Mike and Paul from EPLpod chat to Gwendolyn Oxenham, author of Under the Lights and In the Dark: Untold Stories of Women’s Soccer.
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Football to be replaced by Origami as England’s national sport
With intricate lines and intelligent overlapping that England’s football team could only ever dream of, Origami is set to become the nations official sport ahead of both cricket and football.
The surprise announcement came during England’s drab 1-0 win over Slovenia at Wembley yesterday evening, when a carefully crafted paper airplane elegantly sashayed its way down from the half empty stands, beyond a rooted to the spot Joe Hart and into the back of net which was met with a rapturous roar of approval from the dozing home faithful. In stark contrast, Harry Kane’s stoppage time winner and confirmation of England’s qualification for next summer’s World Cup received only ironic cheers from the Origami ultras.
Speaking after the game, England manager Gareth Southgate refused to promise anything is likely to change over the coming months and conceded Origami was now the countries main focus of attention.
“Tonight highlighted where we are. We are not going to become Spain in the next eight months,” grumbled Southgate, vindicating the publics decision to ditch watching England’s beige brand of football and instead focus on the slightly less tedious activity of meticulously folding bits of paper.
Noting that origami won’t be to every football fans taste, the newly formed Origami Association said there are plenty of alternatives to keep them occupied during the World Cup including: unplugging your tv, watching paint dry and literally anything else.
EPLpod: Olivier Giroud is just so dang beautiful
Mike and Paul the EPLpod boyz chat about pizza tossing, Roy Keane’s advice on avoiding serious head injuries, and just how pretty Olivier Giroud is. All this and so much more, in the latest episode of EPLpod.
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EPLpod: English teams dominate Champs league (except Liverpool) Pt. 2
Mike and Paul from EPLpod take in this weeks Champions League action which saw English clubs almost complete a clean sweep in Europe, though Liverpool could only manage a draw against Spartak.
No such problems for Manchester United during there visit to Russia after they swatted aside CSKA 4-1. Elsewhere, Harry Kane scored his 100th hat-trick in as many days, Michy Batshuayi left it late for Chelsea inflicting pain on former team-mate Diego Costa watching in the stands at Atletico, and City beat Shakhtar while Benjamin Mendy got into a twitter spat with a journalist.
Lastly, muck spreaders Mike and Paul look to have ousted Sir Ben Teague from the EPLpod after concocting a fake scandal around a child labour content mill.
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The Secretly-Mean Diaries of Juan Mata
Dear Diary,
It happened again at the Arndale. Yet more selfie requests. Everywhere I go it seems, people have this impression that I am a nice guy when actually I find most people insufferable. Even when I was at Chelsea, fans of all clubs loved me. John was so jealous.
Spent most of yesterday knocking about with Ander, reluctantly. I sent him to Homebase today to get some tartan paint and bubbles for a spirit level, just because I could. He was gone for 4 hours before he returned, downtrodden and heartbroken. He was complaining so I Happy-Slapped him (#OldSkool) and uploaded it to Instagram. More tears. I think not starting the last few league games is getting to him. I told him he was pathetic and walked off. I texted John to inform him of my antics. He’ll be made up. He says Steve Bruce is no fun and spends most days sobbing into a pasty named ‘Gary’. He has the pictures to prove it.
I remembered a curious incident with Marouane in training last week. He often poses me random scenarios and situations whenever he feels I am off-guard. We had all just gone in for a rub-down. He perched down on his haunches and grabbed me by both shoulders, ‘You are blindfolded and being led through some woods. DESCRIBE WHAT YOU CAN HEAR, SMELL AND TASTE’. His eyes were manic. Frightened, and with no other recourse, I bit him on the nose and scampered to safety behind Big Dave, ‘The Brain from Spain’ (Still can’t believe he bought the broken fax story). I had managed to evade his philosophical and physical clutches that time. Although with Crystal Palace looming, he will be trying to outfox me again soon no doubt.
Managed to get my hand on Youngy’s playlists on Spotify when he wasn’t looking. Deleted some of his fave’s and added a few choices of my own. Cannot wait to see his face when Scatman John is belting out of the speakers.
Still no response from John 🙁
Liverpool keeper wondering just how shit his team mates have to get before being given chance
With Liverpool’s Simon Mignolet and Loris Karius taking turns to see who can be more awful between the sticks so far this season, third choice keeper Danny Ward has been left wondering just how dire things need to become before he’s finally given a chance by manager Jurgen Klopp.
Mignolet’s latest clangers came during Liverpool’s nervy 3-2 win over Leicester City on the weekend. Mignolet, who had threatened to finally banish comical errors from his game, was back to his bungling best when he flapped at a corner like a salmon out of water to gift Leicester striker Shinji Okazaki with a tap in. Not content with that glaring error, Mignolet almost cost his side the win after clattering into Jamie Vardy and giving away a penalty. On that occasion the Belgian stopper redeemed himself and earned a much needed and well deserved break.
Meanwhile, Karius who was originally signed by Klopp as Mignolet’s replacement, hasn’t faired much better. Karius was brought back in to the starting line up for Liverpool’s Champions League match against Spartak Moscow, and repaid his managers faith by promptly conceding on the oppositions first shot at goal. Fernando’s free kick was heading nowhere near the top corner, but somehow Karius still managed to find himself picking the ball out of the net.
A source inside the club confirmed Ward will be given a chance, but not until both Mignolet and Karius prove that they can consistently make a complete hash of things every week, not just most weeks. A target they are said to be edging closer and closer to.
Jay Rodriguez slammed for not being a lying, cheating scumbag
Boy next door and all round good egg Jay Rodriguez was the subject of growing criticism on Monday evening after failing to con officials into awarding him a penalty during West Brom’s 2-0 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates.
The shameful incident occurred while the game was still scoreless, when Arsenal defender Shkodran Mustafi’s sliding tackle brought down Rodriguez inside the box. Instead of rolling around the ground and feigning injury like any proper, dishonest footballer should, Rodriguez not only got back to his feet, but even had the nerve to get off a shot which ended up hitting the post.
Rodriguez’ actions have been rightly condemned by pundits and fans alike, with one source stating that it was honesty like this that make other players look bad and can’t go unpunished.
In a stunning admission in his post match interview, West Brom boss Tony Pulis revealed that he insists on his players actually being honest. “We tell our players not to roll about. He still wanted to score but once he has missed the referee should pull it back,” said a naive Pulis to a laughing press pack.
Should Rodriguez resist the urge to become professionally deceitful, and instead continue to act in such an honest manner, he’ll only serve to prove that he’ll never have what it takes to compete with the lying bastards that reside at football’s highest levels.
EPLpod: Who needs Diego when you have Alvaro Mora-trick?!
With Mike taking a much needed, and well earned break up in cottage country, Paul and Ben are left with some big shoes to fill in the EPLpod studio.
The chaps take in all the weekends Premier League action which saw Pep’s Manchester City score their 100th goal of the season much to the envy of goalless Palace, Liverpool continue to insist that defending is over rated and Jose Mourinho gets his marching orders once again at St’Mary’s.
Mourinho insists on shaking hands with everyone inside stadium after being sent off
Jose Mourinho was sent to the stands during Manchester United’s 1-0 win over Southampton on Saturday, but the manager refused to make his way down the tunnel until he had shaken hands with every single one of the 31,930 in attendance at St Mary’s.
Mourinho was given his marching orders late on after making the grave decision to abandon his technical area and encroach onto the pitch. However, Mourinho, well known for his polite manners and insistence on pleasantries, was not about to be robbed of the opportunity to grasp hands and make a spectacle of himself. Instead, making sure he didn’t miss a single soul, Mourinho painstakingly made his way around the entire stadium earnestly shaking hands with both sets of fans, match stewards and even the guys way up in the commentary box.
This is not the first time Mourinho has been sent off, having also been sent to the stands against Burnley and West Ham last season. However, keen to learn his lessons from those previous experience, this was the first time Mourinho managed to conduct such an exhaustive handshaking routine.
Speaking after the game, and clearly tired from all the handshaking, Mourinho barely had enough energy to muster an explanation for his actions. “Craig Pawson [the referee] told me to leave, so I left,” he said humbly.
Later on, in a statement released by United, a spokesperson was at pains to insist Mourinho’s shaking hands with thousands of people was just part of the managers kind nature, and was in no way a ploy to waste time as Southampton searched for a late equaliser.
Nobody safe from Guardiola’s tactical instructions as ball boy cops an ear full
An innocent ball boy was the latest casualty in a long list of victims to receive unsolicited tactical advice from Pep Guardiola as Manchester City steamrolled their way to a 5-0 victory over Crystal Palace at the Etihad on Saturday.
Frustrated by his charges inability to adequately carry out his encyclopaedia sized pre-match tactical monologue, Guardiola instead turned his attention to an unwitting ball boy who was unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something – as Guardiola was only too keen to point out – the ball boy would have avoided, had he listened to the managers plans the first time round. A plan which devoted an entire chapter explicitly detailing where one should be and at what time.
“If you analyse the first 30 minutes of the first half you’d say we’re not ready to be at the top. The ball boys were slow, everybody was slow,” huffed Pep as he prepared to hunker down for a long evening reprimanding all the clubs’ ball boys.
And it’s not just the ball boys who have been on the end of a withering ‘Pep’ talk. The canteen staff have been inundated with tips such as the virtues of letting the tea leafs “circulate and breathe” sufficiently, while the kit man has been told in no uncertain terms that he needs to add far more depth to the number of shirts in his rotation.
While some have criticised Guardiola’s overbearing, hands on tactical approach it’s hard to argue with the results: City have now scored 16 goals and conceded none over the course of their last three Premier League games. Something that would never be achieved without the ball boys, kit man and canteen staff all singing from the same Guardiola hymn sheet.