One person who’s enthusiasm bubbled over was Joe Cole, who saw red for the first time in his career on his Liverpool debut and The Sun encapsulated his anguish and of course wrapped it in a pun. The only way it could get any worse for the summer signing, would be if he missed a penalty in his second competitive game.

Thankfully for Cole, Liverpool took the lead through a thunderous David Ngog strike just after half-time, despite their numerical disadvantage, but keeper Pepe Reina decide that a win for Liverpool would be an unfair result and balanced the scores by bumbling the ball into his own net in the closing moments of the game to earn Arsenal a draw. The Daily Star disagreed with his charity though and accused the Spanish international bench warmer of leaving his brain on the coach.

The biggest surprise of the opening weekend was inflicted by newly promoted Blackpool, who thumped four past Wigan without reply. The Sunday Times were so overwhelmed by the story that they gave it front page coverage on their sports supplement and even dabbled in a pun based around the seaside town’s crap version of the Eiffel Tower.

Having missed out on England’s number one jersey at the World Cup, City keeper Joe Hart was keen to stamp his authority as England’s best keeper and he did so in an impressive display against Spurs that earned his side a draw. If his form continues the tabloids headline writers will have an easy time of it, as The Daily Star ably demonstrated.

Martin O’Neill’s surprise departure from Aston Villa just five days before the season kicked off, left the club in uncertainty surrounding its immediate future, but ensured that the tabloids had plenty to speculate about regarding his successor. Naturally anybody who’s ever managed a team at any level was thrown into the hat, but The Daily Star offered the most surprising possibility by suggesting that 1986 World Cup villain Diego Maradona would be interested in becoming an Aston Villan. He has to yet to personally confirm his interest, but his Mr 10%, Walter Soriano, is very keen on adding to his bank balance and said “Diego is very open to the idea of managing Aston Villa”. Not everyone was quit so keen though, as The Star’s Richard Peppiatt babbled on ‘Last night the Villa faithful erupted in fury. Life-long Villa fan Daniel Wigley, 23, said: “We don’t want his sort at the club. I’ll never forgive him for cheating us in ’86”’ he over enthusiastically proclaimed whilst draped in the St George’s cross and with no memory of the game, as he wasn’t born.

Spurs tentatively took their first steps in the Champions League against Young Boys Berne on Tuesday. Having found themselves three behind after half an hour, they replied with two goals of their own to salvage some pride in what was a far from impressive result against the Swiss side, but The Sun was sympathetic to their efforts and instead focused on Roman Pavlyuchenko’s thunderous strike and gaffer Harry Redknapp optimistically labelling their laboured performance as ‘a great defeat’ in a piece of sporting propaganda the North Koreans would be proud of.

The Guardian’s Fiver blog was much more realistic in its analysis of Spurs adventure thpugh, as they highlighted Redknapp’s decision to rest the delicate knees of a some Spurs players, as the reason behind their downfall. The blog’s devilish wit knew no bounds as the caption to their main image read “‘Arry Redknapp ponders whether to make a transfer move for coastal erosion to improve upon Michael Dawson’s pace in defence” which accurately summed up the largely torrid time Spurs had in Berne.

Erratic. Extravagant. Opulent. Lavish. Excessive. All words to describe City’s enviable spending this summer, which they completed with the signings of Mario Balotelli and James Milner, so that they now have two top class and expensive starting XIs at their disposal should they decide to split into two teams. Rival manager Sir Alex Ferguson, over at debt ridden United indirectly called their spending ‘kamikaze’ as The Daily Star reported, but Roberto Mancini’s spending began to show it’s worth when Super Mario Balotelli scored the only goal against the mighty FC Timisoara to earn a first leg Europa League victory, after being assisted by Luigi Adebayor.

Thankfully the droning sound that accompanied all games at the World Cup has been sponged from fans memories thanks to countless counselling sessions. The Metro’s news then that the word vuvuzela has blasted its way into the Oxford Dictionary of English will send chills down the spines of fans who had been hoping to forget the buzz of the toneless trumpet.

Posted By Dan Mobbs - Friday August 20, 2010.
Tags: Liverpool, Aston Villa