, which inserts considerably more A’s than are needed (doubly so if he’s involved in something exciting) suffixed with a needless R. Drogbaaar was involved in a lot of excitement as it goes as Ben Foster consistently denied him and Chelsea heroically, helping his old club draw level on points at the top. Oh Butch where art thou?
Other Things I Noticed – David’s Gold & Sullivan’s Pimp and Cossack routine looks set to be outdone as Blackburn over take West Ham as the club with the dodgiest looking owners. Brad Friedel not actually being any good for ages now but nobody noticing it. Wayne Rooney’s street striker being the most pointless and over padded show on TV but worth it for Rooney asking a competitive BMXer “How d’you do that? D’you know?” (I think he does Wayne yes) and Colin Murray stealing my Prince William dressed as Tony Pulis gag on MOTD2. Damn you Murray. I’ll never top that!
You can follow Oscar on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/oscarpyejeary, where he sometimes says stuff and that.
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