Premiership Review

After a very exciting weekend of games, we have my friend Matt's typically excellent summary of weekend action in the Premiership. See below for his thoughts on who already has the league wrapped up in a bow and also what Sammy Lee can do for work after he gets the sack.

Readers of the blog will know I am not as careful a follower of the EPL as Matt; I try to distribute my game watchin' between England, Italy and Spain. I did watch a bunch of Premiership games this weekend, however, and I must say I was entertained by a number of them. Three games in particular were wildly different in style, but I found all three to be great:

1). Fulham v. Man City: Any 3-3 draw with that much back-and-forth action is going to be fun to watch. Lots of entertaining players on display as well, including Dempsey, Richards and David Healy. Conventionally, the "best " game of the weekend.

2). Arsenal v. Derby: By any conventional measurement, conversely, a 5-0 drubbing would be a bore, but I have found Arsenal riveting in recent weeks. They play gorgeous football with gorgeous passing. The beautiful game, anyone?

3). Man United v. Chelsea: Essentially a 1-0 game with a lousy penalty scored at the end, the supposed highlight game of the weekend seems to have been a dud. But in fact I enjoyed the game immensely; not for the goal chances created but for the skill on display at virtually every position for both teams on the field. The television announcers correctly noted that it took players some time to sub-in to the games; that is essentially because the ball never went out of bounds. Also, Avarm Grant kind of scares me.

Don't think I'm going soft on the Premiership, however. The best game in Europe this weekend was still probably the Juve-Roma thriller which ended in a 2-2 draw. But that is digression; I do hope you enjoy Matt's excellent Premiership review.

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Before I begin this week's review, I wanted to inform the readers why I talk about certain teams. For starters, I'm a Newcastle fan, so despite who they play I will watch the game, and despite how bad of a result, I will usually have something to say on the matter. I then follow other teams that either have a player I like to watch and follow, like Clint Dempsey at Fulham and David Bentley at Blackburn, or who not only have a player I like, but also have a history I'm fascinated with (Steven Gerrard and Liverpool) or love their style of play (Fabregas and Van Persie and the lovely football of Arsenal). Besides that I tend to watch and comment on the big games of the weekend, which usually feature the big 4 or teams that believe they should be in the big 4. So you most likely won't see me writing about the likes of Wigan, Derby, Reading, Bolton, Portsmouth, or Birmingham unless they involve the teams above. With that in mind, here is my weekend review.

I start with the best team right now in the Premier League, who also have the current best player in the League: Arsenal and Cesc Fabregas. I know it is still early in the year, but both are my current choice for champions of the league and player of the year. While the chances of Arsenal winning the Premier League will be discussed further in a little bit, I wanted to begin discussing the amazing talent of one Mr.

Fabregas. In a word WOW!!! This 20 year old is simple amazing, and is quickly making Arsenal fans forget about the departure of Thierry Henry. Now some may say I'm a bit biased based on my previously mentioned feelings on the player, but it can't be debated how well his form has been lately. This is a player that his manager, Arsene Wenger, this week compared to the great Michel Platini, which is quiet a complement, and hopefully that rings true for both fans of Arsenal and Spain. The past couple of years, Fabregas has reminded me of Cristiano Ronaldo, prior to Ronaldo's season last year and minus the latter’s penchant for diving. Fabregas has always had pin point passing, but the thing that was missing was his finishing, much like Ronaldo prior to last season.

However this has clearly been cured with Cesc seeming to score in every game he plays, and usually with some amazing shots. He was at it again this weekend, when Arsenal demolished Derby 5-0 (that's what you get Derby when you beat my beloved Newcastle). While Adebayor led the way with a hat trick, and Diaby had a beautiful goal to get the route started, it was once again Fabregas tearing apart the Derby defense with his pin point killer passing from midfield. Arsenal looked like champions, and did so while playing entertaining football. Also the continued success of Gael Clichy at left back has made Arsenal fans forget about Cashley Cole. The only thing I see stopping Arsenal to the title is some shady defense by Phillipe Senderos and not so strong goal keeping by Manuel Almunia, but that should be taken care of when William Gallas returns from injury and Jens Lehmann get his game back on if not from the January transfer window (maybe they will get out of favor goal keeper Shay Given from Newcastle).

Now I know that before the season began I predicted Liverpool to win the league, but at that time I thought Rafa Benitez had decided to given up on his rotational system and focus on winning the league title. I couldn't have been more wrong. Picking up a topic from last week, Liverpool dropped two points again, this time at home to lowly Birmingham.

BIRMINGHAM!!! AT ANFIELD!!! Not only did they drop two points, they couldn't even score a goal in a very poor and boring 0-0 score line. How could this be?? Well look no further than the gaffer, who decided to start Kuyt with Voronin, while leaving the 27 million pound summer transfer hit-man Fernando Torres on the bench. Didn't Benitez learn anything from last week's nil nil result at Pompey, when the star striker started the game on the bench there as well. Why spend all that money on a striker if you aren't going to start him? You can't tell me that his was resting him for the "big" league cup draw this week with Reading. As I mentioned last week, it doesn't appear that Rafa is focusing on winning the title, and I don't think it will be long before the Kop end start chanting that he be sacked. Furthermore, if his plan was to get the ball into the box by playing wide, why did he wait till the 80 minute before putting Peter Crouch in who would be his best target man?? What is this gaffer thinking?

One further note from the game is that Steven Gerrard was given man of the match. For what??? I love Gerrard, he is one of my favorite players, and god knows he tries hard and wanted to win the match badly, but he played poorly. There simply didn't deserve to be a man of the match in this lackluster display by Liverpool.

Then after these 2 games, I checked on the best American playing soccer right now. Mr. Clint Dempsey.

Unfortunately the team he plays for isn't that good, but they never give up and keep on fighting. The Fulham v. Man City match was probably the best of the weekend as Fulham came back from a goal down to earn a point in an exciting 3-3 draw keeping them just above the relegation zone. Although Clint couldn't score a goal in his 4th straight game, it was interesting to see him and Micah Richards go head to head (literally) in a heated dispute. I wonder what they said to each other, but I'm sure they weren't congratulating each other on their recent form.

In other notable games, Middlesbrough and Sunderland drew 2-2 in their northeastern derby, but we all know that the real team from far up north is the Toon Army.After a disastrous display this past Monday when they lost to the worst team in the league, Newcastle bounced back with a 3-1 win at home over West Ham. Mark Viduka decided he wanted to play, and scored 2 goals, Martins , who started on the bench in favor of Michael Owen missed an open net, and speaking of Mr.Owen, he got hurt. AGAIN! Big surprise. The Jekyll and Hyde team of the premier League currently sit in 5th place. Also it the battle of which gaffer will get the sack next, Sammy Lee's Bolton came back to draw 1-1 with Martin Jol's Tottenham to keep both teams in the relegation zone. How about both teams sack them both tomorrow, the Spurs can hire Mourinho (although I doubt he would go there), Jol can go to Bolton, and Sammy Lee can be Gary Busey's stunt double in his next straight to video film.

Speaking of the Special One, I am sad to see him go. Believe me, I won't be missing his boring style of play while in charge of Chelsea, but I will miss his quotes and his attacks on Ferguson, Wenger, and Benitez. It seems that the Big 4 have just dropped to the big 3 with his departure. Which leads me to the so called "game of the weekend". I must say last week I wasn't looking forward to this match as I figured that with Chelsea's style of play and the poor start from Man U we would be looking at a dull 0-0 game. However with Mourinho leaving Chelsea, I was curios to see how they would react at Old Trafford and the game wasn't all that bad. Ok it wasn't great, but at least there was some attacking from Chelsea until Mikel Jon Obi (whose first and last names have switched over the past couple of weeks) was unjustifiably dismissed with a Red card. Carlos Tevez scored his first goal as a Red Devil, and someone in the stands shot Louis Saha while he was in the penalty box, allowing him to make 2-0 from the spot and secure Man United 3 points. Although the win puts Man U in second place, they still don't look all that good to me. As for Chelsea, it looks like they might not get a Champions league spot this year, but both teams have a plethora of good players that I can count either one out at this time. You never know what will happen when Saturday comes.

Weekend Matches: September 22-23

We have a loaded weekend of very good football coming up, with some great head-to-head matches to enjoy. First, I am very lad to see that GolTV apparently has settled their issues with Spanish television, so they are now once again allowed to show Barcelona and Real Madrid games. I’ll believe it when I see the games this weekend, but I’m very excited. The Barca-Sevilla game should be very exciting, in spite of Sevilla getting spanked by Arsenal this week. In Italy Roma v. Juve is surely the pick of the litter, but football fan-atics everywhere will have their eyes on Old Trafford on Sunday. The Manchester United — Chelsea clash has always been a big game, but most fans will want to see how the blues do without Mourinho at the helm. I know I’ll be watching. Finally, you will note that I even have a game listed from the Women’s World Cup, the Saturday morning match between USA and England. How progressive!


Saturday

7:55am USA vs England ESPN2

10:00am Arsenal vs Derby County FSC

12:00pm Fulham vs Manchester City FSC

2:30pm AC Milan vs Parma FSC

4:00pm Barcelona vs Sevilla GolTv


Sunday

8:30am Newcastle Utd vs West Ham Setanta Sports

9:00am Roma vs Juventus FSC

11:00am Karlsruhe vs Bayern Munich GolTv

11:00am Manchester United vs Chelsea FSC

3:00pm Valladolid vs Real Madrid GolTv

Champions League Overshadowed

Today’s post was supposed to be a brief recap of the action in Matchday One of the Champions League. And it certainly wasn’t a bad two days. We saw Arsenal absolutely dominate a very good Seville team, (the gooners might now very well be favorites for the cup, as well as other trophies) Thierry Henry score his first for Barca, Manchester United squeak by Sporting in a snoozer, and we watched Real Madrid do what it has done for the past eight months: turn on the jets in the second half and outlast the competition.

All of this has been overshadowed, however, by the most shocking result so far: Chelsea drawing with lowly Rosenborg at home in front of a half-empty stadium that had seemingly become bored by their home team. Or, to be more specific, the Champions League was overshadowed by what seems to be the direct result of that match. Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has resigned.

Although there have been rumors circulating about Mourinho leaving Chelsea for quite some time now, the particular timing of the resignation could not be more shocking. Yes, it’s true that Chelsea have not been getting the results they wanted in the Premiership, and the draw in Europe was a bad omen, as was the sparse attendance. But with key players injured and Manchester United hosting on Sunday, this was the worst time for Mourinho to walk away (or be pushed away; details of what exactly happened will surely become clearer in a few days). Avram Grant has taken over the club for now; he has a “good guy, good coach” reputation but we don’t know much about him.

So this could be, at the very least, a short-term problem for Chelsea. They are already a little behind in the standings and missing key players Drogba and Fat Frank. Dropping three points at Old Trafford on Sunday could drive them out of the top four for the first time in recent memory.

That situation will bear watching, as will considerations about Mourinho’s time in London as a whole. I, for one, have mixed feelings abut the man the press insists on referring to either as “The Special One” or, perhaps even more stupidly, as “The Portuguese,” as if the newsmen from The Sun had never met someone from Portugal before. On one hand, I sort of liked Mourinho personally (not that I knew him, but from afar); he was smart, funny, and spoke his mind. He also obviously won, which is kind of the point of football in the first place.

But Mourinho was also increasingly making me despair. His version of football was getting grimmer and grimmer, as his team ground out one 1-0 win after another. It got to the point for me personally that I couldn’t stand watching Chelsea; I really can’t tell you the last time I watched an entire Chelsea match. Reportedly, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich first wanted to buy a football team after watching the now-legendary Real Madrid-Manchester United Champions League match in 2003 in which David Beckham came off the bench to score two goals, a game so good that Beckham ran into the locker to get an extra jersey so he could swap shirts with more than one player. Obviously, Abramovich loves attacking football, and he wasn’t getting it with Chelsea. Mourinho, for his part, was clearly getting players he didn’t want (like Andy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack) and felt he was getting undercut by front-office men brought in by Abramovich.

So the Mourinho era is over at Stamford Bridge. For all the boring games, I will miss Jose. As he once said, however, he will simply take some time off, watch professional wrestling with his son (Jose is a huge fan of the WWE, bizarrely) and then get another million-dollar contract to coach another team. Chelsea, on the other hand, must now see if they can continue the winning tradition they only so recently started.

Football Monday

It was another interesting weekend in the world of football, particularly on the European continent. In England, Chelsea won the first of its hoped-for four trophies as it beat a young Arsenal squad for the Carling Cup. John Terry, who all of a sudden is made of glass, is injured again, and there was a big fight. Welcome to English football.

The Premiership held games as well this weekend, the lowlight for me being the 4-0 slaughtering of my Sheffield United at the hands of a clearly in-form Liverpool. Sheff coach Neil Warnock can bitch all he wants about Steven Gerard diving, but the truth is, when you lose 4-0 you have just been whipped. You have no one to blame but yourself. ESPN’s Jon Carter has an intelligent look at how the last few weeks of the premiership should play out, and makes some reasonable guesses about who stays up and who goes down. I hope he’s right about Sheffield United, and if so, sorry West Ham. Fortune’s Always Hiding indeed.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=410040&root=england&cc=5901

Also of interest is this report of Manchester United’s win on Saturday. The writer reports, with admirable honesty, that Christiano Ronaldo has clearly surpassed Wayne Rooney as a footballer and asks if Rooney might not be quite a bit over-hyped. Manchester should have an interesting summer.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=410615&root=england&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos2&cc=5901

In Italy, Inter, Milan and Fiorentina all won this weekend, creating a crowd at the top. There should be a genuinely interesting (and fun) dogfight for those top four spots. In this weekend’s games Inter scored a ton of goals (five) while Milan scored one, but won. Milan’s game was particularly interesting; after playing wonderfully last week, Ronaldo was back to his sluggish, no-defense self, and the commentators immediately started in on his weight again. Will the big guy end up as the angel or the devil in Milan?

In Spain, there was a derby in Madrid while Barcelona witnessed the return of Samuel Eto’o, meaning the that along with the Police, another famous power trio was getting back together: Eto’o, Messi, and Ronaldinho were finally back on the same field again. Uncoincidently, Barca won and stayed two points up in the league. The great Phil Ball has it all here:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=411020&root=europe&cc=5901

Chelsea Nonsense and Zidane News that Makes No Sense

Even when Chelsea wins, as they did this past weekend as they destroyed Nottingham Forrest, one cannot shake the feeling that the club is, at heart, nothing more than the incredibly apt description once voiced by the magazine When Saturday Comes: “A financial basket-case club run like a third-world diamond republic by a mysterious and shadowy foreign billionaire.” While that sounds neat, I do believe I will stick with Sheffield United.

Here are just a few of the fun things that have emerged from Chelsea over the past week or so:

· World-class striker Didier Drogba publicly calls out his fellow forward Andriy Shevchenco, suggesting to the media that Sheva doesn’t pass enough. Apparently Drogba didn’t finish his sentence, as he meant to say that Sheva didn’t pass TO HIM enough. But whatever.

· Drogba also took time out of his busy schedule to reportedly criticize Michael Ballack (who makes $250,000 per week for playing the same position as teammate Frank Lampard. At least Ballack does it with less whining and without writing dreadful books.) Anyway, Drogba later denied those criticisms.

· Speaking of Ballack, last week German legend Franz Beckenbauer said Ballack made a mistake by signing with Chelsea. I’m sure Ballack can think of millions of reasons why Beckenbauer is wrong, and Ballack basically said he didn’t need to be a surf to Bayern Munich the rest of his life, which is a pretty good point. Still, I’m sure no German soccer player wants to get on Beckenbauer’s bad side. That would be like a Brazilian footballer being criticized by Pele; like an Argentine being criticized by Maradona; like an American being called to the carpet by…Alexi Lalas? Kobi Jones? Mia Hamm? Maybe Rodney Dangerfield from that Ladybugs movie?

· Finally, the circus around Coach Jose Mourinho continues to be just exhausting. Regardless of what everyone is saying, I don’t think at this point that anyone really knows whether the special one is leaving or not. I think Jose is a lot of fun, but frankly, I think he’s nuts to stay. He needs to pretty much win everything every year, or he will be hammered in the press. With an unlimited payroll and any players you may wish for, you have no excuse but to win. Still, he seems to like being at the center of it all; and lets face it, Chelsea is never dull. Or, at least, hasn’t been since the mysterious and shadowy foreign billionaire took over.

One other interesting bit of news came out this weekend; apparently the Chicago Fire made an attempt to sign the recently retired Zinedine Zidane.

Now obviously I really like the Footballfan-atic poster boy. He’s one of my favorites. But it’s kind of hard to imagine the great man plying his trade in…Chicago. The city of broad shoulders. The city where women induce early births so there husbands can go to the Bears game. Would Zidane have been bigger than Jordan? Bigger than Ernie Banks? Bigger than Bill Murray? Perhaps; and it is certainly fun to imagine Zidane warbling through a rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner” at Wrigley before catching a late dinner with Mike Ditka and Ben Wallace at the Chicago Steak and Chop house. However, I do believe Zinedine is enjoying his happy retirement in France with his family, and that is probably where he should stay. He can leave America to be conquered by the Beckhams.

Exciting Premiership Action!

Liverpool’s exciting 2-0 victory this morning over Chelsea suggests that maybe, just maybe, the Premiership might be worth watching all the way to the end of the season. Today’s victory reminded me of why so many people like Liverpool so much (they have an attacking style and appealing group of players) and also why many detest Chelsea (some of their “stars” barely looked interested in the proceedings). Still, we shouldn’t over exaggerate the importance of today’s fun. If Manchester wins tomorrow, they will go nine points up on the rest of the league, a tough road even for a very good club to climb. And if they do lose to a good Arsenal squad tomorrow, they’re still up six points.

I think that all most neutral football fans want is to have the race close going in to the last few weeks, just to have something interesting to watch. It seems as if that probably will be the case, as Manchester is not very deep (we will see if they get Owen Hargreaves from Munich) and with an injury or two they could surely drop a game or two back. Hopefully, things will stay close to the end.

However, in the long run, it still looks like business as usual in the premiership; the “big four” (ManU, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool) are in the top four spots and are unlikely to be displaced. Portsmouth, Bolton, and Reading (a great story) are all having fine seasons, but it seems unlikely they will get one of the Champion’s League spots. It should be fun to watch the last few weeks come this spring, to see whether Chelsea or Manchester United is crowned champion, but we really already know the outcome: the “big clubs” have already won.

One other thing is certain, also. My English club, Sheffield United, is only going to a Champion’s League match if they buy a ticket. After getting shellacked again today, the only worries they have are about relegation.