NINE DAYS into the new season and it feels as though football has never been away.  The TV and radio are now saturated with washed up heroes like Stan Collymore whose opinions are valid and trustworthy, discussing novel issues such as goal line technology, how brilliant that odd looking Swedish fella at Man City is (he’d make a good national team coach you know) and how incredibly useless Rob Styles is as a referee. They got the flawless Graham Poll to assess him.

As with all seasons, fans appear with success so, unsurprisingly, a disgruntled supporter of Everton, who were the big noise in the Premiership until this weekend, noted his team’s omission from last week’s ‘For Kicks’.  After sweeping aside the daunting Wigan on the opening day they beat some little team from north London during the week.  However, at the weekend they were taken for a ride by Reading’s Andre Bikey who was involved in the cycle leading up to Reading’s winner. The Toffees stuck in there but hotshot striker Andy Johnson missed a sitter from all of 2 yards out. 

West Ham’s investment over the summer yielded its first win with a dour 1-0 victory over Birmingham.  Birmingham’s new shareholder wants to open 100 Chinese restaurants in the city, something that might appeal to the clubs’  ‘keeper Colin Doyle who waddled off his line and collapsed into Craig Bellamy.  Whilst Bellamy went off to have a fight with something, anything, Mark Noble stroked the ball home from the spot.  Steve Bruce said that it was “arguable” whether there was any contact for the penalty, an invitation that was immediately taken up by Bellamy.

Talking of debatable penalties, Anfield is the next stop.  A clash between   Chelsea and Liverpool was the fixture.  This was a perfectly good game ruined as soon as Rob Styles blew his whistle.  His solo mission to fill Poll’s shoes looks to be going well as he booked several players (several times), decided to award a penalty for Malouda’s outrageous block on Finnan, or something like that, and then spent the remaining portion of the game giving Liverpool everything possible so that his car wasn’t put up on bricks. The result was 1-1 for anyone remotely interested in not abusing the referee. 

Ebbsfleet had a disaster of a weekend with fans booing the team off after their game at Rushden & Diamonds.  Yes they won and yes they’re now in seventh but where were the red cards that are the only way of showing true commitment to the cause?  Obviously the kids they had on display aren’t up to the task.  Stonebridge Road expects. 

Arsenal’s Jens Lehman thought he’d made a shrewd move in the summer signing an exclusive merchandising deal with Imperial Leather.  However the gloves they supplied him with were all too obvious yesterday as the ball slipped through his hands like a bar of wet soap for Blackburn’s equaliser. 

Newcastle’s Sam Allardyce showed his players the club’s trophy cabinet containing their “Newcastle & District 5-a-side runners-up” award this week.  Big Sam would like his players to win something else to put along side this relic of Newcastle’s achievement but his strikers went absent, barely able to muster a shot in anger at the Villa goal.  “If in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand” someone once wrote. Don’t be surprised to see the Newcastle boss out practising on the rifle range this week.

For the first time this season Southampton knew the joy of leading through the Trinidadian/Welsh International Kenwyne Jones (I mean come on, Kenwyne Jones, he can’t really be anything other than from the Valleys).  After the Saints were denied a clear second, “it certainly looked clear through my bottle of vodka” George Burley was heard to have remarked, Norwich fired in two quick goals to turn the game on its head.