Amid the glitz and the glamour, it was left to Mick McCarthy to inject some much needed domesticity to the opening day: the Wolves manager captured on the Match of the Day cameras before his side kicked off against West Ham sealing an indistinct envelope.
Being Mick McCarthy, we can be confident this wasn’t some motivational technique picked up on the continent; it seems equally unlikely he had agreed to help the half time turn out with the raffle, too, given that he had a Premiership season to prepare for. And we’re confident McCarthy never even watches Panaroma, much less ever made a celebrity cameo on the show, so banish those thoughts right now.
Chances are, McCarthy was simply using the time between the pre match hand shake to quickly mail off his insurance renewal before missing the deadline and having to face up to the increased premiums and excessive penalty charges. This is the type of pragmatism all too often missing from the top flight and we look forward to McCarthy using the half time break at the City of Manchester stadium next Saturday to nip out to the Trafford Centre and buy a new air freshener and a couple of tapes for the radio.
It should also be pointed out that in goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey, Wolves have the first Premiership goalkeeper with a surname that doubles up as the title of a posthumous 2pac single, which certainly surprised those of us that always assumed McCarthy preferred the earlier stuff he done with Digital Underground.
Cor, Arsenal were a bit good at Everton, Denilson actually putting top spin on the first goal. Of course a performance like this was always going to lead to the inevitable questions- “will they be able to perform like this on a wet night in Burnley?” wondered the Radio Five summariser- which leads to a whole other set of sub questions, namely ‘how much wetter does Burnley get than Liverpool?’
So standards have been set; Arsenal’s performance, unmatched by anybody- except, possibly and most definitely oddly, Wigan Athletic, who looked a bit tasty at Villa park- and Burnley: now the go to example of clubs you wouldn’t fancy playing on a wet Wednesday night, particularly if you’re some sort of scaredy cat sissy from some far away never-never land like Spain, where rain is something invented by parents to scare their children on Halloween. We suggest Burnley embrace this notoriety and remove from the Turf Moore away dressing rooms all the towels and hair styling products; they’d storm the league, if they could just learn to perform against teams like Stoke City on middling Saturday afternoons.
Michael Owen came on late for a distinctly flatfooted looking Manchester United, and looks back to doing what he’s does best...being caught offside and stabbing the one chance he did get unconvincingly in to the midriff of the goalkeeper before looking mildly bemused with himself. When did Manchester United become the dullest team to watch in the league, incidentally?
And after a summer of questions about what all the money in the world can buy you, we got our answer at Ewood Park: a faintly fortuitous 2-0 victory against a poor Blackburn side. City fans win the weekend’s award for wittiest chant- “Fergie, sign him up,” they sang when Tevez came on in the second half- and their manager wins the award for pithiest post match comment. Asked about his fall at the full time whistle, Hughes commented, “They said the team would fall flat on its face, in the end I was glad it was just me.” With sharp humour like that the Hughes can be confident that if the day does come to pass this season that he is actively seeking employment- if, I said, we’re just speculating here- then he can expect a call from The Mirror’s sports desk asking him to fill in for that hilarious Derek McGovern. Don’t bet against it (unlike all of Derek McGovern’s ‘bet of the day’ selections, which you should absolutely bet against).
Post from: Premiership Today Football News
Premiership Reviews (Opening Weekend)
