Making their Champions League debut FCR Cluj beat Roma 2-1 in the Olympic Stadium.
Manchester City dismantled Portsmouth 6-0 at Eastlands on Saturday and inflicted on Pompey their biggest ever Premiership loss – the previous worst was a 5-0 loss away to Birmingham on January 21, 2006.
Best forgotten…..
The goal Chelsea conceded to Manchester United should be a considered a catastrophic defensive failure. The Chelsea defence broke down in almost every position. As the move formed on the United left side Alex got pulled out of position as Berbatov and Rooney dropped back into midfield.
Evra, Berbatov and Rooney exchanged passes and when the United full-back sprung forward Joe Cole failed to go with him. The diminutive Evra then outmuscled Chelsea full back Jose Boswinga inside the penalty box before squaring a pass to the unmarked Berbatov who had rejoined the play.
Berbatov was allowed to shoot and Petr Cech failed to hold what looked to be a fairly routine effort. Instead the ball spilled to Park – also left free – ten yards out and United were 1-0 up.
Best goals….
Some cracking goals in the match day one of Champions League play. Florent Malouda finished of####reat build up involving John Obi Mikel and Frank Lampard to score Chelsea’s third in a 4-0 rout of Bordeaux.
Fernandinho of Shakhtar Donetsk scored an absolute screamer from a free kick against Basel to help his side to a 2-1 win.
Another classic free kick came from Alessandro Del Piero against Zenit St. Petersburg. The ball was hit with power, dip and swerve from a distance where most players would not have even have attempted a crack at goal. It proved to be the only goal of the match.
Juninho Pernambucano’s ability from a dead ball position is renowned throughout the world. But the Lyon midfielder threw in something a little bit different against Fiorentina. Instead of having his usual crack from a free kick just outside the penalty area the Brazilian played a perfect pass around the defensive wall for Benzema to run onto and score.
Finally Steven Gerrard’s goal from open play for Liverpool against Marseille was as sweetly struck a shot as you are ever likely to see.
Goal feast……
Atletico Madrid are scoring almost at will at times this season. Three goals away to PSV Eindhoven in midweek were followed by four against Recreativo Huelva on Saturday – all without conceding a goal.
North Americans in Europe….
US international Michael Bradley made his debut for Borussia Monchengladbach in a 1-0 loss at home against Hertha Berlin.
Biggest Howlers……
A reasonable explanation as to why referee Andre Marriner cancelled Steven Gerrard’s second minute goal for Liverpool against Stoke has still not been forthcoming.
Boro keeper Ross Turnbull nearly pulled off one for the blooper reel as he was caught in two minds (neither of them particularly smart!) at the edge of his own penalty area. He recovered after fumbling the ball while under little pressure and managed to avoid handing Sunderland a golden scoring chance.
Stat facts...
Jo and Ched Evans (Manchester City), David di Michele (West Ham), Emmanuel Eboue (Arsenal) and Michael Turner (Hull City) all opened their Premiership scoring account this weekend.
On Saturday evening Real Salt Lake played in Rice-Eccles Stadium for the last time before their move to new digs. After going unbeaten in a dozen home games in MLS this season it was a case of unlucky 13 as Chivas won 1-0.
Even after only a handful of games there are only two teams that are pointless in the top five leagues in Europe - in Italy Cagliari and in Spain Sporting Gijon.
What was said….
Paul Wilson considers Spurs’ transfer dealings this past summer and is left unimpressed.
Tony Cascarino suggests that Manchester United should sign Emile Heskey.
Roy Keane hates ABBA! No comment from ABBA about Roy Keane.
The 3rd round of the Carling Cup is on Tuesday and Wednesday, CIS Cup in Scotland on the same days and a there is a full schedule of games in Serie A and La Liga. Matches to look out for include:
Newcastle vs. Spurs Portsmouth vs. Chelsea Manchester United vs. Boro Blackburn vs. Everton
Three Premiership games, one after another on Saturday, together with a Monday night game between Spurs and Aston Villa offers up what looks to be an intriguing round of games.
Liverpool vs. Manchester United
Manchester United have owned Liverpool over the last few Premiership seasons. Not only are United unbeaten in the last eight games (seven wins and a lone draw) against Liverpool they have only conceded a single goal in the process.
Liverpool’s poor record against Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea under Rafa Benitez has been much debated and discussed. The last Liverpool away win against one of the other members of the “Big Four” was back in the 2003/04 season B.R. (before Rafa) and their home record of 4 wins, 5 losses and three draws under Rafa is no great shakes either.
Liverpool’s two main attacking threats Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard are both very doubtful for the game. This leaves the possibility that summer signing Robbie Keane who has never scored in 17 Premiership appearances against United will carry the main responsibility for getting Liverpool on the score sheet.
Last season when with Spurs Keane finally scored against United in a 3-1 FA Cup loss, there could not be a better time than this Saturday for Keane to break his Premiership scoring duck against Manchester United.
Manchester City v Chelsea
This game might not have raised too many eyebrows even two weeks ago. But since the Abu Dhabi Group takeover and the signing of Robinho under Chelsea’s nose it has taken on a much higher profile and could perhaps even be regarded as a bit o####rudge match.
City’s record in this fixture is very poor with only one win and one draw in eleven home games against Chelsea. The win, however, was very significant in that it was Chelsea’s only defeat in their Championship season of 2004/05. The 1-0 win came off a Nicolas Anelka penalty and remains the only goal City have scored in the last dozen Premiership games against Chelsea.
It will be interesting to see how the City players react given that a good number may be pushed aside as plane loads of higher priced foreign talent seems set to arrive in the New Year.
Blackburn Rovers v Arsenal
Many fans would pick Blackburn out as being a bogey team for Arsenal – another would probably be Bolton. However, the statistics don’t seem to support that notion as far as the Rovers are concerned anyway.
Out of the twenty-eight games Blackburn has won seven and lost fourteen and have only beaten Arsenal once in their last ten league games. But Blackburn are also unbeaten at Ewood Park in 2008 having last lost a home league game in December 2007.
Tottenham Hotspur v Aston Villa
Last season’s meeting finished 4-4 and could have featured as a demonstration of how not to defend. Both teams scored a barrel load of goals last season (Spurs 66, Aston Villa 71) and there is hope that Monday’s game will serve up more than average.
Roman Pavyluchenko and Vedran Corluka are in line to debut for Spurs who need to adapt quickly to the loss of Berbatov and Keane in attack. It is indicative of the turnover at White Hart Lane that of the 16 players that featured in this game last season only six remain at the club.
RINGO - FA Cup Final Trivia. How many times has a non-English team played in the final? How many times has the final been played outside London? On the two occasions Charlton Athletic played in the final, something unusual happened ,what?
Bobby – Seeing that no one esle is playing here goes. 1) Three, Queen’s Park twice and Cardiff who actually won the Cup. 2) Nine times if you don’t include replays. 3) The ball burst in consecutive finals in ’46 and ’47. There was also a Gypsy's Curse involved in the Derby County Final but as far as I know it was not a consecutive season curse!
Henry14 - Q1 what do you make of Fergie's claim that he wants to spends in the midfield and attack, publicly, even if l am not a Man Utd fan l feel he is going to overpay because he is linked with every good finisher. Even if he spend $100m l still feel Hargreaves is not worth $40m and Berbatov is not worth $80m he is at most a $40m player, do you think it was a smart move?
Q2 What do you make of Fergie’s selection because it was awful, I felt it played into West Ham's plan and would not have been at the top of the table with that line up
Q3 l heard Graham Hunter and Ian Wright on talk sport saying Wenger has summoned the board for another meeting on his transfer budget, he claims that , he is not happy with the amount given to him and feels that another season of fighting for fourth Cesc and co might leave, do see Wenger leaving if he does not challenge for trophies next season
Q4 - Who owns Tevez it seems West Ham do not own him, it’s not a loan everything around this guy is mysterious even after the commission, can you clarify the situation.
Bobby – Q1 – And when has it been any different for Manchester United? As far back as I can remember they have been linked with high profile players. Even if Ferguson came out and said that he is not interested in signing anyone this summer no one would belief him. Q2 – I watched the game and in the first half in particular United destroyed West Ham and did everything except score. If it was a one-off result I could understand your point but West Ham did the double over United and Arsenal and didn’t concede a goal in the process. Q3 – No I don’t see Wenger leaving. Q4 – Tevez is owned by MSI and so when he is sold this summer West Ham will realize nothing from any deal.
Meansucka - The FA Cup and the La Liga race look to be great drama! Any predictions on the latter?
Bigdavedisaster - As the Champions League approaches I can’t help but look at AC Milan and wonder if they should be there? None of the other teams involved in "match fixing" were allowed to compete in Europe, even Lazio with less of a point deduction was kicked out of the lesser UEFA cup. If they cheated enough to have points deducted from there domestic league what does them making the final say about communication between UEFA and domestic leagues in this case Serie A? Did they cheat in the 2005-2006 season or not? It seems as though you here no talk of this incident anymore even though a team that had points deducted for being involved in fixing games is going for the biggest trophy in club football. I’m really not a big conspiracy guy but is this being kept quiet? And yes I am seeing someone on the grassy knoll. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
I wrote earlier in the season that I thought the Bulgo-irish striker combination would be the ticket for Spurs now my question is, Spurs have shown that they can score with the best of the EPL what do they have to do to defend with them? Is a healthy Ledley King the answer or is the problem bigger than one man?
Bobby – First off none of the other teams had enough points to qualify for Europe after the points deduction – the exception was Milan. Did they cheat? Yes they did. But just like other things in life there are degrees of cheating. For example trying to steal five yards at a throw-in isn’t likely to get you thrown out of European competition. Whether we agree with the punishment or not, the fact is that the Commission that conducted the inquiry in Italy found that although all were guilty there were degrees of cheating involved and the different points deduction reflected that. I don’t think that Milan needed to cheat or affect the results last season in anyway to finish in the top four in Serie A.
A healthy Ledley King will make a big difference and I thought that Zokora was far steadier in the second half of the season than the first. They certainly need a left back and if they managed to sign a naturally left footed player then they might just get away without a left sided midfield player. They also need Paul Robinson to pick his game up.
Rwonfootball - It's relatively easy to pick a "Player of the Year," because it goes to the best player. But who would get an MVP award if one was given?
Bobby – Good question. I think my choice would be Mikel Arteta at Everton.
Venti_Vidi_Vici - At the beginning of the season you had rebutted claims that Chelsea were not adequately staffed at the center back position after the loss of Gallas and Huth, replaced only by the Cannibal. Do you think they will be shopping for central defenders this summer, or stick with who they have?
Bobby – They still had three centre backs but as it turned out Boulahrouz was so brutally bad that he was a liability. However, it wasn’t the defense that let Chelsea down this season it was a lack of goals. They only conceded two more goals than last season while goal production in the Premiership was down by 10 goals at Stamford Bridge and 8 overall. The drop in goals at home led to a reduction of 12 points season-over-season at Stamford Bridge. The issue of centre backs was a red herring. If they do buy someone it might be a full back who can also play centre back. Maybe someone like William Gallas. How many games did Gallas and Huth play this season?
RINGO - Note to the SFL - Dump the Shire and promote Tayport! Although looking at the Tayport website, it does not look like they are still in business.
Bobby – You might have the old website. Here is the link I use. Unfortunately we will have to put this season down as a transition one.
Venti_Vidi_Vici - A couple of very promising youngsters who I don't hear mentioned much, but I think show great promise and may well be on the move this summer. What do you think?
Aston Villa's Gabriel Agbonlahor, 20 years old, played hard all year, managed 9 EPL goals, combines speed, strength and technical ability. Could partner Rooney in 2010.
Giuseppe Rossi, is doing very at Parma scoring better that a goal every two matches in a league which is very challenging for young strikers. I'm sure Sir Alex is very pleased.
Daniel Agger, has relegated veteran Hyypia to the Liverpool bench, and in the UCL semi showed experience far beyond his years. Benitez proved he too can spot talent, even though $10m isn't exactly a steal.
Around Europe looking at the top scorers, in Spain David Villa and Freddie Kanute are having great seasons. In Germany Stuttgart's Mario Gomez (21) and Bayern's Lucas Podolski (21) will be Germany's strikeforce in 2010; the latter may be on the market due to possible restructuring at the club after a quiet season. Also in Holland, Heerenveen's Alfonso Alves has scored over 30 goals.
Bobby – Agbonlahor qualifies to play for Nigeria and Scotland as well as England which is his first choice. He has had a very good season and finished very strongly. I can see John Carew providing a great foil for Agbonlahor. I think Rossi has done more enough to earn a chance at Old Trafford come August. His goal scoring record at Parma has been the difference between a chance of staying in Serie A and being certain to go down. Benitez broke Agger in slowly but he is clearly he is now part of the first choice centre back pairing with the largely underrated Jamie Carragher. Gomez has missed a few games through injury but he scored after coming off the bench against Bochum on Saturday. Alves is beginning to crop up in more transfer stories but I have to admit that I don’t know very much about him.
JKendrick08 - Based on performance in European competitions and overall standard of play throughout this season, how would you rank the top 10 leagues in Europe?
Bobby – The only objective measure is something like the UEFA coefficient rankings and I don’t really know if that accurately describes which might be “best”. I think trying to rank the leagues is a lesson in futility until you can define what you mean by best. Is it the most exciting, the quickest, the most goals, the largest crowds, the greatest level of parity, the best technical players, the greatest level of media hype…the list is endless. Each league has strengths and weaknesses and appeals to individual likes and so it is a very personal. Ultimately it is what ever resonates with each of us and engages us.
Thank you for your continued support of the blog. I will put a UEFA Cup Final discussion blog tomorrow morning.
I am the soccer analyst for the Fox Soccer Report and appear twice a week - every Monday and Friday at 10:00 EST. I have also been a regular contributor to the Fox Soccer Channel website since the summer of 2004. Over the last twenty years I have contributed to various radio and television programs throughout North America as well writing about the game for newspapers, magazines and websites.
Thank you to all who take time to visit this blog and especially to those of you who post your comments and thoughts.
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