Morning.
Effectively, yesterday’s outcomes had been fairly, fairly, fairly good from our perspective. Man Utd dropped factors towards Leicester, and will even have misplaced – VAR was beneficiant to them for Maddison’s ‘objective’. To be truthful, they may have received however for an excellent late sort out on Marcus Rashford … by one in every of his personal teammates. Haha.
Query: Is Scott McTominay the anti-Xhaka? Whereas our midfielder is punished to the utmost for the slightest infringement, this bloke will get away with every kind of stuff. I used to be going to say ‘He actually will get away with homicide’, however clearly that’s not true. Nonetheless, I wager he might scythe down an opponent … with an precise scythe, the ref would have a look at the stays in two components, blood all over the place, and provides McTominay a yellow card saying, ‘Look, simply be a bit much less brutal subsequent time’. Unreal.
At Stamford Bridge, Chelsea took the lead towards Brentford, then conceded 4 objectives which, by any goal measure, is downright hilarious. I used to be watching one thing else final evening, however I’ve recorded Match of the Day and can sit down this morning to have a superb outdated chortle. It’s to date so good for this weekend’s outcomes and all eyes might be what Sp*rs do towards Newcastle afterward.
It’s a little bit of a reminder that this can be a league wherein you can’t be even barely complacent or off your finest, as a result of you can be punished. One thing I’m positive Mikel Arteta will remind his gamers of earlier than we go to Crystal Palace tomorrow evening, but when Joe Willock might lend us a hand with objective salvo as we speak, and Harry Kane’s hamstring snapped like an outdated piece of twine, it’d increase the stakes just a bit larger for the journey to Selhurst Park.
Elsewhere, after scoring 3 times for England U21s through the Interlull, Folarin Balogun was on the scoresheet for Middlesbrough yesterday – goal clip here, dodgy defending however you need to be in the proper place simply in case. Thus far at Boro he has three objectives, two assists, with 16 appearances and 889 minutes of enjoying time to his title, so it’s been an honest mortgage transfer to date.
With one other eight video games to go within the Championship and potential playoffs for promotion to the Premier League (they’re sitting fifth proper now), there’s scope for his contribution to extend, with some actual stress video games too which I believe makes a distinction. If this was mid-table stuff that didn’t matter, it simply doesn’t have the identical significance. You’ll be able to see gamers who’re succesful when the opposition is weaker or when the sport itself is low stakes, so it will likely be actually attention-grabbing to see what he can do within the ultimate few weeks of the season.
That is the primary actual spell of senior soccer he’s had in his profession, and the way it performs out between now and Might might nicely resolve what occurs to him subsequent season. If he scores some objectives and continues to develop, he may need accomplished sufficient to earn his place in a squad which can possible want a number of additions to the ahead line in the summertime. You may additionally argue one other season out on mortgage could possibly be useful when it comes to getting him minutes and expertise, however it could nicely depend upon our schedule and the way deep we’d like our squad to be.
On Thursday, Mikel Arteta spoke about him, and mentioned:
He’s having the proper publicity, he’s enjoying in a special formation and typically a special position below a supervisor and a membership with an enormous historical past. You’ll be able to see how he’s growing, so that is giving us info. That is going to offer us extra element about what’s the subsequent finest transfer for him to maintain growing, as a result of we wish him to be a part of our future.
Let’s see the way it goes for him. Boro have some crunch video games developing towards groups above them within the desk, so if he can get on the scoresheet and assist achieve some factors in these fixtures, he’ll be giving the supervisor one thing to consider this summer season.
Proper, that’s nearly that for this morning. In a while Patreon we’ll have a Crystal Palace preview podcast for you, and for one thing additional over there, we’ve received our Poorly Drawn Month for March. It is a recap of the month simply gone, the place I do the phrases and Poorly Drawn Arsenal does the paintings. It’s at all times nice enjoyable, you possibly can signal as much as learn and have instantaneous entry to the archives which stretch again to September of this season.
A small pattern under, take pleasure in your Sunday.
