The weekend innit

Alright folks,

Well it’s time for a few shoddy predictions from myself followed by plenty of guffaws once the final scores come in.

Man City v Middlesbrough: Hobinho, as it’s pronounced in Brazil, may not like getting his shins kicked by Boro’s youngsters but as the away side can’t score it’s most likely that City will pull through for a 1-0 here.

Blackburn v Aston Villa: Fat Sam’s men to get stuffed at home. 1-3.

Chelsea v Hull City: Peter Cech is, in every respect, looking more like Cartman in the Special Olympics each day. Expect him to conceded one maybe but Chelsea should get this out of the way in the first half. 3-1.

Everton v Bolton: Everton should be tired after the trudging win midweek against Pool and Bolton are superb on the road which is pretty logical as they have less of their own fans slagging them off relentlessly for 90 minutes. Which is nice. I’ll go for 1-1.

Sunderland v Stoke City: Awful, awful, and lots more awful. 1-0 and it’ll be a scrappy goal as well.

West Brom v Newcastle: Insomnia gone and Kinnear pondering a new deal, and what with West Brom being marginally better than shite of late (only marginally mind) they might just fancy this. Bad teams with confidence usually bugger things up though so in short I think Newcastle will get three points here. 1-2.

Wigan v Fulham: Meh… 1-1

Tottenham v Arsenal: My Robbie Keane thoughts are below so I’ll stick to a general prediction here of plenty of goals and some horrific defending. A notch down on the last one, I’ll go 3-3.

West Ham v Man Utd: I want it to be 1-0, and at half time it might be but by the time 90 minutes creeps around it will be 1-4. Oh, and Ronaldo to come good in this game as he has to at some point this year.

Elsewhere, before I predict Liverpool and Portsmouth, we haven’t given our two cents worth on Robbie Keane as yet at ODF. To be honest, as a Pool fan, my feelings on the whole matter have gone up and down for most of this week. Sheer disbelief was for starters when he wasn’t on the bench against Chelsea, absolute disgust then followed as it became clear that for quite some time Rafa had been putting a personal vendetta with the club’s hierarchy above success for the side (how else can you explain Keane’s non appearances against the likes of Hull or Stoke, along with a shabby cameo at Wigan and numerous others before).

It’s a type of arrogance which led to the end of Houllier I thought when Keane’s departure became official. Then Xabi Alonso snapped me out of comparisons with Oul Ged today when he reminded all of us of just how bad a side Pool were before Rafa came along, how meek they were in Europe and how utterly toothless they were against the sides around them (except for Man United bizarrely, something which Rafa only put to rest this season). Houllier actually had around about as much money to spend as Benitez and did so with continued stupidity. Think of the side Rafa inherited and compare it to the team which someone else would take over should Benitez jump or be pushed before next season. Three words: Traore or Skrtel?

Basically, all sides have come out of this week the worse for wear. Keane bottled it by not staying the full season, Benitez meanwhile is fooling no one with the beaten wife act (‘oh they forced him upon me’), and then there’s Rick Parry whose reputation surely took one final hammer blow before a hoped-for resignation in the summer. It’s a sorry mess which will unfortunately only serve to make United’s inevitable title victory all the sweeter for those at the Theatre of Prawns.

As for this weekend, some commentators, including the generally superb Dion Fanning, have suggested that it’s Rafa’s dream to play without Gerrard and of course he now has the chance.

The side that will line up against Pompey will (with the exception of Carragher whose career he turned around) be a Benitez team through and through. Hard working, often uninspired, perhaps now we’ll see just whether or not his ideas about the game are sound or has he just been lucky to have Gerrard to save him so often. My only hope is that at the very least he lets Ryan Babel off the leash alongside Torres and gives the fans some hope that something out of the ordinary might happen. Being that Pompey are shite and I want to go into the weekend feeling slightly happy, I’ll say two nil to the ‘Pool.

Have a good one folks, JJ