Catching up

Finally being able to watch some much needed, backed up matches on my dvr from last weekend. 9 minutes into spurs vs liverpool, and THE goal.

WOW.

Ball clumsily bounces off around some players near the box, and then Luka Modric decides to put all 140 pounds of Croatia behind the ball. Absolute stunner. Of the 40 million pounds that he is supposedly worth, that goal just counted for a good 2 million of it. The part I love most about goals is watching the home crowd jump up and roar, and this one required 4 rewinds. I love this sport.

 

The Run Continues

I rued the fact that labor day week here in the States coincided with international week. 3 day weekend, no competitive soccer was quite upsetting. In any case, we’re back and thank goodness.

So the run continues for United with another dismantling of a team. It wasn’t so much that Bolton was bad, it was just that we were better and Rooney is in fine form. He is certainly feeling the striking accuracy at the moment and that really has been the key more than anything else.

Chicharito finally came back and scored within 5 minutes of his first start of the season. When word of his concussion got out, I was really depressed, wondering whether the rest would affect his confidence or show in the form of rustiness. Clearly, I was mistaken because he was sharper than I’ve ever seen him. His movement is simply stunning. He is the current standard for world football as a poacher, an I have absolutely no doubt about that. He is the type of player that shows the complete strikers, the target men, the centerforwards, and any other mould of striker that all you need to score prolifically is intelligent movement and finishing accuracy. Taking Bolton today for example, he lurked around Gary Cahill who I consider a top quality defender. Cahill tracked his run very closely, but with a quick twitch of the shoulder, Hernandez shifted Cahill’s attention for but a second, after which timed his run perfectly into the incoming cross. He didn’t need to hold of a large defender, a do stepovers over the ball, which people seem to demand in all strikers these days.

I don’t put much significance to the 5 goals that we scored. When a striker such as Rooney is on form, he will score. What interested me and mad me much happy was the ability of Jones and Smalling. Jones is an outstanding young defender. I thought I’d seen the best young defender in England last season when Smalling sparkled in his first season. I had watched Phil through Blackburn, and while his defense qualities were obvious, his technical quality had not been. Today, with a masterful shift by Sir Alex, Jones played for the first time at right back and he was literally flawless. His passing and one touch passes had be gleaming, and it was topped off by a great, steamrolling solo charge into Bolton’s box, resulting in Rooney’s second goal. He has a tremendous great future ahead of him. The Brazilian twins are in real trouble.

There are moments in De Gea’s plays when one realizes why he is worth the hype and transfer fee. The lanky goalkeeper is not great at dealing with ground shots, but when it comes to any sort of airborne reflex save, he is pretty incredible. He really has lightning reflexes and great acrobatic ability. While everyone else in England will want to cut him down because of the shirt he wears, they will eventually be dejected when he becomes a world class keeper.

The funniest part of the game: because Nani clashed with Jones and cut he back of his head, United physios had to put vaseline on the wound. And a large amount of it. Basically, he played with what looked like a giant wad of jizz in his hair for the better part of half an hour. Absolutely hilarious.

Still lots of soccer to watch. Its gonna be a great saturday.

 

Hiatus

Pick a better time for me to slack on my blogging duties. Just so happens that all the exciting stuff happened while I was mad busy.

To recap two weekends is a difficult task but since this was bound to happen at some point, let me try to bullet point approach.

-Swansea City, as I pointed out after the first weekend, is THE promoted team to watch. Forget Warnock’s QPR. Swansea City plays better, plays prettier, and has players you can actually root for.

-If Everton doesn’t want to get eclipsed by yet another mid-table team, they really need to hang on to their players. Sell Mikel Arteta? Really? Come on David.

-Yea, it happened. We dismantled Arsenal limb to limb. But while I was tremendously satisfied to see our new signings and young players toy with Le Professor’s students, I could not help feeling that all we had done was killed someone’s reserve team. Then again, it turns out our average age of the squad fielded that day was younger than Arsenal’s on that day. Hence, our youngsters are ready for premiership action, theirs are not. What I was most happy about was affirmation of how good Sir Alex’s man management is. The youngsters had their share of goals, and they started to get a little too confident, a little selfish, an little sloppy. The were promptly subbed, and he brought experience and calm in through Giggs and Park. The team slowed down, made better passes, stopped the mistakes, and registered two more goals before the whistle blew. Oh, and Ji has now scored 5 goals against Arsenal, and is now statistically our best player against the Gunners. I need to start betting on him scoring next time we go to the Emirates. On a sour note, Welbeck got injured, which is terrible for the youngster. Having said that, we do have a surplus of front men. Berbatov, Chicharito, Macheda and Owen weren’t gonna stay glued to those red Audi seats forever.

-The noisy neighbors are becoming noisier. Last week, the sun rose in Manchester a both Mancunian teams scored a collective 13 goals and conceded just 3. City was unexpectedly fluid for a team recently put together. Nasri was better and more well-adjusted than I thought he would be, and the co-existence of City’s creative triumvirate (Nasri, Silva, Aguero) is destined to be a tremendous nightmare for any team’s defense. The chief benefactor of the three creators? Edin Dzeko, who netted four times in triumphant fashion. All strikers above the 8.1 million pound mark in fantasy futbol are looking bad for value. Except Rooney of course who showed that Ronaldo is not to be missed when it comes to set pieces.

– Having seen Gabby Agbonlahor many times after his hulk-ification, I wholeheartedly agree with Houllier’s concern. The guy used to have a lanky, long-strided style. But his noticeable bulking has proven to slow him down quite a bit, and his cut that he used to hit the beauty against Rovers was not even impressive. Its just shocking to see a player’s running style and agility change so dramatically.

– THe world will now end at the re-scheduled date. Emile Heskey, has finished a goal attempt.

– PC Young, who I blogged on before my little holiday from wordpress, has signed for the Gunners after a shocking turnaround from Lille. Yeah, he really should not have done that to Lille. But can you blame a guy who has three professional years of football left it him due to his country?

– The transfer deadline closed today and I was just flabbergasted. Beckford to Leicester? Moyes – do you really need to sell off another striker? Have you successfully given Louis Saha a bionic leg? Cuz if not, you’re fucked up front. Seriously.

– Arteta to Arsenal? Again, Moyes is an idiot, and Wenger has pulled off a coup. Mikel Arteta was always good enough for a top club, but he stayed loyal to Everton. He deserves a good transfer move and he has gotten it. Will he have the same impact as Cesc? No, but Arsene essentially signed the best playermaker choice available to him. The guy is creative, tremendously techniqued, and most importantly, knows how to play in this league. Well done Arsene. Gunners fans have a right to be displeased with their gaffer, but he has delivered. In order, Park Chu Young, Andre Santos, Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker. He wasn’t kidding when he said he was working really really really really really really really hard. All good signings and great prices. Arsenal to me is a familiar rival. That kid that you’ve been competing with since you were a child. Yea it rocks when you kick his ass, but it sucks to see him go too far down. Hopefully this will jolt them a little bit. Besides, better Arsenal than City or Liverpool. An imp is more likable than a Demon or the Devil.

– Welcome Drenthe to Everton. A player I like, a player I want to watch week in and week out. A great loan for my eyes. He’s agressive, he’s strong, and he’ll do well for Everton.

– Craig Bellamy back to Liverpool. Well, I like Craig Bellamy. He is a complete ass. But he’s a fine player. And besides, a douche player belongs in a douche shirt. I’ll see you at Anfield son, welcome back to the great league.

– West Ham is procured some good signings, with Guy Demel, Henri Lansbury and David “i-won-a-watch-on-youtube-by-hitting-a-trash-can-with-my-left” Bentley. They will bring needed quality to the squad after the sale of Parker, which by the way, sucks balls. Then again, I have the utmost respect for Scott Parker, and I bear no grudge for him leaving a Championship team for Tottenham Hotspur. God speed, you were a great servant for West Ham.

– Bolton has signed David N’miss for 4 million pounds. Its 4 million pounds they will never see again. On the bright side, Owen Coyle has decided to do his annual free favor to another club by taking Kakuta on loan. Undoubtedly, Kakuta will return to Chelsea a better player, Chris Eagles has just seen his last game for the club, and Tuncay will have to put up more videos of himself on facebook.

– Diego is finally gone from Wolfsburg. From star man to pariah, what a difference the Brazilian has made to that team. Wolfsburg is officially done. Their glory years gone. No Dzeko. No Grafite. No Diego. No bueno.

– Lastly, Owen Hargreaves has officially retired from football. By signing for City. No hard feelings from a man who fought so hard to regain his fitness, but his talent is such that he would have made a star impact on many midtable teams. To me that sounds better than riding the 200 million pound bench at City. Of course, this move also make great sense to him because he doesn’t have to sell his house. I wonder how many youtube videos Mancini watched with his wife before he requested an audience with the Sheik.

Till next time gents and ladies, it looks to me that we are in for a fantastic season. FUCK CITY.