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Football

Quit Pretending You've Always Loved Wagner: This Weekend in the Premier League

From David Wagner fan boys to Harry Kane the unlikely megastar, here’s to all the people who made this weekend’s action super special.
Huddersfield Town manager David Wagner. Photo: John Walton/PA Wire/PA Images

Another week in the Premier League, another manager done and dusted. This time it was Leicester's Craig Shakespeare, a man who looks like a cheerful minor character in a police drama who ends up shocking the force with a dark and unspeakable crime. Top-flight football is basically just The Apprentice at this point, a steady succession of sackings for people you have zero sympathy for.

Anyway, life will go on without Craig Shakespeare. We'll miss you, mate, but there's a Premier League round-up to be getting on with.

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David Wagner Is Your Life Now

Let's take a moment to appreciate the people who are now claiming to have liked Huddersfield before they were famous. Not actual supporters of Huddersfield Town Football Club, that is, but the David Wagner fan boys, the guys who've been following his career since he was tearing it up with Borussia Dortmund reserves. These are the lads who just knew it would work out for Huddersfield in the top tier, the lads who never doubted that Laurent Depoitre and Aaron Mooy would succeed at the highest level. If Huddersfield can gegenpress in the Championship they can gegenpress in the Premier League, they said; after all, it's basically just running around a lot, and that's the same whether you're up against Manchester United or Burton Albion.

With Huddersfield beating United for the first time in 65 years this weekend, the David Wagner fan boys are going into overdrive in an attempt to prove they were first to discover him. They've bought up hundreds of defunct 2015/16 Huddersfield season tickets on eBay, opticians are running out of thick-rim glasses and baseball caps are now more in fashion than at any time since Tony Pulis first wore one. To idolise David Wagner, you must first become him, adopting his precise mannerisms and dedicating every waking hour to the study of counterpressing tactics. David Wagner is your life now, and only through the worship of Huddersfield can you realise your true potential.

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The Dysfunction Derby

Given that they're both having fantastically dysfunctional seasons, Arsenal's trip to Everton on Sunday was exactly as to be expected. Coming off a defeat to Watford where he was accused of picking his nose when he should have been stopping the winner, Granit Xhaka managed to fall on his arse for Everton's first goal; the home side then proceeded to have a man sent off, concede five times and score a consolation assisted by Petr Cech's shins. While Arsenal might have won the game, everyone seemed to come away vaguely embarrassed, the match perfectly encapsulating why both sides are in such a fucking mess at the moment.

Still, unlike in Everton's Europa League match against Lyon during the midweek, at least there weren't any dads flying out of the stands to fight with the players while also holding their kids.

Harry Kane, Megastar

"Real Madrid are reportedly considering an incredible double swoop for Tottenham duo Harry Kane and Dele Alli," read a highly speculative article in The Sun earlier this month. Having paused to appreciate the glorious cliché of the "double swoop" – look to the skies, for the deathly eagle of Real Madrid doth clutch at thee with its mighty talons! – please take a moment to picture Harry Kane as an international megastar playing for Real.

Having scored a brace against Liverpool this weekend, the links to Los Blancos are likely to gain pace, with our national press fantasising about Kane in a Real shirt, despite his latest admission he's happy at Tottenham. He bangs in the goals, he carries his national side and he already plays in white – he's practically a Real Madrid superstar already.

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The thing is, can you actually imagine Harry Kane being a figurehead for the most image-obsessed football team on the planet? Kane has the mannerisms of a junior member of a very well-behaved BMX gang; generally modest, self-effacing and exceedingly bashful in public, he is the conceptual and spiritual opposite of Cristiano Ronaldo in every conceivable way. Can you see Harry Kane modelling Armani underwear, or launching his own aftershave, or being unveiled in a flurry of pyro and fireworks at the Bernabeu? Yes, Kane is the best striker England has produced in over a decade and has the talent to play for a club like Real, but – in contrast to all the marketable bad boys out there – he's also that very polite mate from school who's a favourite of your mum's because he doesn't swear or know how to roll a spliff.

The Eboue Precedent

Liverpool's Dejan Lovren (right) is substituted off the pitch for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Photo: Adam Davy/PA Wire/PA Images

When Dejan Lovren was subbed off against Spurs after a total of 31 minutes, you could have been forgiven for thinking it was one of the most embarrassing Premier League performances of all time. Not only had he been at fault for both of Tottenham's goals up until that point, he left the pitch to that ironic cheering sound, which – as if the Four Horsemen themselves were on the sidelines – almost always heralds a player's professional doom. After the game, Jurgen Klopp basically said he could have defended better himself in a pair of box-fresh Adidas Gazelles, which is not so much an example of throwing a player under the bus as it is driving the bus directly into a player and reversing over him several times for good measure. Lovren can take some solace, however, in the memory of a comparably awful display almost a decade ago.

The player in question that fateful day was Emmanuel Eboue, another haphazard defender. Now a tongue-in-cheek cult hero at Arsenal, despite being a complete liability for much of his time there, he was brought on after 31 minutes in a game against Wigan, only to put in a performance so bad it has become legendary. Having misplaced almost every pass and at one point tackled teammate Kolo Toure by accident, Eboue was substituted himself as the game drew to a close, raucously cheered off the pitch in a manner which was ironic bordering on the extremely vindictive. There will never be a more embarrassing performance than that, meaning Dejan Lovren has less chance of being remembered for the all-time worst individual showing than he does of winning a basic header in defence.

@W_F_Magee