AFTER England all but dumped themselves out of Euro 2008, saving us a summer of unnecessary excitement only to see them bottle it on penalties, the proper football returned with almost a full house for the Red House sides.

Only a matter of weeks after the explosive departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea, the Blues have decided that as long as they’re winning they don’t really mind who the boss is.  Oh yes, Chelsea have now vanquished the mighty opponents of Bolton and Middlesborough and everything’s hunky dory.  Meanwhile it’s reassuring to see that Jose hasn’t lost his marbles, claiming that he wouldn’t dream of managing England.  Arsenal won again. It’s quite dull to be honest.  All these Johnny Foreigners silkily passing the ball around and dismantling whomever they are playing.  Yawn! Aren’t they aware that the English like nothing more than failing when victory seems more plausible (see McClaren, Ashton and Hamilton for details)?

West Ham received a huge slice of good fortune in their match against Sunderland at the weekend.  1-0 up early in the second half, they sprang into action only after Southampton’s Tiger Bay reject Kenwyne Jones had levelled.  Cue Nobby Solano who weaved his way through the Black Cats’ defence and calmly placed his shot against the post, knowing full well that the rebound would hit Craig Gordon in goal and go in.  Precision placement!  Another Welshman was on the score-sheet as Craig “wanna fight” Bellamy made it 3-1.

I feel a bit sorry for Everton really.  It has nothing to do with the results, I just feel sorry for them.  Anyway the Scouse derby didn’t quite go to plan for the Blue half.  Having gone in front with an expert finish (!) from Sammy Hyypia it all went rather red.  Firstly Hibbert brought done Gerrard for a penalty.  Yes it was a penalty but I didn’t know that Gerrard could make the choice of whether it was a sending off or not!  Phil Neville solved England’s goalkeeping crisis with the most glorious save in the 90^th minute and then somehow Jamie Carragher was penalised for his Judo throw on Lescott.  You’ll be glad to hear he was arrested for GBH after the game.   

The magnificent Southampton marched into the top half of the table with a cool 1-0 success over Cardiff.  Stern John scored the only goal after 15 minutes after which the Saints tried everything in their power to lose.  Adding to that the ref played five minutes of the four minutes of injury time causing repeated strokes and convulsions on a sofa in Newmarket.

A ten-minute blitz from Ebbsfleet saw them successful over Altrincham 3-1.  The Fleet remain unbeaten under stand-in captain Sacha Opinel but don’t tell anyone he’s French!

Lastly the Toon Army continued their marvellous home form with a 3-1 defeat of Spurs.  It ‘s not much to write home about however.  I mean Spurs, I think that I could beat Spurs at the moment.