The Three Dads' Football Season Wonderland

 Well its been quite the whirlwind so far, a breathless start to what promises to be a very interesting season. As we pause to take a break for some meaningless international snooze-fests, it's a chance for us fans to sit back and reflect on what's happened so far. Now, I'm not a huge Arsenal fan but their win against Man City throws things into the mix a little bit. It shows they are beatable, and Haaland can be stopped, which will give hope to teams everywhere who thought this season was going to turn into the Formula 1 non-event of a season. Sheff Utd and Luton look like dead certs for the drop (sorry to all their fans), and there are several other teams who must be already getting those feelings of panic set in (Bournemouth and Burnley for starters). Wolves are also looking a bit shaky. Everton have had a rough start but I think they will be fine come judgement day. The mighty Forest have given me good vibes so far, facing Man City, Arsenal, Man Utd and Chelsea away and...

Another week in the topsy-turvy season has passed and so much to say! Man City did a defeat, Man Utd are melting down, Luton and Burnley earned points, the VAR apocalypse happened. But of course, the main event for me was seeing Villa hop up to 5th, 3 points off the summit, having absolutely destroyed Brighton 6-1 at the weekend. This, the same Villa that meekly exit-ed the Carabao Cup 3 days prior vs the Everton team that went on to lose to Luton. To the outsider there is no explanation for how this can happen. There are two strong theories though: Theory 1: tight tuning -  from my cousin Tom, who convincingly supposes that Emery has tuned Villa so very tightly that even the smallest disturbance from usual patterns is near fatal. This adds up. Against Everton, we had Olsen in goal (more on that in theory 2), McGinn lined up at left back, our centre midfield had Dendonker and Tielemans, and Bailey and Duran, neither guaranteed starters, featured up front. So whilst arguably there ...