Wayne Rooney is already feeling the Sam Allardyce effect. Everton's creaky old prodigal son scored a hat trick in his first performance in front of the new boss. First impressions are very important, and Wayne Rooney clearly knows that.
Granted, Everton were playing West Ham who are terrible, but level of competition doesn't matter when you can do this:
ROONEY! FROM HIS OWN HALF! pic.twitter.com/1TwTF2ipvM
The feel-good aura surrounding Newcastle United was evaporating faster than a fart into a Panasonic exhaust fan as they stared a fifth-straight defeat in the face on Tuesday. West Bromwich Albion took a 2-0 lead in the 56th minute of their Premier League match at The Hawthorns, but a spirited fightback earned Newcastle an invaluable point and somewhat arrested the slide on Tyneside.
This Gylfi Sigurdsson goal is so fun to watch, it almost makes up for the fact that Southampton proceeded to bludgeon Everton 4-1 on Sunday– scoring three goals in the second half after this Sigurdsson stunner gave the Toffees a glimmer of hope.
Sigurdsson’s goal hit the crossbar and both posts pic.twitter.com/U7WSbuIINV
Lots of athletes pivot to different sports after their days playing their first-choice have come to an end. Rio Ferdinand just did it with boxing. This is the first time, though, we have heard of an athlete pivoting to being a jockey. Michael Owen, the 37-year-old former Liverpool, Newcastle, Real Madrid and Manchester United striker, has done just that.
Owen rode a horse called "Calder Prince" in the Prince's Countryside Trust seven-furlong flat raced, and impressed with a second-place finish.
Arsenal pulled off a second big win in the span of three days when the club successfully secured the services of scout Sven Mislintat from Borussia Dortmund. The Gunners, coming off a comprehensive defeat of archrival Tottenham on Saturday, named Mislintat their new head of recruitment on Monday, an important move for the North London club.
Arsenal fans gave the mercurial Mesut Ozil a standing ovation as he was subbed off with the Gunners holding a 2-0 lead over archrival Tottenham they would not relinquish in the North London Derby on Saturday at Emirates Stadium. It was the type of adoration bestowed upon a man of the match who had given everything to defeat a hated foe.
And yet it was a performance that only made Arsenal fans grow more frustrated with Ozil and the team they love.
The footballing gods are fickle. One month ago, a 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace sent Newcastle United to the lofty heights of sixth in the Premier League table, in front of both Arsenal and Liverpool. Now, after being held scoreless for 180 minutes in defeats to Burnley and Bournemouth and falling to 11th, the Toon travel to Old Trafford to play a Manchester United side welcoming back both Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba to the side.
Arsenal fans are a sensitive lot. They want to think their club is the best in the world, even though it hasn’t been the best in England in well over a decade. They want to think their club plays the prettiest football in the league, even though that torch has long-since been passed to Manchester City. They want to think their club reigns supreme in North London, but as of last season that is no longer the case.
And so it’s settled. On November 15, Peru claimed the final spot in the 32-team field for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, bringing us to the final event before the June 14 kick off at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow: the draw to determine the eight groups of four for the finals.
Just when you thought Chicharito would have more chances to play, David Moyes is appointed West Ham manager.
Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean bad news at first glance (even though many West Ham fans are reportedly pissed that Moyes was named boss).
However, if you take a look at recent history, you’ll see Moyes’ arrival to the London club could potentially spell a great deal of frustration for Javier Hernández.