Didier Drogba scored twice.
Wayne Rooney scored twice.
Arsenal left it late for Niclas Bendtner on the road.
For once it seemed to be a normal weekend in the Premier League.
As a neutral fan, that also happens to love pro wrestling terminology, this "three-way-dance" for the title should be fantastic, especially now that we can see the finish line with eight or nine matches left for the title contenders.
And with all three possibly fighting on the European front, too, the drama and intrigue could be off the charts. Hell, this may even come down to goal differential.
Has the English first division ever been decided that way?
Could we say Arsenal, even though the Gunners are even with Chelsea on 64 points and two behind Manchester United, are the favorites? Their schedule is clearly the easiest? At Birmingham City could be tricky, but it could also exorcise the ghosts of Martin Taylor? Aside from that the Gunners are at Tottenham and host Manchester City. None too daunting.
Arsenal still have to play at Wigan and Blackburn, two kind of matches that have been stumbling blocks in the past. Saturday's grind-it-out win at 10-man Hull showed maybe this crew of Gunners have enough grit. Maybe. They did get a good bounce near the death, allowing Nic Bendtner to cash in, though the penalty conceded by Sol Campbell was very soft.
Meanwhile, Manchester United has a tough road to hoe, starting next Sunday with Liverpool. It also hosts Chelsea on April 3 and Tottenham, with a trip to Manchester City sprinkled in.
Of course Manchester United have Rooney, which seems to be all that matters. His easy-as-pie brace vs. Fulham Sunday gave him the most Premier League goals by an Englishman in about a decade (23). (Kevin Phillips had 30 for Sunderland in 1999-2000.) You think with that Beckham fellow getting hurt Sunday, English fans are holding their collective breath with Rooney each and every day?
Chelsea still are alive in the FA Cup and pending Jose Mourinho's return to Stamford Bridge, the Champions League.
The Blues might have a bigger impact in the race for fourth place, playing three of the challengers -- home to Villa and at Spurs and Liverpool. In fact, couldn't you see the May 1 date at Anfield as a way for Liverpool to at least put a bow on its stinking turd of a season?
Chelsea, as they did in a 4-1 win over West Ham, still have the muscle power to score goals. Unlike Manchester United they aren't as reliant on one player -- Drogba -- to fill up the scoresheet either.
Right now I'll refrain from picking a winner, though Chelsea was my preseason selection.
All I want to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.
* * *
Amazingly, it's as close as it is in the Premier League across the rest of the "power" leagues in Europe.
In the Bundeliga it's a three-team race with Bayern, Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen all within three points of each other.
Serie A is all of a sudden wide-open, too, with Inter stumbling a little bit. Inter is only up a point on AC Milan -- a soon-to-be Beckham-less Milan -- only a point behind. Roma, which somehow drew Liverno 3-3, is six back. (Let's be honest, Beckham's injury is more of a story from a non-soccer standpoint that it is on the field. It's crazy Beckham's injury headlines 'Sportscenter' on selection Sunday, with zero mention of Landon Donovan coming back to the Galaxy. England's bigger concern is the lingering groin injury to Aaron Lennon, meaning once again Theo Walcott is in the crosshairs. I say this is a win for the USMNT.)
If you saw Lionel Messi on ESPN2 Sunday afternoon, then you know that his hat trick vs. Valencia pushed Barcelona back into a first-place tie in La Liga with Real Madrid, which got a semi-redemptive 3-goal output from Gonzalo Higuian. (Still, that miss vs. Lyon will be rued in Spain for months to come.) Real and Barca both have 65 points, with the Madrid club up two via goal difference.
As for Ligue 1? Well, folow my ami @polyesterfreak on Twitter. He has this stuff sorted out better than me. Right now five teams -- Montpellier, Auxerre, Lille, Olympique Lyon and Olympique Marseille -- are all within three points of defending champion Bordeaux.
Obviously all these races are great for fans. The bigger picture to how this shakes out -- especially in Germany, Italy and France -- is where the Champions League spots go. That extra cash on the bottom line certainly helps, plus in Italy it's a mark of honor, where a club like Juventus' malaise continues as it pulls some plays from the Liverpool playbook.
Bad Pavs:
Ask yourself this question, how many players currently in the Premier League are out-and-out "bad". Guys that shouldn't ever seen the field in a league match?
I'm waiting...
The answer is its a pretty short list. Ibrahima Sonko comes to mind as dreadful. Maceo Rigters has been on the books for a while at Blackburn and can't find the field. Fulham's Stephen Kelly looked to be picked on by Manchester United Sunday. Łukasz Fabiański, if we just go by the Champions League is fairly comical. (Keepers might be disqualified from this discussion.)
Everyone would label Titus Bramble "bad" for his stint at Newcastle, but he's been useful for Wigan. (As usual, please fill me in on what an idiot I am here, I'm sure you've got your picks. I'd like to know who you consider the bottom of the barrell.)
Even at last-place Portsmouth, the team's roster isn't stocked with "bad" players. For instance, striker Aruna Dindane has played 16 games with four goals. Not very good. But is he a bad player? (I'll reserve judgment for John Utaka and Papa Bouba Diop.)
How about promoted Burnley? Sure the Clarets aren't great, but is anyone on their roster and unmitigated disaster?
Or take the individuals at, say, Hull City. Good enough players, nice resumes. In a vacuum they are probably better than, just a guess, 90 percent of current professionals around the globe. Yet none of them are really elite level players that can rise to the occasion every week, so that's why they linger at the bottom end of the table.
I'm on record that I don't think David Ngog is very good, but he's decent enough that he's not an embarrassment. (Roque Santa Cruz, on the other hand, might in fact be a "donkey.")
Why I mention this, is Roman Pavlychenko who's been eviscerated by the press and the Tottenham fans, but now is proving to be a quite useful player, if only as a guy to finish off movements and put the ball into the back of the net -- twice Saturday in a 3-1 win over Blackburn.
Was he worth the the roughly $25-30 million Spurs paid to Spartak Moscow for his services? Obviously not.
If you look at him as simply a player, he's not all that bad.
And as mindless as some of the people running Premier League clubs seem to be, the managers are at least smart enough to limit the dregs of their squad to Cup games and the reserve matches, or glue them to the bench for important ones. (In that same Tottenham/Blackburn game, Michel Salgado definitely drifted toward the "bad" category. Fernando Hierro, he is not, Sam Allardyce.)
The problem, as three clubs will tell you on May 9, is that while "not that bad" might be okay in many walks of life, it gets you relegated from the Premier League.
Other stuff:
Wayne Rooney is 24. Danny Murphy is 32. Yet they share the same receding hairline. ... Mark Schwarzer made two excellent saves, one on Rooney the other on Darren Fletcher to keep Fulham in the game, at least for a little while Sunday at Old Trafford. ... Good to see Clint Dempsey back to his usual stuff. He almost beat Edwin Van der Sar from 30+ yards early in the match Sunday. Hope some of his long-range forays for Fulham translate to the USMNT this summer. ... Looking at what Landon Donovan did at Everton, it's a shame Jozy Altidore couldn't have gone to a more established team other than Hull City, which can't get out of its own way. It's going to be a tricky off-season for Alitdore, with the World Cup either boosting or knocking his stock. Guess Villareal still holds the cards, though. (More on Jozy a little further down.) ... For all the years that Brad Freidel was at Blackburn Rovers, I always just assumed Jason Brown was even a real person, or just a prop dummy. Turns out, he isn't, since he played Saturday vs. Spurs when Paul Robinson limped off. ... 20-year-old David Meyler is looking like an agitator extraordinaire for Sunderland. ... Important win by Wolves Saturday 2-1 at Burnley, put Mick McCarthy's team out of the drop zone. Impressively, 11 of the team's 27 points have come on the road. Compare that to the four by Hull and one by Burnley, who are now in the relegation spots with Portsmouth. Wolves are still the second-worst home team, just ahead of Portsmouth. ... What more can be said about Donovan? He looked a natural at Everton. He should be back at some point. If he's good at the World Cup it might be able to pick his place. (Those Chelsea rumors do seem outlandish.) ... Craig Gordon earned his money Sunday in goal for Sunderland. ... Rarely to I regret picks I make on Friday but the fact I didn't pick Stoke City-Aston Villa as a 0-0 draw irks me. ... Trying to backheel a ball at the edge of his own penalty area is probably why Craig Bellamy is Craig Bellamy and not one of the world's best. ... Until Adam Johnson came on, not much creativity for Manchester City Sunday, who were beyond lucky to get a 1-1 draw at determined Sunderland. The one point, still keeps them three behind Spurs with a game-in-hand for fourth place. ... Has anyone ever seen Jimmy Bullard and David Coverdale in the same room at the same time? Just sayin'. ... It probably wasn't intentional from George Boateng, but that tackle was awful. Arsene Wenger has to wonder if his players are being targeted. ... Wish I could go on "gardening leave" like Phil Brown. Doubt this affects Altidore all that much. He barely played last season and looked plenty fine at the Confederations Cup. A change of managers shouldn't do too much to change his role/status for the World Cup.
Fantasy Team O' the Week:
Ian Podraza's Merrimac United FC open up a little more room at the top witha 77 point week, thanks to an imposing front line of Bendtner, Rooney and Drogba. The key here was Drogs wore the captain's armband, for 20 points. Meanwhile, my team, I picked Gabby Agbonlahor (two games) as my captain, and he plays about 10 minutes. D'oh.
One other thing:
They don't need the pop, but the FoxSoccer.tv is a pretty good value, the rest of the season at just $45, especially since unlike the Setanta online package, it includes the Champions League matches. Sure you have to pay, but it beats the alternative of streams cutting in-and-out during matches.
The top quality Fox stream might even look better than its Standard Definition television broadcast.
If you want those extra games and don't want to fool with streams, it's a good buy.
Wayne Rooney scored twice.
Arsenal left it late for Niclas Bendtner on the road.
For once it seemed to be a normal weekend in the Premier League.
As a neutral fan, that also happens to love pro wrestling terminology, this "three-way-dance" for the title should be fantastic, especially now that we can see the finish line with eight or nine matches left for the title contenders.
And with all three possibly fighting on the European front, too, the drama and intrigue could be off the charts. Hell, this may even come down to goal differential.
Has the English first division ever been decided that way?
Could we say Arsenal, even though the Gunners are even with Chelsea on 64 points and two behind Manchester United, are the favorites? Their schedule is clearly the easiest? At Birmingham City could be tricky, but it could also exorcise the ghosts of Martin Taylor? Aside from that the Gunners are at Tottenham and host Manchester City. None too daunting.
Arsenal still have to play at Wigan and Blackburn, two kind of matches that have been stumbling blocks in the past. Saturday's grind-it-out win at 10-man Hull showed maybe this crew of Gunners have enough grit. Maybe. They did get a good bounce near the death, allowing Nic Bendtner to cash in, though the penalty conceded by Sol Campbell was very soft.
Meanwhile, Manchester United has a tough road to hoe, starting next Sunday with Liverpool. It also hosts Chelsea on April 3 and Tottenham, with a trip to Manchester City sprinkled in.
Of course Manchester United have Rooney, which seems to be all that matters. His easy-as-pie brace vs. Fulham Sunday gave him the most Premier League goals by an Englishman in about a decade (23). (Kevin Phillips had 30 for Sunderland in 1999-2000.) You think with that Beckham fellow getting hurt Sunday, English fans are holding their collective breath with Rooney each and every day?
Chelsea still are alive in the FA Cup and pending Jose Mourinho's return to Stamford Bridge, the Champions League.
The Blues might have a bigger impact in the race for fourth place, playing three of the challengers -- home to Villa and at Spurs and Liverpool. In fact, couldn't you see the May 1 date at Anfield as a way for Liverpool to at least put a bow on its stinking turd of a season?
Chelsea, as they did in a 4-1 win over West Ham, still have the muscle power to score goals. Unlike Manchester United they aren't as reliant on one player -- Drogba -- to fill up the scoresheet either.
Right now I'll refrain from picking a winner, though Chelsea was my preseason selection.
All I want to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.
Amazingly, it's as close as it is in the Premier League across the rest of the "power" leagues in Europe.
In the Bundeliga it's a three-team race with Bayern, Schalke and Bayer Leverkusen all within three points of each other.
Serie A is all of a sudden wide-open, too, with Inter stumbling a little bit. Inter is only up a point on AC Milan -- a soon-to-be Beckham-less Milan -- only a point behind. Roma, which somehow drew Liverno 3-3, is six back. (Let's be honest, Beckham's injury is more of a story from a non-soccer standpoint that it is on the field. It's crazy Beckham's injury headlines 'Sportscenter' on selection Sunday, with zero mention of Landon Donovan coming back to the Galaxy. England's bigger concern is the lingering groin injury to Aaron Lennon, meaning once again Theo Walcott is in the crosshairs. I say this is a win for the USMNT.)
If you saw Lionel Messi on ESPN2 Sunday afternoon, then you know that his hat trick vs. Valencia pushed Barcelona back into a first-place tie in La Liga with Real Madrid, which got a semi-redemptive 3-goal output from Gonzalo Higuian. (Still, that miss vs. Lyon will be rued in Spain for months to come.) Real and Barca both have 65 points, with the Madrid club up two via goal difference.
As for Ligue 1? Well, folow my ami @polyesterfreak on Twitter. He has this stuff sorted out better than me. Right now five teams -- Montpellier, Auxerre, Lille, Olympique Lyon and Olympique Marseille -- are all within three points of defending champion Bordeaux.
Obviously all these races are great for fans. The bigger picture to how this shakes out -- especially in Germany, Italy and France -- is where the Champions League spots go. That extra cash on the bottom line certainly helps, plus in Italy it's a mark of honor, where a club like Juventus' malaise continues as it pulls some plays from the Liverpool playbook.
Bad Pavs:
Ask yourself this question, how many players currently in the Premier League are out-and-out "bad". Guys that shouldn't ever seen the field in a league match?
I'm waiting...
The answer is its a pretty short list. Ibrahima Sonko comes to mind as dreadful. Maceo Rigters has been on the books for a while at Blackburn and can't find the field. Fulham's Stephen Kelly looked to be picked on by Manchester United Sunday. Łukasz Fabiański, if we just go by the Champions League is fairly comical. (Keepers might be disqualified from this discussion.)
Everyone would label Titus Bramble "bad" for his stint at Newcastle, but he's been useful for Wigan. (As usual, please fill me in on what an idiot I am here, I'm sure you've got your picks. I'd like to know who you consider the bottom of the barrell.)
Even at last-place Portsmouth, the team's roster isn't stocked with "bad" players. For instance, striker Aruna Dindane has played 16 games with four goals. Not very good. But is he a bad player? (I'll reserve judgment for John Utaka and Papa Bouba Diop.)
How about promoted Burnley? Sure the Clarets aren't great, but is anyone on their roster and unmitigated disaster?
Or take the individuals at, say, Hull City. Good enough players, nice resumes. In a vacuum they are probably better than, just a guess, 90 percent of current professionals around the globe. Yet none of them are really elite level players that can rise to the occasion every week, so that's why they linger at the bottom end of the table.
I'm on record that I don't think David Ngog is very good, but he's decent enough that he's not an embarrassment. (Roque Santa Cruz, on the other hand, might in fact be a "donkey.")
Why I mention this, is Roman Pavlychenko who's been eviscerated by the press and the Tottenham fans, but now is proving to be a quite useful player, if only as a guy to finish off movements and put the ball into the back of the net -- twice Saturday in a 3-1 win over Blackburn.
Was he worth the the roughly $25-30 million Spurs paid to Spartak Moscow for his services? Obviously not.
If you look at him as simply a player, he's not all that bad.
And as mindless as some of the people running Premier League clubs seem to be, the managers are at least smart enough to limit the dregs of their squad to Cup games and the reserve matches, or glue them to the bench for important ones. (In that same Tottenham/Blackburn game, Michel Salgado definitely drifted toward the "bad" category. Fernando Hierro, he is not, Sam Allardyce.)
The problem, as three clubs will tell you on May 9, is that while "not that bad" might be okay in many walks of life, it gets you relegated from the Premier League.
Other stuff:
Wayne Rooney is 24. Danny Murphy is 32. Yet they share the same receding hairline. ... Mark Schwarzer made two excellent saves, one on Rooney the other on Darren Fletcher to keep Fulham in the game, at least for a little while Sunday at Old Trafford. ... Good to see Clint Dempsey back to his usual stuff. He almost beat Edwin Van der Sar from 30+ yards early in the match Sunday. Hope some of his long-range forays for Fulham translate to the USMNT this summer. ... Looking at what Landon Donovan did at Everton, it's a shame Jozy Altidore couldn't have gone to a more established team other than Hull City, which can't get out of its own way. It's going to be a tricky off-season for Alitdore, with the World Cup either boosting or knocking his stock. Guess Villareal still holds the cards, though. (More on Jozy a little further down.) ... For all the years that Brad Freidel was at Blackburn Rovers, I always just assumed Jason Brown was even a real person, or just a prop dummy. Turns out, he isn't, since he played Saturday vs. Spurs when Paul Robinson limped off. ... 20-year-old David Meyler is looking like an agitator extraordinaire for Sunderland. ... Important win by Wolves Saturday 2-1 at Burnley, put Mick McCarthy's team out of the drop zone. Impressively, 11 of the team's 27 points have come on the road. Compare that to the four by Hull and one by Burnley, who are now in the relegation spots with Portsmouth. Wolves are still the second-worst home team, just ahead of Portsmouth. ... What more can be said about Donovan? He looked a natural at Everton. He should be back at some point. If he's good at the World Cup it might be able to pick his place. (Those Chelsea rumors do seem outlandish.) ... Craig Gordon earned his money Sunday in goal for Sunderland. ... Rarely to I regret picks I make on Friday but the fact I didn't pick Stoke City-Aston Villa as a 0-0 draw irks me. ... Trying to backheel a ball at the edge of his own penalty area is probably why Craig Bellamy is Craig Bellamy and not one of the world's best. ... Until Adam Johnson came on, not much creativity for Manchester City Sunday, who were beyond lucky to get a 1-1 draw at determined Sunderland. The one point, still keeps them three behind Spurs with a game-in-hand for fourth place. ... Has anyone ever seen Jimmy Bullard and David Coverdale in the same room at the same time? Just sayin'. ... It probably wasn't intentional from George Boateng, but that tackle was awful. Arsene Wenger has to wonder if his players are being targeted. ... Wish I could go on "gardening leave" like Phil Brown. Doubt this affects Altidore all that much. He barely played last season and looked plenty fine at the Confederations Cup. A change of managers shouldn't do too much to change his role/status for the World Cup.
Fantasy Team O' the Week:
Ian Podraza's Merrimac United FC open up a little more room at the top witha 77 point week, thanks to an imposing front line of Bendtner, Rooney and Drogba. The key here was Drogs wore the captain's armband, for 20 points. Meanwhile, my team, I picked Gabby Agbonlahor (two games) as my captain, and he plays about 10 minutes. D'oh.
One other thing:
They don't need the pop, but the FoxSoccer.tv is a pretty good value, the rest of the season at just $45, especially since unlike the Setanta online package, it includes the Champions League matches. Sure you have to pay, but it beats the alternative of streams cutting in-and-out during matches.
The top quality Fox stream might even look better than its Standard Definition television broadcast.
If you want those extra games and don't want to fool with streams, it's a good buy.
Labels: Arsenal, Didier Drogba, English Premier League, manchester United, Premier League, Soccer, Wayne Rooney
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