Sheffield United v West Ham United

The main advantage of international fixtures is that they give us all a break from Preview Percy. Sadly, all good things must come to an end so here is the grumpy one's look at Sunday's trip to Bramall Lane...

Right, where were we? Oh yes Sheffield United are next up on the list. Kick-off at Bramall Lane on Sunday is 2pm. The match is being screened on Sky without the need for you to shell out money or search for some kind of stream, all that having been scrapped – just after our Fulham match. For those of you who don’t have Sky, you could always look at Eyes Up Mother Brown – a sort of “Last Of The Sumer Wine” with football. This is available on something called You Tube apparently.


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So Sheffield United then. Having taken a few people by surprise in their first season back since throwing away a 10 point safety cushion in return for £25m all those years ago, they are finding things a little more tricky this time around. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it would require one to possess a heart of stone to see the current league table without laughing.

For the record they are in 20th spot with but a solitary point from the eight games played so far. That point, perhaps predictably, came against Fulham in a home 1-1 draw back in October. Other than that it’s been defeats all the way with home reversals to Wolves (0-2) Leeds and Man City (both 0-1) and away losses at Villa (1-0) Arsenal and Diverpool (both 2-1) and at Chelsea (4-1).

They will of course point to a number of extenuating circumstances. Last season’s top scorer Lys Mousset hasn’t appeared this season due to a troublesome ankle, whilst influential midfielder John Fleck and defender Jack O’Connell have also been missing – the latter possibly missing all season.

Last season’s keeper Dean Henderson copped a look at all the mistakes made by De Gea last season and elected to return to Old Trafford to take his chances there whilst midfielder John Lundstrom – a Scouser with England age-group caps despite the Scandinavian surname – has already decided that he would rather be elsewhere and has turned down a new deal to replace the one that expires at the end of the season. His good timing means that he won’t have to hear what is euphemistically referred to as a “mixed” reception when they read his name out before the match.

They at least moved into the transfer market to rectify the goalkeeping issue. Daisy, the socially distanced and bubbled personal assistant with the beautiful smile, informs me that they spent £18.5m to bring back custodian Aaron Ramsdale from Bournemouth, with whom he was relegated last season.

The thought of Championship football outweighed the more pleasant environment and the fact that he picked up the Cherries’ player of the season award last term in his decision-making process. Presumably there was also some concern on the part of Bournemouth themselves at keeping a player presumably on a decent wage with the much reduced tv money. Even without bringing Covid into play the gates at Dean Court with its 11,500 or so capacity weren’t going to be bringing too much into the coffers so a decent-sized fee was going to suit all concerned.

They also spent £23.5m on Liverpool striker Rhian Brewster. Brewster is actually a Chadwell Heath lad and we had a look while he was a kid. Chelsea’s pockets were deepest and he stayed there until he was 14 when his Dad decided he would have better opportunities up at Liverpool. There was a lot of gossip about the player’s future during his youth days with clubs across Europe sniffing around. It got to the stage where, in one of the more “pot and kettle” moments of football history, Liverpool cancelled a proposed friendly against Borussia Monchengladbach on the grounds that the Germans had been tapping the player up. Good to see the Scousers taking a moral stand against such offences isn’t it?

In terms of medals Brewster’s dad may have had a point I suppose. As an unused sub in their referee-assisted defeat of Spurs in the So-Called Champions League Final That Nobody Wanted (to give it its full title) Brewster is now the proud owner of a So-Called Champions League winner’s medal, despite never having made a competitive appearance for the Divers at that point.


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Even the arrival of silverware did not translate into first team time – his only appearances coming in the cups. He was sent out on loan in January to Swansea where he picked up 11 goals. His missed spot kick in what will always be the Charity Shield helped Arsenal to what they are claiming is a major trophy but with Liverpool’s forward line continuing to make miraculous recoveries from all those nasty tackles that never actually happen opportunities were limited leading to his move across the Pennines.

Scottish striker Ollie Burke came in from West Brom along with £3m with Callum Robinson going the other way. Twice the player has broken the record for the most paid for a Scot, firstly when moving from Forest to RB Leipzig for £13m and secondly when returning to Blighty when West Brom paid £15m for the player. The player claimed his return from Germany was due to his wanting more game time. If that was the case it was a plan that failed as the player was sent on loan firstly to Celtic and then last season to Alaves. Clearly not a player fancied by Slav then.

Amongst the other signings which mainly comprised of youngsters they did bring in the obligatory loan from Chelsea in the form of Welsh international Ethan Ampadu. Ampadu started his career with Exeter and is in the interesting position at the time of writing of having played more international matches (19) than he has in the various leagues his clubs have represented (16). You’d have thought that sending him out on loan all last season would have seen him gain more game time. He did actually play in the so-called Champions League for RB Leipzig who gave him a good write-up for his performance against Spurs (for what that’s worth) but a back injury saw him disappear off the radar following the restart and he ended up with just the 3 Bundesliga matches under his belt.

Top scorer is David McGoldrick who has netted three of the four they have (for want of a better word) amassed in the league this season. McGoldrick picked up the FAI international Player of the Year last season, having done the family tree research and located the statutory grandparent who had once had a pint of Guinness and liked it. No sooner had he cleared space on the mantlepiece for the trophy he tok time out to announce his retirement from the International game, stating that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Usually when one hears that statement one raises a quizzical eyebrow, strokes one’s chin and invokes the old mantra of “chinny reckon”. However, having seen just how bad the Republic of Ireland team are at present I can quite understand why one would want to stay at home.

Incidentally, for the England match last week we had the old subtitles on here at the rest home – most here are a bit mutton. Our Irish contingent were most upset as the lyrics of the rather anodyne “Ireland’s Call” – which sounds like a tourist board advert at the best of times – were displayed rather than those of the Soldiers Song, which was the tune that was actually being played. Still can’t blame the tv guys – it’s hard enough typing out stuff in English. That particular anthem is usually sung in the Gaelic translation and the subtitles would have been a right mare.

Which brings us onto this week’s look at the Wild and Wacky World of Association Football. The first points of Euro 2020 were awarded this week as England, Croatia and the Czech republic were given three points each on the qualification of Scotland for group D. goal difference to be sorted out nearer the time.

Elsewhere in international football England crashed out of the UEFA Needless Gap Filler League Type Thing by losing to Belgium. Ashley “where’s my ‘phone” Cole was quick to blame Declan Rice for Eric Dier’s nightmare at the back – apparently the shocking ball from Dier wasn’t to blame for the first goal it was Declan’s failure to save Dier’s bacon that was the cause of all problems.


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Meanwhile the room temperature IQ that is Jamie Carragher took a full half-an-hour before finally admitting that Rice’s challenge had been a good one and that the Dutch ref may just have made a howler, having spent the previous 20 minutes blaming Rice for making, er, a perfectly good tackle. Meanwhile the fact that we are no longer in the competition is no bad thing. I mean the central defensive positions had become an issue with anyone who is any good being injured. As well as Gomez. In fact Craig Dawson must have been wondering how Dier got a game. I know I was. Still at least we aren’t Germany. In the end Rice picked up his first goal for his country – well played young man – and, better still he also picked up no injuries.

Elsewhere Gareth Bale was quoted as saying “It’s nice to be in a place where I am wanted” though the follow up line of “even if it happens to be Tottenham” seems to have eluded the reporters present when he said it. Mo Salah tested positive for Covid-19. In fact he tested negative but VAR gave it to him anyway despite there being no contact. (Numerous other variations of that one are available at your local social media site).

Let’s move on to us shall we. Fulham, if you can remember that far back, presented a different challenge to that which we had been used to, requiring us to bring the game to them rather than playing on the counter. The goal when it finally came had an element of controversy – I know we have been on the receiving end of crap refereeing more than we have benefitted from it but Haller should really have been picked up for offside in the build-up. It was one of a number of errors throughout the game for a rookie official whose copy of the laws of the game seems to have been delivered with the page on “advantage” missing.

I think the award of the penalty was probably fair enough – the hooking motion of the challenge being enough to bring the player down. I am actually glad that the kick was awarded as, had it not been given, we would never have seen the funniest penalty I ever seen. If we are allowed back to matches by the time we have to visit Craven Cottage I for one will be giving (Please Don’t) Lookman an ironic cheer when his name is read out. It was such a bad penalty that Fabianski actually had the time to stop his dive and go back to get the ball which was floating towards goal with all the speed of an American election count.

On the injury front the big question is that of Antonio obviously. All the noises from the club are of the “he is progressing well and may make the bench on Sunday” variety. It wouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see him start – something that would arguably be preferable. It’s obviously much easier to have a full warm-up in the hour or so before kick-off whilst, with the best will in the world , a sub is always going to be struggling to get the pace of the game coming on with just a spot of running up and down the touchline behind him. Of course, maybe subs would be warmer if they were to abandon this ludicrous thing of not being ready in full kit at all times – a particular bete-noire of mine these days.

Elsewhere Ogbonna’s groin appears not to have been quite as bad as it was first feared. Missing out on Italy’s matches during the break will have helped there. Having recovered from the toe injury that kept him out of the squad for a bit Mark Noble sustained a knock to the ribs in training which will leave him as a doubt for this one. The only other absentee is likely to be Yarmolenko who has been surrounded by Covid whilst on international duty and will therefore be picking up his groceries from his front door for a couple of weeks.

So prediction then. Well firstly one hopes that the cobwebs that were present at the last occasion we were back after an international break are not present this time around. If we take that as read we will be facing a side who, although in similar statistical form to Fulham, have a tendency to be a little more on the front foot than the Cottagers. Thus this is likely to be more of a set up that plays in our favour. For that reason I think we will win this one – particularly if Antonio starts. So the £2.50 that I was going to chip in towards the costs of having all football pundits furloughed will instead be sent to the Winstone Turf Accountancy emporium (I’ll be over to settle up on 2 December – honest) and placed on a 2-1 away win.

Enjoy the game!


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When last we met at the Bramall Lane : Lost 1-0 (Premier League January 2020)

We fell foul of VAR as a handball of the sort that could have been given in our favour but wasn’t on dozens of occasions over the season my0steriously became a goal denying offence all of a sudden. Thus denying us an equalizer to McBurnie’s effort which owed much to the usually reliable Martin channeling his inner Roberto.

Going for his 50th appearance in a West Ham match in two seasons. Probably

Danger Man: David McGoldrick

I’m being lazy this week and going for the top goalscorer. So sue me.

Percy’s Poser

Last time the Fulham Palace and Gardens website was the source of the headline from which we removed some key words (you wait – one of those panel game shows will nick that idea – you mark my words):

A tale of two XXXXXXX, a XXXXXXXX and a bunch of XXXXXX

Obviously an easy one but first out of the hat with the correct answer of “Edmunds, Tamarisk and Grapes” was Mrs Sarah Intelligence-Qutient of Chadwell St Mary. Well done Mrs IQ.

This week we refer to one of the more heinous crimes to have been committed in recent years:

Sheffield woman won’t shut down XXXXXX after beloved XXXXX stolen during break-in

Good luck everyone!

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