Week 1 review, team of the week and awards

Happy Monday, hope everyone had a good weekend reveling in the return of the football season and not talking to any girls whatsoever.

I personally was treated to a trip to the Emarites Stadium to see Arsenal’s first game of the season against Fulham. Now because it is not often on this website that much positive will be said about Arsenal, for personal reasons, (no I’m not a Spurs fan, I just hold grudges) I felt it was necessary to just say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself and it’s a cracking ground.

Anyway, welcome to the first weekly wrap-up here at STT and rather than just re-iterate what you’ve already read about in three different newspapers and been told by all your Stato-esque friends, our approach intends to be a slightly more irreverent. Ok, so its basically a lot of lists but in these days of probiotics, easily digestible seems to be the way forward…

Premier League Team of the Week (based on OPTA stats, Fantasypremierleague.com ratings and my own expert eye):

Keeper – Tony Warner (excellent throughout, only beaten in the end by two unstoppable finishes)

Defence – Richard Dunne (more rock-like than The Rock watching 1996 action classic ‘The Rock’), Zat Knight (flawless), Michael Duberry (marshaled Ronaldo and Nani expertly despite being more than twice their combined size and in completely the wrong league), Paul McShane (gutsy, even with an early contender for worst haircut of the season)

Midfield – Stevie Gerrard (as good as you’d expect), Salomon Kalou (better than I’ve ever seen him before), Elano (impressive debut), Leon Osman (pick of the bunch in a decent team performance)

Up Top – Obafemi Martins (exxxplosive), Rolando Bianchi (deadly)

Weekly Awards:

Nutmeg of the Week – Torres on Laursen, adding further insult to the hapless Swedish peg-boy

Goal of the Week – Martins’ bicycle kick (speed of shot was officially clocked at over Mach 1). See Paul Scholes’s Ballbag

Whinge of the Week – Gerrard (to win his last minute free-kick when Petrov clearly got the ball and could never get out of the way)

Save of the Week – Villa’s back-up keeper Stuart Taylor clawing Gerrard’s first half shot out of the sky / Friedel slamming his legs shut faster than the Olsen twins at a Jack Nicholson sleepover to keep out Wheater’s late header

Trick of the Week – Man City’s young prodigy Onuoha running the length of the field and then masterfully ‘doing’ two West Ham defenders to set up Giovanni’s clinching strike

Coolest South American of the Week – Roque Santa Cruz, for so many reasons. Just check out the size of that pimp cup. Not to mention the rack on the ugly one

Nearest Lampard came to Contributing…er, of the Week – Mistimed an unnecessary backheel to almost ruin the move for Malouda’s goal

Speculative effort of the Week – Drogba’s shot from just inside the Birmingham half almost embarrassing young keeper Doyle

Most convincingly-bought dummy of the Week – Andy Griffin expertly falls for former teammate Benjani’s stepover in the build-up to the second Pompey goal

Superman of the Week – No really great ‘simulations’ this week, (unless you ask Lawrie Dirty Sanchez Viccarrio) so the award goes to Andy Todd for his cracking diving header to earn Derby their first point of the season

Nickname of the Week – Roy Keane amusingly referring to pint-size hero Michael Chopra as ‘Chops’ and also ‘the fox in the box’

International blow of the Week – Briana Banks in that scene where she fel…wait, no, sorry wrong blog. Seriously though, Rooney breaking his foot again. Someone buy him some steel-enforced boots and tell him to stop playing with rough boys like Dubes and Carvalho

The Do Not Fuck With Me moment of the Week (sponsored by 50 Cent) – Van Persie for shelling his penalty through the roof of the Fulham net and into orbit

The best impression of a horror film extra of the Week – Benni McCarthy

Gaff of the Week – Lehmann obviously. He’s an idiot. Avoided ‘Zero’ status this week only because it ultimately didn’t cost them the points, and because Kitson somehow re-wrote the laws of physics by managing to actually be on the field for less time than I’d last in the sack with the all of Girls Aloud

Paul Gascoigne award for Testicular fortitude / Hero of the Week – Villa’s Gardner taking one for the team and blocking a Gerrard blast with his wedding tackle. Hope he’s cryogenically frozen some swimmers for the future cos surely he’s barren now

Zero of the Week – Kitson; after all the pre-season build-up and expectation, he lasted just 37 seconds on the field after being sent off for a pretty horrendous tackle on Evra, that was bursting with ginger fury. Good contribution Dave

Personal Highlight – Being able to buy a chilli dog at the Emirates…they truly are the nectar of the gods