Six goals, two red cards and seven yellow cards made for a typical Old Firm clash. In this edition Rangers came out on top and the win buys manager Walter Smith a few #### points as he rebuilds the Rangers midfield…..well at least until the next time the two teams face each other.
San Jose Earthquakes continue on their great run of late that now extends to an unbeaten streak of seven games. Their 2-1 win over Kansas City Wizards also meant that they have finally moved off the bottom of the Western Conference.
Bologna had a fantastic return to Serie A beating Milan 2-1. Former Parma and Juventus striker Marco Di Vaio gave the newly promoted team a surprise 1-0 first half lead before Ambrosini equalized before half time. The second forty-five minutes was almost completely dominated by Milan but for Bologna it was a case of bending but refusing to break. A magnificent 79th drive for Francesco Valiani gave Bologna the go-ahead goal and the winner. The 27-year-old midfielder was playing in his first ever Serie A match.
Numancia maintained the excellent early season record of promoted teams by shocking Barcelona 1-0. Last season’s Segunda champions scored in the first half and held on for a noteworthy win.
Best forgotten…..
Hull lost their unbeaten record and were hammered 5-0 by Wigan. Despite taking four points from their first three games there is a sense that there are a few more lopsided results in Hull’s future.
Everton’s midfield and defence was shredded by Portsmouth in a 3-0 home loss. It was their worst home loss in the Premiership since losing 4-0 to Bolton just prior to Christmas 2005.
The teams that finished in the top five positions last season in Serie A all failed to collect full points on opening day. Champions Inter were held at Sampdoria (1-1), Roma draw at home against 10-man Napoli (1-1), Fiorentina and Juventus the points and Milan stumbled to a 2-1 home defeat at the hands of newly promoted Bologna.
Best goals….
Glen Johnson sliced through the Everton defence after an exchange of passes with Jermain Defoe and coolly slipped the ball past Tim Howard for Portsmouth second goal in a 3-0 rout of Everton.
Taylor Twellman may not have scored the best goal but arguably the bravest. Twellman was courageous enough to put his head where it was guaranteed to be thumped by LA Galaxy keeper Steve Cronin. Fortunately for the New England Revolution Twellman’s head also made contact with the ball and it landed in the net to give the Revolution a 1-0 lead in a game that finished 2-2. The Revolution’s Coach Steve Nicol was on camera and being interviewed in the seconds leading up to goal. The words “this isn’t working,” “we have to decide whether to make a change now or give it five minutes” were just out of the coach’s mouth when Twellman scored.
Antonio Di Natale’s second goal of the game for Udinese against Palermo was outstanding. One touch to kill a long pass into the penalty area; the second to lob the on-rushing goalkeeper - pure class.
A meandering solo run from Alexander Baumjohann that took him half the length of the field gave Borussia Mongengladbach a 3-0 lead and what turned out to be the winning goal in a 3-2 win over Werder Bremen.
Best Players….
In Portsmouth’s 3-0 away win at Everton David James pulled of a first half point-blank stop on Arteta and saved a Yakubu penalty – both efforts coming at key moments in the game.
Jermaine Defoe set about the Everton defence scoring the opening goal and helping to set up the two others in the same game.
Angelo Palombo was incredible in Sampdoria’s midfield against Inter. Whether it was making tackles, harrying the Inter players or pushing Sampdoria forward, Palombo was excellent.
Julian De Guzman was outstanding in Deportivo La Coruna’s win over Spanish champions Real Madrid - the best player on the park.
Goal feast……
There was no shortage of goals in the Bundesliga this weekend. Thirty-one goals in nine games including Bayer Leverkusen bringing Hoffenheim back down to earth (5-2), Hamburg winning 4-2 away to Arminia Bielefeld, newly promoted Borussia Monchengladbach beating winless Werder Bremen 3-2 and defending Champions Bayern Munich dispatching Hertha Berlin 4-1. These four game alone generated 23 of the goals.
North Americans in Europe….
Canadian Chris Pozniak scored his first goal for Dundee in the Scottish First Division but Queen of the South still won 3-1.
Biggest Howlers……
Penalty misses galore on Saturday in the Premiership with Yakubu (Everton), Roberts (Blackburn) and Downing (Middlesbrough) all failing to convert from 12 yards.
Toronto FC keeper Greg Sutton was heading towards a MLS Player of the Week nomination (from me anyway) after saving his team’s bacon on a number of occasions. That was until deep into added time when he allowed a tame effort from Atiba Harris trickle through his hands and it barely made it over the goal line. It gave Chivas a crucial 2-1 win and severely dented Toronto’s hope of making a play-off charge in MLS’s Eastern Conference.
Stat facts
Since beating Chelsea last spring to lift the Carling Cup Spurs have won just three Premiership games.
Wigan’s 5-0 win at Hull is the first time they have scored five goals away from home in a top flight match and only the second time that they have scored five goals in a top flight game. The other occasion came in a 5-3 win over Blackburn last December. The win is the largest margin of victory in Wigan’s 117 top flight matches.
All six matches in the Scottish Premier League this weekend were won by the away team.
Real Madrid has not beaten Deportivo La Coruna at the Riazor since 1991 and hasn’t earned a point there since 2002.
What was said….
Oliver Kay and how Serie A is now a home for Europe’s ageing players.
Liverpool’s stadium delay is blamed on credit crunch. The “credit crunch” has become a convenient excuse but the truth is that if you have a solid business plan, acceptable collateral and are well funded banks will fall over themselves to lend you money. Only organizations and individuals that are highly leveraged are having trouble getting credit facilities.
A Rod Liddle column that is sure to rile some readers.
Patrick Barclay looks at the impact of money on the predictability of the Champions League group stage.
James Lawton questions the credentials of many Arsenal “fans”.
Jonathan Wilson looks at the frustration of Rafa Benitez.
Amid all this summer’s transfer talk one of the few big money moves to actually happen has been the $20M+ transfer of Peter Crouch from Liverpool to FA Cup holders Portsmouth. Taken at face value the intent would seem to be to play Crouch in attack alongside former West Ham and Tottenham Hotspur striker Jermain Defoe.
The press has been quick to label the pair as a “little and large” combination. The little and large arrangement appeals to a number of sensibilities as it seems to match the best of two of the most common type forwards – the big fellow who is good in the air and the wee speedy striker with a nose for knock downs and an eye for a half chance.
But such combos appear to have fallen out of favour and instead many of the most successful Premiership scoring partnerships over the last few seasons have been made up of a striker and a midfielder - Van Nistelrooy and Scholes; Henry and Pires; Torres and Gerrard; Drogba and Lampard.
Nevertheless strike partnerships such as Quinn/Phillips (Sunderland), Heskey/Owen (Liverpool) and Dublin/Vassell (Aston Villa) have shown that a pairing of a big man and wee man along with the right supporting cast can sometimes deliver goals.
But when it comes down to ranking big and small pairings no combo has yet bettered the Kevin Keegan and John Toshack partnership from the Liverpool team of the seventies. Keegan and Toshack is still regarded as the consummate “little and large” strike partnership although as the years have gone by there has been a tendency to think only in terms of long balls pumped forward for the big strong Toshack to knock on for the speedy and nimble Keegan.
There was a lot more to the duo than balls thumped forward looking for Toshack to make contact. Keegan’s prodigious work rate and unselfish running created all sorts of problems for defenders who had become use to marking relatively static target men while Toshack was an intelligent reader of the game who was rarely given sufficient credit for his anticipation and touch.
Encouraging for Portsmouth fans is the fact that Peter Crouch’s only double figure scoring season in the Premiership (12 goals) was in 04/05 when he combined with “little” Kevin Phillips. It also marked Phillips last good Premiership season (10) although Southampton was relegated.
Both Crouch and Defoe have had trouble holding down regular staring spots at their previous clubs with over a third of their Premiership appearances coming as substitutes. Defoe has been the most productive scorer of the two and has also racked up 50% more Premiership appearances than Crouch despite being a year younger – 26 to Crouch’s 27.
Sixteen of Defoe’s 69 Premiership goals in 225 appearances have come off the bench and his 33 helpers reinforce his reputation as a striker who who is sometimes overly focused on his own exploits. Defoe’s best Premiership season for goals came in 2006/07 when he notched a dozen but he has finished two other seasons in double figures.
Crouch has 38 Premiership goals to his credit in 149 appearances although his 5 goals as a substitute seem to contradict the widely held opinion of him as a goalscoring “super-sub”.
In linking Crouch and Defoe Portsmouth boss Harry Rednapp is looking to improve Portsmouth’s goal output knowing that if his club is to improve further then more goals are necessary. In their five Premiership seasons Portsmouth’s scoring has ranged from a low of 37 (miracle escape year) to a high of 48 last season.
The best season return from a single player came from Yakubu with 13 in 04/05 and their two top goal scorers have never broken twenty between them in the five seasons - the best performance was in 2003/04 with Yakubu 11 and Sheringham 9.
Strangely that total was matched last season with Benjani collecting 12 goals and Defoe 8 but these two crossed transfer paths during the January transfer window and never did play together. For Harry Rednapp a change in preferred tactics may also be in order – especially at home.
Although last season Portsmouth finished a best ever 8th in the Premiership Pompey’s home form slipped and four single goal losses and eight draws at home meant a goal here and there might have meant a realistic challenge to fifth place Everton.
Rednapp’s favoured formation was the lone striker and although these tactics worked to Portsmouth’s advantage away from home it often backfired at home. Twenty-four goals in nineteen home games is far from prestigious but it becomes anemic when you consider that 17 goals came in only 4 games (against Reading, Birmingham, Bolton and Derby).
If Portsmouth is become a consistent top six finisher then not only do Crouch and Defoe have to become a dependable source for goals but Rednapp needs to make sure that more goals at one end are not negated at the other. Portsmouth need to find a way to service and support two strikers while keeping the midfield from being overrun and the defense from conceding more goals.
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.
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