Just 10 days till Christmas and the powers that be at the Premier League decided to give a few lucky fanbases an early Christmas present… a battle with their local rivals for festive bragging rights.
Annoyingly for me, the only home team to accept this gift were Brentford’s hosts for the day. By the time Bryan Mbuemo fired home a last minute consolation for the Bees, Chelsea already had their first home win over us since we joined the Premier League.
The spell of Brentford Bridge was broken and Brighton fans were broken by the end of their match too.
Seeing your greatest rivals fly back to south London with all 3 points having scored all 4 goals in their 3-1 win must have hurt something dreadful, but Crystal Palace fans will have enjoyed the celebrations despite Marc Guehi’s 87th minute own goal.
They will be counting that it failed to spark a remarkable last minute comeback, unlike a certain 88th minute penalty at the home of a crumbling dynasty.
Living and working in Manchester, as I do, I have both City and United fans in my team. Through the banter whizzing round the shop last week there was was one thing they all agreed on, no matter how bad their form City were the better team and would win on Sunday.
When Josko Gvardiol headed home 10 minutes before half-time it looked like they were right and it continued looking that way till 2 minutes from time when City hit the self-destruct button…
Bruno Fernandes never looked likely to turn down the gift from 12-yards and with the momentum now firmly behind them The Red Devils pounced on their rivals, went full grinch and stole their Christmas gift from under City’s noses.
The joy was ripped from Guardiola and co. by the boot of Amad Diallo and delivered gift wrapped into the grateful arms of new United boss Ruben Amorim.
Quite what Amorim is going to get to repay Diallo is unclear, but it’s unlikely to ever be enough.
Perhaps he should seek advice from St. Mary’s, cause home team Southampton were giving out gifts left, right and centre against Spurs.
I suppose they’re not called the Saints for nothing, but they tested the patience of their fans past breaking point by coughing up 4 gifts for their visitors within the first 25 minutes and delivering a 5th just before the ref called an end to one of the most one-sided halves in history.
Such a festive humiliation was enough for many of the home faithful to head home for a barrel of mulled wine in a forlorn effort to forget what they had witnessed.
In fairness to the Hampshire horrors they went full grinch in the second half and managed to limp to full-time with just a 5-0 humiliation to show for their efforts, they would’ve been better not turning up and only losing 3-0 by walkover.
Neither was likely to have saved Russel Martin’s job in the dugout, but at least he would have left his ex-charges with a slightly better goal difference and possibly more confidence for their League Cup Quarter-Final tonight against League leaders Liverpool.
They will be hoping for a miracle whilst Palace and United will hope to make it two wins in a row in their own Quarter-Finals, away at Arsenal and Spurs respectively.
For my beloved Bees it will simply be a case of recovering their form from the weekend before, when they ripped apart Newcastle United at fortress Gtech.
Unfortunately tonight’s game is up at St. James’ Park and whilst I run to the ground for kick-off I will be praying all the way for our first away win at a Premier League team this season.
Couldn’t we all use a Christmas miracle?
The Football tourist 