Gameweek 30: The Headlines

Sorry, England; the international break was a snooze fest and I've never been happier to see the return of Premier League football.

Between Kalvin Phillips' obscene hand gestures and Kevin de Bruyne's Johnny Bravo-esque choice of hairstyles, there's lots of of superficial topics to discuss before we even make it into the scorelines.

Shall we?

Kalvin Phillips loses his s**t

If you haven't been following the saga of Kalvin Phillips, you're not the only one. The 28-year-old has been making a slow slide into obscurity ever since Pep Guardiola decided he wasn't good enough to start at Manchester City.

Pep also once called Kalvin fat, which is beside the point, but still funny.

Kalvin took himself and his Game of Thrones braids to West Ham in the January transfer window, hoping to log more minutes. But so far in his limited time in a Hammers uniform, Kalvin has conceded two penalties, been red carded, and gifted opponents with a waterfall of goals. You could say East London isn't treating him so well.

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This Saturday's showing against Newcastle was a new low. Kalvin was subbed on when West Ham was beating Newcastle 3-1, and almost immediately conceded a penalty to Anthony Gordon. The game ended 4-3 to Newcastle, and while I'm not saying that scoreline is wholly Kalvin's fault, I'm not not saying it, either.

After he boarded the West Ham bus, Kalvin flipped off a fan who called him "useless." West Ham hasn't publicly commented on it yet, and likely won't.

Yellow cards, red cards, and penalties, oh my

Red cards and penalties are the sugar rush of football games. There's nothing like them to absolutely upend the trajectory of a game, in the best kind of way.

This weekend gave us 4 penalties and 3 red cards, which feels above average to me. And the stats would agree that this has been a penalty-heavy season! According to data from Opta, we're on track to see 100+ penalties taken by May (a per game average of 0.28 penalties). The rise in penalties is likely due partly to VAR, which now analyzes every slip, slide, and errant elbow in agonizing detail.

Just ask Vincent Kompany about it. The Burnley manager was red carded for protesting a controversial penalty, after his side's Lorenz Assignon fouled Mykhailo Mudryk in the box.

Considering that Zidane's headbutt plays in my mind rent-free anytime I think about straight red cards, I wish I had a transcript of what Vincent said. Was it really worse than Materazzi insulting Zidane's sister?

Maybe karma had its say though, because Chelsea still gave up 2 points to a 10-man Burnley side.

Feels like Cole "Ice Cold" Palmer is the only bright spot in Mauricio Pochettino's life right now.

After the game, Vincent gave his completely unbiased and measured take on the refereeing decisions that tilted the game in the Blues' favor.

“I’ll keep saying what I think,” he said, per The Athletic. “I’m not shying away from it and I’ve said it to the referees themselves, the officials, refereeing hasn’t been good enough this season."

"...“I think the addition of VAR and more opinions and more officials doesn’t make it easy for them to do their jobs.”

Go off, Vincent! He'll be watching Burnley's Tuesday clash against Wolves in the stands like the rest of us peons.

When the woodwork is Man U's best defender

Some days you win FA Cup quarterfinals in thrilling overtimes against Liverpool, other days you're completely outclassed by a team languishing in 15th place.

That's football for you!

In a Saturday night battle at the Gtech Community Stadium, the Bees hit the woodwork an astounding 4 times, while Ivan Toney also had a goal ruled out for being offside.

Also, 85 touches in the opposition box? Come ON.

Meanwhile, Manchester United was only marginally better than me as a five-year-old, having just celebrated after scoring a goal in the wrong net.

Somehow, shockingly, United's Mason Mount scored a goal deep into stoppage time, which was an isolated attack in a game devoid of any attacking prowess. Erik Ten Hag looked just as surprised as all of the viewers at home, but he wasn't about to knock a gift horse in the mouth.

Equally shocking was Brentford's equalizer three minutes later, capping off a truly bonkers game.

In the post-game press conference, I was struck by how tired and stressed out Erik Ten Hag looked.

This is not the face of a Dutchman who's thriving. This is a Dutchman who's aged 100 years in a campaign so disappointing it's driven Manchester United to change their Twitter bio to "Hated. Adored. Never ignored."

Is this supposed to be some kind of poetic response to all the hate the Red Devils are getting? Or did Garnacho log on to Twitter instead of the admin?

The Title race

The most (over) hyped part of the weekend was, of course, the title race.

The amount of times that Rebecca Lowe, Tim Howard, and Robbie Mustoe plugged the Arsenal-Manchester City match as "the game of the season" would have had me on edge even if I wasn't a Gooner.

But this all came to nought because the game was a 0-0 stalemate that had everyone criticizing it as "boring" and "nervy." Well, that's the problem when you get everyone's hopes up, Rebecca! This was never going to be a 5 goal shootout; it was always going to be a defensive chess match.

In the end, the points were shared at the Etihad, but it was Arsenal who made the bigger point.

Last season, Arsenal got smoked by City (3-1 and 4-1, respectively) in both games. This time, they took 4 points from a possible 6. At the Etihad, they also kept City from scoring for the first time since October 2021.

It's called progress and you spell it S-A-L-I-B-A.

Interestingly, everyone's favorite Viking was lambasted online for his lackluster performance. Roy Keane told Sky Sports that, apart from Haaland's athleticism in front of goal "the level of his general play is so poor ... almost like a League Two player."

Haaland could probably beat anyone in the world in a long jump, but he's struggling to score when Kevin de Bruyne isn't spoon feeding him bombs.

The real winners of the weekend are Liverpool, who go top with a win over Brighton.

I saw an interesting note on The Athletic about Pep Guardiola, Mikel Arteta, and Jurgen Klopp's preferred styles of play.

Mikel, having learnt from Pep, favors his risk-averse high-press and buildup from the back. By contrast, Klopp refers to his ideal style of play as "heavy metal football," AKA pressing and counter-attacking that can result in as many potential bad outcomes as good ones.

Right now, Klopp is winning the three-horse race, but we still have 9 games to go!

And, because the universe gives just as much as it takes, we have less than 24 hours until the next round of games.

Cue me moving around all my afternoon meetings.