Manchester United News

Today the red half of Manchester is on the mind, seeing how the Devils played an excruciating Champion’s League match last night. I watched it on ESPN, but my wife (an indifferent fan of football at best) summed up the match better than I ever could by falling asleep at halftime. A fairly lucky Rooney blast was the difference (coming only moments after a gorgeous Christiano Ronaldo backheel goal that was ruled offside) and of course they will gladly take the three points. But is Manchester turning into Chelsea? Ugh.

More bad news for Manchester yesterday included the report that Owen Hargreaves will be out for at least another month as his knee continues to trouble him. (Obviously making him unavailable for England as well.) Hargreaves Owen-like ability to stay healthy might make United rue the day they purchased him; especially with Nani, Anderson, and even Carlos Tevez providing indifferent results after a very expensive off-season.

Champions League: Tuesday and Wednesday

Here is the US Television line-up for the next two days in the Champions League. Lots of good games here (especially Man United v. Roma and Real v. Lazio), but I do wish the big American channels (especially ESPN) would show more than just the English teams and Real Madrid and Barca. I’m a big Madrid fan, but we see those teams all the time, and the Champions league is a good chance to see good, but different, teams. At least Setanta is showing the Portuguese teams.

Anyway, also keep an eye on the Liverpool v. Marseille game, if for no other reason than to ensure that Steven Gerrard doesn’t hit any kids with his car on the drive to the stadium.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=468744&cc=5901

(As Triumph the Insult Comic Dog says: “I Keed, I keed.”)


Tuesday

2:30pm Manchester vs AS Roma ESPN2

2:30pm Steau Bukarest vs Arsenal Setanta Sports

5:00pm Stuttgart vs Barcelona Setanta Sports, ESPNCC

6:45pm Dynamo Kyiv vs Sporting Setanta Sports


Wednesday

2:30pm Liverpool vs Olympique Marseille ESPN2

2:30pm Valencia vs Chelsea Setanta Sports

5:00pm Lazio vs Real Madrid Setanta Sports, ESPNCC

6:45pm Besiktas vs Porto Setanta Sports

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.

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.

Weekend Matches: August 31-September 3

Interesting matches this week. AC Milan plays twice this weekend, first in the Super Cup today (which would be a great match) and Monday against my favorite team, Fiorentina. Hopefully Milan is a little tired by Monday. Regardless, all of the eyes of the football world will be in Manchester on Saturday, to see the combustible Roy Keane face off against his former team. May not be much of a game, but we shall se.


Friday

2:30pm AC Milan vs Sevilla FSC (UEFA Super Cup)


Saturday

10:00am Fulham vs. Tottenham FSC

10:00am Liverpool vs Derby County Setanta Sports

12:00pm Manchester United vs Sunderland FSC

2:30pm Empoli vs Inter Milan FSC


Sunday

8:30am Arsenal vs Portsmouth Setanta Sports

9:00am AS Roma vs Siena FSC

11:00am Aston Villa vs Chelsea FSC

11:00am Hamburg vs Bayern Munich GolTv


Monday

12:00pm AC Milan vs Fiorentina FSC

Now the Fun (Hopefully) Begins

This weekend will witness the re-start up of league play in Europe. There are still a lot of interesting storylines left that need to resolve themselves, but one of the most interesting to watch is Manchester United’s quest for the Treble.

Manchester won the treble in 1999, with the Giggs/Beckham/Keane team that went down as one of the best in the club’s history. This year that have a chance to repeat that feat with a club that many predicted would finish second, third, or even fourth in the premiership. Instead, the club has a comfortable cushion at the top of the English league, and are well placed to go to the finals in both the FA cup and the Champions League. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, especially because the Red Devils still have to play Chelsea once more in league play and could very well face them in both cup tournaments as well. Things are further complicated by the recent injury to Christiano Ronaldo, who has been far-and-away United’s best player this season. Alex Ferguson himself has recently gone on record as saying he believes the team will NOT achieve the treble (his comments can be found here: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=417168&cc=5901) because there are simply too many games for the club to play at the end of the season. United fans and also many neutrals hope, however, that Manchester hangs in there and gives us something to watch as the season winds to a close. United haters, on the other hand, (and they are legion) would love to see them drop all three, even if it meant they fell to the equally-hated Chelsea. The fun will begin for all of us this weekend.

Predictions, Predictions

This weekend, one of my readers asked me for my picks of who would win in Europe. (Thanks, “Soccerfan.”) Since “Soccerfan” is presumably one of the eight or nine people who actually read this column, I thought I would answer. “Soccerfan” wasn’t really clear in what he was asking: I presume he was asking about my picks as to who would win the Champions League, but I am also going to provide some quick thoughts on who will come away with the three major European leagues that I follow: England, Spain, and Italy.

Italy

The easiest work is done in Italy, where Inter is running away with the league. As of March 5 they have 70 points and are 16 points up on their nearest competitor. Only a fool wouldn’t pick them.

Much more intriguing is the race for the top four spots in the league, which grants the teams places in next year’s champion’s league. Inter obviously has their spot and Roma seems to have theirs as well. The final two could be Palermo, Lazio, or Empoli, but two of the most intriguing stories in football right now are AC Milan and Fiorentina as they fight for a Champions spot. Milan and Fiorentina, remember, started with major points penalties (8 and 15 points, respectively) and yet are threatening a top-four spot. My favorite club, Fiorentina, has been particularly impressive; without their penalty they would have 50 points and would be sitting pretty. Their utter destruction of Torino yesterday suggests they will not end the season without a serious fight.

England

This weekend Manchester United managed to squeak by Liverpool and remain 9 points up on Chelsea. While I agree with Jose Mourinho that the race is by no means over (Manchester still has to go to Chelsea) I am picking Manchester to win the league by a relatively close margin; perhaps three or four points. While both of the top two teams in England are relatively thin, Manchester has managed to create more depth due to the Henrik Larrson signing and the remarkable health of their team. Also, in spite of Didier Drogba’s fantastic year, I think Christiano Ronaldo is having the best season of any player in the world, and Manchester, I think, should be able to use him to keep their competitors at bay. Just think how good this team could be if Wayne Rooney played as well as his reputation.

I predict that the top four in England will be United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. I also predict the sun shall rise tomorrow.

Spain

La Liga is, by far, the closest and most competitive league that I am following this year. Sevilla played a great match against Barca this weekend, beating them and taking over first place. In spite of this, I do believe that Barca will ultimately win the league; once they get Ronaldinho, Eto’o, and Messi back in form they seem to me they will be quite unstoppable, in spite of the team’s defensive deficiencies. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see Barca drop the ball, both as Real Madrid fan and as an admirer of beautiful football. Sevilla is a fun team to watch. I just think Barca is a better team than we have seen so far.

My top four in Spain is Barca, Sevilla, Valencia and Atletico Madrid. Real Madrid finishes fifth, misses the Champions League, fires Capello, signs two more big-name players (Franck Ribery for one, maybe) and starts over yet again. God, that’s depressing.

Champions League

This is probably the toughest league to predict, as there are literally six or seven teams good enough to win it. Thus, I am going to go out on a limb here: I predict the final will be…(drumroll please) Inter v. Chelsea. And I believe Inter will win it.

Strange prediction, I know. I don’t think Chelsea will win their domestic league, but because of this I do think Mourinho will pour everything he has into winning the Champions again before he leaves Chelsea. Inter, of course, has to get by a very tough Valencia team who scored two away goals in their first meeting two weeks ago. I do believe Inter will pull Tuesday’s match out, however, and I do believe they will go on to win the Champion’s league simply because the seem like the strongest and most complete team this year. If Inter has ever had a year of destiny, this is it.

More Bad News for Italian Teams not wearing Blue and Black

In December of last year (the latest issue available here in the states) the English language magazine of Italian soccer, Calcio Italia, ran a feature story on Inter Milan striker Adriano. In the story, they basically said that Adriano was a fat, lazy slob who didn’t care about his team and needed to go away.

Since then, Adriano has scored four goals in his last four games, and has made Inter look stronger than ever. They now have at least three, if not four, dangerous strikers and a formidable midfield and defense to boot. Today they destroyed my team, Fiorentina, who might very well be the second or third-best team in Italy. (Fiorentina would be right in the thick of a Champion’s spot if not for their points deduction, and might very well get one anyway.) But they were soundly beaten. Adriano’s mini-comeback suggests the race is all but over for the scudetto. Now we are left to see how Inter will do in Europe.

In England, it seems as if we still do have a race on our hands, since Arsenal was able to hold off Manchester United by scoring two in the final fifteen minutes. It was a genuinely exciting game, capped by Henry’s header in the 93 minute, following the play-by-play announcers rant earlier in the game that Henry was no good in the air. Anyway, Manchester remains six points up, meaning there is still reason to watch the Premiership. Good for Arsenal and good for us.

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.