Week 4 or how i leaned to stop worrying and love Manchester City

 The Titanic departed from the city of Liverpool. Had they gone up the River Mersey and sunk in a similar matter it would have less disastrous than Liverpool’s performance on Saturday. Until Liverpool sort out some kind of consistent back line then their porous defense will concede goals. Would one say that this Liverpool team is like the Titanic disaster itself? There’s a first class (forwards), second class (midfield), and drowning third class (defense.) In this poor metaphor I suppose that makes the Moreno the swashbuckling Jack; driven to break class lines by ignoring his position but ultimately doomed. Left to die cast adrift. 

Arsenal have the memory of my grandpa who had Alzheimer’s. They take a beating one week then forget about it and look great the next. Unfortunately for Arsenal this result is typical. They can always beat teams lower than them yet fail to punch up. 

Alvaro Morata continues his goal scoring streak early in the season. That now makes 3 in games. Chelsea have to like where they sit now at third. Leicester City meanwhile are showing more signs of life but can’t really get the engine going yet. They still miss the heartbeat in the middle of the field that Kante supplied. It could be another tough season for them with some worry of relegation but they will get hot at some point and finish mid table. 

Tottenham thoroughly outclassed Everton. Although I feel they don’t have enough depth still to win the title, their starting 11 is pure class. Everton meanwhile have a problem. Unfortunately it’s not easily solvable. It’s a $200 million problem and it’s on the field each week. For me the only way to get through this is time. Fielding a consistent 11 and giving these new players more time with each other is the only other conclusion than panic. 

Brighton! It took them 4 games to score but when they did… This is exactly where Brighton will have to get points this season, against low end teams. It’s a long season but I was worrying for Brighton. They need many more performances like these in order to stay up.

It’s a hacky joke at this point but no one wants to play at Stoke. If it weren’t for the ineptitude of Stoke maybe they'd get more points at home. Lukaku certainly didn’t mind going to Stoke but unfortunately for both sides it was an exciting game for the neutral. A point a piece is fair for this result.  

Week 3 Quickie

Bournemouth 1-2 Manchester City

Forget City’s exhilarating comeback, this game will be shown decades from now for Charlie Daniels’ wonderstike. 

Watford 0-0 Brighton

Brighton holding their own in a bright start for the new boys.

Newcastle 3-0 West Ham

The better West Ham get on paper the worse they play. Newcastle finally looked like they’re ready to be back in The Premier League.

Crystal Palace 0-2 Swansea

Swans get first win over poor Palace.

Huddersfield 0-0 Southampton

Huddersfield pull third with goal difference over City. Words I never thought I’d never type.

Man United 2-0 Leicester City

United’s defense being overlooked as their perfect start continues. 

West Brom 1-1 Stoke City

These two could have a played game 100 years ago and the tactics wouldn’t have been much different. 

Chelsea 2-0 Everton

Morata double sinks Everton.

Tottenham 1-1 Burnley

Late Burnley goal sees Spurs drop more points at home by week 3 this year than the entire campaign last year. 

Liverpool 4-0 Arsenal

Arsenal playing so poorly they make Liverpool defense look good. 

Week 2: A Shaky Anfield Affair

It was all as close as the croppings on Romelu Lukaku’s hair until late. By then Swansea were trailing 1-0 and were forced to throw men forward. It’s at that point when United went for the jugular. Perhaps this team is for real and week one was an indication, not aberration, for United. Where United were poor last year were in moments when they were down or conceding stupid goals. Credit to Mourinho, he acknowledged this in his post game interview saying that this team has yet to respond to adversity. After a few games like that I will judge where they could realistically finish. Too early.

Southampton should have easily dispatched of The Hammers after they went 2-0 up against a 10 man West Ham. Arnautovic is a man completely unchanged at his new club and it may end up affecting his career. In only his second game for West Ham he is sent off for a karate chop retaliation. I thought that West Ham would be much better this year than in years past and i still think they will be. They have a man in Hernandez who has made a career off of poaching and demonstrated those skills in this game. If not for a controversial penalty for the slightest of aerial duels West Ham would have completed the comeback.

In a shaky affair that Michael J Fox could relate to Liverpool somehow dispatched Crystal Palace at Anfield. It wasn’t without moments of real doubt however as Benteke missed an open net and Liverpool missed many late chances. They got their goal but pulling away proved difficult. I see this win as a positive though. Liverpool didn’t play well and this is exactly the type of game they have lost the past few years. If they can turn these games that they don’t play well into wins then they have a decent chance at top 4 again.

It was a game in which it all seemed to go wrong for Arsenal. They dominated a first half in which they had a decent shout for a penalty. Stoke then found their goal as they came into the game from their new signing Jesé. Later Lacazette found the back of the net but was found to be maybe 2 mm offside. A rainy night in Stoke was then capped off by a most unusual incident as Giroud missed an unmarked header. Arsenal Fan TV went off but for me I can see them turning it around next week against Liverpool.

Huddersfield capped off a game that had as much quality as a Championship match. In the only watchable moment of the game Mooy “the new Jonjo Shelvey” scored a long curler. There were 5 total shots in the first half and at one point i swear they were just hoofing the ball from end to end. I haven’t been to church in 14 years but I swear on Sunday morning I was half considering finding Christ rather than watch this crucification of my patience.

I wouldn’t want to play my home matches at Wembley. It’s an event for every team that comes to play you. It’s also a burden to pack that thing out each week. Chelsea certainly felt up for it. Marcus Alonso scored a brace in a game in which either side really could have won, each hitting the bar. Not sure how to feel about Chelsea yet this season and as for Tottenham I could see a hangover of finishing second two years in a row.

I think it says a lot that Everton are competing with City now. They have been completely blown away in the past. Did they get lucky with a bullshit yellow? Sure, Kyle Walker should not have been sent off. But City pushed and pushed and really got lucky with the deflection and Sterling goal. Klaasen’s late clearance was clutch and shows the quality the team has now. Rooney seems to have rediscovered his motivation for the game. If Everton can string some games together against teams higher than them they may surprise people.

Week 1 - Resurrection

Well The Premier League is back and it means everything in the world. Gone are the summer days of existential crisis wondering why you have no friends or hobbies outside of football. By mid June you’ve already wondered what happened to all the unreasonable hairstyles you’re used to flashing across your tv screen. By mid July you begin to wonder if you can get into competitive bowling on ESPN3. You watch the Audi Cup which feels like a crucifixion of all sporting behavior that is true and holy. Then, like Jesus exiting the Tomb, redemption. It’s back. Something matters.

And yet the first week rarely indicates what’s going to happen the rest of the season.

But lets not let that spoil the celebration that is ‘Week 1.’

Arsenal sees their second consecutive week 1 thriller. Last year they were bested by Liverpool by the inverse score. This time they win in spectacular fashion as Lacazette wastes no time opening his Arsenal account. Almost immediately though the man no one particularly likes, Jamie Vardy, levels the game! This is an interesting first 10 minutes of the year. It would be Leicesters advantage by the 2nd half but Arsenal take a very late lead. Giroud does what he seems to only be able to do and scores a thumping header off the crossbar. My word.

We got an absolute thriller for the opener so it surely must calm down, right? We then see another barn-burner as Liverpool draw 3-3 with Watford. This was a game in which I expected to see Watford sit back and defend as so many lesser teams did against Liverpool last year. This may be the only saving grace to the day for Liverpool as they seem to have found a solution to those teams with the pace of Mané and now Salah. If Liverpool have any chance at a title run this year it must be like 13-14 when they outscored their opponents. The defense seems to have the same issues although Mignolet has performed better and better since the tail end of last season.

There are so many things we could talk about with Everton. Whether it’s the entirely new team or the still incoming transfers (Sigurdsson). It’s almost easy to forget that Wayne Rooney is again a Toffee. But he just has to remind you. Scoring the only and winning goal for his boyhood club 13 years after his exit at 18. I was 15 when this happened and Jose Mourinho  had still yet to depart Porto. How things have changed. Perhaps one thing that hasn’t changed is Rooney himself as he still scores goals and still presumedly sleeps with a vacuum cleaner on (Yes this is true, look it up).

New boys Huddersfield got an emphatic win at Palace. Palace is one of my pics to go down. I know it’s early and i know they have talent but much like QPR’s last PL team I see them dropping despite all that. I do say congrats to Huddersfield as they will quickly learn that points in this league are hard to come by.

Chelsea played up to expectations. The expectations being over the last couple of years that last years league winners must play like a mid-table team the next year. Except they hardly did even that. They lost 3-1 with 9 men against Burnley. They can’t afford any injuries this year as they already have a paper thin squad. Perhaps the man who personifies pure-chaos and has looked 40 years old since he was 8, Diego Costa, is the catalyst to this team performing. Good news Chelsea fans it is still only week one after all.

Brighton put up a valiant effort on their return to The Premier League. They kept City at bay until the second half. It looks like City still have yet to mesh together but they are my favorites this year.

Oh and United look really good. Nothing feels better than an opening day demolition of West Ham. Any team that has Lukaku is going to stand a chance with a half decent squad around him. That said, Pogba looks motivated this year and the underperforming players of last year all seemed to have real drive on Sunday. As stated earlier, week 1 means nothing but if United continue to play like this then have to give the league a real run this year.

End of season predictions. Controversy abounds.

This is the post in where i give my Premier League end of season predictions and I otherwise ignore the fact that i haven’t posted for month. Here we go…

Lets start with relegations! Some of you may feel you’ve been relegated to a sub-par blog by reading this. Sunderland know how you feel. As it stands they are 9 points from safety with a game in hand. It’s pretty obvious they are favorites for the fall. Not a controversial opinion here but i agree. How could they miraculously save themselves? A win out would do it. To do that they’d have to beat Arsenal and Chelsea the last two games of the season. Unlikely. Lets say the teams around Sunderland begin dropping points. Now lets say Sunderland wins all of the following games: vs struggling Arsenal, at Middlesbrough, vs Bournemouth, at Hull City, and vs Swansea. That’s 15 points and 9 off of their relegation brethren. Could it happen?? In truth this team needed points months ago and it is much too late.

Perhaps equally unlikely is a Middlesbrough recovery (ever the optimist right?). They currently sit at 24 points, 6 points out of the drop. Here’s the problem: they need wins and they can’t score goals. Bad combination. Playing for draws all year in the hopes that those add up is not a bad strategy for your first year back in the top flight. But when it doesn’t work there’s got to be a plan B. Any plan that involves goals is what Middlesbrough need as they have scored 23 all year. That’s a goal every 1.4 games. Their schedule isn’t easy either: City, Chelsea, Southampton, and Liverpool are what they have to look forward to.

Now we get to the interesting part. One of these two team will be enjoying another year of top flight football with that lucrative Premier League TV deal. The other will be taking cold trips to Barnsley next year. For me Hull City will be staying another year. I look at their schedule and see two winnable games against Watford and Sunderland. I also see Swansea with two wins left in them; at Sunderland and versus West Brom. This keeps the two point gap in Hull City’s favor and ensures Swansea’s demise. A drop for either of them is probably fair. Swansea have been atrocious this season and have gone through managers like Bob Marley did Baby-mama’s. That said Hull City have an even worse goal difference at -33 currently. It’s hard to say a team is owed to stay up if with that kind of differential. Still, for me, they survive.

Relegated: Sunderland, Middlesbrough, and Swansea.

Top 4 predictions:
Chelsea
Tottenham
Man City
Liverpool

Chelsea winning with the current top 4 intact? Controversial i know. Here’s why i have Chelsea winning despite Tottenham in better form. Look at each teams remaining games. Tottenham have Crystal Palace, Arsenal, West Ham, Man United, and Leicester City. Palace, West Ham, and Leicester all have had a resurgence and are playing a lot better. All are very winnable games but i can’t see them winning all. Chelsea have real tests remaining and have room for slip ups. Seems cut and dry to me.

The top 4 is perhaps a more interesting battle. The only thing i flipped was Liverpool and City. I actually don’t think Liverpool will bottle it this year. They are very depleted but I think Klopp will get 3 wins out of the remaining fixtures. City have no real tests left and have a game in hand on Liverpool. The real intrigue here is with Manchester United. I only see 3-4 wins here against Southampton, Burnley, Swansea, and Arsenal. That puts them right at the edge of the top 4 but not enough to crack it. Of course history should tell me that United will manage to overtake Liverpool somehow. But i think this is a year where Liverpool overtake United as an annual contender.

Weeks 28-29: Not a Frenchman's Fuck

 




















You have to wonder wether if Pep Guardiola was at Barcelona or Real Madrid would he be afforded games like these. The result against Stoke was very Stoke like. They get an away point at a sparsely attended Etihad after weathering a Mancunian storm. But for City bigger questions lie. Like will anyone be left on this team come August? Guardiola seems not too impressed and even the ones performing well seem to not play the style that Pep wants to implement.

Hull City found themselves on the winning end of a game, something they’ve done much too little of this season. It’s a big 3 points for their survival make no mistake. When you're near the bottom of the table no fixtures look easy. But for Hull their end of season looks like a nightmare. They’ll be looking to knock points off of Middlesbrough and Sunderland to ensure their survival. As for Swansea this loss looks bad but they have some very winnable games left. I think this is the lowest they are the rest of the season and fancy them still for survival.

Could someone tell me how you defend against Romelu Lukaku? This guy seems to have everything. Unfortunately complete footballers aren’t synonymous with Everton and after this weeks emphatic win he announced that he would not sign a new contract with Everton FC. We all knew the end would come as Lukaku isn’t content to carry the 7th best team in England. After this news Lukaku then went on to show to that he is in fact too good for Everton by getting a brace in a rout of Hull City. The big boys are coming for him this summer and Everton will have to find a replacement.

Liverpool did something they’ve done little of this year. A comeback win against a lowly team was just what the doctor ordered. It was ugly and it was shaky but Liverpool are currently at their 3rd highest point total in the Premier League after this many games. Just goes to show you how far ahead Chelsea really are. Liverpool then followed this up with a scintillating draw at Manchester city to ensure that they will not have lost a game to the top 6 this season. They aren’t giving points to the teams around them which is good. The rest of the year will define the season as top 4 is totally achievable. However, the lower, scrappier teams that Liverpool have left are the one’s they’ve struggled with and have had no answer for.

Arsenal was one of the teams who didn’t play their week 28 game so they should have been chomping at the bit to play a Premier League game right? Arsenal has looked utterly uninspiring the past few months. This isn’t exactly ground breaking news. My angle on this is that it looks so similar to Ranieri’s firing. The players just don’t seem to want to play for Wenger. Not sure there’s any other option than one at this point. It seems only a matter of when.


Oh and Chelsea gutted out a 2-1 win. I’m getting tired of typing that.

Week 27: The Poor get Poorer

 


United drew to Bournemouth at home in a game you’d really expect them to win. Especially when you consider they were up a goal, and later were playing against 10 man Bournemouth. Zlatan had a penalty saved to add to Mourinho’s misery. This United team is hard to defeat but they don’t score many goals, having scored only 2 more than Bournemouth themselves this season. The real story of the match was the feud between Ibrahimovic and Mings though as each were involved in a posthumous banning. Mings made a dangerous stamp on Ibrahimovic’s head while Zlatan returned the favor with an elbow smack to the head. Although common in the streets of Edinburgh, such violent acts were apparently not tolerated by the FA and Mings was given a 5 game ban while Ibrahimovic was given a 3 game ban.

A Crystal Palace win ensured that things just keeping worse at the bottom of the table. Loanee Sakho once again proved his worth as Palace kept a clean sheet. For the first goal Zaha outsmarted Chris Brunt as Brunt was caught not watching the ball. Then Townsend, moving about as fast as your nan after her bowel movement, went the length of the pitch and scored the second. More importantly this result was damning for the bottom three as Middlesbrough, Hull City, and Sunderland now sit firmly in relegation all having lost.

The huge matchup of the weekend was two worst best teams of 2017 so far: Liverpool and Arsenal. Liverpool go from relegation fodder one week to champions quality the next. Unfortunately for Arsene Wenger this week it was top quality. Although he may have done himself in by leaving Alexis Sanchez on the bench, a move that baffled most as he can score out of nothing. Sanchez made his feelings known by smiling from the bench as Arsenal slowly capitulated throughout the game. In an age of mercenaries Wenger may be a dying breed; he has few friends among the players at Arsenal. For Arsenal this brings huge questions on their future not just the rest of the season but heading into the summer. For Liverpool the unpredictable is becoming all too commonplace and predictable. Which of course means a loss to Burnley next week.

Like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in ’75 it was a matchup of two of the best strikers in the league. Harry Kane and Romelu Lukaka simply cannot be contained and their quality was on full display. Like the cheeky Englishman he is, Kane scored the opener from much too far out and it eeked in the corner. Lukaka showed why he might be too good for Everton as he was about the only thing that kept them in the match. For Tottenham it means they’re that much closer to locking down 2nd place for a 2nd consecutive year. For Everton, it means they are still a few key pieces away from competing with the big boys. Keeping Lukaku will be a win for them this off season.

West Ham showed exactly what you don’t do against Chelsea. For their first goal they were completely beaten on a counter attack after Chelsea absorbed pressure. Once it was in Hazard’s hands there was never any doubt. In truth the scoreline is flattering to West Ham as they didn’t strike until late. Seeing as it’s all but their trophy now, what do you reckon Chelsea will do on Holiday this summer? Will Diego Costa get skin rejuvenation in Germany to once again look like the world’s oldest youngest man (Google pictures for ‘young Diego Costa)? Will Hazard ménage with Wenger and Giroud bubblebath style? Stay tuned for the summer edition of this blog to find out all the exciting details.