Just seen the result. Bring on the Pikeys. Fell asleep at 2-2 with 20 mins to go. Central African time is 2 hours in front until the clocks in Europe change. Bloody 21:45 kick off here. Normally I work from 04:00 to 18:00 as no bloody European Working Directive in the DRC, but yesterday had to do a teleconference with Canadians so 20:00 finish. No time for a kip before kick off. Tonight skip dinner, sleep 18:00, set alarm for 21:40, watch match, celebrate with a bottle of wine then back to sleep until 03:15. COYS!!!
And in other news, Chelski win by an offside goal. Is their luck coming back? I don't think they are as good as their results suggest, but as usual the pundits will only report on results, conveniently forgetting that (for example) they should have lost against Everton.
Galatasaray have been banned from European competition for two years. Not for the ****e behaviour of their fans, as you might have thought, but for breaking the FFP rules. Currently wouldn't matter to them next season, as they're not in a qualifying position. I'd expect a few of their higher paid players to be sent off to China in the summer, though. Wesley Sneijder and Lukas Podolski are probably at the top of the list. Edit: Apparently the BBC are crap and it's one season. Only counts if they qualify within the next two.
Would they have dared punish Citeh or PSG like that? Citeh's "sponsorship" by Etihad is one of the greatest dodgy deals ever!
UEFA's investigation into Los Ladrones do Madrid receiving state aid went suspiciously quiet, didn't it?
Wenger wanted to keep him, but couldn't guarantee him game time ahead of the players we had at the time and he was at an age where he wanted to be guaranteed regular first-team football. That being said, I'd rather have kept him and risked him being upset on the bench, rather than keep Sanogo. Useless signing.
Arsenal imploding - the first sign of Spring Chelsea won't be retaining their title, but they will have a big say in the final weeks. Last three home games v CIty, Spurs & Leicester
"Petr Cech pulled his hamstring running back after going up for a stoppage-time corner and will now miss the Spurs game"
I hate what I call these "Little Tripods." I've noticed that Spurs often lose them. Team A beats team B, then team B beats team C. So when team A meets team C you'd think that team A would beat team C but with Spurs it often doesn't happen. I'll explain. Spurs beat Swansea, Swansea beat Arsenal so you'd think Spurs would beat Arsenal, with Spurs though it OFTEN doesn't happen. Just saying. It happened a couple or so years back with I think Spurs. Everton and Stoke. Spurs beat Everton, Everton Beat Stoke but Spurs lost to Stoke.
There were no prizes on offer going top last night, it was an awful performance, but I believe that is first time this season that we have been outplayed. Much as I hate to say it fairplay to Bilic, who's tactics were spot on, it was one of nights that we were lucky to get nil. How we respond is now the key, if we win at the weekend and all will be rosy in the garden again and even a draw would not be the end of the world. 10 matches to go and in this most unpredictable of seasons who knows how many points are going to be needed to actually win the league it could require as few as 6 wins, with a couple of draws thrown in, but if you look at my record in the prediction league you will know that this not necessarily my forte!