A Pitch-Perfect Ending To A Sadly Familiar Song

A walk on the hallowed Boleyn turf was the only bright spot as Sven's loved-up recruits thumped the Hammers.

Sven-Goran Eriksson's Manchester City commanded play at Upton Park last week with such assurance and grace that far from seeming a hastily assembled squad of mercenaries from around this dirty little circle we call "world", they appeared to be afloat in a transcendental love affair with each other and the randy boffin who compiled them.

For me the opening day of the season was an oscillating mind waltz of conflicting emotions. The Irons were pretty shoddy, disorganised in midfield, lacking in imagination up front and a nerve-jangling ballet of tipsy confusion is what passed for a defence. Only Robert Green in goal and Mark Noble looked comfortable.

The ignominy was exacerbated by the prior knowledge of an after-match meeting with Noel Gallagher in Christian Dailly's box. Most people are aware that the Gallagher brothers are arrogant as a default setting, a feat they performed whilst supporting an unreliable and often risible football team. Well let me tell you that all the swagger and bluster we endured as discs went platinum and Brits were won were as nought compared to the gloating, showboating, puffed-up rhubarb I had to silently tolerate in a senior player's box after Saturday's misdemeanour.

I'd rather hoped that it would be me bragging and strutting, perhaps whilst chuffing on a cigar, consoling a tearful Noel that the season is yet young and that he'd made some jolly good records. Instead me, my Dad, my mate Jack and Robin the hippy black cab driver (there's an anomaly - if you leap into his carriage unawares it's like a magical mystery tour as he recites poems and demands a more lax immigration policy) moped about, overjoyed to be amongst adored West Ham players (James Collins was also there like a big, twinkly beefcake) but irked by the unanticipated defeat.

Read all of Russell's weekly football blog by clicking here.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

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