I primarily focus my attention (and this site) on the English Premier League.  In my humble opinion, it is the best soccer to watch in the world.  It may not have the top two or three players in the world, but overall competition among clubs can’t be beat.  There are more than two teams that have a chance to win the title each year (looking at you, La Liga), and it’s not rife with corruption and racism (ahem, Serie A).  I’ll admit I watch little of the Bundesliga and even less of Ligue 1, so I’ll leave them out of this.

Yesterday, I did watch a good amount of the Spanish Super Cup game between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.  And two things really stuck out to me: 1.) They are brilliant players with a ton of individual and team skill, and 2.) They’re whiny bitches who would rather let the ref decide the game than their ability.

I’ll try to stick to the positives first, the skill.  Atletico Madrid were hosting this first leg of the Super Cup against Barcelona and that meant a lot of different things.  Atletico are possibly the only team who consistently has a chance of challenging Barca and Real Madrid for supremacy in La Liga, and this offseason they bolstered their team with the addition of world class striker David Villa.  Villa used to play for Barcelona but was pretty much frozen out of the squad last season and left on somewhat contentious terms with the Catalan club. So when the schedules for the season came out he must have been licking his lips at the first time he got to face his former employers.  And last night he wasted no time getting his revenge with a brilliant goal to put Atletico up 1-0 in the first half.  Nor did he waste his time in celebrating with his teammates after a beautiful build up to the goal.  This is the skill that Spanish football can provide:

Aaaaaand there’s the other side of the story, which threatens to overshadow the skill on display.  The way that Spanish football is played and the style most sides use, particularly made famous by Barcelona (the tiki-taka style), lends itself to be vulnerable to poorly timed tackles.  Maybe this is on purpose, I don’t know, but it works as an effective passing style as well as earning free kicks.  So with so many free kicks and little clips on a players heel or ankle, you’re bound to get a couple players diving here and there and going down a bit too easy.  Well this shit has gotten out of hand.  Prime example is last night on two separate occasions.  The first was Jordi Alba already on the ground and Atletico’s Diego Costa walking by giving him a pat on the head, which seemed innocent enough.  As soon as the rest of the Barca players see this and Jordi Alba’s ridiculous reaction, they freak their shit and all make a B-line for the ref to put in their complaints:

The second situation came in the second half after Sergio Busquets blatantly takes out David Villa with a poor tackle.  It’s not doubt a foul, and it gets called.  It probably did deserve a yellow card as well (which would be Busquets’ second yellow).  But that’s not my problem here.  What really chaps my ass is that it’s now Atletico’s turn to chase the referee around the field, complaining and lobbying for the card.  Look at these assholes!  They look like idiots.

If I’m an impartial viewer (which I’ll admit I’m not) of La Liga, this would really turn me off.  Just play the beautiful game as you’re clearly capable of doing, and let the referee make the calls and determine who gets the cards.  It seems they care too much about getting a player sent off, getting the free kick just outside the box, or going to ground too easily inside the box.  Let your skill determine the winner and it’ll all play out as it should.

Also, Busquets can fuck right off.

Cheeky bastard!! And just like that, we have our new front runner for the CotW Cheek of the Week (that’s really redundant, I know) and this one is just obnoxious. Look who finally figured out how to finish! Jordan Henderson coming in HOT and stamping a helpless defender’s ticket to Nutmeg City, all while putting the final nail in Notts County’s Capital One Cup coffin in extra time.

I know that this competition is a complete joke, but this is the kind of swagger I want to see out of Henderson every week (especially this week again Manchester United). The Anfield faithful might have pulled the trigger a bit early a few seasons ago when they started calling him the next Steven Gerrard, but today’s goal was the first time that I can honestly say that he truly looked Gerrard-esque.

Yahoo Sports: A 2-2 draw in the second leg of the Champions League playoff between Legia Warsaw and Steaua Bucharest put the aggregate score at 3-3 and allowed the visitors to advance to the the group stage on away goals. Before the match, Legia fans were more focused on another adversary, though: competition organizers UEFA.

Earlier this month, UEFA ordered the Polish champions to pay a €30,000 fine and close the north stand of their stadium — home to the club’s troublemaking ultras — for Tuesday’s match as punishment for racist behavior during their second qualifying round tie against Welsh club The New Saints FC. So prior to the second-leg match aignast Steaua, Lega supporters choreographed a large display in the club’s colors that spelled out “UEFA Ultra Extreme Fanatical Atmosphere” with a heart as a background. It then disintegrated into an orgy of flares that told the administrative body exactly how they felt about the sanctions.

Hey Seattle Sounders and the Emerald City Supporters, hold Legia Warsaw’s jock real quick cause you just got beasted and they weren’t even trying. They’ve probably never even heard of Seattle. They’re beef was with that fat cats down at UEFA who decided to hand the defending Polish Champions a €30,000 fine for their fans creating an extreme fanatical atmosphere and more generally speaking for being insanely racist in a previous match against Wales side The New Saints back in July.

Now racism in footy isn’t something that we support here at CotW, unless we’re talking about Gareth Bale looking like a monkey, but he’s white and just so happens to very much resemble a monkey, so I’m not even going to consider that racism, I mean just look at him:

Even though we would like to see Legia Warsaw clean up their act a little bit and downplay the racism, you gotta respect the show that they put on yesterday and the big middle finger to the UEFA Board that this act represents. I also love how that included the “Extreme Fanatical Atmosphere” UEFA complaint in their display. Top notch. Attending a Polish League footy match has now officially been added to the bucket list.

No big deal, just Sturridge doing Sturridge in the streets of Liverpool with one lucky fan. In time I can see the Sturridge Dance turning into the new Macarena, just gotta give it some time. Pretty cool of him to not leave this fan hanging and joining in on the action. I think it is safe to say that the Liverpool faithful have just found their new fan favorite.

Today, at 11:45am EST, will be the draw for the group stage of the Champions League finals.  I’ll update this later on today with how the draw pans out, but below are the pots that each team is chosen from.  Pot 1 being the top tier teams, pot 2 second, and so on. Should be an interesting draw for English clubs with Manchester City the only one not in pot 1 (lolz).  Dortmund are also in pot 3 so they could get a tough draw.  No doubt the “random” selection will try to have Real Madrid and Barca face each other in the finals.

Pot One: Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Chelsea, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Arsenal, Porto, Benfica

Pot Two: Atletico Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, Schalke 04, Marseilles, CSKA Moscow, Paris SG, Milan, Juventus

Pot Three: Zenit St Petersburg, Manchester City, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund, Basel, Olympiakos, Galatasaray, Bayer Leverkusen

Pot Four: Real Sociedad, Copenhagen, Napoli, Anderlecht, Celtic, Steaua Bucharest, Viktoria Plzen, Austria Vienna

You know you’re singing it

So that’s that.  The Champions League groups are set, with a few interest matchups, a group(s) of death, and a tough road ahead for some English clubs, easy for others.  The draw, taking place in Monaco, which only seems fitting, is a “random” selection of clubs set into different pots to essentially rank clubs and create even groups.  Let’s get a breakdown:

GROUP A: Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Bayer Leverkusen, Real Sociedad

Not a horrible break here at all for Man United.  David Moyes’ immediate future in Europe looks promising after this drawing, and United really should have no problem taking enough points from this group, if not winning it outright.

GROUP B: Real Madrid, Juventus, Galatasaray, FC Copenhagen

Not a terribly difficult group, but certainly a few good matchups and always a tough test in Galatasary.  Everyone should be afraid to go to Turkey, those guys are nuts.  Having said that, I think Juve and Real Madrid make it out to this group.  Going out on a limb, I know…

GROUP C: Benfica, Paris Saint-Germain, Olympiacos, Anderlecht

If there is a group of death, does that make this the group of life?  A stroll in the park for PSG, I reckon.  I know Benfica is always at the top of the Portuguese league, and they’re a good champions league competitor, but I’m not so sure they really should be in the top pot for the draw.  Considering the rest of the group, Benfica will make it through.

GROUP D: Bayern Munich, CSKA Moscow, Manchester City, Viktoria Plzen

Viktoria Plzen?  Sounds like a light beer.  Whatever their name is, they’re not gonna make it.  Man City has proven to be abysmal in the champions league and have shown nothing under Manuel Pelligrini yet, so I don’t know what to expect out of this group.  Munich through, and… I guess…. Man City? I don’t know….

GROUP E: Chelsea, Schalke, FC Basel, Steaua Bucharest

This is also most certainly not your group of death.  Chelsea have been very successful in the last two years in Europe so if Jose Mourinho is smart he’ll quickly crash out of this tournament, it’s done nothing good for the past two Chelsea managers.  But even his worst efforts won’t prevent him from getting past the group stage.  Schalke will be joining them.

GROUP F: Arsenal, Marseille, Borussia Dortmund, Napoli

Now this…. this may be your group of death.  Literally all four of these teams can make it into the next stage out of this group.  It continues to rain shit on Arsene Wenger.  Yeeeesh, I really thought the guy would hold on to his job but after not making out of this group that may draw the line.  I’ve got Dortmund and Napoli here making it out from the basement.

GROUP G: Porto, Atletico Madrid, Zenit Saint Petersburg, Austria Vienna

Woof.  I’m not trying to hate on Portuguese teams here, but come on!?  I don’t know what else to say here.  I like Atletico Madrid getting through here on David Villa’s back, and a shootout between Zenit and Porto.  But with all my haters-gonna-hate attitude, I’ll take Porto here.

GROUP H: Barcelona, AC Milan, Ajax, Celtic

I think the Champions League gods must just hate Celtic.  After showing some remorse to the Scottish club yesterday with a last minute winner just to make it this far, they get struck by lightning and thrown into the other group of death.  I’m not sure which group is tougher, this or group F.  Ajax also gets put in the tough group back to back years, and Celtic will have to recreate their clubs greatest ever win to even have a chance here. Which they won’t, Barca and AC on to the next.  Sorry Rod.

So there you have it.  Feel free to shed some tears, it’s back:

Well, this is what you get on weekends of international breaks.  With no club football there are international matches and World Cup qualifiers to keep us busy.

Over the weekend there was also a charity match for former Celtic and Aston Villa player Stilyan Petrov, who had to retire after being diagnosed with Leukemia.  The game was not entirely full of “charity”, however, as football greats and celebrities mixed together on the field.  One of those impostors was One Direction star Louis Tomlinson.  (Tomlinson isn’t a complete impostor, as he has signed for a professional club.)  But Gabby Agbonhalor would try to set the world straight again and welcome this kid to the show by bull-dozing him over in his own box.

Tomlinson, wearing 1D as his kit number, would have to be substituted off pitch before he threw up all over himself.  How does this make you vomit?  Kid sounds real soft to me. Good luck play first team football for real.

We at COTW apologize for the lack of posts lately. I think we are all slammed with work at our full time jobs, not to mention the international break not helping our cause. Nevertheless, no excuse for missing Deadline Day and rounding up Super Sunday. I think we all know what happened (Huge Liverpool win over United, Arsenal embarrassing a brand new Tottenham team full of signings with their depleted squad), and obviously I can’t wait for Saturday to see this man in an Arsenal kit.

Not going to review every signing because we are well past that, but obviously Ozil was the highlight of the day. Fellaini to United was a HUGE move that we had all been expecting, and Rooney/Ba/Suarez all stayed put. Liverpool made a couple of nice signings as well in Sakho and Ilori to bulk up the defense.

..but seriously, OZIL!!! So fucking pumped. Obviously Madrid is unleashing a joke of a smear-campaign on him now that they realized how stupid it was to let him go, saying his off-the-pitch lifestyle was affecting his play. Eat shit.

In other news, USA is officially going to Brazil next summer, after a massive win over Mexico in Columbus. It was a shaky start, but the second half proved to be the difference. MOTM Eddie Johnson played a great game, netting the first goal with a phenomenal header, beasting the whole defense. Following that, Donovan scored after a great short cross from Diskerud that found him perfectly in front of goal. We’re just not going to talk about Dempsey missing the PK. They are on fire right now. CAN’T WAIT to see this squad at full strength.

My favorite part was watching the USMNT celebrate the best way Americans know how to celebrate a patriotic victory: chanting USA and literally chugging beers. FUCKING AMERICA. I love my country.

Obligatory…

Definitely going to follow in BMCadwell’s footsteps and apologize for the lack of posts over the last two weeks. I was originally planning on doing a writeup after the Liverpool victory over second tier squad Manchester United (seriously, can you even top 4 bro) but I was a bit tipsy and basically lost track of the day (aka passed out).  Then I was planning on doing a Super Sunday recap during the week, but work has been a bit silly for us all over the past two weeks and blogging doesn’t quite pay the bills (yet) so unfortunately work gets priority. And to top it all off, we were smack dab in the middle of the doldrumatic state known as the international break. But enough excuses from me, I’m back and ready to roll.

I feel like since we completely dropped the ball on the Super Sunday Roundup, the next best thing I can do for ya’lls is come up with my Top 5 gifs of the Summer 2013 transfer window, so without further adieu, here we go. (Note: 60% of them include Wenger)

#5) Kicking off our GIF roundup is one from the Tottenham camp, which was clearly created at the beginning of the summer when they still had high hopes of retaining Gareth Bale. Here we have AVB and Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy and Tech Director Franco Baldini doing the Leo Dance with Gareth Bale, Paulinho and David Villa. Paulinho would be the only signing they had from that crop over the summer, but its still a fantastic gif.

#4) The first of many GIFs related to Arsene Wenger comes in at the four spot. This one is simple but it really drives the point home as it depicts Wenger going on a rabid shopping spree before the end of the transfer period. Enjoy

#3) Once again, we have another Arsene Wenger GIF. This one was essentially salt in the wounds of Arsenal supporters worldwide as it mocked the teams ability to have one quality signing after the Luis Suarez deal melted down with about one week remaining in the transfer period. I still laugh out loud whenever I watch it.

#2) This had to be one of the weirdest/best gifs of the summer. It shows the Manchester United duo of David Moyes and David De Gea with their multiple attempts to pick up Thiago Alcantara from Barcelona with a lovely Terminator 2 Twist. I can’t even imagine how much time went into this gif. Whoever put this thing together has to be one of the biggest trolls on the internet, and I respect the shit out of it.

#1) And at number one, we have our final Arsene Wenger gif, which came out moments after they completed their epic signing of German superstar Mesut Ozil, proving once and for all that in a tight situation, Wenger can still make it rain.

And there you have it fellow footy trolls. My work load has fortunately died down a bit, so expect more posts to come as we celebrate the end of this grueling international break.

Bale looks set to make his Madrid debut, and it appears Cristiano is making sure the monkey (not racist if he’s white, guys) knows his place. From training the other day, a simple keep-away drill resulted in Ronaldo diving at Bale’s ankles the second he got the ball.

Notice everyone playing around, with happy faces, and Ronaldo NOT HAVING IT at all. Maybe he just misses his best pal, Ozil?

Am I trying to stir some shit up when there is nothing there? Probably…but I think we all know it’s going to take quite a while for Bale to fit in at Madrid:

Guys, can I come? Please?

Karim? Marcelo? Guys?

Has nothing to do with anything, just had to throw this in here

Speaking of, how is Ozil doing fitting in with his new teammates?

“Of course we can challenge for the title. This is one the biggest clubs in world.”

Haven’t done one of these in a while, but I know you loyal COTW readers love this smut.

Why don’t we stay with the man of the hour…

OZIL FEVER!

Welcome to Mandy Capristo, Ozil’s girlfriend…hope you enjoyed that one.

(@MandyCapristo)

Ridiculous.

In other CL action at the moment, Klopp is ready to murder someone:

…just a slight h/t to Deadspin.

UPDATE: THEO WALCOTT HAS OFFICIALLY FIGURED OUT WHERE THE GOAL IS!

I…really don’t know what to say. Just thought I should share this picture with the COTW community. (As anyone can tell, I hate Bale) Nice purse, Gareth. I legitimately thought this was an ugly chick for a second.

While scrolling for pictures of ‘disgusted monkeys’ to describe how Bale looks, I stumbled upon a picture of me, mirons09, and ajbg at our day to day jobs:

Cube monkeys…FML

Deadspin: The newest exhibition of the Almighty’s omnipotence comes from today’s Champions League match between PSG and Anderlecht. Not content that his previous two goals in the contest elicited the requisite levels of awe, Zlatan decided to unleash upon the globe a third that should cement in our minds his place as deity.

From a fairly slow build up, Marco Veratti finds a deep-lying Ibrahimovic for a pass just into Anderlecht’s half. Ibra spots Maxwell in space out wide and flicks the ball to him. Maxwell attempts a cross onto the surging run of Ezequiel Lavezzi but that is cut out by the Anderlecht defense.

Okay Ibra, fine, I’ll do it. I’ll come out of my lazy ass slumber and blog about how you basically just made the entire planet bust a nut on this ridiculous golazo from today’s Champions League matchup against Anderlecht.

I also came very close to writing the exact same words on Sunday afternoon after he scored this mind fuck goal vs. Bastia, but I got too drunk and then depressed at the Patriots/Jets game to do anything that wasn’t directly involved with moving into the fetal position and having a solid cry.

I guess that you can say that Ibra is having a deeeecent week? Amirite? Aside from the lazershow that he put on in today’s champions league fixture, he scored 3 other goals; no big deal. I feel kinda weird about it, but I’m seriously contemplating getting a long sleeve Ibra PSG kit. Just look at that thing, dripping with sex. Does that make me a bandwagon jumper? Absolutely. Can kind of sell it off as “Oh yeah, I went to Paris once and really fell in love with the city?” Probably not. But do you know what? I couldn’t give two shits. Ibra is so hot right now, Ibra.

PS. Sorry for the month long hiatus.

Jesus Christ that took a while. It’s been a pretty wild couple of months. Work life finally kicked all three of us in the ass and we’re all 100% cube monkeys for life at this point. But there are some perks to the cube monkey life, one for example, is that during the week of Christmas, you literally just twiddle your thumbs at your desk until its time to go home, but instead of twiddling thumbs, we’re going to troll the living shit out of the past 3 months in the world of footy (mostly EPL because the other leagues, sans the Bundesliga, are for the birds)

Lets take a look at the table….

Well well well would you look at that!! Liverpool and Co, the team that I once called a sinking ship, has corrected its path and has left the rest of the EPL in ruins in its wake. Honestly, they are SMASHING IT right now. More to come on this team later, but I’ll leave you with a little taste of whats to come with this Luis Suarez 2013-2014 Goal Compilation, I hope you brought lubriderm and a stack of tissues. (fast forward to the 1:00 to avoid the classic uber gay sentimental euro video editing nerd intro)

Lets take a look at the rest of the EPL. Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea are all stacked at the top of the table with Liverpool and at any moment could leapfrog one another. I’m thinking there will be some serious shuffling in the top 4 for the remainder of the season. Manchester City is DANGEROUS right now. A 31 GD going into the Christmas break is absolutely bananas, and they haven’t lost one game at the terrorist funded Etihad Stadium, which will surely change on Boxing Day when the top seeded Red’s come to town. The only thing I’m scared of in that matchup is Kolarov, the guys a fucking psychopath.

And how about Manchester United!! LOLing all over my desk on this one. Looks like Moyes’ Boys have some work cut out for them if the want to make the Europa League next year, let alone the Champions League.

Here’s your dose of Ibraporn. With all the talk about the Ballon D’Or award going to either Messi, Ronaldo or Ribery, I wanted to put in the CotW vote for our main man Ibrahimovic. Now, CotW hasn’t been recognized by the corrupted FIFA suits; yet, but we wanted to have our voices heard.

This guy has been a nonstop highlight real for the past year. Sure he might be a little crazy, but we see that as a good thing. It kills me to know that he will sitting in the stands during the World Cup this summer. Enjoy this recap of his sensational 2013 year.

What if Johnson didn’t deflect that first goal? What if Sterling never came off the pitch? What if Countinho had fouled them on the counter? What if Henderson wasn’t suspended for 3 games on a stupid tackle? What if Gerrard didn’t slip last weekend? What if Sturridge scored instead of hitting the post? What if Sakho buried that header in the beginning of the match? WHAT IF LIVERPOOL DIDN’T COMPLETELY JUST SHIT THE MOTHER FUCKING BED?!?!

For fucks sake it took me almost an entire week to get over Gerrard’s slip-and-fall John Terry moment and this was not what we needed. I literally sat in my cubical awestruck. It was 5pm, and I wasn’t going home. My workphone was ringing, and I wasn’t picking up. Friends were texting me about the result, and I wasn’t texting “Fuck you” back. This one really hurt. Like Patriots losing the Superbowl in 2007 hurt. Now there still is an outside chance that City can lose one of their final two games, but realistically, the seasons over.

Before I go any further, I wanted to touch on something regarding CoTW. I know I haven’t been updating this site with any form of regularity lately, but there were a few sneaky and backdoor reasons for that. First off, work: We have both been bananas busy for the past year and don’t have much cubical time to make any updates. Until we start making some internet money off this site, it ain’t paying any bills. Second, and the sneakier one: Immediately following my last post back on Christmas Eve, Liverpool dropped from the top of the table all the way down to 5th in less than 2 weeks. I wasn’t willing to risk any hoodoo (definitely not using that word properly) or jinx. Maybe I was a little bit too cocky in my post and this was some karma coming back at me? I wasn’t willing to risk it, and on superstition alone, I let the site go dark for 5 months. I did however pay for the URL to stay up because I knew that at the end of the season, I was going to be blogging my tits off once again. And that time has basically come.

Now, getting back to that awful moment earlier this afternoon when the FT whistle blew. Here I am, ready to blow my fucking brains out when out of nowhere I’m hit directly in the face by this little minx.

Rebecca Lowe coming in HOT with the aggressive leg placement. I don’t know whether to make a run to the tissue box for my tears or for my love butter. I’m not gonna lie, going from 6 to Midnight immediately after having your heart ripped out is a pretty strange feeling. However, it was right around this moment when I realized that there was in fact, still a God. Now I want to take a moment to thank Rebecca, her legs and all of the other people over at NBC Sports who have made this season one to remember from an American perspective. I will have more on their amazing season coverage later on this week.

But now back to Liverpool. This is one of the strangest feelings that I’ve encountered since I began following the team a while back. Last year if you told me that we would be challenging for the title, would breeze into the Champions League, and that Luis Suarez would not only stay at the club, but tie the EPL goal scoring record, I would have told you to fuck off and leave me alone. But all of that happened. And there is still that slim chance that City will slip up over the next two matches and Pool could do the unthinkable. I mean, this season could have been a whole lot worse, right United Fans?

Now don’t get me wrong, there are a ton of things that Liverpool really need to focus on in the off-season. At the very top of that list should be their defense. Holy shit I have never seen a defensive back 4 fold like a cheap suit so many times in one season. Why on earth was Rodger’s playing Sakho with Skrtel so many times this season? They have only paired together 17 times, and of those 17, have kept only 1 clean sheet. What the fuck is going on the Agger? All I’ve heard for the past year is that Barca is lining up an offer for him and that B.Rodge doesn’t like his style of play. Really Rodgers? Agger and Skrtel have been holding down the fort since 2008, and this year we decide to mix it up and toss in Sakho and Kolo “lolz” Toure. Now Sakho alone is fine. He’s a solid back and more importantly an excellent back line sub in FIFA 2014. And don’t get me started on Glen “Thunder Touch” Johnson. How many times can an overpaid RB sprint up the line, get the ball, dribble dribble dribble, shit cross and then job back to his defensive position while he watches the opposition score on the counter attack. Jesus Christ. Get him off the team. Literally the only player that was a stud in my opinion on the back line was Jon Flanagan. I freakin love me some Flano.

Okay yeah whatever, Manchester City to win the title and blah blah blah; but all I’m caring about today is Lukas Podolski squaring off with this sea-lion in some head tennis. Look at the handle on this sea-lion. Stall city right on his nose! Gotta be at least a 95 control in FIFA 14.

I guess this is how Podol is going to get getting warm for the FA Cup Final and the World Cup? The sea-lion looks like he has Ozil beat in terms for form and fitness so I guess you really can’t blame him.

Fuck City.

Hit em with the music!!

Well isn’t life just peachy over in Japan? People all around the world are sweating the results from the EPL and La Liga final matches but not these guys. Zero fucks to give down in Japan right now. Literally looks like they’re playing an after-school pickup game. Count em 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 dummies and then the laser rocket Ibra shot into the upper 90. Not bad at all.  Take a bow….(pun?)

Sweet Baby Jesus its been a while! I’m not even going to get into the apologizes and whatnot of explaining why we haven’t been updating the site regularly as of late. We’ve got jobs people; horrible, horrible jobs. That being said, it has been one hell of an entertaining ride so far this season; so lets take a quick look at where we stand. (I’m only going to review the teams that actually matter, if you think I’m going to waste time writing up paragraphs about Burnley, Sunderland, QPR and Hull than you’re fucking crazy.)

:

The Top 4:

1.) Chelsea have been absolutely CRUISING so far this season.  There has been only 1 game in 19 where they failed to gain any points. Are you kidding me? Jose and Co are absolutely smashing it and are on pace to end the season with over 100pts. I guess oil, the russian mob, extortion, money can buy you Cesc, Costa, happiness.

2.) Right behind them is Man City. And lets all just say fuck City because who honestly likes this team? I recently saw a guy in New Haven sporting a Man City zipup hoodie and I immediately felt the urge to yank my steering wheel to the right and take him out right there on the sidewalk. The only people who should be fans of City are..

• 1.) A Sheik
• 2.) A family member of the Sheik
• 3.) The Brothers Gallagher
• 4.) People from the outlined neighborhood below

3.) The Manchester United revival under Louis Van-Gaal has really chapped my ass and has also been god damn impressive at the same time. I was really enjoying trolling them last season. Live image of abgarner below when he looked at the mid season standings this morning:

4.) And at #4, like always we have Arsena…. Wait What?! South-Mother-Fuckin’ Hampton! “Oh lets sell Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert, Dejan Lovren and Luke Shaw and see how things pan out…don’t worry we’ll dig up Graziano Pellé from Feyenoord and we’ll be good.” And whelp, it has actually played out pretty well for them so far. Last season they finished 8th with 56pts and 15 wins; and this season they’re on pace for 20 wins, which really chaps my ass because I need Liverpool to surge into the number 4 spot pronto.

Best of the Rest:

-Arsenal. (5th) Oh Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal how I hate thee. I think most of my hatred comes out of the fact that BMCadwell and I have played roughly 1,000 games in FIFA from ’12 to ’15 only playing Liverpool vs. Arsenal but thats beside the point. They put together a solid month of December if you don’t put too much stock in that 3-2 loss to Stock earlier in the month. GOOnner fans (mainly Piers Morgan) have been calling for Wenger’s head all season but their form towards the end of the month has been solid; and Sanchez is a god damn beast. They will most likely leapfrog Southampton in January.

-West Ham, (6th) have absolutely shocked everyone so far this season. They’ve been extremely hot and cold but they have been able to take down the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City which was pretty damn impressive. Would have been really fucking neat if they could have taken out Man City last year but thats a different story. Daifra Sakho has been key in putting this squad  so far up on the table but something tells me this cannot last, mainly the fact that their West Ham and nobody really cares about them…other than Katie Perry; I’d like to blow her bubbles, amirite!?

-Tottenham (7th) God writing about the Spurs will make me go insane so I’ll try to keep this brief. They suck. There we go.

-Liverpool (8th) Dear Lord the shit I can write about the first three months of this season. I’m not even going to touch the Champions League debacle that put FC Basel through to the next round instead of Liverpool. LFC have lost to the likes of West Ham, Crystal Palace (Selhurst Park is cursed), Aston Villa and Newcastle; and have had 2 0-0 draws with Hull and Sunderland. You NEED to be taking 3 pts from these fixtures. The combination of losing Suarez, Sturridge being injured, and B Rodge shelling out cash for squids like Lovren and Balotelli have made for a horrible start to the 2014-2015 campaign. There is, however, light at the end of this shit filled tunnel.

-Swansea (9th) Bony and Sigurdson; literally the only 2 reasons why this team is anywhere on the top half of the table. They will drop to bottom half by February if Fabianski is still in net.

 -Newcastle (10th) Rounding out this write are the boys from Newcastle; who are currently in search of a new manager because they let Pards go on his merry way. Honest question guys, do you think you’re going to find gold or anything better than Pards with your team and fanbase? I feel like I’m alone in thinking that Pards wasn’t all that bad. Cissé is once again playing above his paygrade so you have that to thank for your top half position. If they can manage a decent transfer window I can see them staying in the top half, but most likely they’ll fuck it up. Best of luck to you at Palace Pards, you will be missed.