Another weekend, another set of crazy results.
The 'Big Four' looked more like the Three Stooges, taking a mere four points. (Liverpool is such a non-factor that they've assumed Curly Joe status. What, too dated a reference? C'mon they're making a movie starring Jim Carrey, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro. That's some Benitez-esque inspired casting.)
While the rampant unpredictability is killing my weekly picks, it certainly is making following this league from afar a lot more compelling.
It's easier to get behind a league when half of the games each round aren't a foregone conclusion before the opening whistle. No, the Premier League isn't marching toward an MLS-style parity party, far from it. It's just good that in December, nearing the midway point of the fixture list, that the best teams have shown they aren't unbeatable and the bottom tier clubs have at least shown a pulse and or fighting spirit.
How long these levels of volatility continue is anyone's guess. Let's just ride it out and enjoy it.
At this point I've come to terms and will just accept it. It's like the song 'Tom Sawyer' by Rush. I have no idea what the lyrics are supposed to imply, I just know I like them.
Does a stanza like, "And the energy you trade/He gets right on to the friction of the day" make a lick of sense?
Neither does the esteemed Premier League as we turn the page from 2009 to 2010.
The "perfect" loss:
Is Rafa Benitez trying to openly get fired? Read this report. Sounds like he might.
It's not the most professional thing in the world to do, but considering the way the club has been run on his watch, can you blame him for wanting to do whats best for No. 1? He signed the five-year new last year, so the club owes him plenty of money, should they cut the cord. With the finance troubles at Anfield, are the idiot American owners going to pay him off to do nothing?
The longer this limbo lasts, the longer Liverpool remains stuck in midtable hell. How can a player be tasked to buy players when his tenure already feels like a lame duck. And why would players want to come to Anfield? The days of Liverpool's name ringing out across the globe are rapidly dwindling.
Losing to last-place Portsmouth on two goals from sheer angles should seal the end? But who is the replacement? Does it matter? Can Liverpool afford to miss the Champions League? Is this a broken record or what?
United we fall:
In a season of shoddy performances, Manchester United's display at Craven Cottage takes the cake.
All credit to Fulham, which played a confident and composed game, including a nice display from Clint Dempsey. It was fairly clear which team had its first-choice lineup/formation and which was trying a three-man defense featuring two converted midfielders and a young Belgian dude. Not even Sir Alex Ferguson can whip up batch after batch of chicken salad out of chicken you know what. A game, yes, you can get by. For a sustained month? Umm, no.
You could tell Fulham, especially the crowd were really "up" for the game. They didn't care which souls were occupying the dreaded red shirts.
After Paul Scholes bad touch allowed Danny Murphy to break the deadlock, Fulham never looked back and ran riot, while United basically curled up into a fetal position and did nothing.
Amazingly, United didn't fall six points behind Chelsea, which stumbled to a 1-1 draw with a semi-inspired West Ham. Consider me offically worried about Chelsea, which once again is falling into the winter doldrums. The Blues have just one win in six matches across all competitions in December. The upcoming matches at Birmingham and against Fulham seem a lot trickier.
Yoos, get lawst:
If you're the sheiks running Manchester City, why let Mark Hughes coach Saturday's back-and-forth 4-3 victory over Sunderland? Why wait until a couple hours after the whistle to make him walk the plank? Better yet, why not have some club crony come out and had him his walking papers WWF style. At least that would be an entertaining way to stripe a man of his dignity.
To simplify it, Hughes was given too many puzzle pieces (and egos) and couldn't put together a consistently winning picture at City. It didn't help either that he brought in Kolo Toure and Jolean Lescott in defense, who's form both dropped.
It's funny, too, that Hughes put together a tough, scrappy team that got results at Blackburn, but City under his reign were the exact opposite. Think the proverbial "Little Girl with the Curl."
Oh well, considering the recycle rate of managers in the Premier League, Hughes shouldn't have too much trouble finding a new job. It wouldn't be the worst decision for Hughes to sit on the sidelines and wait for a job that he actually wants, instead of rushing into the first post that opens up.
So now Manchester City, after splashing out tons of loot on players goes the flashy foreign rout and snares Roberto Mancini to coach. How much affect will the Italian have? Hard to say until perhaps the end of January, when the transfer window opens-and-closes. It's been widely reported that a core of the City team (Shay Given, Craig Bellamy, Gareth Barry) are upset that Hughes got fired. Will players ask out the door? Will Mancini target some of his former Inter players that aren't seeing much of the field under Jose Mourinho in Italy?
Still, I'll go back to what I've been saying all season, until City gets an identity on the field, and or a leader, it will continue to play plenty of 4-3 and 2-2 games. You can buy all the players in the world, but you can't necessary buy 11 players that form a winning team.
Once, twice, three times a penal-ty:
Really referee Mike Dean? Really?
Three attempts to make Frank Lampard take a penalty vs. West Ham? As President Taylor might have said on the most recent season of "24", "How could this happen?"
Better yet, how can the Premier League -- which loves to tell us at all instances how it's the best league in the world -- can't find able-bodied, competent officials? Do they need to start importing refs in from Italy too?
And to be honest, don't guys run into the box before every penalty?
Still beats the zebras calling NFL games.
P.S., Sepp Blatter, instant replay, or at least an official behind the goal for the World Cup would save you a preemptive headache. Just sayin'.
Other stuff:
Wolves, with 2-0 win over Burnley, are now up to 12th in the table. That just doesn't seem right, does it? ... Spurs with an easy win this weekend, what gives? ... Is Theo Walcott the most overrated, or at least over talked about player in the league? ... Geovanni, you might want to reconsider that non-chalant run up to a penalty, eh? ... Birmingham didn't lose, drawing Everton 1-1, but did see defender Roger Johnson limp off. ... The Aston Villa train keeps rolling. ... Just wondering if Brad Friedel, by wearing green and black goal shirts, has an advantage since he blends in a little more with the surroundings than some of the garish, neon shirts wore by other keepers?
Line of the weekend:
"Nothing more than a niggly moment." -- Announcer on the silly "fight" at midfield between Arsenal and Hull City. The Brits sure do love using the word "niggle", which has pretty much assumed no-fly status in the U.S.
Fantasy Team O' the Week:
Weekly top honors go to Rod McCulloch's Raindogs with 62 points, who got 14 points apiece from Frank Lampard and Abou Diaby, plus a sneaky nine from Jody Craddock.
One other thing:
Ever go to that site, "Stuff White People Like"?
We can add, freaking out at the slightest inkling of snow to the list. I live in Connecticut and for days we heard we'd get pelted with snow on Saturday. Turns out it was around a foot. Philly and DC did get creamed. Not my point.
Saturday afternoon I had to get a few things since I literally had no food to eat at my place. The grocery store was overflowing with cars, so much that I couldn't get even get in. I audibled, when to a store in a slightly more "urban" are and had no trouble whatsoever and found a hidden cache of Eggo products.
That's a win.
The 'Big Four' looked more like the Three Stooges, taking a mere four points. (Liverpool is such a non-factor that they've assumed Curly Joe status. What, too dated a reference? C'mon they're making a movie starring Jim Carrey, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro. That's some Benitez-esque inspired casting.)
While the rampant unpredictability is killing my weekly picks, it certainly is making following this league from afar a lot more compelling.
It's easier to get behind a league when half of the games each round aren't a foregone conclusion before the opening whistle. No, the Premier League isn't marching toward an MLS-style parity party, far from it. It's just good that in December, nearing the midway point of the fixture list, that the best teams have shown they aren't unbeatable and the bottom tier clubs have at least shown a pulse and or fighting spirit.
How long these levels of volatility continue is anyone's guess. Let's just ride it out and enjoy it.
At this point I've come to terms and will just accept it. It's like the song 'Tom Sawyer' by Rush. I have no idea what the lyrics are supposed to imply, I just know I like them.
Does a stanza like, "And the energy you trade/He gets right on to the friction of the day" make a lick of sense?
Neither does the esteemed Premier League as we turn the page from 2009 to 2010.
The "perfect" loss:
Is Rafa Benitez trying to openly get fired? Read this report. Sounds like he might.
It's not the most professional thing in the world to do, but considering the way the club has been run on his watch, can you blame him for wanting to do whats best for No. 1? He signed the five-year new last year, so the club owes him plenty of money, should they cut the cord. With the finance troubles at Anfield, are the idiot American owners going to pay him off to do nothing?
The longer this limbo lasts, the longer Liverpool remains stuck in midtable hell. How can a player be tasked to buy players when his tenure already feels like a lame duck. And why would players want to come to Anfield? The days of Liverpool's name ringing out across the globe are rapidly dwindling.
Losing to last-place Portsmouth on two goals from sheer angles should seal the end? But who is the replacement? Does it matter? Can Liverpool afford to miss the Champions League? Is this a broken record or what?
United we fall:
In a season of shoddy performances, Manchester United's display at Craven Cottage takes the cake.
All credit to Fulham, which played a confident and composed game, including a nice display from Clint Dempsey. It was fairly clear which team had its first-choice lineup/formation and which was trying a three-man defense featuring two converted midfielders and a young Belgian dude. Not even Sir Alex Ferguson can whip up batch after batch of chicken salad out of chicken you know what. A game, yes, you can get by. For a sustained month? Umm, no.
You could tell Fulham, especially the crowd were really "up" for the game. They didn't care which souls were occupying the dreaded red shirts.
After Paul Scholes bad touch allowed Danny Murphy to break the deadlock, Fulham never looked back and ran riot, while United basically curled up into a fetal position and did nothing.
Amazingly, United didn't fall six points behind Chelsea, which stumbled to a 1-1 draw with a semi-inspired West Ham. Consider me offically worried about Chelsea, which once again is falling into the winter doldrums. The Blues have just one win in six matches across all competitions in December. The upcoming matches at Birmingham and against Fulham seem a lot trickier.
Yoos, get lawst:
If you're the sheiks running Manchester City, why let Mark Hughes coach Saturday's back-and-forth 4-3 victory over Sunderland? Why wait until a couple hours after the whistle to make him walk the plank? Better yet, why not have some club crony come out and had him his walking papers WWF style. At least that would be an entertaining way to stripe a man of his dignity.
To simplify it, Hughes was given too many puzzle pieces (and egos) and couldn't put together a consistently winning picture at City. It didn't help either that he brought in Kolo Toure and Jolean Lescott in defense, who's form both dropped.
It's funny, too, that Hughes put together a tough, scrappy team that got results at Blackburn, but City under his reign were the exact opposite. Think the proverbial "Little Girl with the Curl."
Oh well, considering the recycle rate of managers in the Premier League, Hughes shouldn't have too much trouble finding a new job. It wouldn't be the worst decision for Hughes to sit on the sidelines and wait for a job that he actually wants, instead of rushing into the first post that opens up.
So now Manchester City, after splashing out tons of loot on players goes the flashy foreign rout and snares Roberto Mancini to coach. How much affect will the Italian have? Hard to say until perhaps the end of January, when the transfer window opens-and-closes. It's been widely reported that a core of the City team (Shay Given, Craig Bellamy, Gareth Barry) are upset that Hughes got fired. Will players ask out the door? Will Mancini target some of his former Inter players that aren't seeing much of the field under Jose Mourinho in Italy?
Still, I'll go back to what I've been saying all season, until City gets an identity on the field, and or a leader, it will continue to play plenty of 4-3 and 2-2 games. You can buy all the players in the world, but you can't necessary buy 11 players that form a winning team.
Once, twice, three times a penal-ty:
Really referee Mike Dean? Really?
Three attempts to make Frank Lampard take a penalty vs. West Ham? As President Taylor might have said on the most recent season of "24", "How could this happen?"
Better yet, how can the Premier League -- which loves to tell us at all instances how it's the best league in the world -- can't find able-bodied, competent officials? Do they need to start importing refs in from Italy too?
And to be honest, don't guys run into the box before every penalty?
Still beats the zebras calling NFL games.
P.S., Sepp Blatter, instant replay, or at least an official behind the goal for the World Cup would save you a preemptive headache. Just sayin'.
Other stuff:
Wolves, with 2-0 win over Burnley, are now up to 12th in the table. That just doesn't seem right, does it? ... Spurs with an easy win this weekend, what gives? ... Is Theo Walcott the most overrated, or at least over talked about player in the league? ... Geovanni, you might want to reconsider that non-chalant run up to a penalty, eh? ... Birmingham didn't lose, drawing Everton 1-1, but did see defender Roger Johnson limp off. ... The Aston Villa train keeps rolling. ... Just wondering if Brad Friedel, by wearing green and black goal shirts, has an advantage since he blends in a little more with the surroundings than some of the garish, neon shirts wore by other keepers?
Line of the weekend:
"Nothing more than a niggly moment." -- Announcer on the silly "fight" at midfield between Arsenal and Hull City. The Brits sure do love using the word "niggle", which has pretty much assumed no-fly status in the U.S.
Fantasy Team O' the Week:
Weekly top honors go to Rod McCulloch's Raindogs with 62 points, who got 14 points apiece from Frank Lampard and Abou Diaby, plus a sneaky nine from Jody Craddock.
One other thing:
Ever go to that site, "Stuff White People Like"?
We can add, freaking out at the slightest inkling of snow to the list. I live in Connecticut and for days we heard we'd get pelted with snow on Saturday. Turns out it was around a foot. Philly and DC did get creamed. Not my point.
Saturday afternoon I had to get a few things since I literally had no food to eat at my place. The grocery store was overflowing with cars, so much that I couldn't get even get in. I audibled, when to a store in a slightly more "urban" are and had no trouble whatsoever and found a hidden cache of Eggo products.
That's a win.
Labels: English Premier League, Monday recaps, Soccer
The PK was ordered to be re-taken because players from both teams encroached the first two times. Dean decided (incorrectly) that only West Ham encroached the third -- you can see Drogba run through the half-circle. Since only the defending team had encroached and a goal resulted, it didn't have to be re-taken. Had it been stopped and only the defending team encroached, a re-take would have been ordered. Had only attacking players encroached, a re-kick would have been called for a goal / it would have stood if it were missed. When both encroach it's a re-kick. My personal opinion is that Dean thought the penalty was a little weak and he ordered the re-kicks with the hope that Green would stop it or Lampard would miss, to take the heat off his assistant. After three tries, he had had enough.
Also, there was a West Ham offside that was called when Cech came out to challenge the shooter, Terry was on the line and there were two attackers past Cech with only Terry between them and the goal. Both the match commentary guy and the FSC in-studio host said it was a bad call. Once again proving that analysts have no idea how the offside rule works.
Hicks and Gillett are total dopes. I'm actually surprised that there is snow at Vail this year (a Gillett property) given the way Les Canadiens have fallen under his misrule. And Hicks seems to have shitferbranz given his managment (?) of the Texas Rangers. I think what these guys were thinking when they bought Liverpool was that life would be the way it is in the US for team owners, they would threaten to move the team and the locals would build them a super stadium with tax pounds just to keep them in town. Then they would sell the team at a huge profit. That was the business model that George W. Bush used before he sold the Rangers to Hicks and dozens of other US owners have used. But, Liverpool wouldn't be Liverpool in Southhampton or Rye or Cardiff and they're stuck and nobody seems willing to give them a huge profit to go away. And, so, Reds' fans are stuck with these two halfwits and they're stuck with Rafi and the club is headed to mid-table, at best, until sold to someone rational.
Two straight wins for Fulham over Man United at the Cottage. Maybe next year the pattern will continue and 'we' can up the margin to 4-0. I think Fulham/Hodgson deserve full credit for playing a very (at least for Fulham) attacking line-up and game plan. Obviously, the United backline was banged up, but Uncle Roy saw his opening and went for it. That willingness to tweak the strategy and NOT just play it safe is the biggest change (improvement, in my book) that Fulham has made over last season's success. It won't always work, but it makes me happy to see my team 'going for it' when the opportunity presents itself, rather than simply going for the clean sheet, which happened a lot last season.
It seems clear that this season, there is no predicting anything in the Premiership. It seems impossible for Liverpool to win the league, but I would not be shocked at all if they made a come back to finish in one of the top four spots. Hell, Spurs could win the league - I have no idea.
Hicks and Gillette have done a poor job at Liverpool - but no one was questioning their smarts (at least not for long) when they came in with the $$$ to 'save' the team. Obviously that $$ was all borrowed - but no Liverpool fans cared about that in 2007, either. How long before the City fans are no longer celebrating by wearing light blue head-scarf things and instead are shouting xenophobic things about Ayy-rabbs? The lesson is that there are no saviors (and this includes people that own famous department stores) and money spent now, often costs twice as much down the road.
My Wife loved the Lampard penalty debacle. A. she hates lampard and B. she hates it when players cheat on the smallest of things. Say a ref will point to the spot of a foul and the player will drop the ball 2 feet infront of that spot. Or a guy throwing a ball in will move up the field 5-10 yards by faking a throw a couple times. The worst is when guys in a wall run at someone taking a free kick before the ball is struck. Or when the wall slowly moves forward right after a ref has marked 10.
I know you can argue that repeatedly stopping play to correct minor fouls like these ruins the flow of the game, but once a ref has warned you once it's the players that are ruining the flow not the ref.