The Football tourist

In the last 5 days I have been to 2 matches that may never be turned into Blogs.
The reason for this is that I am currently experiencing a plethora of technical issues with my phone that are rendering it utterly unusable today.

Until these problems are fixed it will be impossible for me to access my voice notes from the games that I use as the basis for the content of these blogs. It also leaves me unable to access my pictures from these matches.

This blog will be on hiatus until the problems are fixed. Thankfully I am taking a week off next week to travel so my technical problems should be sorted before they effect any further blogs. I hope to be able to recover the 2 matches I have been lucky enough to attend this week as they will serve as an excellent example of the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the team that completed in both of them. A team that can achieve incredible results at home but falls to pieces when they leave the safety blanket of their own ground behind.

Hope to be back with you within 2 weeks, see you then.

Thursday 13th October 2022: UEFA Europa League: Old Trafford: Manchester United vs Omonia Nicosia

If you had told the teenage me that he would be in the home end at Old Trafford cheering on Manchester United someday he would have laughed in your face, but this Thursday evening that’s exactly where I was and what I was doing. To betray my younger self in this way was a perplexing experience, but after more than 2 weeks of being unable to go to games it was a bullet I had to bite.

That my first game in the Old Trafford home end was also my first ever experience of a European night was a little balm on my teen self’s wounds. Even better for younger me was that the visitors were minnows who had a real chance of creating one of the upsets of the decade. The minnows in question were Omonia Nicosia, whose nickname is I Basilissa (The Queen), on their first visit to the home of the Red Devils. They ran today’s hosts close to the line on the return leg in Nicosia last week, leading 1-0 at half time it took an almighty comeback by the Red Devils to limp to a 3-2 victory.

Untied were now back on home turf though and with the vociferous backing of tens of thousands of home fans, who hadn’t seen their heroes on home turf for over a month, I was backing the hosts to get the result they wanted. As for my personal hopes for the match result, I was torn straight down the middle. Part of me wanted to see the Cypriots annihilate the team I had despised growing up but another part of me wanted to see the hosts win for the good of the English game. To have a team from such a minor footballing nation come to the nation that created the sport and beat one of their most recognisable teams would have done immense damage to the prestige of our national game: even I didn’t despise United viscerally enough to hope that happened.

Nicosia did have one ace up their sleeve in the battle though as in their dugout sat Celtic legend Neil Lennon. Having played against United in his club days he knows exactly what to expect on nights like these and will have prepared his players accordingly.

Erik Ten Haag had also prepared his charges well for this one though and was leaving nothing to chance by arriving at the ground a reported 4 hours before kick-off. Most teams leave it till just 90 minutes before things get underway to arrive at the ground and arriving 2 hours early myself, I expected to catch them coming off the coaches. No such luck this time though and after having to switch turnstiles, when the first got stuck closed, I headed inside early to soak up the atmosphere being created by the vocal away support.

The home support failed to make any attempt to match the decibel level coming from the away end, but from the first few seconds it was clear that the action on the pitch was only ever going to have one winner. United were shooting towards the Stretford End in the first half, at the far end of the pitch from my seat, and as such I barely saw the ball all first half.

From kick-off United grabbed hold of possession and would only let it slip a fleeting number of times throughout the match. This dominance of the ball almost paid off immediately as Rashford found himself in enough space on the edge of the D to let one fly. It was only through the brilliant acrobatics of Francis Uzoho in the Omonia goal that the visitors avoided going behind within the first 60 seconds of the match. Uzoho leapt off the ground like a flying fish out of water to tip it over the bar. This was United’s first taste of the forcefield that would leave them frustrated for most of the match.

Omonia had come into the match with the sole intent of picking up their first point of the competition and it showed in the way they set their stall out early doors. They made little attempt to pressure United when the hosts had the ball in their own half, choosing instead to get 10 players behind the ball and put on a show of stalwart defensive work that would make any army green with envy.

The probing attacks on this dug-in defence were launched with a ferocious regularity by the hosts in the first 10 but they very rarely resulted in presentable chances to break the deadlock. The closest United came to breaking through with their early attacks came from a raking ball down the left from Marcus Rashford that landed at the feet of Cristiano Ronaldo, but his shot could only rattle the side netting.

Having weathered the first waves of the hosts’ attacks Nicosia decided to try and stage a breakout. They got as far as 25 yards from the United goal before two Nicosia players both left the ball behind for the other one to continue the attack allowing the back-pedalling defenders to scoop it up and boot it back up field to the siege lines surrounding the forcefield protecting the Omonia goalmouth. The forcefield seemed to be particularly effective against the players in Red, rather than the ball itself, as twice in quick succession Bruno Fernandes was able to fire crosses thought the corridor of uncertainty, without a single teammate of his being able to get to it and tap it home.

This was the last advance of the early attacks on the forcefield as the game settled into a turgid midfield slugfest for the next 10 minutes. Then the slugfest was broken by United as first Fernandes fed Ronaldo who fed Rashford and once again it was only the excellent work of the Omonia keeper that kept the scores level. Uzoho was back at it again minutes later to keep out a bullet of a shot from Rashford, once more, as the forcefield held for now. It was almost breached as the game hit the half hour mark when Ronaldo spun on a dime to unleash a powerful shot just a yard wide of the left-hand post from 12 yards out.

Omonia seemed to turn up the dials on their forcefield at this point as it now stopped the ball from being crossed into the area. Not that this helped them break out of their own half though and De Gea was so massively surplus to requirements at this point that he could have taken a nap in the goal and none of the rest of the players would have noticed.

Till the 41st minute that is, when Nicosia came close to taking the lead severely against the run of play. A hoofed ball clear was run onto by Andronikos Kakoulli and he continued to stride towards the Untied goal with the ball attached to his boots. It took a desperate diving tackle by Victor Lindelof to pry it free only for it to land at the feet of Hector Yuste. He controlled the ball and unleashed a powerful shot past De Gea at his near post only to see the ball ricochet away off the bar. This gave Nicosia a taste for attacking though and they came even closer to scoring just 90 seconds later. Once more Yuste tried to slide the ball in at De Gea’s near post, but this time the keeper was equal to the effort. If only the Cypriot’s winger had looked up, he would have seen Kakoulli bounding free in the centre and picked him out for a sweaty tap-in.

As it was though the match was destined to reach half time with the scores level as Omonia’s forcefield held against the peppering it had taken from the plethora of chances United threw at it all half. As the teams headed down the tunnel for their break it was clear that if this match was going to have a winning goal it was going to come from the boot of a man in red, but first they had a forcefield to break down.

With the hosts shooting towards my goal in the second half I was hoping that Ten Haag’s half time speech would result in a glut of goals for me to enjoy. Despite the lack of personnel changes at half-time it took just 25 seconds for United to smash straight back into the forcefield around the Omonia goal. Rashford drove forward from midfield and fed the ball through to Bruno Fernandes outside him. Fernandes unleashed a cannonball of a shot toward goal, but Uzoho stood tall to parry the ball away to the far left of the area. It is picked up by Rashford who fires it towards the net but, in a show of fleet-footedness any prima-ballerina would be proud of, Uzoho was back on his feet in a flash to notch up an incredible double save. The forcefield continued to hold for now.

Just 2 minutes later Uzoho pulled off another double save to keep the scores level. This time it was Rashford first then Fernandez on the follow up as United swarmed all over their visitors. Omonia hadn’t managed to get a foot on the ball so far this half and consequently turned the forcefield up to 15. It now began deflecting crosses away from the goalmouth as a Rashford cross to Ronaldo at the back post curved wildly wide of the near post.

This lack of results from conventional attacks forced United into trying some unique and hilarious ways to break through, including a hoofed ball upfield that Fernadez tried to flick home off the back of his head whilst facing entirely the wrong way. It was a lovely moment of levity to break up a frustrating array of missed opportunities for the hosts, but it still failed to provide the breakthrough that United’s dominance deserved.

Omonia didn’t have a single touch of the ball in the first 15 minutes of the half as United fired shot after shot at the forcefield around the visitor’s goal without breaking through it. The lack of a goal for the home fans to celebrate was certainly not for lack of trying, but simply boiled down to a lack of composure at the crucial moments and a goalkeeper in world-class form. Rashford had the majority of these chances and he would waste another as the game hit the hour mark. He was given the freedom of Manchester to advance down the left channel and with just the keeper to beat he contrived to screw it wide of the target. The goal was at his mercy and he somehow missed it, even the ref couldn’t believe what he’d seen, giving United a completely undeserved corner as he refused to accept that any player could mess up such a gilt-edged opportunity.

Ten Hag reached further and further into the assets on his bench in the final half hour in the hopes of finding anyone who could find a way through the forcefield. Jadon Sancho and Luke Shaw were given the full half hour, Christian Eriksen got 20 minutes whilst Scott McTominay was given a measly 10 to make his mark. They each had their own chances to break the stalemate, Eriksen twice sending piledrivers from 20yards out agonisingly wide within 5 minutes of entering the field, but it was McTominay who would be the one to finally bring the forcefield crashing down with United’s final attack of the match.

Apart from De Gea every other United man had tried their luck by this point, but these were either deflected by the forcefield or the incredible exertions of Francis Uzoho. The resignation in the home stands had reached depths never plumbed before in the history of human endeavours. I lost count of the amount of glorious chances they passed up before the match clock struck 90, including McTominay blazing over the top of the bar from the edge of the D.

When the board flashed up 5 minutes of added time the earth-shatter cheers that surged through the home stands filled the players with hope. Everyone in the stadium knew that this gave them enough time for one last chance and the hope that this final chance would provide the breakthrough their dominance deserved, and boy did it. McTominay may have got the final touch but heaping helpings of credit for it must go to fellow substitute Jadon Sancho, who twisted and turned on the left side of the box to tie his marker in knots. Having performed this awesome feat he bulleted the ball across the box to the onrushing McTominay who fired it to the left side of a recovering Uzoho, who was finally unable to keep the forcefield up. It was unlucky 13 for the Omonia forcefield

That was the final attack of the match as the ref blew for full-time straight from kick-off, to leave me celebrating a Manchester United win for the first and only time in my lived existence. To score with the last of your 34 shots of a 90 minutes where you enjoyed 78% of the possession is one hell of a way to win a game, especially when it leaves you needing just 1 point from your remaining 2 matches to qualify for the next stage of the competition.

The only problem with the above is that it took you 34 shots to score a single goal and you can’t afford that level of profligacy in the later levels of the competition. The fixture list inside United’s programme lists all of the 65 potential matches they could play this season, but they will need to improve dramatically in front of goal to reach all of them.

It was lovely to return to football after an enforced break, but to do so in the home end of a team I grew up despising with a fiery passion and cheering them onto victory is not how I would have chosen to do it.

Next week I get to return to a team I like as I make use of a couple of days off to head down to London for Brentford’s home game against Graham Potter’s Chelsea. I only hope they can return to form against his old team tonight, so they are in top shape to thrash his new team in just under a week’s time.

Thursday 29th September: WSL: Walton Hall Park: Everton Women vs Leicester City Women

In preparation for being trapped on Merseyside and being unable to get to any football this weekend I chose to scoop up a last-minute ticket to Everton Women’s first home game of the season. This match was the re-arranged match from the opening day weekend that was originally postponed as a mark of respect after the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. For most of the 90 minutes it was looking like it would have been a better decision to leave the match unplayed.

Not only was I expecting to be guaranteed a great game as the hosts looked to solidify the loyalty of the new fans, secured with their crushing derby victory at Anfield days earlier, but also an easy home win to eulogise about. The home win was expected because the Anfield conquerors, something their Male equivalents haven’t been for decades now, were faced with the simple task of disposing with an abysmal Leicester City team that were only off the bottom of the table on goal difference.

Leicester City had yet to score off their own merit in their opening 2 games of the season losing them 0-2 and 1-2 respectively, the goal credited to them in that second game was actually an own goal by Spur’s Drew Spence. Those games for the foxes had been at home, whilst Everton were coming into this one having just done their city rivals and were now bringing those good vibes home for their first home match of the campaign.

Even better signs of an easy Everton victory came from the stability of having a manager, in Brian Sorensen, who looks like he has the respect of the players and may last more than a couple of months. The energy brought to the team by the breakthrough of youngsters Hanna Bennison and Jess Park (on loan from Man City) was infectious and the fans before kick-off shared my enthusiasm for the match to come. Both of these young ladies were players I picked out in my blog’s last season as having great potential, so to see them hitting their strides with a goal each at Anfield was glorious. It would have been even better to see those goals in person, but confusion over the kick-off time and work commitments meant I was unable to make that game. No matter though as the record-breaking win the hosts were bound to secure here would doubtless make up for it.

Oh, how naive that optimism was. Once I’d actually made it to Walton Hall Park and through the turnstiles, after a little issue with my e-ticket, it became clear that nothing had happened over the summer to improve the facilities at this little suburban stadium. The small burger van on wheels was hidden round the corner from the stands, the service was glacially slow, the food was tasteless and there was no view of the pitch from the queue.

This last fact was actually extremely useful towards the end of the first half. For now though it was just infuriating and this frustration was not helped by the fact that fans continue to be unable to occupy any more than one side of the pitch and half of each end behind the goals, the rest of the stadium being cordoned off with barriers. To have the stadium capacity cut in half for no obvious reason does not appear to be the smartest way of drawing new supporters into Women’s football.

The one lesson that had been learnt from last season though was that when the teams came out to line-up before the match they ought to stand facing the fans. This was a huge step up on last season’s back to the fans welcome to matches, but the fare on the pitch after kick-off was a plunge off a cliff after the silky-smooth football on show at this summer’s Women’s Euro.

Shortly after kick-off it became crystal clear what the rhythm of the game would be as Everton took control of the midfield battle and very rarely ventured forward into the Leicester half. They were content to simply keep the ball away from their visitors and play out the game as an exhibition of the pass-but-go-nowhere game that many other teams over the decades have been accused of devolving into. Leicester for their part simply dropped into a flat 5 defensive line and invited the hosts to try and break them down. Perhaps with 2 losses to their name already this season and no faith in their ability to score goals they were happy to suck the flow from the game and pray to escape with a draw.

In this atmosphere of apathy towards attacking football from both teams it was no surprise that it took until the 20th minute for either team to create even a half-decent attacking chance. It was the hosts who broke out of their pass it around mould and decided that forward was the new sideways. Jess Park played a little flick round the corner to herself to break free of her marker’s shackles on the right wing and drove forward to the edge of the box before firing her cross a yard or so behind the run of Izzy Christiansen in the centre. The cross was truly awful as it gave time for the floundering Leicester defence to re-organise themselves and hack the ball back into the midfield melee, but at least seeing a team go forward was progress.

Five minutes after the first chance of the match fell to the hosts Leicester decided to follow their example and drive forward themselves. This time Park was left waving her hands in the air as Ashliegh Plumptre glided past her on the touchline then advanced to the edge of the box and fed Shannon O’Brien who smashed the ball straight the throat of Emily Ramsey, Everton’s goalkeeper for this one. The ease with which the ball ended up on O’Brien’s boots and the fact that Park refused to play to the whistle and turned statuesque once it was clear the ref was not intervening in play were both signs to worry Sorensen, as it looked like Leicester might build a foothold in the match. He needn’t have worried though as in the aftermath of this duo of chances the match returned to its former state of midfield dross.

This state of affairs, on top of my previous match seeing Brentford be ripped apart by Arsenal at home, had demoralised me so much by the 33rd minute that I decided to save myself from witnessing the final 12 minutes of the half by going to buy some chips. This break from the game led to me missing exactly zero goals as confirmed by home fan laughing and saying ‘nothing at all’ when I asked him what I’d missed on my return to the side of the pitch as the teams headed down the tunnel for half-time.

Everton’s substitutes were warming up on the pitch 5 minutes before the rest of the players emerged from the tunnel for the second half, Plumptre and Sam Tierney striding out infront of the rest of the Leicester team. Despite this extra warmup for the home substitutes seeming to herald the arrival of some changes off Sorensen’s bench neither manager chose to dip into their benches to change the game. The game was desperately in need of something new to change the course of events as there had been precious little to be optimistic about in the dire fare of the first 45 minutes.

The hopes of any visible improvement to matters in the second half were quickly dashed against the rocks of reality as a simple goal-kick for Leicester was put straight out by Jemma Purfield on the left touchline as she tried to bring the ball under her control. Katja Snoeijs had been a mere spectator up-front all match and both keepers, Emily Ramsey and Kirstie Levell could’ve taken naps in their boxes without any of the other players noticing.

With the game dawdling forward as it was the fact that it took until the 55th minute for either manager to look to their bench for inspiration may either be a comment on their apathetic approach to the match or their complete lack of faith in the quality of those they could bring on. From my point of view as a spectator on the sidelines I was certain that at the very least no change could make this game any worse. I may have been wrong on that though as the first player Leicester brought on, Natasha Flint, was subbed off herself in the added time tacked on to the regulation 90 for Connie Scofield. To be subbed both on and then off just 35 minutes later, though it felt like 95, is a humiliating experience for any footballer but in this match any of the players were lucky to last more than half an hour without being hauled off for the shockingly awful fare they were dishing up.

The first Everton player wasn’t hooked from the field until the 61st minute as Sorensen held onto the false hope that his starting 11 could create any chances of note for far too long. When the substitution came though Sorensen made it a double, but a very strange double indeed. He removed Aurora Galli and midfield dynamo Izzy Christiansen from play at this point and sent on Karen Holmgaard and Hanna Bennison on in their places. Whilst I was glad to see Bennison enter the field of play, I was perturbed that she did so at the expense of Christiansen. Not only did this mean those 2 players were in direct competition for a starting berth but also that Everton were robbed of the service a midfield partnership with unlimited creative potential, at a time when creative play was just what the doctor ordered.

These changes made little effect on the pattern of the game so 10 minutes later Sorensen took another double off the bench. This time the creative players sacrificed were Gabi George and Jess Park, the only bright spot of Everton’s soul-destroyingly awful performance thus far. Their places on the grass were taken by Giovana Quieroz Costa, known as Gio, and Elise Stenevik but these once again had no effect on the match so with 5 minutes of torture remaining Sorensen’s final Hail Mary was released, Leonie Majer on for Katrine Veje at full back, which predictably failed to affect the match either.

Lydia Bedford in the Leicester dugout also took her own double shot at changing the match around in the 75th minute as Josie Green and Shannon O’Brien, the only Leicester player to have a presentable chance, made way for CJ Bott and Missy Goodwin. By this point in the match I had grown so bored by the dross being presented on the pitch that I took the chance to take a glimpse at my work WhattsApp group to see if there was anything interesting on it.

For context, work is always something I have had no interest engaging in anything to do with even back in the heady days of late 2020 and early 2021, when it was a team that I had built from the ground up which I adored working with that work provided to me. Even in those Caanan days nearly everything in my life took precedence over work and yet here it was being relied on as a distraction from football, a sport which has got me through countless dark periods in my life. That’s just how soul-destroying this game had become.

I was amazed in the 80th minute that either team had finally done enough attacking to earn the first corner of the match, but not surprised in the slightest when this and its successor in the 85th minute were completely wasted. At this point I was convinced that it would be conclusive proof that miracles are a real thing if a goal was seen in what remained of this dreadful match, so the despair that enveloped me when the board showed a minimum of 3 minutes of added time at the end of the match. A fellow fan said that “you could give them 3 hours and they couldn’t score” and I chuckled to myself at just how right she was.

The only thing keeping me from making a dart for the exit at this point was my personal commitment to never leaving a game early. I’d stuck to that commitment last weekend when Arsenal were gunning my beloved Brentford to smithereens and I wasn’t about to renege on it now. Last week I received no reward at all for my commitment, but it evened out this week as I was treated to the most hilarious of miracles to win the game for the hosts.

Steady yourselves, it wasn’t the miracle of either team actually scoring a goal under their own steam but instead it was one of the most fittingly ridiculous own goals you are ever likely to witness on a football pitch. Bennison floated a freekick from the left wing over harmlessly over the heads of all the players out to the back post where, under no pressure at all, Kirstie Levell in the Leicester goal decided that rather than letting the ball whizz out for a goal kick she would try and catch it instead.

This did not go well for Levell and the next few seconds will almost definitely be on her ‘forget that ever happened’ list. The ball, which was sailing harmlessly wide, bounced off her outstretched gloves and the deflection took it over the goal-line, breaking the cast-iron deadlock on the scoresheet and guaranteeing Everton a gift-wrapped victory that had appeared to be a million miles away just seconds earlier. I say guaranteeing as this was the final action of the game, with the referee putting the match out of its misery as Leicester kicked off again.

There were times in the second half where my commitment to stay to the end of every match I attend was tested and I came close to walking out on the dross I was witnessing, but the hilariously appropriate ending to it made the rest of the match worth suffering through. That Ladies and Gentlemen is the tale of Everton’s first home WSL match of the season and also the reason why you never leave a match early.

Apologies for the largely negative tone of my last 2 blogs, but that just reflects the dreadful level of football I’ve been subjected too in my last 2 matches. Also feeding into it is the deep dissatisfaction I feel towards the course my life has taken recently. This feeling has not been helped by the rail strikes today, that stopped me getting to any football, and those planned for next Saturday, which look likely to prevent me making it to St. James’ Park for Brentford’s visit to that glorious and legendary stadium.

I loved visiting that stadium last season and I hope to make it again, but in the likely event that the train strike has me stymied once again I have no other games currently in the plan for the whole of October. I’m sure that’ll change as I find matches that excite me and conjure up a way to make them. Enjoy your October and I’ll see you with the return of the blog when I manage to make it to make it to another match.

Hopefully that match will be slightly more exciting than these last few.

Sunday 18th September: Premier League: Gtech Community Stadium: Brentford vs Arsenal

Over the bank holiday weekend I was able to head down to London and finally take advantage of my Brentford season ticket, but shortly after kick-off it became clear that I should not have bothered. Particularly as my place of work was open non the evening of Her Majesty’s funeral day so I had to be on a train back north to attend a work shift in the evening, rendering me unable to partake in the mourning of our beloved late Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II. Rest In Peace Ma’am

With Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur went above Arsenal at the top of the table after commanding victories over Wolves and Leicester City, thanks in part to abysmal performances from their opposition from the Midlands, Arsenal had pride, bragging rights and so much more riding on this result. The Gunners would have their chance to spring back to the top of the table as they take on fellow Londoners in the shape of my beloved Brentford. They had to win to return to the summit and they were away from home in the bee’s nest. Bees who had shown no sign of the ailment known as second season syndrome that tends to afflict teams in the aftermath of their opening Premier League seasons, impressive home wins over both Leeds and Manchester Uniteds (5-2 and 4-0 respectively) had already shown they could wield quite the sting at home this season. Not Today.

This was a hugely nostalgic match for me as it was against today’s opponents that Bees marked their return to the Premier League last season. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to that game and the 2-0 win that Brentford took on their return to the top table was the inspiration for me to start writing this blog. To travel the English Football landscape in search of more underdog winning stories to immortalise for prosperity. With that in mind, Arsenal starting the day 3rd and Bees in 9th with the chance to go 5th with a win, not to mention my own ingrained biases as a Brentford season ticket holder. I went into the match hoping for another brilliant Bees win to celebrate not knowing the obliteration that was to come.

However, before I get to the match itself I wish to take a second to acknowledge the commemorations to the late Queen’s life and service to the nation that took place throughout the match. The big screen showed the picture I have included throughout the match build up and during the minutes applause that rung around every corner of the ground in the 70th minute, chosen to mark the length of Her Glorious Reign.

This round of applause and the 2 minutes silence before kick-off were immaculately observed by all fans as well as every member of the playing, coaching and backroom staff of both teams. If such a display of unity at a London Derby fails to illustrate the high regard in which Her Majesty was held in Her nation’s capital, then nothing will. As an unabashed royalist myself such an outpouring of respect for Her Majesty’s selfless service to our nation over 7 decades was emotional and I’m not too proud to say that I shed tears during the minute’s applause.

Nothing in the team sheets gave any hints to the one-sided destruction I was about to witness. Sure this was a strong Arsenal team, even without Martin the injured Oleksandr Zinchenko in the squad. There was no denying the brilliant results Arsenal had managed to achieve so far this season only losing once, to an industrious Manchester United at Old Trafford. A United team that Bees had smashed 4-0 mere weeks beforehand, but this was a strong Bees team with home advantage on their side able to call on the services of newly capped England man Ivan Toney, so what was there to fear. Surely the Bees could handle the Gunners.

Shortly after kick-off it became abundantly clear that the Bees could not handle the Gunners at all and that this was about to be one extremely long afternoon for home fans like me. Arsenal took the ball into their possession and just played keep ball with it for the next 90 minutes. The worst part of this was that they weren’t even being made to try hard to keep up this dominance of possession either; with the hosts playing like a group of blokes plucked from the local pubs who had never played football before, let alone played as a team at the top level for over a year.

Brentford’s players appeared to be scared of putting in even the tiniest bit of effort to get the ball back off their tormentors, as though any attempt at challenging for the ball would cause them and everyone they’d ever met to spontaneously combust. Official sources of statistics for the match have Arsenal’s share of possession at a measly 64% and I’ve no idea how they have worked it out to be so hilariously low as, from watching the match live in the stadium, it feels like closer to 95% would be more accurate.

The visitors were able to take a nap on the ball if they wanted too and none of the Brentford players would have dared take the ball off him, that’s just how dreadful Brentford’s performance was. I have seen the interview that Thomas Frank gave to Match of the Day after the match and his assertion that ‘The performance was not a 10 out of 10’ is an extremely kind reading of the match I witnessed. If I was being extremely kind to the players, I might rate it as 0.5 out of 10, but truthfully a score of anything over 0.1 is a bit much. As for his idea that ‘The performance… would have caused a lot of teams in the premier league trouble and we would have got a draw or a win out of what we did today’, that may be true in some alternative universe but in this one many League 2 could have taken all 3 points against this team performance.

Not once throughout the whole 90 minutes did the hosts look likely to lay a glove on the ball, let alone threaten the Arsenal goalmouth. Though in the first 15 minutes Arsenal, for all their possession, didn’t look like they were able to threaten their victim’s goalmouth either. For all their command of the ball and their ability to pin the hosts back into their own half, with no hope of escape, the quality of their play took a nosedive off a cliff when they made it inside the box. The first 15 minutes had simply been Arsenal keeping the ball for themselves and knocking it too each other like they were just having a kickabout in their local park.

The few fleeting attempts that Brentford did make to pretend they wanted the ball back from the visitors were snuffed out by a referee who was intent on breaking up the flow of the game by gifting Arsenal freekicks whenever an opponent got within 5 yards. That may be a slight over exaggeration, but only by the width of a single human hair.

With such dominance of the ball and the feeling that they can waltz past the Bees players whenever they fancy it was perhaps unsurprising that Arsenal had been so lacking in threat in the final third up to this point in the match. They had lulled me into such a false sense of security that when they won a corner on the right side of the box I even said in my audio notes “they’ve got a corner right now, but they won’t do anything with it”, so obviously it was from this corner that the Gunners shot their first hole in the Bee’s net. A simple inswinger to the near post was nodded onward and into the net by an unmarked Saliba, who had the freedom of west London to pick his spot. From my vantage point it appeared to have been cleared off the line, but evidently this was a false viewing as the ref signalled the opening Arsenal goal and soon the Bees players were trudging back to kick-off positions looking like men resigned to the gallows.

The instant karma that befell me after my previous musing over Arsenal’s goalmouth profligacy failed to teach me the required lesson though as, after another long period of Arsenal tormenting Brentford with glimpses of a ball they would never posses, I mused that “Arsenal are pissing around with the ball and doing nothing with it” and seconds later they doubled their lead. A cross from deep on the left held up perfectly in the box for Gabriel Jesus to meet it with a bullet header past a stranded Raya between the Bee’s sticks.

At this point in the match and with Brentford having had only 3 instances of possession, by which I mean spells of more than a few seconds on the ball, I spoke into my notes that “this could get embarrassing for the Bees” and that what I was seeing on the pitch “has the feeling of a 4 or 5-0 loss about it right now”. That was me trying to be optimistic about my team’s chances too as I looked to find any positives from the dire performance I had travelled so far to be subjected too.

A prime example of just how awful the host’s first half performance was came at their first corner of the match, in the 33rd minute. With everyone forward and lining up in the box to get on the end of the ball in the corner was played short instead, then before the cross could come in Arsenal had pilfered possession back anyway. That nothing came of the resultant break and the lacklustre hosts were able to limp to half time with just a 2-goal deficit to endure was in no small part down to the excellent goalkeeping of David Raya, who kept the ball from rippling the net on multiple occasions throughout the half. That the fact that, goals excepted, Arsenal’s aim in the final third was just as abysmal as their opposition’s performances all over the pitch and that the ref’s team only managed to find 2 minutes of added time at the end of the half, despite Arsenal’s timewasting all half that felt like it lasted at least 5 times longer than that.

Having seen just how easily his team had been gunned to smithereens in the first 45 minutes, and with thousands of loyal home supporters to placate, I hoped that Thomas Frank would make changes at half-time to turn things around. My feelings at the time were that large chunks of the problems Brentford were facing came down to the 5-3-2 formation being employed, the lack of midfield presence it afforded us and the utter lack of an available out ball when Arsenal attacks broke down. However, these feelings were clearly not shared by Mr. Frank as he sent his charges out for the second half without a single change to the personnel or formation that had led us to being exceedingly fortunate to only trail 2-0 at the break.

In the first half the hosts had played like a group of blokes that had been found strewn local park and asked if they fancied playing a game of football over lunch. There had been nothing in the first half to indicate that they had met before, let alone that this was largely the same team who had beaten their current opponents 2-0 last season and weeks later had played out a thrilling 3-3 draw with a team that would go on to come 2 games short of the quadruple that season.

As they got underway for the second 45 minutes there was little hint that anything had changed, and it was no surprise at all when they slipped further behind their visitors within 5 minutes of the restart. Having strolled past the Brentford outfield the ball was chopped out to the edge of the box where it was met by Fabio Viera and with all the time in the universe, he dinked it over Raya with a delicious amount of curl. With more that 40 minutes to go in the match, Arsenal free to do as they please and no sign of movement from the home dugout it was looking scary for the hosts.

The frustration in the home stands with the state of both scoreboard and performance finally flowed down to pitch level in the 54th minute and resulted in Arsenal getting their first deserved freekick of the whole match. Jensen flew into a tackle on Thomas Partey, engaging in some party pieces on the edge of the centre circle, ripped his legs out from under him and finally one of the home team was showing just a little willingness to try and haul his team back into the match. It certainly wasn’t the greatest tackle ever on a football field and would certainly be termed ‘agricultural’ but despite this Jensen walked away with just a reprimand in tow.

It took till the 58th minute for anyone to notch up the first (and only) card of the match when Granit Xhaka blocked Raya taking a goal kick and went into the ref’s book for his troubles. He needn’t have bothered at all as when the kick was finally taken it went straight to a visiting player anyway.

Perhaps this was the straw that broke the camel’s back as Mr. Frank finally decided to dip into the resources available to him off the bench. Having avoided making changes for so much of the match, despite the clear and obvious need for them, he then proceeded to run through 4 of the 5 available to him within the next 20 minutes of play. The first to be rescued from the pitch was Josh DaSilva, so astonishing in his previous appearances this season yet so utterly anonymous this time out. Vitaly Janelt was the other man saved the humiliation of the final 25 minutes as Frank Onyeka joined summer signing Mikkel Damsgaard in being unleashed into the centre of this maelstrom of humiliation that the hosts were enduring.

Next up for rescue was Mathias Jensen; He has stepped up incredibly well into the hole left by Christian Erkisen’s summer departure, but today was certainly not his day. In his place was sent on Shandon Baptiste as the game careened towards it’s final 20. This one was not even made out of tactical choice by the Brentford manager, Jensen was instead forced off with an injury after going down clutching his knee on halfway seconds before the change. The last thing Brentford need is for Jensen to be injured long-term as Christan Noorgaard and Ethan Pinnock are already side lined and Sergi Canos still on the road back to full fitness after injury problems of his own.

The final substitution for the hosts (yes Mr. Frank used just 4 of his allotted 5 changes despite the abysmal state of affairs all over the pitch), saw Bryan Mbuemo removed for Yoane Wissa to see out the game’s final 15 minutes. This one was made for tactical reasons, but had vanishingly little effect on how the game progressed.

As to why Brentford failed to take advantage of their full quota of substitutions or use any of them to save themselves from a formation that was seeing them overrun in midfield and unable to clear the ball for more than the time it takes Usain Bolt to run the 100m, I have no answer that can stand up to the onslaught of logical arguments that could be hurled at it. All I can say with any certainty is that Bees left one substitution on the table and that none of those they did make had even the slightest effect on the momentum of the match.

Whilst Brentford were making all these changes Arsenal had not agreed to a ceasefire and continued to attack the hosts goal with a view to breaking through the defensive line and furthering their lead. The closest they came to doing so during this time was from a pot shot off the boot of Gabriel Maghalhaes from the edge of the box that cleared the bar by a maximum of 6 inches.

Arsenal’s lead was still just 3-0 by the time that Mikel Arteta chose to make his first substitution of the match, in the 78th minute, when Brentford had already completed all of theirs for the match. Arteta chose to make his first change a double as Albert Sambi Lokonga and Eddie Nketiah were sent on to fill their boots, with Thomas Partey and Gabriel Martinelli making way.

Theses substitutions did nothing to disrupt the rhythm of the Gunners firing the ball to wherever they so chose across the pitch, they were being given the freedom to try whatever passes, shots and tricks they wanted. What they really wanted was another goal but Raya stood in their way. He got down smartly to palm away a cross goal effort from Jesus as the ball broke to him on the left of the area, after a teammate had picked a Bees player’s pocket on the edge of the box. Without David Raya acting as a marble wall in his role as the last line of defence the scoreline could have truly reflected Arsenal’s dominance of the match.

As it was they would have to settle for just a 3-0 win that immensely flattered their abysmal hosts and shows nothing of just how much they battered the bees without letting them lay a glove on the Arsenal half, the ball or the penalty area in response. They did have one last humiliation to pile on their hosts though and it came in added time with their final substitution of the match.

Arteta had already swapped Ben White out for Takehiro Tomiyasu with 5 minutes of regulation play remaining, but it was with his final double substitution in added time that he really twisted the knife of humiliation into the Bee’s wounded thorax. To bring on Marquinhhos on to replace Bukayo Sako was nothing too surprising or hurtful to the hosts pride but making history by bringing on the youngest player in Premier League history as a replacement for Fabio Viera (one of the main architects of the hosts obliteration) was a huge blow to the host’s pride.

At just 15years and 182 days old Ethan Nwaneri became the first player ever to take to a Premier League pitch whilst being too young to live in his own house or join up for the army. His name wasn’t even on the programme squad list and as I missed his name on the substitution announcement, I took down one of the away fan’s chants “he’s got school in the morning” down as his name till I could look it up properly after the match. Just from that chant and its accompanying “how s*** must you be, he’s only 15” it was clear that he was being given his debut for the final few minutes of this match.

To be able to send on a 15-yearold for any amount of a Premier League match is such a flashing neon sign in 50ft high letters that you own the game and your opposition are useless that you can afford to take a huge risk. The magnitude of Arsenal’s domination of this match was such that they could have sent on a duo of 15-yearolds with 10 or 15 minutes to go without having to worry about it affecting the result.

At least Brentford now have the Nations League international break to work on becoming a team able of putting up a fight at this level and I hope that they are able to scoop up what should be a gimmee 3 points down at Bournemouth on October 1st. I will see how their rebuild is coming along when I see them in action at St. James Park the week after they visit the south coast and I can only hope that things are better for my beloved Bees on that day on Tyneside.

Before I make that trip to Tyneside I will be back on the road at the start of October, popping across the peak district to take in a championship match at a newly promoted Rotherham currently sitting on the edge of the playoff places. They are only outside those places by a single point and with a game in hand over all teams above them, it’s fair to say that they are doing well so far in their first season in this new division. Add to that my glorious experiences in the town during this Summer’s Womens Euro tournament and I am looking forward to returning to see the Men’s team take on mid table Wigan Athletic.

See you next month for that one and in the meantime, fix up Bees!

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away at Balmoral Castle on Thursday 8th September 2022, surrounded by members of her family.

I wish to dedicate this blog to her memory and put on record my thanks to Her Royal Highness for the tireless, humble service she gave to our nation over the full length of her 70 years and 214 days on the throne. I was never privileged to have the honour of meeting Her Majesty during her lifetime, but from all I saw of her during coverage of her work and through listening to her annual Christmas messages to the nations she ruled her humble dedication to all her subjects was clear.

It was a pleasure to have lived in the Second Elizabethan Age and I look forward to being able to pay my respects to Her Majesty in person at the weekend as she lies in state at Westminster Hall.

Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II

Wednesday 31st August 2022: Premier League: Etihad Stadium: Manchester City vs Nottingham Forest

I travelled to the Etihad for this midweek evening game, having bought a ticket 2 days earlier, expecting it to result in a pretty normal match report style blog. What I didn’t reckon on was one of the greatest individual displays of footballing genius I am ever likely to witness. Erling Haaland was the provider of this masterclass as he spent the 69 minutes he was on the pitch tormenting the Nottingham Forest defence, orchestrating affairs and scoring a 25 minute hat-trick to boot.

Before Kick-off the visiting fans on the trams had given their team minimal chances of taking anything from the match ‘at least we have easier games to come’ and after kick-off Haaland set about proving the truth of those defeatist predictions. He was instrumental at keeping the ball away from Forest and using it to rip them to shreds.

That it took Haaland 13minutes to open the scoring had more to do with the service he was receiving than anything he was doing himself. The genius was pulling out every trick in the universe to turn the Forest midfield inside-out and bamboozle the defence. Normally a player of 6’3″ stature would be easy for the opposition to track and choke out of the game, but not Haaland. Finding pockets of space where none has existed 3 seconds earlier was meat and drink to him, then using them to create chances or openings for teammates was just the icing on his cake.

When the opener came it was from a corner on the left that was flicked into the near post, where all 6’3″ of City’s number 9 had left his marker for dead to guide it home. The desire he showed to get to that ball before the multitudes of defenders in the local vicinity was incredible. Having done that, he then had to meet the ball at speed and direct it with neurosurgical laser precision through a non-existent gap between keeper and post. The finish was a clear sign of his composure in front of goal and a warning to everyone he will play in future that when he gets the ball in the penalty area you can expect to see the scoresheet ticking over like a teenager’s heart when they see their crush. He is as deadly as a cyanide injection in the 6-yard box and only marginally less deadly from outside that radius.

Not only is he that deadly in close proximity to the goal but he is also an electric eel of a player wherever he is on the pitch, making it excruciatingly difficult for opponents to pin him down. Add to that the grace of a swan with the ball at his feet and once he has been supplied the ball you can’t get it back off him until he deigns to release it.

With all that in mind and the fact that Forest barely touched the ball in the first 25 minutes, much less escaped their own half, it seems incredible that it took Haaland a full 10 minutes to double his and City’s match tally. When it arrived it came from a moronic period of play in the Forest backline that Haaland punished with ruthless efficiency. The visitors were attempting to play fancy football at the back and when this broke down Haaland collected the ball and 6 touches later it was resting it the back of the net. All it took was a quick one-two with Phil Foden to allow Haaland to ghost in unseen through the gaping holes that now existed in the Forest defence. Allowing him to caress the ball home with leagues of room on all sides, just 6 yards outs in the centre of the goal.

Not only was this a brilliant example to show any up and coming forward on how to lose their marker and create space in the box, but seconds later the man with the brace was providing another lesson to all present in work rate. From the kick off City got the ball back, attacked and when the move broke down, with his teammates cursing the failure of the attack, Haaland hunted the breaking opponent down on the halfway line and hustled to regain possession for his team. He even engaged in a fair physical confrontation for the ball and came away victorious – a wonderful example of how to battle fairly for the ball and win it back without having to resort to the dark side of the beautiful game to do so.

The completion of Haaland’s hat-trick took a full 15 minutes to complete, but even so a 25-minute hattrick is nothing to be scoffed at. Before we get to the completion of his second hattrick in 4 days though we must first acknowledge that Erling Haaland is indeed human and, as with all humanity, he is not immune from mistakes. He made the mistake in the 27th minute, 4 minutes post brace completion, when he was caught offside in the box, having found hectares of free space in which to roam, as he created the conditions necessary to get on the end of a cross from Joao Cancelo.

That small moment of human failing from the footballing genius he got back to his goal scoring ways in the 38th minute. The completion of his hattrick was came from an unmarked header from 2 yards out after a bit of penalty box ping-pong as Forest bungled the chance to clear a City corner from the left. Penalty box ping-pong is disorientating for even the most incredible world-class players, but not for Erling Haaland as his inbuilt poacher’s GPS homed in on the goal to help him too exactly the right spot to dink his free header home.

How such a giant of a man with distinctive long blond locks can spirit himself into such incredible clearings of space without a single defender tracking him is beyond my comprehension. It’s not like he’s exactly easy to miss and thus can fly under the radar without hassle, yet he found a way to do so time and again in this match and never did the Forest players come close to tracking him.

So total was Haaland mastery of the 18-yard box that he could have completed his trio of goals before the actual crowning of his perfect hat-trick (one goal each with left boot, right boot and his head). The second of which came from a stooping header at the near post after shaking off his marker to reach a tempting cross from the right, less than a minute before his actual third goal.

The photos below were taken as soon as the shock of the brilliance of each of his goals had receded enough for me to be cognisant of my surroundings once more. After the first I had no understanding of the brilliance to come so I was pleasing quick to the photo, but the recovery time after his other goals was far longer as I came to terms with the masterclass being laid out before me.

Having completed his hat-trick Haaland took a step back from finishing chances and seemed simply content to run the play instead. As City added a 4th and 5th goal to their tally in the second half it was Julain Alvarez and Joao Cancelo who took over scoring duties from the Norwegian juggernaut, he plays for Norway internationally despite being born in Leeds. Instead of finishing the chances he contented himself with tormenting Forest defenders and midfielders, giving them nightmares for the rest of their lives.

It’s not as though he had no chances for a 4th when galloped into the fray but at least 1 of the Forest defenders seemed to have finally switched onto the danger the Marauding genius posed. Joe Worral, Nottingham Forest’s captain, was the first Forest player to track one of Haaland’s searching runs all game to get himself into position to make a goal-saving tackle as Haaland surged through the centre intent on getting his fourth goal of the match. A goal that would have taken him to 10 scored from his first 5 matches in English football, but due to Worral’s excellent reactions he would have to make do with just the 9 – a full 33% more than City Legend Aguero managed in his opening 5.

Every follower of English football in the last decade knows Aguero could smell out a goal in the box better than a shark can smell out a drop of blood in the ocean and now City have a striker on their hands who is even more deadly. It’s a great time to be a City supporter and a scary time to be a fan of any team finding themselves facing them. Who knows Haaland may even be the missing piece in their pursuit of continental sucess? Anything’s possible…

Particularly so as when Haaland’s masterclass was brought to a premature end to rapturous in the 69th minute, as Guardiola allowed his talisman a well earnt rest, who was sent on in his place? None other than one of the best creative midfielders in world football of the last 5 seasons, Kevin De-Bruyne.

Those are my musing on one of the greatest exhibitions of footballing genius I am ever likely to witness. My next blog will come from London as I return to my church to see Brentford take on Arsenal in a re-run of their first ever Premier League match, a similar result would be greatly appreciated.

Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II

God Save King Charles III

With train strikes throwing my plans to get south for Brentford’s first ever Premier League derby against Fulham at Craven Cottage this weekend up into the lap of the transport gods; I have decided to instead dedicate this weeks blog to the conquerors of English domestic football over the past 5 seasons.

I don’t really need to say the name for you to know what team I’m talking about, even those who hate football have heard of Manchester City and the success they have had under the stewardship of Pep Guardiola.

Whilst vast swathes of their success can be attributed to the undeniable genius of Guardiola, the gargantuan amounts of money poured into the club by their owners and the undoubted skill of the world-class players that innumerable wealth allows them to hoover up. There is one crucial element in the success that is often overlooked but one that anyone who has ever competed in competition of any sort will be well aware of, the feeling that you enter a competition going up against a favourite that has hardly ever been beaten and as such you stand no chance of beating them.

This is the feeling that teams in the Premier league have when stepping onto the pitch to face-down the Sky-blue juggernauts. With 4 titles in the last 5 seasons behind them any team facing them in domestic competitions go into that confrontation feeling that they are interlopers in ‘ City’s Competition ‘. As such they start the match already beaten in their minds and therefore they stand a vanishingly miniscule chance of walking away from the match will any points at all, even with the vociferous support of thousands of partisan home fans.

Many professional athletes will talk about the importance of the psychological side of sport and this is exactly where City win most of their games. The Etihad is set up to psyche out the opposing players before they even get a toe on the grass.

During a public tour of the stadium last season the tour guide was open, to the point of gloating, about all the steps City had decided to take in their pursuit of a psychological edge over their visitors. Including the large circular design of their dressing room, that was draped in colour and motivational quotes and sat in stark contrast to the tiny, rectangular and grey nature of the away dressing room.

All teams take steps to bolster any advantage they can at home, but very few do it as effectively as City do. With the obvious exception of Millwall whose fans make the away fans visit to the den as soul-shatteringly terrifying as possible, this keeps their chants to a minimum and allows the intimidating atmosphere of the home stands to force the visiting players back into their shells so the home team can rip them apart. The south Londoner’s home form can be the difference between mid-table and relegation, as their form away from the Lion’s Den falls off a cliff like Wile E. Coyote after a run-in with the Road Runner.

However, City face no such issues on their travels and the reason for this is down to the doubt their success plants in the minds of fans of other teams in the league. Just 2 matches into the season and already Liverpool fans that I work with, whose team sits just 4 points behind City, are telling me that “we need to win every single game left this season to stand a chance of winning the league title now, because City don’t lose matches”.

Walking into an oppositions team home ground with those thoughts in the fan’s heads is a huge positive for City when they visit these grounds. Doubts in the home stands feeds down into the atmosphere on the pitch and once City use their unimpeachably world-class skill on the ball to take the lead the psychological victory they have already gained in the stands leaves their opposition with no way to reassemble a foothold in the match.

This is a huge part of the reason why you see the resistance of many teams collapse like the Oroville dam slipway did in 2017 the second City score a goal, no matter the scoreline situation they have facing them. Invariably even a 2 or 3-0 lead will not stop the tidal-wave of City goals once the wall of resistance is breached once, allowing City to rescue points from situation where no other team would stand the slightest chance of mounting a comeback.

City’s decade of success since the takeover has done to their opposing fans the exact opposite of what Jurgen Klopp has done to Liverpool fans. Klopp turned them from doubters into believers, but City’s success has turned their opposition fans from believers into doubters whenever they see the light-blue shirts lined up against them. When the fixtures for the upcoming season are released fans around the country look for their matches against City and discount it as a guaranteed loss.

This psychological edge is one of the main factors behind their continued dominance of the Premier league. All it will take to break this aura of invincibility though is for another team to beat them to back to back Premier League titles. After all, “If you can make god bleed then people will cease to believe in him” (Ivan Vanko, Iron Man 2) so now all their opponents need to stand a chance of winning domestic trophies once more is for someone to make City bleed.

Unfortunately for City’s fans they are one of the noted haemophiliacs of European competitions, as their consistent failure to capture the Champions League title so gloriously illustrated. Juventus and PSG provide City with stiff competition for the best domestic teams to choke on the European stage and one of the many reasons is their lack of the aura of invincibility that they have all cultivated at home. Instead they are saddled with the “spursy” aura in European competition, the idea that no matter how good their situation appears to be they will still find a way to mess it up.

When it gets down to the critical moments in domestic matches City’s fans and their opposition’s fans expect them to win, whilst on the continent the majority of the fans present expect them to lose. This reversal of the psychology in the stands gives City limited hope of overturning first-leg deficits in European knockout football, no matter where the second-leg is played. Even when they have the lead in such matches their opponents always smell blood in the water and believe they can overturn whatever advantage the Mancunians hold.

Critical moments in any match are where results are won and success is built and the psychological factor of those moments is one of the main reasons why Manchester City will continue to dominate English domestic football for many seasons to come. It is also why I will not be betting even a single penny on them winning the Champions League before the end of the decade, despite their eye-catching capture of the undisputedly incredible Erling Haaland and the supply he will be getting from the footballing genius of Kevin de Bruyne.

Those are my thoughts on a crucial factor in Manchester City’s success in the last decade. I will be back soon with a match blog, when I have the opportunity to get to one.

7th August 2022: Premier League: King Power Stadium: Leicester City vs Brentford

Having finished a comfortable 13th in the League last season, with a plump cushion of 11 points between themselves and the relegation zone, it was time for Brentford to get their second Premier League season underway. The big disappointment for the fans who made their way to Leicester for the Bee’s opener is that the team would have to face their second season without the services of the incredible Christian Eriksen, lured away by Manchester United in the summer window. The loss of his creative guile in midfield will be a huge hole for the Bees to fill this season, but there is a speck of hope for the away fans to cling onto in the return to fitness of game-changing genius Josh DaSilva.

DaSilva had only managed to make intermittent appearances for Brentford in the previous 18 months as he recovered from a hip injury that threatened to force him into early retirement. Thankfully he is now injury-free and how he adjusts to playing regularly at Premier League level will be critical for the Londoner’s hopes of avoiding the dreaded ‘second season syndrome’.

Their hosts for the first game of their second season were a Leicester City team that have struggled in the summer transfer market as they scramble to balance the books. They finished a creditable 8th place last season, but after back-to-back 5th place finishes in previous seasons this was seen as a disappointment. Any hopes of even finishing that high this season may be pie-in-the-sky though as they have been unable to bring in a single player over the summer.

In-fact, whilst Brentford have brought in Ben Mee, Aaron Hickey, Thomas Strakosha and Kane Lewis-Potter (with Mikkel Damsgaard reported to be incoming too) for just the one notable loss in Eriksen, Leicester have made just the one modification to their squad in losing long-time Number. 1 Kasper Schmeichel to Nice for just £1m. This leaves Leicester with Welsh international Danny Ward as their new first choice keeper and a disturbing lack of experienced back-up. The trail of departures could yet grow longer, with James Maddison and Wesley Fofana both being targets for their Premier League competitors, who are circling like vultures over a carcass.

This lack of strategic squad depth could leave Leicester in dire straights in the event of injuries to any of Brendan Rodger’s starting 11. If that does happen Rodgers could do far worse than consulting his opposite number today in how to deal with them. Thomas Frank has injuries to central defensive duo Ethan Pinnock (Knee) and Kristoffer Ajer (Hamstring) to deal with, not to mention Sergi Canos also being side-lined with a hamstring injury. His best bet though may be to fall back upon the incredible team-spirit of the group, it powered many of them to the 2015-16 Premier League title after-all.

Whilst the respective managers grappled with how to make their new squads work I had to work out how to reach the King Power Stadium. I should have just walked with the fans that I met on the train link from Nuneaton to Leicester as there were both away and home fans on it and the home fans would certainly know the way. Instead I decided to trust my reading of the route on Google maps and headed off at 270 degrees from the crowd. This was a mistake and by the time I’d realised it 10 minutes had been added to my journey.

For those looking for the shortest route from station to stadium, you head across the road and then just follow the road all the way to the Leicester Tigers (rugby union) Stadium. From there you cross the stadium to the other corner and then it’s back on the straight roads to the King Power.

I reached the stadium just as the Bee’s players coaches were arriving so I shouted a happy birthday to Bryan Mbuemo before doubling back on myself to explore the concourse around the ground, which is festooned with programme sellers. Other than the statue (above) to their late chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, and the fanstore where I picked up my traditional keyring the only notable thing was a stage set up opposite the statue that was hosting local singers and bands in an attempt to fuel the fans fire for the upcoming match.

A far better way to fuel that fire was found under a gazebo further round the stadium, free beer. Leicester were celebrating the opening game of the season by providing one free beer for every home fan attending the match. This is a great celebration idea and I hope other clubs jump onto it for the first and last matches of future seasons. In case the free beer hadn’t worked though the hosts had one final trick up their sleeves. On this blazing hot midland’s day they decided to employ vertical flame-throwers down either side of the pitch as the teams were announced. Global warming may thank Leicester City for their help but as a fan sitting just a few rows away from the flames I felt that it was already more than hot enough thanks.

Having sorted out my route to the stadium I had a look at the team sheets to see how the managers had sorted their problems. On Rodger’s side of things he had gone with a normal Leicester team that home fans will be extremely familiar with from last season; whilst Thomas Frank went with Jensen, Janelt and Norgaard in midfield and filled the injury gaps in defence by handing debuts to new arrivals Ben Mee and Aaron Hickey.

From kick-off it was Frank who had made the smartest calls in his team selection as the Bees went straight on the attack. Within the first minute they were able to advance on the right flank and flash a shot into the hands of Ward. This was just a deceiving flash in the pan though as Leicester wrested control of possession within a minute of that chance and would not relinquish it for the rest of the half. There first attempt to put their possession to good use, in the 5th minute, came to nothing though as a raking pass through to Vardy in the left channel was rendered moot by a brilliant covering tackle by Ben Mee.

They did manage a shot from 35yards a minute later though, which skimmed the bar on the way behind, but it was some time before Leicester were able to credibly threaten the Bees goal again though. Leicester were able to keep possession in midfield without breaking sweat, as Brentford stubbornly refused to close them down, but were then unable to create an opening in the opposition back line that they could exploit. Brentford were just a few yards slower than their hosts to every first and second ball. The visitors looked like a team that had never met before.

Leicester only failed to take a deserved lead in the first 22 minutes of the match due to some seriously profligate finishing. First Fofana fired harmlessly over the bar from 25 yards, then a Castagne cross from the left picked out Dewsbury-Hall with the freedom of the 18 yard box to fire home but instead the ball was once again sent sailing handsomely high over the bar. This time there was a deflection on the shot though and Leicester had a corner on the left that was whipped straight into the hands of Raya in the 6 yard box.

Tielemans did drop a gorgeous cross onto a sixpence for Maddison to meet it with a free header in the 20th minute though which should have been buried deep in the net. To the audible frustration of the home fans, even with a chance begging so much to be finished off Maddison was unable to oblige as he sent his diving header to strip the paint off the left post on it’s way out for a goal kick.

Despite their abysmal lack of ability to break up Leicester’s monopoly on possession Brentford were able to create a smattering of chances during the first half hour. The most presentable of these chances came from a ball out to Jensen on the left flank that allowed him to turn the Leicester defenders around and run them towards their own goal. Momentum now on the visitors side for once all Jensen needed to do was flick in a cross to the on-rushing Ivan Toney or Bryan Mbuemo in the centre and Brentford could have taken the lead so dramatically against the run of play that it would have been like reversing the flow of the Amazon river by dropping a pebble at it’s mouth. Instead Jensen decided to chop back inside and look to cut the ball back to the non-existent runners from midfield, thus sapping the break of all of it’s momentum.

As the match trundled past the half hour mark it appeared to have fallen into a pattern of Leicester winning the ball, like nicking candy from a baby, in midfield before failing to do anything useful with it in the final third. The hosts only idea on how to break through the red granite wall blocking their way to goal appeared to be to go round it on the wings then delivers crosses in behind it for their attackers to head home. Unfortunately they had forgotten the cardinal rule of defensive walls in football, they can move, and so whenever they tried to deliver a cross into the centre for Vardy to finish off they found him beaten to it by the twin towers of Jansson and Mee.

Preventing goals from crosses is meat and drink for Jansson and Mee. This approach was sucking the entertainment out of the match and failing to provide results, so why Leicester stuck to this plan instead of laying on scything through balls from midfield that would have allowed Vardy to exploit his cheetah like pace, against the relative statuesque pace of Jansson and Mee, to break through the wall and get himself one-on-one with Raya is beyond my comprehension.

Even further beyond my comprehension though is that this plan actually bore fruit in the 34th minute as Leicester took the lead their possession deserved them. Granted the goal came from a corner rather than a cross, but it was still a ball from the wings that was met by a thundering header from Timothy Castagne to give Leicester the lead. The corner was swung into the near post of the 6 yard box where Castagne met it at speed, rising above a statue that resembled a zone marking Ivan Toney, to steer it home past Raya who was rooted to his spot in the centre of the goal.

Taking the lead sent the home fans into raptures as their relief at finally having something to show for the 70% possession they had acquired to this point flowed from their every pore. Going behind also seemed to wake the Brentford players up too as they attacked with speed through Rico Henry on the left wing. The speed of their attack could not be matched by the quality of the finish as Ward was able to palm it behind at his near post for the first of two wasted corners in a row.

This was another flash in the pan to show what the Bee’s were capable of before reverting to type. In the final 5 minutes of the half James Justin was able to leave the ball behind as he surged down the right wing under the close attentions of Aaron Hickey, then recover his feet and make up the ground to recover possession before Hickey had released the ball was unattended and up for grabs. Then Leicester were able to smuggle the ball out of what looked like a hopeless 2-on-1 situation before Tielemans is given the freedom of the King Power to unleash a piledriver from the edge of the box that cannons off the left-hand post.

There was not a single defender within 5 yards of Tielemans when he let that shot fly and this was symptomatic of the abysmal lack of effort and motivation shown by the visitors throughout the first half. If Leicester had been able to formulate a few more openings in the final third or their internal radars had been goalmouth-calibrated the half time scored would have been embarrassing for Brentford, but instead the visitors were able to limp down the tunnel trailing their hosts by just a single goal. The quickest minute of stoppage-time known to man helped too in this regard.

You would not have known anything was missing from either team’s first half performance though from the tumbleweed that flew off the benches at half-time. Both manager’s were happy to let things continue as they were going for the time being and, in line with their team’s first half performances, it was Mr. Frank who would come to regret this approach almost immediately.

It took all of 25 seconds for Leicester to double their lead as they were given freedom to bomb down the left before Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was picked out in acres of space on the edge of the D. He stroked the ball home past Raya’s despairing leftward dive. Many home fans were still making their way back to their seats as the ball crashed into the net and as such there was merely a murmur of approval in the home stands as their team doubled it’s lead.

For their part Brentford emerged from the tunnel like the sting had been smoked out of them over the half-time break, and it’s not like they’d had much sting in the first half to begin with. It appeared that nothing had been said in the break to change their game plan and put a stop to the defensive negligence that had permeated their play in the first half.

The visitors were once again struggling to impose themselves on play at all and it took just 2 more minutes for the Foxes to create another gilt-edged chance. The visitors Tielemans was given all the time he could have wished for to advance to the edge of the area, but he then reverted to Leicester’s first-half plan by slipping his ball through to Vardy straight into Raya’s hands.

The visitor’s plan of making the worst decision possible when they finally managed to fashion a break upfield continued too as Mbuemo had the home defence backpedalling on the left wing. He had Wissa running free in the box and ready for the tap-in, as Toney wheeled away to the back post, but decided to go for it himself and could only manage to fire his shot into the side-netting. This was the final straw for Mr. Frank as he saw his team struggle to provide anything of note to the match in-front of him, including not managing a single shot on target since the first minute.

His solution was to make a double substitution and a tactical change of formation to boot. He was going nuclear in a desperate attempt to allow his team the chance to show their opposition and the travelling fans that they would not simply be the relegation cannon-fodder they had appeared to be in the first hour of this match. Taking off both the debutant Ben Mee and the most ineffectual of the midfield trio, Mathias Jensen, he bought on another debutant in striker Kane Lewis-Potter and the returning legend that is Josh DaSilva.

Jensen for DaSilva was a straight swap in midfield, albeit one of a more attacking mentality but it was the removal of Mee for Lewis-Potter that was far more revolutionary to the teams formation and revealing about the managers state of mind. Switching a central defender for a forward was a clear sign to everyone in the stadium that Mr. Frank believed the game was not over yet and his team could still get something from it. Brentford’s formation went from a flat back 4 to a 3 at the back, with Janelt dropping in alongside Jansson and Hickey, giving Rico Henry license to move into midfield and rampage forward on his trademark attacking runs. This show of faith in a team that had been abysmal thus far in the match did the trick as, in the 62nd minute, just 4 minutes after this double substitution the Bees had a goal back.

This goal out of nowhere and completely against the run of play came from an incisive pass into the area from Mbuemo down the right. When the ball reached Toney on the edge of the 6 yard box he was able to spin and slice the ball across the body of Danny Ward and into the net, just kissing the inside of the left post on its way in. Given the shock of seeing the visitors get a goal so soon after such a long period in the match where they could barely escape their own half it was surprising just how ballistic the away end around me went. I was too shocked at the turnaround I’d just witnessed to celebrate.

Getting that first goal back flipped the momentum of the match and shoved it firmly into the arms of the visitors. Brentford were now attacking at pace every time they got the ball and they were getting the ball with incredible regularly as they must have read ‘how to close people down’ and ‘how to work as a team’ leaflets during the celebrations. The performance of the visitors after that goal was night and day compared to the dross they had served up in the first hour. Now it was Leicester who were on the ropes and looking like a spent force.

Josh Da Silva was the first to test just how spent the hosts were and he did so with a spectacular defence-splitter that found Lewis-Potter in the right channel. The debutant advanced all the way to the by-line before attempting to cut the ball back to Toney, lurking with intent, on the edge of the six-yard box. Luckily for the home fans though Daniel Amartey was on hand to nip in and hoof the cut-back upfield before Toney could provide the simplest of tap-ins and wipe out Leicester’s original 2 goal advantage entirely.

This scare and the utter dominance that the visitors had now secured over proceeding was finally enough though to force Rogers to dip into his limited reinforcements, in the 73rd minute. He made just the one change at this time, it proved to be his only substitution of the match, and the player he took off was a surprising one to say the least. Dewsbury-Hall, scorer of Leicester’s second goal and the creative midfield powerhouse who underpinned much of their first half display, was the man sacrificed with Patson Daka sent on in his place to help the foxes see out the final 17 minutes.

Mr. Frank also took this opportunity to make a change that he hoped would further cement his team’s iron grip on the match. Shandon Baptiste was sent on to provide the fresh legs in a rampant midfield, in place of Christian Norgaard who had run himself into the ground. The changes seemed to give Leicester momentary impetus as Madison was able to find acres of space in the Bees half to advance to the edge of the box. Here was where he reverted to Leicester type by shanking his shot so badly that it ended up making touchdown in Nottinghamshire, or very close to it at any rate.

Kane Lewis-Potter and Josh DaSilva were determined to make this chance a flash in the pan though and put this into action by harrying Jonny Evans into coughing up the ball high up the pitch. Granted this brilliant display of midfield play only resulted in a corner that went nowhere but it showed the belief that was now surging through the veins of the Brentford players. That incredible self belief helped them come millimetres away from the equaliser in the 77th minute. Rico Henry made the most of his newfound license to attack to force Amartey and James Justin to give him the ball on the left. He flicked the ball across the box where a diving Ivan Toney headed it back where it came from. The ball was travelling with such speed and power that it must’ve stripped the top layer of paint off the left post as it flew agonisingly wide.

As the match snuck into it’s closing 10 DaSilva had a freekick just outside the box that had Bees players lining up on the edge of the box ready to capitalise on the great ball that was expected. The ball was indeed excellent, with just the right level of fade to trick the defenders into misjudging the flight of the ball. Toney was all set to nod it home for the equaliser when Ward showed up to ruin the party and grab it right off his forehead. It was a brilliant piece of keeping from Ward to read the flight of the ball and beat Toney too it, but as an away fan who had sit through 60 minutes of his team being run ragged it was not how I wanted the freekick to end.

The lack of equaliser and the need for further fresh legs to crack open the creaking home defence were perhaps contributing factors in Mr. Frank turning to the bench once more with 7 minutes left to play. This time he decided on two straight swaps, Mads Bech Sorensen and Hali Dervisoglu replacing debutant Aaron Hickey and the tireless Yoane Wissa respectively. Whilst these substitutions undoubtedly added some much needed fresh energy into the Bees attacks it was Josh DaSilva who provided the incredible equaliser with 4 minutes to go.

When Dervisoglu’s searching drive from 30yards out cannoned off the nearest defender the ball ballooned over to the right where DaSilva was waiting for it. Brining the ball under his control he drove forward to the edge of the box before making a 90 degree pivot left and running laterally into space that opened up as Dervisoglu made a smart run into the right channel. DaSilva made brilliant use of the space his teammate’s run had opened up as he curled a worldie into top bins on the left hand side of the goal. There are very few keepers in the game worldwide (either Men’s or Women’s) that would have had a cat-in-hell’s chance of reaching DaSilva’s rocket and thankfully for the away fans Danny Ward was not one of them. Any fire that the home fans had left in them was well and truly doused by DaSilva’s stunning strike.

To watch the ball rest in the back of the net after such a captivating strike was made extra special by knowing the injury struggles that DaSilva has faced over the past 18 months. Needless to say the away end went crazy and I could barely hear myself think, let alone form a cogent thought at this point. The travelling fans knew what Josh DaSilva was capable of, having seen him produce match winning displays so often in the championship, and now to see him being able to show his skills in the Premier League is such an indescribable that I’m not even going to try.

All I will say is “welcome back Josh DaSilva, we missed you”.

With the equaliser now safely stashed away the visitors drove forward in hopes of finding the winner and this left holes at the back for the hosts to exploit. Twice in the final 5 minutes and stoppage time Leicester would see the ball cannon off the post as they went in search of an equaliser, Fofana’s effort even looked in, from my vantage point at the other end of the ground, for a split second before I saw the ball fly out back into the penalty area.

It was Brentford who would manage to smuggle the ball into the net for a third time though, as Mbuemo laid a delicious delivery on a plate for Rico to tap-in at the back post, but unfortunately a quick glance at the linesman on my near touchline turned my joy to ashes in my mouth. Mbuemo had been flagged for offside in the build up to his sumptuous cross, so the visitors would have to settle for just the single point from their opening match of the season.

The fact that the draw left the bitter taste of disappointment in my mouth is a testament to just how gargantuan the turnaround had been in the Bee’s play for the first half hour of the match. Before Mr. Frank’s inspired double substitution Brentford had been playing like a team consigned to relegation by a comfortable margin at the end of the season, but after it they were playing like a team that could credibly threaten the lower European places come May.

I don’t know about any other Brentford fans, but I’ll have more playing like the latter team this season if it’s all the same to you Bees.

As one Leicester fan said to me on the train out of town though, ‘in the last half hour you showed that any team who attacks us can expect to win’. The lack of depth off the bench and Brendan Rodgers complete lack of willingness to use the few options that do exist there should be of highest concern to the home faithful though. Despite clear indications that drastic measures were needed to change the momentum of play in the final half hour the home side made just 1 of their allotted 5 changes, whilst the visitors made use of the full quota.

This lack of flexibility will cause them issues throughout the season if they are unable to find a workable Plan B.

As for Brentford, there has been a lot of talk over the summer about how Eriksen single-handedly saved them from relegation. This is simply not true!!

Certainly there is no denying the dreadful form that Brentford found themselves in over the winter months before his arrival. Nor is it possible to deny just how much better their results became after his arrival or how brilliantly skilled Eriksen is as a footballer. However, Brentford were also dealing with the effect of injuries to both David Raya and Pontus Jansson when Eriksen joined and losing your number one goal-keeper, your main central defender and your captain all at once would test any teams ability to secure positive results.

Furthermore, the Bees had shown earlier in the season that they were capable of getting results against anyone on their day. Not only had they delivered a dominant 2-0 victory over Arsenal on the opening weekend on the season, but they had also come from behind to take a point from the visiting Liverpool team that would come a hair’s breadth away from completing the quadruple at the end of the season. Even without Eriksen they had shown that they had it in them to compete in this league.

So his arrival definitely assisted in pulling Brentford out of the swan-dive towards the relegation zone that they were in as the time, but they had shown their inherent quality earlier in the season and had many other problems that had to be solved to pull them out of their abysmal form.

There is never one cause for anything and those who decide otherwise are reducing the complex world into simple explanations that are easier for most people to understand, but miss out crucial details of the story.

Contingent on being able to work my train travel around yet more rail strikes this blog will return with the tale of Brentford’s first London derby of the season, away at Craven Cottage on the picturesque banks of the Thames. I hope to see you in 2 weeks for that one.

Saturday 30th July 2022: League Two: Edgeley Park: Stockport County vs AFC Barrow

After 11 seasons in the non-league wilderness Stockport County return to the EFL having romped to the National League title last season. They won 30 of their 44 matches last season and finished with a 6 point cushion over their nearest rivals and the wave of optimism that this has created within the fans has left them dreaming of back-to-back promotions.

In this endeavour they can take inspiration from the exploits of Sutton United on their first season back in the league system last time out, when they managed to make a push for the playoffs before ultimately finishing in 8th place just a point from their goal. Realistically though the first goal has to be simply cementing their place back in the EFL after more than a decade away, during which they even spent time in the 6th tier of English football.

Whilst Stockport obviously have some great things going on behind the scenes, and in Paddy Madden and Antoni Sarcevic they have players with the ability to scare any defender in the league, Edgeley Park is not in the best shape itself. The stadium looks like a housing block from the outside, with only the towering floodlights alerting passers-by to the existence of a football stadium behind the brick. For those familiar with London football grounds think Leyton Orient.

Entering through a car park and having to walk down by the pitch and up through the stand to find the food kiosks is not fun either but the kicker of it all is the view, or lack thereof, of the pitch. I was in the Together Stand and as such my view of the pitch is obstructed by giant pillars holding up the roof and you can’t see the screen away to your right either as the media gantry drops from the roof and hangs directly over your sightlines. The pillars in the way remind me of the view I used to have at Griffin Park but the media gantry blocking the screen, deserted except for one camera and its operator, was a new one on me and was particularly unhelpful when added to a tannoy set to a level so low that even the quietest whisperer in the world would struggle to match.

Given these problems I was pleased to be able to manage to take down the full starting 11 and substitutes that Dave Challinor had selected to represent County on their return to the big-time.

Stockport Starting 11: 1 Ben Hinchcliffe, 2 Macauley Southam-Hales, 3 Mark Kitching, 6 Fraser Horsfall, 8 Callum Camps, 9 Paddy Madden, 10 Antoni Sarcevic, 14, Will Collar, 17 Ryan Rydell, 19 Kyle Wootton, 31 Joe Lewis.

The team that Stockport were facing on their return to the EFL was AFC Barrow, who had only avoided swapping leagues with their hots by a measly 6 points last season. On paper this looked to be a simple match for Stockport to ease their way back into League Two. Pete Wild and his team were determined to prove them wrong as they lined up as follows.

AFC Barrow Starting 11: 1 Paul Farman, 5 Sam McClelland, 6 Niall Canavan, 9 Billy Waters, 10 Josh Gordon, 14 Harrison Neal, 15 Robbie Gotts, 16 Sam Foley, 21 Tyler Warren, 25 George Ray, 34 Ben Whitfield

Whitfield had more reason than the rest of his team to want to ruin Stockport’s day as he was a County player till a few weeks ago, before making the switch to the Cumbrians. From kick-off it looked like the hosts day would be ruined within the first minute as Kyle Wootton’s clearance smashes into Tyler Warren. He got the ball under control, advanced to the edge of the box and unleashes a shot that flies straight down the keeper’s throat.

It was an early warning for Stockport of just how careful they have to be at the back in this league. They failed to heed this warning and within 6 minutes they found themselves 1-0 down. Barrow’s goal came completely against the run of play, as Stockport found joy and gaps down either wing, but the hosts had no-one to blame except themselves. After simple punt upfield by Farman was not dealt with in midfield by Stockport and it was Whitfield whose round-the-corner ball that found Gordon in yards of space with just the keeper to beat. Gordon did the rest, slipping the ball under the keeper’s dive to the left and sliding it into the net by the right-hand post.

Getting the breakthrough emboldened Barrow as they pushed forward in search of a second to add to their lead. This new attacking outlook from Barrow was leaving gaps in behind them for the hosts to exploit though, but luckily for the visitors their offside trap was in excellent working order as they caught Sarcevic straying the wrong side of the line multiple times in the first 45. The few chances that the hosts created and which escaped the trap were met by some truly abysmal finishing, with Sarcevic kicking air when free in the box. Southam-Hales took the dreadful finishing one step further than any of his teammates when he had a shot from near the right touchline that ended up going out for a throw on the other side.

The frustration of the hosts was poured into more attacks, but the frustration of the visitors at not extending their lead boiled over in the 15th minute. Southam-Hales initiated a break for County before Harrison Neal and Sam Foley barrelled into him from opposite sides just as he entered the centre circle. It was Neal, as the primary offender, who picked up the card for this agricultural tackle whilst Foley got off without so much as a warning.

Frustration now out of their system Barrow double their lead in the 20th minute and it was Whitfield who got the finish on this one, stepping up from his assist for the first. He was played in down the left channel by Billy Waters. Advancing to the edge of the 6 yard box he slotted the ball across the keeper, cool as a cucumber, and in off the right-hand post to send the away fans into raptures. Home fans all around me had their heads in their hands as their ex-player wheeled away in celebration.

Having now conceded twice in the opening 20 minutes Stockport went into full attack mode and laid siege to the Barrow goal for the next 3 minutes. However, success down the right wing could not be turned into the first goal of an unlikely comeback as both Madden and Sarcevic were so petrified of being caught offside that they had stopped making runs into the box. This inability to back themselves was almost punished by Barrow the second they broke the siege lines. Barrow surged forward and when the initial chance went begging Stockport eventually cleared it straight back too them. They recycled it to Whitfield on the right wing and his pitch perfect cross to the back post was fired into the side-netting by Gordon.

By this point of the match Stockport’s heads were down and their faith in themselves in-front of goal was at an all time low. They were still getting into good positions in the final third but the crosses into good areas were arriving to find them as deserted as a sauna in a heatwave. County had monopolised possession of the ball as the game ticked past the half-hour mark and so it was only fitting that when Barrow scored their third goal in 33 minutes it stemmed from a Stockport mistake. A lacklustre clearance from the defence landed at the feet of Waters, who advanced to the edge of the box before rifling the ball into the bottom left corner. The Bluebirds were now soaring away to what looked like an easy win over the Hatters, who were getting a baptism of fire on their return to the EFL.

Despite their dominance of possession and multiple threatening attacks the host now found themselves trailing by 3 goals and looking like conceding every time their opponents got the ball. The worst news for the hosts was that there was still another 10 minutes of the half to go. Respite would arrive in the 35th minute though as Foley went down with a head injury that required bandaging up. Foley was able to continue but the break whilst he was treated gave the players the chance to take on fluids and for the host it gave them a chance to regroup and find a way to make it to the break without conceding any more.

To be fair to the hosts they managed to reach the break without suffering any further damage to the scoreline, but Dave Challinor still had one hell of a team talk on his hands at half-time if he was to inspire a comeback from his team. Six minutes of added time was negotiated before half-time without any major problems for the hosts. Stockport raced down the tunnel, just glad that the half was now over and they had a full 15 minutes to work out what had been going wrong. Hopefully for all the home fans they would also work out how to be first to any of the second balls in the second half.

Two changes to the Stockport’s personnel at the break heralded a seismic shift in the trajectory of the match in the second half. Callum Camps and Joe Lewis were the players sacrificed by Challinor and in their place he brought on James Brown and Myles Hippolyte. At the time I was thinking that it would probably work better if the hosts had been able to make 10 changes, but the two that they did make made such a huge difference to the play in the second half.

Having been so unspeakably dreadful in-front of goal in the first half, it took a measly two minutes for the Hatters to get a goal back and fire up the comeback train. I do not know what Challinor said to the team at half-time but I’d love to hear it next time I’m in a situation that seems hopeless, cause it worked a treat.

The hosts first goal of the half came from a ball round the corner to Madden in the the left channel. He slid the ball across the box for Sarcevic to turn home in the centre. The feeling around me in the crowd when the ball hit the back of the net was a mix of relief, unbridled joy and determination that this would not be a flash in the pan. It would instead be the start of a brilliant comeback.

Stockport now looked like they were going to score every time they came forward as they upped the pace of their attacks, from arthritic slug to a cheetah launched from an F1 car, and it was causing Barrow all sorts of problems. The wings were still their greatest source of chances and in the 55th minute they created a beautiful one as Hippolyte played Ryan Rydel into space down the left. His cross into the box was deflected away from the blue shirts waiting in the area though and the keeper was able to pouch it.

The stream of chances that Stockport were creating had now developed into a tidal wave the Barrow were drowning under. Despite their 2 goal cushion the away end was a sea of faces etched with worry. The Cumbrians just had no answer for the questions that were now being asked of them. I was now expecting Stockport to score on every single attack and it looked like that was an expectation that the Barrow players shared.

Responding to seeing his team fade from the game this half Pete Wild decided to dip into his resources on the bench in an attempt to shore up the defence and stop the tidal wave making landfall in his team’s goal once more. Josh Kay was the player sent on to shore things up, but the player taken off was a huge surprise, Ben Whitfield. He had been the main threat all match for the visitors and the best way to break the opposition’s momentum in a match is to put their defence under pressure. Taking off the one man that had been behind all of their excellent play in the first half seemed a strange way for Barrow to achieve that with 22 minutes left to play. So it proved to be as just a minute after this change was made the Hatters had their second goal.

Stockport’s second goal came through their captain, Paddy Madden. The ball made its way out to the right and when the cross came in there were 4 Stockport players lining up to head it home. Madden won the race to the header, guiding it across the goal and in to the back of the net by the left post. Farman in the Barrow goal stood no chance of getting to the header from point blank range and Stockport were back within a single goal of taking a point from this match that they never looked like getting as they struggled to get a foothold in the game in the first half.

It was a testament to County’s dominance since half-time that it took till the 73rd minute for Barrow to have their first chance of the half. If the visitors had been able to slot it home that would have sealed their victory and robbed the match of its grandstand finish. Thankfully, for everyone except the visiting fans, they could only hit it into the side netting.

Before their second goal Stockport made their third change of the match as Ryan Rydel made way for home favourite Ollie Crankshaw. This added to injury stoppages in the final 15 minutes, Josh Gordon going down twice in his own half and Sam Foley having his own time on the turf too, led to 6 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the 90. The 6 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the first half had been torturous for the home fans, but now it would be the visiting fans time to suffer.

Before we get to that though there was another substitution to take note of from each team, the hosts looking to bring on goal threats as the visitors looked to maintain their slim lead. The Hatters’ gambit was bringing on Scott Quigley for Macauley Southam-Hales, whilst the Bluebirds replaced Josh Gordon with ex-Hatter John Rooney. This scared some of the fans around me as “our old players always score against us”. There was no need to worry this time round though as Barrow never looked like threatening in the 9 minutes he was on the pitch.

County were the only team that ever looked like scoring in the second half and it looked like they had their equaliser multiple times. The closest they came to getting it in the regulation 90 was from a freekick that was fired into the box from the right. Will Collar directed a powerful header toward goal that looked to be nestling in the back of the net, but instead it squirmed out to Horsfall in the 6 yard box who could only poke it into the side netting. It looked like it was in from my vantage point and the fans around me had started the party when it dawned on us that the net was rippling from the wrong side.

The penultimate minute of the half resulted in a penalty call that went begging. Southam-Hales was felled in the box by Tyrell Warren but when the ref blew his whistle he was giving Barrow a freekick. Madden was given a yellow card for descent, but it looked like a stonewall pen to me so his questioning of the decision that went against his team was perfectly justified.

Then in the second minute of added-on time Stockport were awarded a penalty as Niall Canavan dragged down Horsfall as they both went for a header on the edge of the 6 yard box. It looked like less of a shout that the Southam-Hales one a few minutes earlier but it was given. Then it was taken away as the ref’s arm went up to indicate an offside in the build-up. I was completely bamboozled by this incredible turn of events and it took me till the final minute of the 6 to work out exactly what had happened.

Where the offside call from and who it was against I have absolutely no idea, but all that really mattered was that Stockport went from having a gilt-edged chance to equalise from the spot to having it ripped from under them in the blink of an eye. To have the rug pulled out from under you like that send your whole world into a spin where you don’t know which way is up. The Hatters couldn’t recover from that turn of events long enough to score the equaliser that their second half play merited.

A grandstand finish was brought to the most disappointing end possible, as Stockport fell agonisingly short of the equaliser that would have secured their first goal of the match and send the home stands into raptures. The aura of disappointment that permeated the home fans at the final whistle speaks to the incredible turn around that their team had effected in the second half.

In the first half the hosts played like a team destined for relegation and in the second half they played like one that will push for the play-offs. The majority of the 10,011 fans that were stuffed inside Edgeley Park will be hoping that it will be the latter side of the team that dominates their matches to come and that Stockport were up at the top end of the table in May.


Starting a new job tomorrow so I have no idea when I will next make it to a game, but when I make it to one the blog will be back.

Also, I just want to say CONGRATULATIONS to the Lionesses for their victory over Germany at Wembley today. ENGLAND ARE THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS!!!!!

Here’s to hoping that they can go all the way at next summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand too, but for now just enjoy the celebrations ladies.

Tuesday 26th July 2022: Bramall Lane, Sheffield: UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 Semi-Final:
England vs Sweden

So I can stop pinching myself now, this is real. England’s Women are in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 final at Wembley on Sunday. I had some trouble making it too the game thanks to issues on the trains and the weather in Sheffield was abysmal before kick-off, but once the match got underway all these problems were forgotten as I settled into my place amongst the 28,264 supporters crammed into the stands for this on. That is a record attendance for a Women’s Euro semi-final and they were about to be treated to an exhibition of football from this incredible England team.

Sweden looked to be a difficult test on paper coming into this one and having finished first in a group that included the defending champions, The Netherlands, it seemed like they were going to convert their potential from paper to grass. They had made the knockout stages of the last two major international tournaments, coming unstuck against the Dutch in both, and with England having only won twice against them in their last 9 meetings the signs that they would go one step further this time around looked promising. They had even defeated England in the 3rd place play off at the 2019 World Cup.

There are only a few small problems with those signs though as Sweden had struggled in-front of goal against Belgium in the Quarter-final. Creating chances was not a problem for the Scandinavians as they pulled the Belgian defence all over the place, it was finishing off those chances that proved elusive. They had 33 shots against the Belgians but only 9 of them were on target and it took until the 92nd minute for them to finally make the breakthrough. Such profligacy was not punished by the Belgians, but you can rest assured it would be by the English.

This England team came into the match having scored 15 goals in just 4 matches, including the record-breaking 8 against Norway, and had at their disposal 3 of the most clinical finishers in the Women’s game. Ellen White is their talismanic number 9 and, having already scored twice in the tournament, she came into this game knowing that 1 more goal would draw her level with Wayne Rooney as England’s top goalscorer of all time.

It’s not just White that the Swedish backline would have to worry about either as England also have Beth Mead and Alessia Russo to call on, amongst a plethora of attacking options. Mead has been on fire in-front of goal and already had 5 goals to her name coming into this match, as she saunters her way to the Golden Boot, whilst Russo has 3 goals to her name despite having to be content with merely 2nd half substitute appearances throughout the tournament so far.

The worst news was yet to come for Sweden though as in England’s dugout they have their best secret weapon of the lot, Sarina Wiegman. She is the coach that defeated Sweden, as Netherlands’ Coach, in the last 2 tournaments. Wiegman is also the defending Euro championship coach, having won it with her native Netherlands in 2017, and one of the ways she achieves this success is by finding her best 11 and sticking to it. This formula has worked for Wiegman so well that, despite Russo’s sparkling form off the bench, she named an unchanged team from the one that came from behind to defeat Spain in the Quarters.

With all those factors in mind there were many in the press and amongst the fans in the stadium who had written Sweden off and assumed that all England had to do was turn up and they’d win easily. I was among them as when asked by other fans before the match what I thought the score would be, “We will win by 3 or 4 goals to nil” came my cocky response.

However, Sweden almost wiped the smug smile off our faces within 30 seconds of kick-off as Stina Blackstenius tore forward in acres of space on the left. She fed the ball through to Sofia Jakobsson, charging free in the box, but her shot across goal was saved by the feet of an ever-alert Mary Earps. Earps went straight from making the save to screaming at her defence to switch on.

Sweden let England off the hook in a huge way in those opening seconds and this allowed England to secure a foothold in the game. The hosts cranked up the pressure on their opponents through the rest of the opening 5 minutes until they created an opening that should have led to the opening goal. Fran Kirby found the space on the left to put a tempting cross into the area that missed Mead’s head by inches. Mead had managed to find a lovely pocket of space in the box and it the cross had been dropped on the right sixpence she would have had a free header to open England’s account for the night.

Within 2 minutes of this chance England were back on the attack down the left. This time it was Lauren Hemp advancing with the ball to the edge of the box before being pushed off it by a Swedish defender. From my vantage point it looked like a clear free-kick but the referee was content to let play continue uninterrupted and there were no appeals from the England players either, so perhaps my view was not telling the full story of the challenge. Hemp dealt with this challenge exceptionally well as just seconds later she was on her feet and delivering a cross into the area, where it was grabbed off White’s forehead by Hedvig Lindahl, the Sweden goalkeeper.

Sweden were not going away easily though and in the 11th minute they found the opening they would use to create chances throughout the match. Lucy Bronze was caught out of position at right back and the Swedes were able to find the ball into the vast open spaces behind her. This time Blackstenius was the player in yellow running free as a gazelle in this savannah of grass but her shot was easy enough for Earps to deal with. The resulting corner was far missed by Earps altogether though and the English could only look in stomach-clenching terror as a Swedish header sent the ball goalward. The terror was broken as the ball came cannoning back off the bar, but Sweden now knew where the weak link was in the England back-line.

Rolfo was next to exploit this defensive weakness having nicked the ball off Bronze in midfield. She galloped into the free space that Bronze should have been covering but, to a collective sigh of relief from all 4 stands, she was only able to direct her shot into the side netting.

Sweden may have been looking to spoil the host’s party but England didn’t seem to be doing too much to try and stop them in the first 15 minutes. Perhaps this was down to the nerves of playing in-front of an expectant home crowd but, whatever the case may have been, they appeared scared to attack despite creating some excellent openings.

Mead found a brilliant ball up to Kirby just inside the Sweden half. She had one defender to beat and then she would have been 1-on-1 with Lindahl, albeit 40 yards from the goal, but instead of taking on the defender she stopped and turned to look for support. By the time the support arrived all the impetus of the attack had fizzled out. The next big opening for the hosts came via Bronze finding legions of room on the right wing. She was screaming for the ball, but the ball was instead ping-ponged around the other wing for a while before finally being played out to her.

Once the ball finally makes it’s way to her a great bit of attacking interplay between Bronze and Mead results in an England corner on the left-hand side. The corner was headed wide by White, but at least England were finally finding ways to threaten the Swedish goal in what had been an extremely entertaining end-to-end encounter for the purist to enjoy so far.

Both teams were finding ways to make their opponents defences creak in the opening half hour of the match. Sweden were finding crosses to be their greatest weapon but, as with the Belgium game. the ruthless final touch was deserting them. They had inviting crosses from either side within seconds of another as the math passed the 25 minute mark. First Rolfo swung one in from the left that sailed thorough the corridor of uncertainty utterly untouched. Then the cross from the right was agonisingly high over the top of a leaping Blackstenius in the centre.

England’s defending was creaking loudly from crosses into the box, but it was creaking even more from Sweden’s corners. They were causing all sorts of problems for England. After the Swedish header off the bar earlier in the match England looked spooked every time the ball came in from the quadrant. This got to the point where just before the half hour mark England took 5 attempts to hack the ball clear of their 6 yard box despite the box in question being a completely Sweden-free zone. The hosts needed something to settle their nerves and as the half moved into it’s final 15 minutes that is exactly what they would get.

They came close to getting it on the 30 minute mark as Mead looped a ball into Bronze near the penalty spot. Bronze leaps like a salmon to meet it, whilst everyone around her stays statuesque like their feet are stuck in treacle, but her header misses the left post by a measly 6 yards. A simple role reversal was all that was need for England to get the opening goal as Mead did what she does best and pocketed her 6th goal of the tournament to set England on their way.

Mead’s 6th goal of the tournament and England’s opener in this semi-final came after a Hemp cross from the left, that skimmed past the out-stretched boot of White in the 6yard box, was fired back into the box by Bronze. Her pinpoint cross found Mead in space by the penalty spot. Mead swivelled on a sixpence and fired it home with her right boot. Lindahl dived to her right but the ball flashed past her fingertips and England have the lead in the Semi-final in the 34th minute.

When the ball hit the back of the net the stands exploded with a wall of noise the like of which I have never experienced before at a women’s football match. It was an outpouring of euphoria, and not a little relief, that England now had the lead and could push on from here to their first final appearance in 13 years. Sweden’s players looked crushed by this blow against the general run of play for much of the half up to this point. Their heads dropped and you could see the hope expiring in their souls. Having already been knocked out by the hosts at the last Euros they seemed to know what lay instore for them from now till the final whistle.

High on the joy of taking the lead England almost doubled it within minutes as Bronze and Mead combined to make space on the right before Mead pulled it back to Georgia Stanway in tons of space down the right channel. Stanway had space to take a shot herself, but instead she chose to make the selfless move and put it on a plate for White to equal Rooney’s record. Unfortunately the ball across was turned back by the Swedish centre backs and when Stanway tried to go for goal herself it was easily collected by Lindahl. Minutes later Stanway decides to let one rip from 30 yards out, but it has just a smidgen too much power on it as it sails just inches over the bar.

With the momentum on their sides it should have been a simple stroll to half time for England, but since when do we ever do things the easy way. Earps tested the home fans nerves 5 minutes before the end of the half as she chose to play a short ball to Millie Bright in the box with two Swedish players closing in. Bright was able to sort her feet out in time to lump the ball clear, but taking that of risk when you’re only 1-0 up is far too nerve-shredding for my liking.

Sweden were able to create one more gilt-edged chance before half-time, but when Rolfo heading a cross from the back post back into the danger area there was no-one in yellow there to tap it home and England were able to make it to the break with their 1-0 lead intact. Mead once again proving herself to be indispensable to England’s hopes in the tournament.

England may have been leading 1-0 at half-time but throughout the first half Sweden had shown that they could provide a credible threat to the England goal and had come close to getting on the scoresheet themselves on multiple occasions. The only thing preventing Sweden from getting control of this game in the first 45 was the same thing that had seen them pushed so close to extra-time and penalties in their quarter-final. A severe lack of cutting edge and attacking composure in the crucial moments in the final third.

Sweden got the second half underway and were on the back foot almost immediately. It took England just 2 minutes from the restart to double their lead. An inch perfect ball round the corner from Kirby was sent across the box from Hemp only to be turned behind for a corner by the frazzled Swedes. The corner allowed Mead to pay Bronze back for the assist provided for the first goal by providing the assist that gave the defender a goal of her own. Mead floated the ball to the back post where Bronze met it with a thumping header back across goal. The ball nestled in the back of the net and after a torturously long VAR check it was confirmed that England had their two-goal cushion.

This second goal for the hosts broke the will of the Swedes to resist any further as the damage had been done and they sunk into the mental abyss that can follow your dreams being crushed. Despite the desperate attempts of Peter Gerhardsson, Sweden’s manager, to reignite his teams hopes with 3 changes in 5 minutes. He took of Filippa Angeldal, Sofia Jakobsson and Amanda Ilestedt, replacing them with Caroline Seger, Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Jonna Andersson but this had little effect on the tide of attacks that England were now throwing their way.

England had to make a substitution of their own before they got their third of the match though because the scorer of that third goal was the irrepressible and inspirational super-sub that is Alessia Russo. She entered the fray in place of Ellen White in the 57th minute and when I clocked that it was Russo coming on I turned to my left and asked “how long till she’s on the scoresheet then?”.

It took her a full 11 minutes to add her name to the goalscorer’s roll, but she was already terrorising the Swedish defence from her first touch of the ball within a minute of coming on. Russo broke into the area down the right and laid a delicious ball across the 6 yard box that Hemp just had to get a toe on to tap it home, but Hemp connected a little too well with the cross and could only watch on in disbelief as her effort went out for a goal kick after smashing off the bar.

Russo got her goal in the 68th minute and it was well worth the wait. The ball was played into her from the left channel as Kirby’s brilliant run was picked out by Keira Walsh. When the ball was fizzed across to Russo her first shot ricocheted off Lindahl, but Russo was not done. She collected the ball on the edge of the 6yard and then with a defender in close attendance, another defender and the keeper between her and the goal and whilst standing with her back to the goal she pulled an exquisite piece of skill out of the top draw. She backheeled the ball past both defenders and through the keeper’s legs.

Russo had been on the pitch just over 10 minutes before unleashing a gorgeous bit of skill to banish any last concerns of a Swedish comeback. Her finish was beautiful, exquisite, inspiring and so much more besides. It is the goal that will live longest in the memory of everyone watching this tournament because it was just so insanely cheeky and downright brilliant. There has been a lot of talk around this tournament about inspiring the next generation of players and now the youngsters in the game across the country have a beautiful piece of skill to attempt to emulate. There will be kids up and down the country trying to copy Russo’s goal in the their back gardens this week and it’s moments like that which can inspire that next generation of superstars to pursue a career in football.

England were not done scoring just yet though as Kirby added a 4th goal for the hosts as the game entered it’s final 15 minutes. Having spotted Lindahl off her line she went for an audacious chip from 30 yards out and it went in. Lindahl got her palms to it but couldn’t stop the ball from squirming out the top of her grasp and despite her best efforts she couldn’t recover in time to prevent the ball crossing the line. None of the Swedish team will want to watch this match back, but after gifting England their 4th goal in such a fashion Lindahl will have even more reason to avoid watching the highlights in future.

Kirby’s reward for getting on the scoresheet was to be hooked from the action almost immediately, with Ella Toone sent on to see out the match. Just before that goal Sweden made their final 2 substitutions of the match as Hanna Bennison and Lina Hurtig were sent on to replace Stina Blackstenius and Linda Sembrant. England would also complete their quota of 5 substitutions for the match in the dying minutes with a triple change. Chloe Kelly, Jill Scott and Alex Greenwood were given a run-out to join in the party as Rachel Daly, Georgia Stanway and player of the match, Beth Mead were given a well-deserved rest. Hemp was the only one of the front 5 that started the match to see out the full 90 minutes.

Toone almost added a 5th for England in the final 10 minutes as she took a pot-shot from the edge of the box that looked to be flying harmlessly wide, until Nathalie Bjorn flung a leg at it and the deflection saw the ball skim the bar on it’s way behind. That would have been a lovely metaphor for the match, England pressure forcing the Sweden defence to buckle and self-destruct, but unfortunately it was not to be.

England saw out the rest of the final 10 and the 3 added on in complete cruise control. This led to a fair bit of pressure from the Swedes but nothing that ever looked like genuinely troubling Earps and in the final minute of the 90 it was England that came inches away from increasing their margin of victory. Hemp played a lovely cross through the box from the right side and Russo connected with it but couldn’t quite get enough on it to turn it in at the far post. It skimmed the paint off the post on it’s way behind.

England had to make do with just a 4-0 win over the team ranked 2nd in the world and on the strength of their second half performance they can be slightly disappointed to have only scored 4. The celebrations at the final whistle were incredible, with not a soul leaving for at least 10 minutes and when I left after half an hour there were still thousands of fans sticking around to soak up this glorious feeling.

Football really is coming home this time. The Men’s side came so close to bringing it home last year until Italy ruined their Wembley party, but no matter whether the Women are facing France or Germany in the final there is no chance of them facing the same heartbreak. England will have their first trophy since 1966 in just a few days time and tonight we find out who they will be defeating in the final.

Neither option is particularly appetising. France brushed Italy aside in the group stages with one of the most complete team performances across a full 90 minutes that I have seen from any team in a long time. Whilst Germany for their part are living up to their national reputation of ruthless efficiency at major tournaments. The Germans are not only the runaway record holders for Women’s Euro titles, winning 8 out of the 12 tournaments to date, but they have amassed that record despite missing the first 2 editions.

England will have the partisan home crowd willing them on though and with the strength in depth that the team possesses this will be enough to power them to the title.

IT’S COMING HOME!!!!