"Chicks dig the long ball" -- various.
Consider that my feeble attempt as a lead-in to Sunday's feisty 1-1 draw between Arsenal and Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium. Get it? Both goals came on long balls played over the top.
Perhaps you wouldn't call Samir Nasri's pass to Robin Van Persie a "long ball" considering the Dutchman's sublime first touch and finish right in front of the defense of Jamie Carragher. (Right now can anyone in the Premier League produce a wonder goal at the drop of a hat like Van Persie?)
Robbie Keane's tally, on the other hand, was more of the trademark long ball of English lore due since it came off the foot of defender Daniel 'Arm Tat' Agger. Nice to see Keane show some signs of life. Guess you can take the boy out of White Hart Lane, but not the Hotspur out of the boy. (Wait a second...) It was a bit of delicious irony, that Keane scored whilst manager Rafa Benitiz was absent from the Emirates for a kidney store operation (So thaaaaat explains the furrowed brow at all times.)
Is it worth making a big deal that Emmanuel Adebayor was sent off for a pretty weak second yellow card via a pretty good sell job byEmiliano Insúa Arbeloa. Arsene Wenger was upset -- as usual. The game was at the time 1-1 and ended 1-1 so in that regard, no harm, no foul.
The bigger concern for fifth-place Arsenal is the loss of Cesc Fabregas to a knee injury. The Spaniard wasn't on fire like he was at this time of the season in 2007, but he's still the Gunners most important player.
For Liverpool, will this be the week Chelsea finally retakes first place? The Reds have survived a pretty vanilla run of form, but still only have one loss.
It was probably a blip on the radar, but maybe we'll see teams return to a more direct style of play. Hell, there are probably thousands of high school soccer coaches in American who'd be happy to lend out their playbooks.
(Apologies, due to a fantasy football scenario plus a very busy Sunday night in the office I didn't have time to write this until about 2 a.m.)
Around the league -- James Milner? Seriously? Could you even recreate that fluke goal against West Ham again if you tried? Good teams do make their own luck, right? ... Damien Duff scored the winner for Newcastle against Tottenham, should have had him on the 'What the hell happened' list. Making the feat even more rare -- like an albino unicorn -- Mr. Milkbones Mark Viduka set up the Irishman. ... Nice job by Sam Allardyce in his debut for Blackburn, granted they got a gift wrapped opponent in Stoke, plus a quick penalty. Benni McCarthy, too, showed rare signs of life and an affinity for back heels. Maybe Big Sam will make a couple savvy buys on the cheap next month and save Rovers. ... Sorry to see ex-Rovers boss Mark Hughes continue to flounder. Manchester City is firmly in 18th place, despite a +4 goal difference. Strange. Who would have thought that Svennis and Elano would have made a better impression at this time last year than Hughes and Robinho. Guess the Abu Dabai group is going to have to wait for the Champions League, or at least the UEFA Champions League. ... Ricky Sbragia -- it just looks wrong, but it's working at Sunderland. Crazy, right? ... Bolton and Fulham in the Top 10, probably crazier. ... Anyone else think Manchester United will have a little jet lag coming back from Japan, albeit with the FIFA Club World Cup trophy, and playing Stoke on Sunday and Middlesbrough Monday?
Fantasy team of the week -- Hats off to longtime reader/commentor J. Dunn's '92 Percent Pure Oxygen' with 48 total points, in a low-scoring week. Fulham's Jimmy Bullard and Mark Schwarzer were the top reasons.
If I don't post prior to Thursday -- I'll try my darnedest -- have a Merry Christmas and a happy Holiday season. At least there are plenty of game to offset the tediously awful NCAA bowl game slate.
Consider that my feeble attempt as a lead-in to Sunday's feisty 1-1 draw between Arsenal and Liverpool at the Emirates Stadium. Get it? Both goals came on long balls played over the top.
Perhaps you wouldn't call Samir Nasri's pass to Robin Van Persie a "long ball" considering the Dutchman's sublime first touch and finish right in front of the defense of Jamie Carragher. (Right now can anyone in the Premier League produce a wonder goal at the drop of a hat like Van Persie?)
Robbie Keane's tally, on the other hand, was more of the trademark long ball of English lore due since it came off the foot of defender Daniel 'Arm Tat' Agger. Nice to see Keane show some signs of life. Guess you can take the boy out of White Hart Lane, but not the Hotspur out of the boy. (Wait a second...) It was a bit of delicious irony, that Keane scored whilst manager Rafa Benitiz was absent from the Emirates for a kidney store operation (So thaaaaat explains the furrowed brow at all times.)
Is it worth making a big deal that Emmanuel Adebayor was sent off for a pretty weak second yellow card via a pretty good sell job by
The bigger concern for fifth-place Arsenal is the loss of Cesc Fabregas to a knee injury. The Spaniard wasn't on fire like he was at this time of the season in 2007, but he's still the Gunners most important player.
For Liverpool, will this be the week Chelsea finally retakes first place? The Reds have survived a pretty vanilla run of form, but still only have one loss.
It was probably a blip on the radar, but maybe we'll see teams return to a more direct style of play. Hell, there are probably thousands of high school soccer coaches in American who'd be happy to lend out their playbooks.
(Apologies, due to a fantasy football scenario plus a very busy Sunday night in the office I didn't have time to write this until about 2 a.m.)
Around the league -- James Milner? Seriously? Could you even recreate that fluke goal against West Ham again if you tried? Good teams do make their own luck, right? ... Damien Duff scored the winner for Newcastle against Tottenham, should have had him on the 'What the hell happened' list. Making the feat even more rare -- like an albino unicorn -- Mr. Milkbones Mark Viduka set up the Irishman. ... Nice job by Sam Allardyce in his debut for Blackburn, granted they got a gift wrapped opponent in Stoke, plus a quick penalty. Benni McCarthy, too, showed rare signs of life and an affinity for back heels. Maybe Big Sam will make a couple savvy buys on the cheap next month and save Rovers. ... Sorry to see ex-Rovers boss Mark Hughes continue to flounder. Manchester City is firmly in 18th place, despite a +4 goal difference. Strange. Who would have thought that Svennis and Elano would have made a better impression at this time last year than Hughes and Robinho. Guess the Abu Dabai group is going to have to wait for the Champions League, or at least the UEFA Champions League. ... Ricky Sbragia -- it just looks wrong, but it's working at Sunderland. Crazy, right? ... Bolton and Fulham in the Top 10, probably crazier. ... Anyone else think Manchester United will have a little jet lag coming back from Japan, albeit with the FIFA Club World Cup trophy, and playing Stoke on Sunday and Middlesbrough Monday?
Fantasy team of the week -- Hats off to longtime reader/commentor J. Dunn's '92 Percent Pure Oxygen' with 48 total points, in a low-scoring week. Fulham's Jimmy Bullard and Mark Schwarzer were the top reasons.
If I don't post prior to Thursday -- I'll try my darnedest -- have a Merry Christmas and a happy Holiday season. At least there are plenty of game to offset the tediously awful NCAA bowl game slate.
Labels: Monday recaps, Premier League, Soccer
Is there a chance that FSC will show the FIFA Club World Cup final at a reasonable hour? Did the Ecuadorians pack 11 guys in the box in order to hold off United? All the highlights have shown is a couple of misses then Rooney burying the winner. Have the betting shops posted the odds on ManU winning the Quintuple yet? Would SAF ride off into the sunset if the won the World Club Cup, the Prem, the League Cup, the FA Cup, and the Champions' League all in one season? Who knows, if he pulled that off ESPN Classic might put him in the top 20 of Greatest Coaches of All Time--right below Walter Alston and right above Tommy LaSorda, but nowhere near Red Auerbach or Vince Lombardi or John Wooden.
I think you should have canned this post and instead penned 1,500 words on the post-goal dance that Kenwynn Jones and Djibril Cisse did. Good lord, that thing was brilliant. Windmilling, smiling, hip action...I mean, that coulda won a Grammy for sure. Get a YouTube of that lovely movement. Relatedly, that strike partnership is dangerous right now.
Small quibble: The second yellow for Plaxibayor was on Arbeloa -- and yes, he sold it well. Insua sold the first yellow, and that was an atrocious booking. Howard Webb is dogshit -- not just in this match, but in all matches, he's really a dreadful referee.
Wow, that really was a low-scoring week, when you consider that I somehow won even taking -8 on transfers to be able to almost field a full team in the absence of Wigan and Man. U. I'm getting all of my damned points on clean sheets this year. It's been kinda boring, but effective.
It was Arbeloa, not Insua. First yellow card was Insua.