Gameweek 5: 5 Talking Points

On Sunday, my husband, daughter, and I went to our local Arsenal bar (I see you, Five Wits!) to get breakfast tacos and watch Arsenal beat Manchester City.

Ten minutes in, Ava was asking us to "chase" her around the viewing room, Erling Haaland had scored, and I was demanding we go home.

I'm in my 30s, OK? I don't weather sporting stress in public places well anymore!

Anyway, Arsenal nearly took 5 years off my life by losing (god, the horror), until Gabriel Martinelli channeled his inner Liverpool and scored in the 93rd minute.

His fiancée quickly hopped on Instagram to let the rest of us peasants know she had manifested the goal ever since Martinelli WhatsApped her to say he wasn’t starting.

"You'll play against tired legs and score a goal, wait and see," she said. Or something to that effect, my Portuguese isn't great.

Manifestation queen behavior, though! May we all be so lucky as to have someone willing to speak goals into existence on our behalf.

And speaking of manifestation… let’s manifest a little structure. Instead of me spiraling about the title race (it's only GW 5!!) or gleefully dissecting Andre Onana's mishaps (he's been shipped off to Turkey, anyway), I'm breaking things down into 5 Talking Points for Week 5.

Have Manchester United finally turned a corner?

Manchester United have finally won a game of football! Against Chelsea, no less. So, does this mean they're back?

HAHAHA no.

Here's the missing context: Chelsea's 'keeper, Robert Sanchez, apparently left his brain in the locker room and decided to karate chop Bryan Mbeumo when he ran through on goal in the 5th minute. It was sad news for me, a Sanchez stan on FPL.

The red card was immediate and obvious (as was the -3 hit I took to my fantasy team). That left Chelsea down a man, and manager Enzo Maresca forced to make a flurry of subs.

At least there's this, though:

With attackers Pedro Neto and Cole Palmer both off the field, Chelsea's attack regressed to the same energy level I typically bring when emailing someone to ask for an extension on a writing assignment. The Blues conceded two goals in truly comical fashion, making Manchester United look like a competent, well-organized side in the process. That alone is an achievement.

Things were looking bleak for Chelsea until United's Casemiro went from hero to zero—scoring a goal, then immediately undoing it all with a red card. So, both sides were balanced at 10 men.

In the second half, Chelsea tried to claw their way back into the game. Wesley Fofana had a goal ruled offside, Trevoh Chalobah snuck one in late, and the match finished 2-1.

The victory was a much-needed win for United, but is it enough to keep Ruben Amorim in a job? Probably not. It feels more like luck than anything else; plus, United's once-vaunted talents (Amad Diallo, Kobbie Mainoo), continue to ghost around the pitch like me in a meeting that could've been an email.

If I was a betting woman, I'd put money on Amorim getting sacked and Chelsea finishing outside the top 4. Both outcomes feel inevitable.

Don't count the promoted teams out!

This week was a biggie for the promoted teams: Sunderland tied Aston Villa 1-1 despite going down a man, Burnley tied Nottingham Forest 1-1, and Leeds spanked Wolves 3-1.

Oh, Aston Villa, you sweet summer child. At least you finally remembered how to score a goal...after 535 minutes.

It feels like a big departure from the past two years, when no matter how badly things were going for West Ham, Wolves, or Tottenham (lol), their chairpeople could always count on the promoted teams being worse. Not this time.

After five games, Sunderland, Leeds, and Burnley have 19 points collectively. Sunderland and Leeds have each won twice already. For comparison, this time last year, none of the promoted squads (Leicester, Southampton, Ipswich) had managed a single win. The year before, Sheffield, Burnley, and Luton were even worse and set all kinds of records for being only narrowly better than the Derby side of 2007-08, which lives on infamy.

So what’s changed? I credit the managers.

They’ve clearly studied how promoted teams have failed before and decided to do literally the opposite. That means no delusions of grandeur, and no goalkeepers trying to cosplay as Ederson by playing out from the back. Instead, their squads are rooted in physicality, athleticism, long throws, and set pieces. There's a reason all of Leeds' players are over six feet tall; good luck beating them in the air!

This modest success for the promoted teams spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E for the usual suspects (West Ham, Wolves), but also for Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest if they don't hit their stride soon.

I'm here for it! It makes the league more competitive, and that makes everything more fun.

The "unfair" narrative persists

By now, you know that football lives and breathes on the idea that at least one team is continuously getting done dirty. Think Jose Mourinho moaning after literally every match, Arsène Wenger snarking about how referees conspired to keep Manchester United at the top, or Real Madrid boycotting every single Ballon d’Or ceremony unless a Madrid player wins top honors.

Perceived “injustice” is just part of the ecosystem.

Last year, the narrative was that Arsenal were the victims of bad refereeing decisions. This year, everybody's anti-Liverpool, because stoppage time is now apparently their divine right. The Reds seem to consistently get 10+ minutes if the game is tied, versus 2-3 minutes if they're winning.

In the Merseyside derby this past weekend, Liverpool beat Everton 2-1, but the refs came under fire for only awarding three minutes of stoppage time.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot shrugged it off, insisting it was correct, while Everton manager David Moyes called it “very strange,” and Jack Grealish got booked after the final whistle for protesting a quick free-kick. Grealish also accused Liverpool of slowing the game down under pressure.

So yes: the “unfair” narrative persists, although I personally think a storm is brewing on the horizon for the Reds.

We have to talk about Erling Haaland's snapchat

Back in 2016, my cousin convinced me to download Snapchat. Apart from sending her a few selfies with terrifying bee/flower/dog filters and accidentally discovering Snap Maps (why does anyone need to know where I am at all times?!), my lasting impression was that Snapchat was vaguely icky. If you’d asked me last week, I would’ve told you nobody still uses it.

But someone still does... Erling Haaland!

Yes, the Norwegian cyborg whose job is usually to destroy defenders and casually score 50 goals a season is alive and thriving on an app most of us left behind in our early twenties. And apparently he possesses (gasp) ... a sense of humor?

For example, he jokes about his hair like a normal human.

He posted about getting hit by a bus as though it was some kind of once-in-a-lifetime honor.

And he absolutely, definitely refused to be goaded into saying the same stupid thing about Wolverhampton that Noni Madueke once did.

Most recently, Haaland was unfazed by an Arsenal fan taunting his hair outside the bus. BTW, I do not condone this sort of tomfoolery from other Gooners. You give us a bad name!

If you ever doubted Haaland’s humanity, well, forget his occasional missed penalty or weird food habits. The real proof is right there on Snapchat, of all places. The man may be built like a FIFA create-a-player on steroids, but even cyborgs need a place to post dumb jokes.

Your Ballon d'Or Update

The Ballon d’Or ceremony (which celebrates the world's best football players) is basically football’s version of the Grammys.

Everyone shows up dressed to the nines, smiles for the cameras, and talks about how amazing they all are while quietly hoping the Ballon d'Or goes to someone other than Messi or Ronaldo.

This year, PSG soaked up the spotlight as last season’s Champions League winners, with standout Ousmane Dembélé taking home the men’s Ballon d’Or. It was actually very sweet: he burst into tears on stage and brought his mom up to share the moment. Félicitations, D'Orbélé!

On the women’s side, Aitana Bonmatí won her third straight Ballon d’Or because she’s, quite simply, a queen.

Arsenal didn’t leave empty-handed either. Viktor Gyökeres snagged recognition for being a goal machine, while Declan Rice was named among the top 20 players in the world. And let’s not forget the Arsenal women, Champions League winners who dominated both on the pitch and on the red carpet in couture gowns that slayed.

Speaking of dresses, Kate Abdo ate and left no crumbs in this disco ball-esque gown. 44 years old, HOLLA!

But we can't always have nice things, so of course there was drama. For example, the Real Madrid players continued their proud tradition of boycotting the ceremony, even though I thought Xavi Alonso was above all this nonsense.

But the true chaos came courtesy of Lamine Yamal’s dad, Mounir Nasraoui. Quick refresher: Yamal is the teenage superstar of the moment, already compared to young Messi/Ronaldo/Mbappé and a two-time Kopa Trophy winner. When Dembélé’s name was announced, Papa Yamal went full Facebook Dad and declared his son “the best player in the world by far," adding that the trophy going to Dembélé was a "moral harm." Nasraoui further described the outcome as "something strange" happening.

What kind of Moroccan pot are you smoking, sir? Sadly, it's not available at my local pharmacy.

Stay tuned for more chaos on the way in gameweek 6!