If you live on the West Coast of the U.S., is it even possible to tune in for those early a.m. Premier League kickoffs? Do people actually set their alarms for times like 4:30 in the morning (yes, it exists) to watch 22 men in some far off land kick the ball around?
It's hard enough for yours truly to simply rise for games that kick off prior to 10 a.m., yet every weekend I try to do it.
This, as you'd imagine, leads to a lot of times where I'm half asleep wondering if something actually happened or if I just dreamed it.
Tottenham 9, Wigan Athletic 1 is one of those scores that makes you do a double-take and wonder if you're in the land of wind and ghosts, or amongst the living -- and this game kicked off at around 10 a.m. local time.
You don't need me to tell you that this was borderline insanity transpiring at White Hart Lane -- saying nothing of Paul Sharner's half-blond dye job.
Admittedly, I was doing some other things at the time, but in the second half every time I looked up, Spurs were scoring. All that was missing was a gameshow buzzer to notify it. Ding, ding, ding.
Nine goals in a competitive match? Was this Australia playing the Soloman Islands in a pre-2010 Oceania World Cup qualifier?
Five goals goals in the match -- including a seven-minute hat trick -- Jermain Defoe channeled his best Adrian Peterson performance with a monster, all-time fantasy performance. (25 points if you're scoring at home.)
Did Wigan simply lay down? Can they recover from such a shit-stomping?
Can Tottenham build on this game? Or was it like seeing a unicorn riding a unicycle -- a true rarity?
All I know, is I wasn't sleeping for this one.
Kissing your sister:
Two games, two ends of the table, two unsatisfactory results.
Amazingly, Manchester City notched its sixth-straight league draw with its 2-2 result against Liverpool at Anfield.
A little later Saturday, bottom feeding Hull City and West Ham drew 3-3.
Suffice to say, all four teams might look back and rue these results come May.
Let's start with the rotting corpses of Hull and West Ham first. Not sure which team suffered a bigger stomach punch? West Ham was up 2-0, on the road in the first half only for Hull to go ahead 3-2 and then cough up a sloppy goal from a corner kick to split the spoils.
You have to figure both teams felt like they let two massive points slip through their fingers. With no teams -- even Portsmouth -- truly abysmal, two or three points will likely divide safety and relegation, so both these teams shot themselves in the foot.
Earlier, Liverpool and Manchester City each had chances to kickstart their top-four ambitions, but couldn't hold their nerves in the second half.
With Spurs showing they just might stick around and Aston Villa lingering, Liverpool's top-four birthright looks as in jeopardy as ever. At least Rafa's placenta-inspired treatments in Serbia helped Yossi Benayoun get on the field.
And City? Something isn't clicking inside the team. How Robinho and Steven Ireland -- even with his goal (which was offside anyway) on Saturday -- have become non-factors is bizarre. Good thing they bought Roque Santa Cruz.
Misfiring:
Turns out Arsenal missed Robin van Persie more than I thought. That's not the only reason the Gunners lost 1-0 at Sunderland Saturday, but it was a factor.
Obviously guys like Eduardo and Carlos Vela are good players, but not nearly as versatile or dangerous as the injured Dutchman.
Watching this one, Arsenal never founhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3997513d much of a flow, as for once Cesc Fabregas looked somewhat sluggish.
To be fair, Steve Bruce deserves some credit for a strong gameplan that bottled up the Arsenal attack, especially with a central defensive pairing of John Mensah and Paulo da Silva. Plus Sunderland was fortunate that ball fell right on Darren Bent's foot for the winning goal. This club could use a break lately.
Another "duh" statement coming, but this result takes a lot of the starch out of Sunday's Chelsea/Arsenal match. The Gunners are eight points behind the first-place Blues and probably need a result to at least make it interesting.
Other stuff:
Manchester United, zzzz, chugs along and takes care of Everton 3-0. Some things never change. Nice goal by Darren Fletcher, though. ... Chelsea/Wolves was about as lopsided a match as we'll ever find. That one should have finished 9-0. ... Stoke City 1, Portsmouth 0 was one of the worst Premier League games in a while. Dull as dish water, aside from Ricardo Fuller's game-winner. The most noteworthy aspect was the color analyst, who kept repeating how terrible the game was, at times just laughing at the sloppy play. Considering the announcers are usually major suck-ups, this was a welcome change. ... Good job by Blackburn, without Sam Allardyce, to win 2-0 at Bolton and charge up to 11th in the table. Meanwhile Bolton falls in the relegation zone. ... Apparently Carlos Tevez does not speak a word of English. Go figure. ... I'll say it one more time, can the ref's have the discretion to stop the clock on major injuries? It wouldn't kill anyone. Do we need the clock to run while Danny Agger is basically knocked unconscious and being strapped unto a backboard and carried off after taking an elbow to the head? ... Hell of a penalty kick by Kevin Prince-Boateng.
Fantasy team o' the week:
Colin Sebastian's Ctrl Alt Da Laet takes top honors with 69 points thanks to a well-rounded effort and sneaky nine points from Brum defender Roger Johnson.
Midweek picks:
Two games in the midweek, not sure if they're live. Probably not since they're up against the Champions League.
* Hull City 1, Everton 2
* Fulham 1, Blackburn 0
It's hard enough for yours truly to simply rise for games that kick off prior to 10 a.m., yet every weekend I try to do it.
This, as you'd imagine, leads to a lot of times where I'm half asleep wondering if something actually happened or if I just dreamed it.
Tottenham 9, Wigan Athletic 1 is one of those scores that makes you do a double-take and wonder if you're in the land of wind and ghosts, or amongst the living -- and this game kicked off at around 10 a.m. local time.
You don't need me to tell you that this was borderline insanity transpiring at White Hart Lane -- saying nothing of Paul Sharner's half-blond dye job.
Admittedly, I was doing some other things at the time, but in the second half every time I looked up, Spurs were scoring. All that was missing was a gameshow buzzer to notify it. Ding, ding, ding.
Nine goals in a competitive match? Was this Australia playing the Soloman Islands in a pre-2010 Oceania World Cup qualifier?
Five goals goals in the match -- including a seven-minute hat trick -- Jermain Defoe channeled his best Adrian Peterson performance with a monster, all-time fantasy performance. (25 points if you're scoring at home.)
Did Wigan simply lay down? Can they recover from such a shit-stomping?
Can Tottenham build on this game? Or was it like seeing a unicorn riding a unicycle -- a true rarity?
All I know, is I wasn't sleeping for this one.
Kissing your sister:
Two games, two ends of the table, two unsatisfactory results.
Amazingly, Manchester City notched its sixth-straight league draw with its 2-2 result against Liverpool at Anfield.
A little later Saturday, bottom feeding Hull City and West Ham drew 3-3.
Suffice to say, all four teams might look back and rue these results come May.
Let's start with the rotting corpses of Hull and West Ham first. Not sure which team suffered a bigger stomach punch? West Ham was up 2-0, on the road in the first half only for Hull to go ahead 3-2 and then cough up a sloppy goal from a corner kick to split the spoils.
You have to figure both teams felt like they let two massive points slip through their fingers. With no teams -- even Portsmouth -- truly abysmal, two or three points will likely divide safety and relegation, so both these teams shot themselves in the foot.
Earlier, Liverpool and Manchester City each had chances to kickstart their top-four ambitions, but couldn't hold their nerves in the second half.
With Spurs showing they just might stick around and Aston Villa lingering, Liverpool's top-four birthright looks as in jeopardy as ever. At least Rafa's placenta-inspired treatments in Serbia helped Yossi Benayoun get on the field.
And City? Something isn't clicking inside the team. How Robinho and Steven Ireland -- even with his goal (which was offside anyway) on Saturday -- have become non-factors is bizarre. Good thing they bought Roque Santa Cruz.
Misfiring:
Turns out Arsenal missed Robin van Persie more than I thought. That's not the only reason the Gunners lost 1-0 at Sunderland Saturday, but it was a factor.
Obviously guys like Eduardo and Carlos Vela are good players, but not nearly as versatile or dangerous as the injured Dutchman.
Watching this one, Arsenal never founhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3997513d much of a flow, as for once Cesc Fabregas looked somewhat sluggish.
To be fair, Steve Bruce deserves some credit for a strong gameplan that bottled up the Arsenal attack, especially with a central defensive pairing of John Mensah and Paulo da Silva. Plus Sunderland was fortunate that ball fell right on Darren Bent's foot for the winning goal. This club could use a break lately.
Another "duh" statement coming, but this result takes a lot of the starch out of Sunday's Chelsea/Arsenal match. The Gunners are eight points behind the first-place Blues and probably need a result to at least make it interesting.
Other stuff:
Manchester United, zzzz, chugs along and takes care of Everton 3-0. Some things never change. Nice goal by Darren Fletcher, though. ... Chelsea/Wolves was about as lopsided a match as we'll ever find. That one should have finished 9-0. ... Stoke City 1, Portsmouth 0 was one of the worst Premier League games in a while. Dull as dish water, aside from Ricardo Fuller's game-winner. The most noteworthy aspect was the color analyst, who kept repeating how terrible the game was, at times just laughing at the sloppy play. Considering the announcers are usually major suck-ups, this was a welcome change. ... Good job by Blackburn, without Sam Allardyce, to win 2-0 at Bolton and charge up to 11th in the table. Meanwhile Bolton falls in the relegation zone. ... Apparently Carlos Tevez does not speak a word of English. Go figure. ... I'll say it one more time, can the ref's have the discretion to stop the clock on major injuries? It wouldn't kill anyone. Do we need the clock to run while Danny Agger is basically knocked unconscious and being strapped unto a backboard and carried off after taking an elbow to the head? ... Hell of a penalty kick by Kevin Prince-Boateng.
Fantasy team o' the week:
Colin Sebastian's Ctrl Alt Da Laet takes top honors with 69 points thanks to a well-rounded effort and sneaky nine points from Brum defender Roger Johnson.
Midweek picks:
Two games in the midweek, not sure if they're live. Probably not since they're up against the Champions League.
* Hull City 1, Everton 2
* Fulham 1, Blackburn 0
Labels: English Premier League, Monday recaps, Premier League, Soccer
I'm a ittle tired of all the ink being spilled on both the Chelsea and Spurs result. Think of thos games as havingfinished 3-0 and 4-1 and you take what you need from them. The better teamgot some goals and the losers were never going to get anythin from the fixtures. The only thing special about Defoe I thought was that he put all those shots on target. Kirkland I thought should have had a better showing.
If you "normalize" those results,it's a pretty ordinary weekend of results. I guess hind sight is 20/20. My only surprise was that Blackburn was able to score twice on Bolton. Then again, one of those was an OG of stellar proportions.
Most shocking results of the weekend frankly was RSL upsetting the Gals.
Agreed - a lot of the Spurs goals were a result of laughable defending. And Wolves really phoned it in after that second goal. That being said, it was important to see that Chelsea could win handily against a side like Wolves with so many key players out. Malouda, Essien, Anelka, and even Mikel all looked very good. Also key was seeing what Kakuta can do. He looked very good and I'll be interested to see how much time he can get before CAS hears the case. He's like a left-footed SWP who doesn't mind running at people.