So, we are nearly a week into a new decade and has anything actually changed in football? Er, no.
Liverpool are still racing to their first-ever (I just like saying that) Premier League title following a pretty-much-hassle-free win over Sheffield United. Chris Wilder’s men have led the way with attacking centre-backs so we can only assume Virgil van Dijk had been taking notes when he legged it into their area to set up Mohamed Salah after just four minutes.
Mikel Arteta is taking to management almost as easily as his counterpart Ole Gunnar Solskjaer seemed to be doing this time last year. Arsenal swept past Man United 2-0, Solskjaer’s men being the equivalent of your nan behaving themselves over Christmas before getting a little bit drunk and letting herself down on New Year’s Eve.
Arsenal were OK, no better than that. United were shocking and given their 0-0 draw with Wolves in the FA Cup are still waiting to score a goal in this decade.
Carlo Ancelotti has picked up where Big Dunc left off.
Not with results, as such – more to do with the 4-4-2 and launching it to the big man at every opportunity. Unfortunately for Carlo, it didn’t work at the Etihad as Gabby Jesus got a brace.
Claudio Bravo let in four goals from four shots last time he faced the Toffees and, to be frank, he didn’t look much better this time out.
Alireza Jahanbakhsh hasn’t had a bad festive period. He finally scored his first goal in English football and then followed that up with a half-decent overhead quick to equalise for Brighton against Chelsea.
But, let’s calm down a bit. It wasn’t the best goal of the day, let alone this ‘goal of the season’ chat that immediately ensued.
Chelsea are in the midst of a Premier League slump, which is natural given that most of their team will have been super-excited about Christmas, what Santa might bring them and were probably allowed to stay up after midnight for the first time on New Year’s Eve.
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David Moyes is ‘home’ which is a curious turn-of phrase seeing he was kicked out of his ‘home’ after a mere six months last time out.
That said, West Ham finally recalled how to play a bit of football in battering Bournemouth 4-0 in Moyes’ first game back at the helm. I’m sure I have said this before, but other than getting West Ham themselves, is there a more friendly first game that a manager can be rewarded with other than Bournemouth?
We’re going to learn a lot about Eddie Howe as they enter a proper relegation battle – though a 4-0 over Luton in the FA Cup saw Dominic Solanke finally score, so if he can start doing that in the league he might actually help matters.
Leicester keep chipping away at being the second-best team in the Premier League, battering a Newcastle side that used all three subs at half-time and then saw Fabian Schar go down injured within moments of the restart – that’s 8-0 on aggregate to the Foxes over the Magpies this season.
Danny Ings has been scoring a few goals this season without much reward in terms of a big W by his name at the final whistle.
Fortunately, Tottenham are still rubbish at defending and not that effective in attack at the moment – especially after Harry Kane limped off and is out for three months in the classic ‘important England player gets injured before major tournament’ cliffhanger – so Ings scoring yet again was enough for the Saints to beat Jose Mourinho.
Jose’s been keeping his cool since his return, but I think we can all agree that mask slipped after he stuck his head round the corner to see what was occurring in the Southampton dugout. Full of idiots, apparently.
Putting the FA Cup match to one side momentarily – Watford let a 3-0 lead slip against lowly Tranmere – the Hornets are in the middle of one of the most dramatic fightbacks in Premier League history.
Nigel Pearson appears to be taking the Sam Allardyce/Tony Pulis mantle of ‘chief firefighter’ and is in serious danger of keeping them up.
Their 2-1 over Wolves was well-earned and Troy Deeney still looks like he can do some damage both on and off the pitch.
Jack Grealish, a lifelong Aston Villa fan, clearly likes having Dean Smith, a lifelong Aston Villa fan, as manager.
The club captain put in another quality display to get the Villa a very valuable three points and ease some of that heat on his boss. Both Wesley and Tom Heaton went off with serious knee injuries and I’ll let the Villa fans tell you which one they are more worried about.
The FA Cup third round weekend used to really mean something, blah blah blah blah.
Nobody cares about it anymore – just accept it and move on, unless you are real enough to support one of those small teams who might actually fancy a bit of a run in it. I’m looking at you, Norwich.
We were left somewhat short of shocks – Rochdale held Newcastle thanks to a 17-year-old assisting a 40-year-old.
As I’ve already said, Watford shipped three having been cruising against Tranmere – the best moment being the ref confidently telling the Tranmere players that the Watford lad ‘got the ball’ before VAR overturned his decision and gave the Rovers the all-important penalty.
Fulham beating Villa wasn’t that much of a shock given Fulham have the centre-forward most Villa fans would love in Aleksandr Mitrovic.
Crystal Palace slipped out 1-0 to Derby County which will get everyone momentarily excited about a Wayne Rooney-inspired cup run for a Derby team who have been terrible this season.
The best thing about Chelsea’s win over Nottingham Forest was that kit. Jonathan Woodgate is turning things around at Middlesbrough and their 1-1 draw with Spurs shows us that Daniel Levy will have to open his chequebook in January after all (OK, OK, he needed to anyway but still).
Sheffield United beat AFC Fylde 2-1 and it might be worth sticking a tenner on them to be the team one of the big boys batter in the final this season.
That big boy might be Man City, who eased past Port Vale in a game that was utterly irrelevant other than the hilarious beef between Tom Pope and John Stones.
Pope, a player that people of a certain age like to call a proper player, a throwback, claimed on social media a while ago that he’d score 40 a season if he played against Stones every week. Port Vale did score at the Etihad and you’ve probably sobered up enough by now to work out the narrative yourself from here.
But, the best twist of events was Benjamin Mendy hanging around to get a selfie with Pope so he could stick it in the team WhatsApp group chat. Benjamin Mendy folks, far greater levels of ‘bantz’ than football skills.
If you thought the romance of the cup had completely gone, you were wrong.
What better than a balding, 34-year-old sub scoring his first-ever FA Cup goal to keep his side in the competition?
No, it’s not a League Two side story – Pablo Zabaleta, not exactly ready to come on for the Hammers, helped his side get through a tricky tie at Gillingham unscathed and tick off one the few things left on his list. I don’t actually know if he has a list, but let’s pretend he does.
Finally, it was men against boys in the Merseyside Derby at Anfield where Liverpool showed exactly how important the FA Cup is to them this season by picking their youth team once again.
The only issue was, the boys only went and won adding another pesky fixture to Kloppo’s list.
Everton haven’t beaten Liverpool at Anfield in over ten years and now they haven’t beaten the Under-21s there this decade.
If Theo Walcott could work on his final ball he might develop into a player as good as Curtis Jones.
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