TERRACE TALK: Reaction from the weekend’s top Premier League action

Chelsea: ‘Absolutely horrible monster’ Costa just what we needed

Where do you even begin to pick apart the footballing smorgasbord offered up at Goodison on Saturday?

Nine goals, controversial incidents, a Mikel backheel (yes, you did read that right) comedy defending, exhilarating attacking play, a vociferous crowd and a game of football that swells the heart and reminds you why you fell in love with the sport in the first place.

Everton played their part & and I can’t imagine Jose will allow many teams to put three goals past us this season. Everton put together some fabulous football and matched us for the majority of the game, but, once again, tired in the last 20 minutes. They definitely have evolved from the one-dimensional game they often played under Moyes, which relied heavily on brute strength. That said, they revisited that style to try and & harass and & niggle Costa, which I suppose is part of the game but had the referee and his assistants been a bit more vigilant, could have instead have led to at least a couple of red cards&.

Diego Costa is a beast — an absolutely horrible monster — he will be instantly hated by every opposition team and & fans, which is fantastic — other fans never hate useless players. His performance on Saturday encompassed everything we had been missing in the last campaign and & also demonstrated the striker’s natural instinct which, sadly, Torres had lost quite some time ago. For me, that goal in Barcelona will always be one of the best moments I have ever had watching Chelsea in my life — worth £50 million of any billionaire’s money, in my book.

But back to our new pet Rottweiler — if that performance is an example of what to expect with him recovering from a slight knock, imagine him fully fit. He is an absolute menace.

Martinez is difficult to dislike, but I found his whining about disrespect a bit bloody rich, to be honest. By his reckoning, it’s disrespectful to give it to someone face to face — but it’s perfectly fine to continually and surreptitiously nudge, elbow, pull shirts, stamp on hands, etc — and let’s not forget, Everton should have been down to 10 when Howard clearly handled outside the box. The American would have done better to shut his gob and thank his lucky stars rather than give the thumbs up to the clearly visually impaired linesman&.

Jose, although enthusiastic about Costa and& the attacking elements of our play, was also clearly not impressed with the defence — especially as he admitted to dedicating a 90-minute training session to defending corners and free kicks — he said he may has well have stayed at home with his wife.

Terry too in his post-match interview admitted that the manager would be less than happy, so I imagine every goal conceded will be minutely picked apart, especially with the likes of City and& Arsenal on the horizon.

It looks like Loic Remy will be the only bit of business Chelsea will be doing. The only word that comes to mind at the moment is “underwhelming”. When we have in recent years been linked with the likes of Rooney, Falcao, Aguero (before he signed for City) and Cavani, it is then rather disappointing to end up with a player from QPR. It’s those Asda eggs all over again. We might as well have just kept Demba Ba.

All of that said, I also used the word “underwhelmed” to describe the signing of Costa — so what do I know?

So far, so good — with the help of our new striker, Chelsea should once more claim the prize for the pariahs of English football, which suits us just fine. I can’t imagine Costa will reign it in and& Mourinho will positively encourage him to maraud to his heart’s content — no doubt having thrown him a couple of raw T-bones and& a freshly slain antelope at the final whistle up at Goodison.

Man United: Rock bottom, and even Poor David is chuckling

It’s an old truism of this column that also happens to be true: you know you’re not in a happy place when you welcome a mid-season international break. And believe me, we Reds are pouncing with relief upon next weekend’s hiatus with the urgent hunger of the Assyrian wolf.

As one colleague chirped post-Burnley with the subtlest of phrasal flippancies: “We may have hit rock bottom but at least we’re now stable.”

Not as stable as an actual corpse, though, as we are all quick to console ourselves, especially on today of all days — the transfer deadline.

Yes, here’s to another 12 hours or so of final grasping hopes remaining undashed (Hummels? Vidal? Strootman? Anyone at all?) — until the hand of Jim White bangs the last hammer.

As I write, my man in Lisbon reports to me that United have a full contingent of scouts and assorted ‘people’ in the stands at the Benfica-Sporting match, which has sent me racing to the football almanacks to thumb the index for central midfielders and defenders. I’m none the wiser, to be frank: I’ve processed so many potential target names ending in ‘-o’ this summer that I’m flashing back to my Latin A-level days. (“How does one decline the word ‘Carvalho’, sir?”)

Even if United don’t end up adding to the basket, we can’t overdo the whingeing this time. Di Maria has been universally welcomed and his ludicrous price is of no concern to fans; Blind is certainly better than nothing, and better than much of what we have in the squad, which is also next to nothing.

As for Rojo, his pace, youth and top level experience tick many favourite boxes, although there’s still the unfortunate matter of an alleged bottling incident to deal with legally.

“A bottler?” sniggered my pal Bernard: “He’ll fit right into this squad, then.”

He had no need to mention Milton Keynes there. In fact, no-one needs to mention that again, thank you. It really was one of our worst ever results, on paper — and, unfortunately, on the pitch too.

The Hall Of Shame has a new name to add to Watford and York.

Thus it was that after Turf Moor, where we somehow managed to be both chaotically unpredictable yet also utterly boring, the UK ‘Sun On Sunday’ cheekily headlined its report ‘Bring Back Moyes!’.

I hope that gave Poor David a chuckle. Unlike Louis, Moyes did win during his first four games, twice. And he also managed to avoid a scenario LVG will face when QPR visit in two weeks’ time: another failure to score would mean Reds not seeing a United goal in a whole month, something not even the 1974 relegation team achieved.

But all that kind of thing’s just gimmickry, of course, giving us the cheap thrill of a fake scare. No-one’s really pining for Moyes, nor thinking we’ve made a mistake by importing a Dutch ‘philosopher’ rather than a no-nonsense domestic ‘job do-er’. Many Reds have enjoyed a good spleen-vent over the past few weeks but I’m not sure all their hearts were in it.

Talk to most lads once the horrendous matchday visions have faded — seeing Anderson in a shirt again, for example, was like a bad horror flick franchise reboot — and there’s still patient stoicism. We’re repeating ourselves, perhaps, but we do remind ourselves that this is probably going to take a while.

From tomorrow morning, Louis and his new players have a breathing space of 12 days — fittingly, given he needs to perform the football equivalent of the 12 tasks of Hercules. Remarkably, we don’t face what I would call potentially ‘face-losing’ opposition until the start of November. The fixture list Computer Gods once so worryingly decried in green ink by David Moyes have instead opted to smile beatifically upon Louis.

You might even say it’s as though he’s their chosen one. Er, hang on a second.......

Liverpool: For once Reds see it out like proper professional types

Ha ha, look at that Louis van Gaal eh? Yes, all very amusing I’m sure but at some point Liverpool had to start providing their own laughs.

These away games came at the worst possible time. There were already so many new faces, so many positional permutations, yet at the Etihad it seemed little had changed.

Stoke’s win there set tongues a-wagging. It was the sort of disciplined shut-out seemingly beyond the Liverpool of today. City didn’t even need to do much to get their three goals last week, just wait for the gifts that always, always seem to arrive.

With Skrtel injured, Agger leaving in dollops of sentiment — would he really have turned down Barcelona? — and with Spurs having hit the ground running there wasn’t much hope in Liverpool hearts yesterday morning.

Or is that only my blackened, ill-willed heart? All eyes zoomed in on Mario. That hardly needs saying, does it? It’s difficult to avoid the notion that, like a sugar-overdosed child, he thrives on it. You can almost hear the cogs in his head whirring: “What can I do today?”

He seemed to come out seconds before everyone else, with a Ronaldo-esque admiring glance up at the big screen. He wasn’t the only change. Johnson was pensioned off under a thigh-strain smokescreen while the variable Sakho exploited Skrtel’s nobbled knee.

Mario headed straight at Lloris two minutes in while a Mignolet slip went unpunished immediately afterwards. Eyebrows rose several notches. The early goal settled things down, with Henderson (the least selfish player in history?) putting it on a plate for Sterling who was not to be reined in for the rest of the afternoon.

Gerrard made some intricate defensive intrusions, camouflaging some woeful passing, and when Sakho had his almost obligatory debacle Lovren covered well. There was good and bad from Balotelli, overall they all seemed calm and secure on what was built up as an extremely treacherous fixture.

Then the gift arrived, once again at a devastating moment just before half-time. Mignolet saved this one. Had Chadli repeated Jovetic’s feat, another good 40 minutes’ work would have been ruined. It’s about luck sometimes.

There’d been some casual play and grossly under-hit passes but Moreno and Manquillo had been beyond reproach. I knew there was pace a-plenty in this team already, but God when we ‘go’ all you can see are vapour trails. That might have been the vodka, though.

Dier had already chanced his arm twice, might even have walked with a less lenient referee, but Dowd pointed to the spot and Gerrard does what he does. The songs about falling over themselves fell to a gnat’s whisper and then stopped altogether.

Balotelli gave a childish, dangerous foul away but Lovren and Sakho had their “shalt not pass” faces on now and Moreno summoned the spirit of Riise to surge forward and made it 3-0.

Mario left proceedings with enough in the bank to suggest it’ll never be dull, and Liverpool’s real test in these situations was about to begin. Shut. The damn thing. Down.

There were other breakaways with the excellent Sterling not quite getting his brain and feet aligned but we have one of the game’s future stars here. That becomes more evident every week.

It was great to turn an awkward game into a stroll, great to close it out like proper professional types do it. Sakho is sometimes great, sometimes a tinderbox waiting for the wrong match. This was one of his better days, or else he simply wasn’t punished, depending on your sense of fair play.

Some of the football was sublime, at a higher level than game three last year. We only had to overcome Moyes that day, this was a bigger test.

Passed; if not with flying colours, then at least with a certain amount of comfort. The season has begun at last, and now we have to wait two weeks? Stupid, stupid football.

Arsenal: Clinging to the hope of last-minute spending spree

Silent Stan Kroenke is hardly a regular at home games, let alone travelling with the Gunners on the road. So naturally our majority shareholder’s unlikely appearance at the King Power Stadium yesterday set tongues a wagging, with Gooners everywhere clutching at the straw that he might come riding in on his white charger at the last minute, with his Louis Vuitton suitcases stuffed full of cash.

Doubtless it’s just wishful thinking but where Arsène was previously reeling off a long list of the promising square pegs, who he wants to shove in our gaping round hole up front, at least he left me clinging to some hope of reinforcements before the transfer window slams shut tonight, when instead he spoke about still being “very active” after we dropped another two points.

Travelling to Leicester inevitably results in us reminiscing nostalgically about Bergkamp’s hat-trick at Filbert Street. It’s a testament to the sublime quality of Dennis’s display all those years back that a 3-3 draw against lowly Leicester remains a stand-out memory from such a magical era.

Who knows, Sanogo might eventually make a name for himself, but sadly, at present, the French youngster is at the opposite end of the football spectrum.

If Yaya had pulled a hat-trick out of the bag yesterday, le Prof would’ve probably put his feet up and taken the day off today. But after witnessing our centre-forward allowing the ball to pass between his legs, when standing almost on the penalty spot, this didn’t exactly scream of a player with the greatest goal-poaching instincts. Perhaps like the rest of us, Arsène suddenly starting sharing the nightmare of the goalscoring responsibilities, in crucial forthcoming clashes against City and Chelsea, all resting on Bambi’s flailing limbs.

The Sunday newspaper tales suggesting that the Gunners were attempting to gazump Chelsea were risible. With the limited list of potential targets dwindling with each successive transfer news notification that pings on my mobile phone, I’m doing my best to come to terms with the possibility that Le Prof intends to mend and make do, so as to avoid the massive disappointment tonight.

Although as Arsène duly pointed out, for all Man City’s marvellous array of firepower, they still managed to lose at home to Stoke on Saturday and our failure to beat the Foxes wasn’t just down to Sa-no-goal. Mezut Ozil didn’t overexert himself in midweek and Ramsey wasn’t even playing, but where in our previous two matches we’ve managed to compensate for our failure to find top gear, with the resolve necessary to nick goals at the death, the lactic acid in our heavy legs left Leicester looking more likely to snatch the win yesterday.

I heard Alan Green whinging on the radio about the fact that Wenger had rested Wilshere after our midweek exertions and personally I would’ve preferred to see Jack afforded the opportunity to continue to play himself into some form. Sanchez would’ve been most entitled to an afternoon on the bench, after leaving absolutely everything out on the pitch against Besiktas. But with each successive performance my admiration for Alexis increases, as once again the Chilean worked his socks off.

However we struggled to match the intensity and desire of the Foxes, and roared on by their vociferous crowd, I can’t see too many teams rolling them over.

Many moaned about this boiling over into actual bodily harm on occasion, but I love a good old-fashioned physical battle. I’m not sure Mezut found his afternoon in the Leicester sunshine quite so enjoyable, but I have some sympathy with him and all our wealth of midfield talent. It must be soul-destroying to have the patience to craft an opening in such a tight encounter, only to look up and realise there’s no one capable of producing an end product. Surely after striving for so long to garner the collection of talent necessary to produce entertainment in Arsène’s idealistic image, our manager cannot deny us the piece or two which might complete his jigsaw puzzle?