With the Manchester clubs neck and neck at the top of the pile and poor Roy Hodgson immediately under the cosh with some tough fixtures, things are hotting up as we come to the end of September.
With a healthy Saturday of fixtures upon, without further ado, here’s week six of Premier League Bingo…
Being woken up by the melody of the new Paddy Power advert
Spandeu Ballet have a nice enough legacy. They get royalties from bi-hourly plays on Magic FM, made a few bucks off of Singstar and generally have their credibility in tact. Perhaps they didn’t, however, expect to have the melody of their smash hit ‘Gold’ used as the backing track to what is a quite frankly tormenting advert from Paddy Power, which, if you don’t hear four times a day, you’re doing well.
Armchair fans complaining about weekend fixtures layout
If you don’t have enough friends with whom you can to watch games at the pub (probably saying “whom” doesn’t help), a solid laptop-TV weekend pivot is vital for consuming the weekend’s content – whether that be build-up or the matches themselves. This weekend sees eight games on Saturday, however, leaving an 8-1-1 game formation for the weekend, which won’t keep apetites whetted.
A lot of illegal streaming ensuing at Saturday 3pm
As touched on, the rare line-up of this weekend’s fixtures leaves a solid six 3pm Saturday games. Among them, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City all feature. Ha, that will only result in one thing: streaming. NBC will be the main braodcasters being mugged off, you’d imagine – not that yours truly has any insight on such rogue internet acts.
‘Should the League Cup be abolished’ debate
Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho have both bemoaned the impact of the League Cup on players’ readiness this week, leading to yet more debate on whether the competition should be abolished. You can’t blame the likes of Jim White plugging Twitter polls about this topic for their daily radio show, but come on, when’s it going to end?
😀😀😀
#SCFC 🔴⚪️
Mame Biram Diouf continuing to play as a wing-back and nobody questioning it
The Senegalese striker came to Manchester United, of all places, in 2009, but a lack of playing time saw him end up at Stoke five years later. This season, he’s bizarrely featured as a wing-back in Mark Hughes’s new Conte-esque formation, and everyone seems completely fine with it. It’s great, a player adapting his skill set to play another position – but let’s at least have Robbie Savage giving his two cents on it.
Rio Ferdinand getting ridiculed on BT Sport for his boxing endeavours
Rio Ferdinand’s decision to pursue a boxing career has split audiences this week. Whether it’s a silly health decision, a lucrative publicity stunt or a genuine sporting challenge, one thing’s for sure: he’ll be getting ridiculed by Jake Humphrey – whose most natural post to date is still, undoubtedly Bamzooki – for it on BT Sport.
