GW5: The Gaffer's Verdict

**GW5: Five and Alive, Son**

Right, settle down. Twenty-five points on the board and I'm walking taller than a Tottenham fan in October, which is to say briefly but with purpose.

Let's start with the good stuff, because I've earned it. Three on the nose this week. Liverpool 3-0 Bournemouth was the easiest tenner I never had on. Slot's lot at Anfield against a Cherries side still working out which end they're kicking? Behave. The Saints and Ipswich 1-1 was the kind of pick that makes you look like a wizard, but truth be told, two sides who couldn't break wind in a curry house were always playing out a dreary draw. And Leicester-Everton 1-1, mate, I called that one before the fixtures came out of the printer. Dyche-ball meets Foxes-fragile equals one apiece, every day of the week. That's reading a game, that is. That's the gaffer's eye.

“The pundits on the telly with their xG charts and their clipboards aren't doing much better than your old gaffer with a pint and a hunch, are they.”

Now the bad. Fulham-Newcastle. I had the Geordies nicking it 2-1 and instead Marco Silva's mob turned up and battered them 3-1. Zero points, no excuses, I bottled the read on Newcastle's defensive shape away from home. There. Said it. Move on.

The City-Arsenal one stings as well, because I had the score right for about ninety minutes until Martinelli decided to do me dirty in the eighth minute of stoppage time. That's not a miss, that's daylight robbery, and I'm taking it to the Court of Human Rights. Brighton-Forest the same story, two-one looked nailed on until Forest equalised late. Football, eh. Heartbreaker.

Overall? Twenty-five is a proper week. Three perfects, no shocks I should've smelled, and the misses were honest misses, not lazy ones. I'd take twenty-five every Monday morning for the rest of the season and retire to a beach bar in Benidorm. The pundits on the telly with their xG charts and their clipboards aren't doing much better than your old gaffer with a pint and a hunch, are they.

Next week the fixtures look spicier than a vindaloo at midnight, with a few proper bangers to navigate. I'll be back with the verdicts. Keep the faith, keep the kettle on.

The Gaffer. Out.