Hotspur’s Hunches #7

Good morning from the Emerald Isle. A moving target’s harder to hit. That’s what I say. And welcome to Game Week 7 of the greatest football league with the word Barclays in it. 

• Man City vs Sunderland

Bobby Manc hasn’t been happy since …ah even he can’t remember that far back, bless ‘im. The corresponding fixture last year was a 3-3 draw with International hit-man Nickcholas Bendtner scoring, so don’t write this of as a home win.
Oh hang on… Prediction: 2-1

• Chelsea vs Norwich

I’m struggling to see how the Blue Racists will lose this one. Norwich are fresh from a wound licking exercise at the hands of Liverpool.

Surely the best Delia’s mob can hope for is a draw? A draw would in itself be a coupon buster, wouldn’t it? I mean Grant Holt’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but he can still find the old onion sack, can’t he? Prediction: 5-0.

• Swansea vs Reading

Swansea seriously need to get their act together, find their mojo, stop looking like chancers. The only glimmer of hope in this task is Reading. Their form is actually worse.

If The Swans want to do some damage here Laudrup will need to keep the ball on the floor and spell out to McDermott how you play football in the Premier League. Prediction: 4-0.

• West Brom vs QPR

You just knew Mark Hughes was going to make a mess of this the moment he started buying players in an identical manner to the way Roy Keane did at Sunderland.

You don’t build a team that works with a scatter-gun and a frown. Steve Clarke by contrast is doing a good impression of a man who is a decent football manager and I will be shocked if QPR get anything here at all. Prediction 3-0.

• Wigan vs Everton

Bob Matthews is a con man. Not in a bad way, not in a ‘date your daughter, make a pass at your wife sort of way’; it’s just he’s just nowhere as good as people make him out to be and if he had any decency he’d just come out and say, ‘I’m a nice bloke, but I can’t manage, so don’t be fooled.’

That said there are worse out there. Okay, well Brendan Rodgers is out there. I specifically meant him. Prediction 0-4.

• Southampton vs Fulham

I like the Saints. I’ve no idea why really. But I instinctively wish them well. Watched them on the telly a few times and they appear to be in favour of playing half good football.

They have dropped 15 points so far and they need to lose that habit really fast. Nigel Adkins did too well getting them here to be binned on a whim, that’s for sure. But they need a draw this week, at least a draw. Prediction: 2-2

• West Ham vs Arsenal

West Ham are playing some awful football yet sit 7th in the Premier League which ought to send a shudder down the spine of anyone that likes football.

In their last game they picked up 427 yellow cards and Fat Sam bit off one of his own thumbs and spat it at a linesman. Arsene Wenger will just hope none of his porcelain players get broken. Prediction: 0-5

• Liverpool vs Stoke

This won’t be a thing of beauty. Suarez playing ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ and Peter Crouch as ‘Widow Lanky’. Prediction 1-2.

• Tottenham vs Villa

Villa are a genuinely pedestrian lot. But after our the indigestible garbage served up in Greece it would be difficult to approach playing Yarmouth Ladies with any degree of confidence.  

But hey, our valliant boys will have a home crowd this time to hurrah and huzzah them on to glorious victory! Oh this could turn nasty really fast. 

I really want to see Spurs scoring, properly walloping someone sometime soon and the Villans look like they fit neatly that profile. Prediction: 4-0

• Newcastle vs Manchester United

I think Newcastle can win this and more to the point I hope they do. Pardew’s getting plenty of things right and if he can steer his side to January and sort out what is an issue that is really bugging him the player’s agents.

Players or agents who think Ashley will be throwing money around to keep players on inflated salaries for no good reason are either dreaming or think that it’s 2008. Prediction: 3-2.