The Short Corner

Welcome back to The Short Corner where the motto is you get what you paid for.

Since I’m not one to shy away from failure lets take a brief look at last week’s predictions compared to reality.

Match 1: West Ham vs Chelsea

Prediction -  2-0 West Ham

Reality - 5-1 Chelsea

So, the thing is I automatically expect the worst from my favorite teams. Apparently I completely underestimated just how shit West Ham are this year. Happy to be wrong. Any team with title aspirations should take care of business. Chelsea did just that. 

Match 2: Man City vs Spurs

Prediction - 3-0 Man City

Reality - 2-0 Spurs

As a bald man I hold Pep in high regard and honestly think he’s playing the long game here.  What would piss off City’s main (besides Liverpool) title challenger more than losing to their cross town rivals? This is a big brain move.

Match 3: Arsenal vs Leeds

Prediction - 2-0 Arsenal

Reality - 5-0 Arsenal.

London Stoke were back at it. Thoroughly outplaying newly promoted Leeds. But it wasn’t all roses for AFTV as Saka went down and will miss a month(3) with a hamstring injury.  Luckily for him Arsenal don’t play a style that requires an egregious amount of pressing and effort from their forwards. On the bright side the excuse for the loss to Liverpool is ready made!

On to the new week. Let’s take a biased look at my favorite games.

This will be a big step up in class. While you may have dominated lesser competition this is a big step up for… United. Jokes aside, United got absolutely smacked around by a team 2 divisions below Wrexham. Rueben made an absolute mockery of a sideline once stalked by a man with a knighthood. Playing with his tactical magnets won’t help Amorim this week. The United manager will be sacked after this game.

As for Burnley. They play hard and care which is more than the United abomination.  

Prediction 2-0 Burnley

If there was ever a definition of a mid table mediocrity game this is that game. Yes Villa are riding high with their European games and Palace are being screwed over by the notoriously corrupt UEFA after their historic FA cup win. Both teams will be boring. Eze is gone to greener(?) pastures while a trusted Villa fan told me quote “Villa will do a Villa this year, we spent all our Shekels last year”. High praise from a midlands man.

Prediction 1-1 Kiss your cousins!

Here it is. One of the marquee matchups of the season. But shockingly Arsenal will be down a superstar and full of excuses. Saka is out but didn’t they just spend a buttload on attacking players? Liverpool were nearly put to the sword by 10 man Newcastle before being rescued by a player just growing pubic hair. This is a game that true title hopefuls will go out and win, even on the road. But methinks that we’ll hear the same excuses from 5 years running. “Our best player was hurt!”, as a direct result of our playing style… “The referee hates us” That’s just sad sad coping. This is Arsenal’s chance to put their stamp on the season, instead van Dijk, Salah and my new favorite palindrome Ekitike take care of business.