What Derby has to do to ensure the “worst-ever” tag isn’t hung on them.
Three games on Thursday takes a toll so this weekend preview is an abbreviated version.
Premiership – at the top Chelsea goes into the second last week of the Premiership hoping that Manchester United might come a cropper against their recently anointed bogey team West Ham United. On the other hand United are hoping the same thing as Chelsea’s results at Newcastle have been less than sterling over the last few seasons.
West Ham United has beaten Manchester United in their last three encounters. One of the three was the epic last match of the season that saw Carlos Tevez – then in different colours – score the only goal of the game and one that kept the Hammers in the top flight.
Nearly twelve months on West Ham sits comfortably in mid-table – as they have done for a good part of the season – already seven points better off than last season. The defensive statistics show the biggest improvement with 15 less goals conceded than during the 2006/07 season. After an impressive start away from home West Ham’s road form has slumped. The first nine away games brought sixteen points from a possible 27, the latest nine only one win, two draws and four goals scored.
Chelsea is unbeaten in their last nineteen Premiership games and has collected more away points than any other Premiership side – 39. Twenty three of these points have come in the nine away matches.
They face a Newcastle side that is unbeaten in their last seven matches with six of them wins. Newcastle has only lost once to Chelsea on their last five Premiership visits (3 Newcastle wins and the other a draw).
Premiership – at the bottom Anything less than a win for Fulham and they will have to look to Reading and Bolton both losing if they are to retain an interest in Premiership survival going into the final weekend. A draw for Birmingham will guarantee that they go into the final game of the season – albeit on life support.
Birmingham has enjoyed success over Fulham in the Premiership with three wins, five draws and a single loss. The loss came at St Andrews in January 2005. Given their respective home and away records over the second half of the season both sides will be coming into the game with trepidation rather than confidence.
Fulham have only picked up seven points in last 9 home matches (2 wins and 1 draw and 5 goals for) and Birmingham are without an away win since a last minute winner at White Hart Lane on December 2. Since then they have only only picked up two away draws. A small encouragement for the Brummies will be a London record of a win, two draws and a tough opening day loss at Stamford Bridge.
Bolton have bounced back from a 4-0 hammering at the hands of Villa three weeks ago and 3-2 loss to Arsenal the week before with a couple of wins and a draw. Considering they have only scored three points and picked up seven points it is a case of making a little go a long way.
Sunderland are safe and that might just provide Bolton with the edge that they need – with a trip to Stamford Bridge next weekend Bolton will also be hoping that Manchester United sow up the Premiership title this weekend.
With sixty-five goals against Reading’s defense has been a major weakness this season. What’s more it doesn’t help their survival hopes that the goals are no longer going in at the opposite end. Reading is currently on the longest current goalless streak in the Premier League – nothing to cheer about for the last 461 minutes.
Although Reading still has the relative luxury of a last weekend trip to Pride Park they desperately need to get something out of this match against Spurs. Earlier this season Reading blew 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 leads before losing 6-4 to Spurs.
Epic match last year United vs Hammers? Ha ha. I watched that game and thought it was a very languorous performance by United and Warnock was justified in being upset. Sounds like Chelsea are concerned that Curbishley is going to reciprocate this weekend (Curbishley: "it would be a great injustice if Manchester United were to lose the Premier League title"). Oh well, as long as the Irons beat Villa the following week I'll be happy, otherwise Inter-Toto Cup here we come! It's unlikely Everton will get anything at Arsenal (especially without Cahill), Villa will probably beat Wigan and will be in 5th on goal difference. Last game Everton at home vs BarCodes, Villa at West Ham. Hmmmm I wonder if the chef who conjured up the dodgey vindaloo lasagna when Spurs played West Ham is available to work the Villa hotel ... nah wouldn't wish that on anyone
Congrats to RINGO and any other CFC fans out there. It had the air of inevitability around it pre-game, and even LFC breaking their scoring duck *twice* @ SB wasn't enough. Well played
I kinda wish Fern hadn't scored, and saved me all that 'hope' & drama
FWIW, I thought the refereeing and commentary were about as fair and impartial as one could ask for. There is the Hyypia shout, but expecting a defender to get a PK awarded in an away fixture in extra time in a CL Semi is tantamount to catching Haley's Comet IMO. Would be neat if we could "run it twice" as in poker to see what the outcome woulda been had it been given. Not sure Babel still screams one thru Cech's hands tho....
I'm undecided on what I think LFC should do, so I'll lurk fer a bit rather than overreact and/or post sumpthin dumb or incendiary
So I'm going back into my cave to rue, reflect & drink some more
are we STILL talking about Liverpool? I think Benitez is retarded. How do you take Torres out of the game? Let's see, in extra time it was Babel/Kuyt vs. Drogba/Anelka. By my estimation, that is no contest...
"Have you recently hollowed out a volcanic island to which you expect to semi-retire in the company of, say, a white cat?"
That's one of the pertinent questions posed by Marina Hyde in a funny take on the fit and proper persons test used to judge new Prem League club owners.
Bobby, nice link to Stephen Brunt's funny take on the subject. Of course, I'd expect him to kick Spurs around a little. Judging by comments made during his local radio appearances, he would seem to be a Chelsea fan. Definite soft spot for Liverpool, too, after being flown around Durope for a week keeping George Gillet company at some big games.
Nice story angle forming up in the UEFA Cup final. Glasgow Rangers meeting up with former manager BLEEP Advocaat's Zenit St. Pete's. A lot of griping about Rangers stout defensive play. And this is a team that sold their best defender, Alan Hutton, to Spurs, in January. Good management all around.
'Mon the Gers.
i would think so BArr isnt going to go there to sit on the bench and alonso just does not seem to be able to cope in the prem anymore. Barry will be interchanging with masch, alongside gerrard.
Did u watch the champions league review on espn lastnight. Janusz machalik said liverpool has no gret players and gerrard is just an ok player. I have lost all respect for that guy. Luckily Shaka was there to straighten him out.
green7delta - First of all Ronaldo is injured and may never play again. If he does return to play I have been told that he is likely to make a shock move to a Scottish First Division team. Representatives of Queen of the South apparently contacted him earlier this week in Brazil.
Last edited by BobbyMcMahon on May 2nd at 6:52 AM.
The Bears are therough to the final, although Celtic Fans will discount the competition.
Two games in hand with 6 fixtures left and a need for 13 points to guaranty the League if that same Celtic win out the final four at home.
Queen of South poised for an upset and BLEEP Advocaat waiting to bring his Bolsheviks to Manchester where they should feel very welcome.
What an exciting Month of May and a Bank Holiday thrown in for good measure.
You can have your EPL and Champions League this year.
Bobby a guest on the phone in show said American players need more exposure to European competition like the Champions League and Eufa Cup for the National Team to take the next step.
Is the difference in pay scale between top clubs of Portugal, Germany and Scotland comporable to Mid Table Premiership Teams?
Do you see American/Canadian players developing further if they were to target top clubs in these leagues?
Torres told Rafa that he felt something in his hamstring, which is why he was taken off.
LGB, aldoray
I'm a big fan of Barry's. Whether this signals the end of Alonso is to be seen, but for the record, Xabi just never looked like his heart was in it this season. Also, Barry can play left back or left midfield in a conventional 4-4-2. Maybe Barry coming is more of a signal that Riise is leaving than Alonso, but we'll see.
aldoray
I take anything any talking head has to say with a grain of salt unless it's clear that they do their homework and say things out of that education rather than saying anything controversial for the sake of being noticed. Shaka no doubt remembers Gerrard's two thunderbolts in his last game for West Ham, as well as him scoring with a very good left footed shot while playing vs England for Trinidad and Tobago, both just 2 years ago.
Interesting to look at the expanded rankings and see who's living beyond their means. Valencia should be renamed Nuevo Leeds. Goodbye Gareth Barry, Aston Villa have bills to pay. And no wonder poor Sven is getting the boot. City's valuation is dropping. The owner must be so embarassed.
Or did you mean the top ten richest soccer team owners in the world list? Yes, as well.
Interesting that only one Prem owner is on it, Abramovitch. I suppose we'll soon have another wildly-overspending boutique London team - QPR - to grind our teeth at.
Shouldn't be surprised to see some more of them involved in English takeovers soon.
Bobby: I re-read Brunt's piece about Spurs and MLSE and thought that an equally fair comparison is linking the Leafs with Ar5ena1. Both are wildly prosperous using sport as the basis of a broader money-making enterprise - add in-house media systems and property development - and have financially alienated ordinary fans from attending games with high prices for tickets and concessions, hence the slack atmosphere found in both teams playing venues.
Dear Bobby, please tell the lovable Derek that Pachuca is not a French word pronounced Pashusha. Pachuca is pronounced pahchewka. He said it 15 times last night each time sounding worse.
liverpool were involved in all the exciting champs league games this season. all the rest were mere formalities. we were even able to make the chelsea games exciting.
Mazmaz: Derek Taylor as a football commentator? BLEEP, BLEEPBLEEP! He murders the English team names just as badly so don't expect anyhope for the non English names. He should stick to food. Menwhile he gets the mute near as often as Smyth.
Re Liverpool and Barry, LFC are doing their best to destabalise the situation and it is their ploy to get as much for Carson as possible, plus maybe Pennant or Kewell?
Pennant has to go to give Babel the right side and Kewell goes to give Barry the left. Riise stays to cover if not play left back.
New right back to cover Finnan and sell Arbeloa and Aurelio real quick before their sell by date is noticed.
Barry, Mascherano, Gerrard, and Babel would be quite a good midfield in any 4-4-2. Backed up by Leiva, Benayoun (on a leash) and ermmmm a couple of new midfielders of better quality then the reserves currently offer. That uness Plessis improves over the next 6 months.
Insua could come up to left back and so could Nemmeth to partner Torres, but I wonder if they are good enough for the top of the PBL or the CL? In Rafa we trust.......ermmm, for the time being.
Last edited by redfan4ever on May 2nd at 11:09 AM.
Aston Villa have bills to pay? I think it wasn't so long ago that Lerner said he was going to back Oneil this summer with whatever he wanted. If Barry leaves its because the price is right and the funds or players coming the other way will be used to deepen the squad.
The deal I've seen advertised is Scott Carson + Riise + Money for Barry which would be pretty hard to turn down considering they get a serviceable LB back + their starting goalie they don't even own into a permanent situation + some cash.
Arsenal and Chelsea made Liverpool play good games not the other way around and don't get it mixed up. If Rafa had his way he would of sat back and played ugly football. The scoreline in the Chelsea first leg didn't let him and Arsenal went to Anfield and prevented them sitting back by getting an early goal.
So I guess Liverpool scored more goals in the CL than any other team because their opponents made them...sour grapes Jay.
come on redfan, kewell is out of contract, so while it would be great to get something for a Bosman, we aren't going to. If Villa turn down Carson/Riise/money for Barry they're foolish. From all accounts Barry wants out to play in CL games (not to ride the pine and watch from good seats, sorry Chelsea). Given the money is probably at least 2-3 million, that's a pretty damned good offer. Of course, all of this is rumored and therefore not to be taken at face value.
8 goals against besiktas with your bench on the field . Come on at least distill your facts. I wouldn't come waving the Arsenal flag after slamming Slavia 7-0 and pretend they were the class of Europe this year.
Grant could of easily marched out his team on the counter attack considering Liverpools horrible record at the Bridge and he didn't. It was all Chelsea on the attack forcing the issue off the bat instead. Props to Grant for not being Mourinho and actually risking the game. He deserves the credit not Liverpools skewed goal record.
Jay-What? So Chelsea deserve credit for coming out and attacking for one leg and Liverpool don't deserve it for coming out and attacking for two legs?
What difference does it make it who's on the field? Liverpool FC scored the most goals. No one on here is waving the flag saying that we were the best in Europe, we are just saying that your "analysis" of us being a defensive team is just completely wrong. And the statistics prove so...
dont take Jay Alves seriously, He read my post about liverpool playing the most exciting games and as usual he scrutinized it and tried to find faults like he always does with all my post. Its become so childish foolish and obvious right now that its hilarious this guy obviously has nothing better to do with his free hand while the other one is busy constantly going in a north to south direction. Thats why i consider this guy to be a twot, and i try my best not to read his posts.
The point is Chelsea didn't have to come out and attack. They had the advantage on aggregate and in the crowd they could of sat 10 back and played counter attack football while Liverpool would of been forced into attacking or lose the tie. I give 0 credit to a team that has to attack to win and all the credit to a team that doesn't have to but still does. If thats not fair or logical I don't know what to say.
And in the case of the 2nd leg thats exactly what happened. Chelsea came out looking to score in a game they could of won 0-0.
Your going to have a hard time convincing me after listening to Bobby on WSD just 30 minutes ago and call Liverpool what they are a counter attacking football team.
Aldoray do you have a point or fact in any of that or just insults? still sour that you have been proved wrong on many occasions? Prove me wrong here and I'll agree and not call you names.
i do not have to do anything in regards to u because to be honest, I try to pretend that u do not even exist. Now before u beging to post one of your useless rants be sure to wipe the baby oil/lotion or wahtever your lubricant of choice is off of your hands b4 u touch the keyboard
Furthermore u have proved in your post above that u do nothave a mind of your own, u said that after listening to bobby there is nothing that will cahnge your mind. It is obvious that u have chosen bobby to do your thinking for u that is the sign of a feable mind. Please dont tell me that its bobby at the center of your thoughts while u excercise your occupied hand.
And the FACT is that liverpool were involved in the most exciting games in champs league. Tell me one that was more exciting. the only other team that tried to make games exciting was Fenerbache
From now on u ignore my post and i will stop ignoring most of your posts and start to ignore ALL of them that way we will not have to go back and forth with this. and we will help save space on the blog for football related matters.
I guess winning the last three games in the group stage by an overall score of 16-1 doesn't mean a whole lot. Nor does putting 3 past Inter all in open play, 5 past Arsenal and 3 past Chelsea. If that's boring, I'll take more of the same please.
Or maybe Jay is upset because his Arsenal lost. Or maybe because Arsenal scored one goal straight from a set play, one indirectly from a set play (and a suspected arm trap) and one on the counter attack (albeit a good run) against Liverpool.
I also guess that ManU are a boring team. European games aside, I seem to remember a game were they scored a luck goal from a broken set play in the 43rd minute and then proceeded to stick 10 men behind the ball to hang onto a 1-0 win. I really fail to understand how Arsenal and ManU continue to get a free pass on being "entertaining" while Liverpool continue to be called boring. Liverpool has scored more goals this season in all comps than the other 3. And I'll take that all day long rather than a team that is all style with little substance or end product.
This years CL Liverpool were FORCED to play. they had to struggle to get out of the group stages, and they were forced to attack. and they conceded the first goal in both Chelsea and Arsenal second leg games, in that fact, they were FORCED to play.
Just because somebody was forced to do something does not negate the fact that they did it.
Could your precious arsenal have won 3 consecutive must win games in the champs league. Because they certainly could not do it in the prem this season.
16-1 with one game being 8-0 in a situation where they had to win out to make sure they got out of the group? Hurah for Liverpool.
3 goals against inter in open play up a man. Another Hurah for the mighty attacking Liverpool!
5 past Arsenal with 4 coming in a second leg that Arsenal forced a open game at Anfield. Hurah for the attacking genius that is Rafa Benitez and his Liverpool!
3 past Chelsea 2 coming in the 2nd leg where they had to score to win. The fact is Liverpool can and will settle for results like the first leg against Chelsea minus the own goal. Bland and ugly counter attacking football. 13 draws in the EPL.. managed 2 more goals then Chelsea though so that must make them exciting. Face it Liverpool don't play exciting brand of football they are just involved in intense games that usually don't deliver see every single game against Chelsea minus the last.
Man U? in Europe? Highly boring. Something like 22% possession away to Barca. Shocking when they have the players they do not even attempt to do anything but herd the opposition around. Settled for one goal at home when they were one mistake from looking like fools.
Aldoray thats the 2nd or 3rd time you said you would stop reading what I wrote and are just still full of insults and keep on reading. You really cant handle being proven wrong. My point about Bobby was I already thought that and he came out and said it plain as day that counter attacking will never win you the League and thats what Liverpool are.
I don’t mean to sound condescending, but the object of this game is to win. The approach doesn’t matter, and the end justifies the means. I want my team to win, and I’d much rather them win ugly than lose in a blaze of glory. I don’t hear many Rangers fans complaining today.
Also, the number of goals scored is no indication of the approach. On any given day a team can take a defensive approach and score a few, and on another day spend 90 mins attacking and not score. Fiorentina tried everything but couldn’t score, Zenit started out cautiously protecting their advatage and wound up scoring four.
I don’t mean to sound condescending, but the object of this game is to win. The approach doesn’t matter, and the end justifies the means. I want my team to win, and I’d much rather them win ugly than lose in a blaze of glory. I don’t hear many Rangers fans complaining today.
Vvv, I thought the object of the game is to entertain. that's why I played football since I was a kid, and that's why I watch it on TV. Other than that, football would have no fans watching.
Thierry:
If you were joking, then please disregard.
I watch football because I want my team to win.
When Milan play Inter on Sunday, I want them to win, and I want Fiorentina to lose. 1-0 7-5 10-1, I don't care. If Milan win 5-3 and it's a great game, all the better, but I'll take the three points first. Any manager, player, or club president that says any different is full of s-h-i-t, with all due respect. Maybe you're glad that Arsenal played well this season but are trophy-less; Milan played very poorly for most of last season, but I didn't have any complaints!
As a neutral, entertainment is never guaranteed. I enjoy watching big games, but not all high scoring games. Arsenal-Milan wasn't that bad for a 0-0 match, right? I've seen many worse games with half a dozen goals.
Did you enjoy the 2005 UCL final better than 2003? I didn't!
UCL 2005 Final was a classic. It will remain in the momories of many. obviously not Milan fans. Same to be said, Arsenal v. Liverpool last month was another CL classic, although Arsenal lost..
Vvv, to tell you the truth, I don't think Milan is such as defensive team. I see them time and times scoring lots of goals. not really a typical italian side.
Last edited by Thierry_Henry on May 2nd at 3:23 PM.
I agree. I think a lot of that has to do with the makeup of the current Milan team. The big Italian teams all seem to have very aggressive lineups - in fact the big Serie A matches lately have been played openly, but again, a lot depends on the circumstances for each team.
This Sunday, Milan and Inter both need a win, and a draw isn't much good for either, and that should be receipe for some good football.
The problem with the current setup in the knockout stages of European football where most teams are somewhat evenly matched, you have a first leg where both teams are much better off not conceding than scoring, and a then a second leg in which one team is happy with a 0-0. Milan had that approach at the Emirates and are as good as any at getting a stalemate when necessary. How can you argue with the approach of Sir Alex this season - they're in final and that's all that matters, and I would feel the same way.
Of course it is entertainment, some people just get more entertainment when their team wins.
I too only want Utd to win b/c of Tevez. He has the right approach. He could have bailed on WH last season and no one outside of England would have held it against him.
Of course its to win first VVV but some fan bases approach it differently.
For example for Real its win pretty or your fired. I doubt Arsenal will adopt such a strict moto when Wenger is gone but I have a feeling Arsenal fans have been spoiled so much that they wont be happy if its ugly football after he leaves.
My point was if Liverpool fans are looking for some consolidation prize for being knocked out that their team now plays beautiful football I'm not going to agree with them thats for sure. Having the most goals in the CL and having exciting games against Arsenal and Chelsea does not suddenly make them an attractive side to watch every week. They are what they are and thats counter attacking defense first. In both games they were forced to come out and play and they did, so congratulations for being put in a position where your team had to play or surrender and you decided to play.
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