Route One Daily Brief
Posts
🤩 Barca or Brighton? PL Weekend Review Edition ✨

🤩 Barca or Brighton? PL Weekend Review Edition ✨

Plus, City's next signing, Messi has WHAT on his pizza? + Havertz first award this season

Route One
September 18, 2023

Gm football fans. Route One here.

It’s the start of the week.

For some of you, (you know who I’m talking about — United fans cough cough), this won’t be the easiest week in the office.

I recommend you keep a low profile.

Perhaps WfH or take a couple sickies? That way, no one will question your tears.

Anyway, enough of that fun.

Let’s get into it, shall we.

Today’s newsletter includes:

☕️ Morning brief: City’s next priority signing, Chalobah off to Germany, Chris Wilder’s next destination?, and more…
👨‍💻 Weekend review - everything you need to know *United fans, you may want to skip this section 🤭
🤣 Quick hits - funniest stories over the weekend

UPCOMING PL FIXTURES

MORNING BRIEF

Everything you need to know

🔴 Heckingbottom likely to be replaced by Sheffield United legend Chris Wilder. “This is not me moaning...” said Heckingbottom after their loss to Spurs on Saturday… before proceeding to moan for what felt like a lifetime.

🙌🏻 City look to sign Barcelona’s wonder-kid Lamine Yamal over the summer. It’s reported that the club have “come with everything” (AKA a shit ton of money) to tempt the 16-year-old.

🤧 On the flip side… Barcelona could make a shock loan move for Sancho in January. Well, that’s if he’s still at the club by then.

🤔 Chelsea’s Trevor Chalobah eyed by Bayern Munich for January’s window. Why? You might ask. Don’t look at us, we haven’t a clue…

😲 Newcastle lining up £52m swoop for Lucas Paqueta, reported by Mail Sport. But, let’s face it, he’ll go to City.

😬 Kai Havertz named ‘Worst Deal’ of the recent transfer window in The Athletic’s agent survey - a survey that asked agents what they think…

PREMIER LEAGUE

PL Weekend Review

🔴⚪️ Man United vs Brighton 🔵⚪️

Let’s face it, United were terrible.

But, that doesn’t take away from Brighton’s performance. De Zerbi has made The Seagulls play like prime Barcelona. I’m talking ‘09 days.

Is United’s poor start to the season a structural issue or just a blip? Hard to tell.

But, they have decent fixtures coming up with Burnley (A), Palace (H), Brentford (H) and Sheff United (A). Ten Haag’s hoping they can scrape a few wins as he’s beginning to run out of scapegoats…

🔴⚫️ Bournemouth vs Chelsea 🔵⚪️

Absolute snoozefest.

The only bit of excitement came before the game when Poch benched Chilwell. Oh yeah… and Conor Gallagher was Chelsea’s captain???

Anyway… NEXT.

🔵⚪️ Tottenham vs Sheffield United 🔴⚫️

FPL Assists

Harry Kane is pissed. He’s sitting at home thinking, “where were these players when I was there?”.

Anyway, this game shows why this is the best league in the world. You can’t lose concentration. Not even for a second… 98th minute winner.

Richarlison reached 50 goals PL goals with his header. Could this be the turning point for his Spurs career? 🤔

🟡⚫️ Wolves vs Liverpool 🔴⚪️

Fun fact: Klopp’s side failed to win any lunchtime matches last season. Crazy, right?

Now, Liverpool extended their unbeaten run to 16 league matches.

Wolves had their moments of quality (could have been 3-0 up themselves) but the story of their season continues: they can’t score.

It’s about time they get in some good ol’ shooting practice.

🟤🟡 West Ham vs Man City 🔵⚪️

If you put Alvarez in your FPL team (like me), you must be feeling a little smug.

Pep roulette might come back into play soon but at £6.8m, he’s currently a steal.

Jérémy Doku equaliser sparked City’s comeback. After that performance, he’ll be on every manager’s FPL watchlist.

The 6ft 5 Robot provided yet another return. That’s 7 in 5 now. You’re not considering changing captain… are you? 👀

Side note: Ward-Prowse is looking like a good FPL differential…

⚫️⚪️ Newcastle vs Brentford 🔴⚪️

There was only one star in this game: VAR. 📸

He always makes the headlines these days.

Was it a dive from Gordon? I mean… Flekken shouldn’t have rushed out and swiped his legs…

Anyway, Newcastle did a good job of ending that 3-loss streak against a tough Brentford side.

They have a much easier run of games now… is now the time to transfer in Trippier?

🔵🟡 Aston Villa vs Crystal Palace 🔵⚪️

How did that happen, then?

Villa were on the brink of a defeat. But, Emery’s subs - Durán + Bailey - both scored to seal a late win.

Palace have had better days. Without Guehu and Lerma, it wasn’t going to be easy against this Villa side.

Still, it’s a promising start to the season for both sides…

⚪️⚫️ Fulham vs Luton 🔵🟡

I mean, this wouldn’t have been my first choice watch from the weekend fixtures.

But…

Fulham get their first home win of the campaign. 👏🏼

And Luton did well to not concede more than 1, I guess?

🔵⚪️ Everton vs Arsenal 🔴⚪️

Tbh, it was far from edge-of-seat stuff.

But, I can appreciate good football when I see it. And that’s what Arteta’s men do well.

I can’t help but think they’d be a little disappointed with the overall performance. I guess there’s nothing that Arteta’s dressing-room doodles can’t fix… 🎨

Martinelli’s disallowed goal was legit in my book.

How is there only one angle for VAR in the top-flight? The biggest league in the world, over 2bil spent in the transfer window… make it make sense. 🫤