The Best…..

Forty-two minutes of the Wigan – Manchester United game with Dimitar Berbatov breaking into the penalty box…and an absolutely brilliant tackle by Titus Bramble. It was worthy of Bobby Moore or Franco Baresi.

(The second half, however, did not turn out so well for Bramble and his Wigan mates as United tore through Wigan apart and scored five with no reply.)

Ronaldinho sets them up and Pato scores them.  That was the case on Saturday as Milan beat Siena 2-1. The second set up was particularly noteworthy. Ronaldinho sliced a perfectly weighted and angled pass inside the Siena full back for Flamini to run onto. The former Arsenal man then played the ball across the penalty box and all Pato had to do was to redirect it into an empty net. 

Lyon went on a buying spree this past summer in an attempt to regain their French title and to challenge the top dogs in the Champions League. An opening day 2-2 draw with Le Mans in Ligue Une was an inauspicious start and a 1-0 win against Valenciennes was only a slight improvement.

However, on Wednesday against Anderlecht everything clicked – particularly in a four goal first half – and Lyon ran out 5-1 winners in the Champions League play-off round first-leg. Lyon followed that up with a very comfortable 3-0 win away to Auxerre on Saturday.

Two wins in four days has Burnley fans grinning from ear-to-ear. Their team was handed possibly the most difficult start of any in the Premier League this season with Stoke (a), Manchester United (h), Everton (h), Chelsea (a), and Liverpool (a). Three games in and six points in the bag – nice going and with clean sheets against last season’s champions and the side that finished fifth. 

“Towering” and “majestic” are adjectives often used to describe headed goals. In the case of Iaquinta’s winner for Juventus against Chievo on Sunday the header was worthy of both descriptions and it was unsaveable as well.  A great free kick delivery from debut-boy Diego and a truly magnificent finish. 
 
Honorable mentions
Arsenal defender William Gallas has three goals in the first three competitive games of this season. The first was a header against Everton, the second deflected off his back and settled in the Celtic net but Saturday’s goal against Portsmouth was even stranger. Gallas managed to deflect the ball up and off his own face after Van Persie had played the ball across the Pompey penalty box. It is a skill that few have mastered!

There were three very respectable performances from the promoted clubs in Serie A. Bari shared two goals with last season’s scudetto winners Inter at the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium; Livorno drew 0-0 at home with Cagliari; Parma gave away a very late equalizer and had to settle for a 2-2 draw away against Udinese.

Best forgotten…..

How many games featuring Manchester United will it take to get through an entire ninety minutes without the name Cristiano Ronaldo being uttered?

Jurgen Klinsmann was lambasted last season at Bayern Munich and considering their start this season Louis van Gaal can look forward to the same treatment. Three games into the season and he is apparently not seeing eye-to-eye with Franck Ribery, the team has drawn with Hoffenheim and Werder Bremen and on Saturday they lost 2-1 away to newly promoted Mainz.

Stat facts….

After a scoreless draw on Saturday Stoke have now failed to score in their last six meetings in all competitions against Birmingham. Meanwhile in Birmingham’s opening three games of the Premiership season there has been a total of two goals and one was from the penalty spot.

Lyon has only lost once to Auxerre in their last 19 league meetings – on Saturday they won 3-0.

After a 2-1 win at Siena, Milan are now unbeaten in their last 14 matches played  away from the San Siro on the opening day of Serie A. Ten of them have resulted in wins.

Spurs’ come from behind 2-1 win against West Ham was the first time they have won three consecutive games at the start of a Premier League season. The last time Spurs started a league season with three wins on the trot was close to half a century ago on their way to an opening run of eleven straight wins. That season they became the first team in the 20th century to complete the English league and cup double. 

The win at West Ham marked Spurs’ second away win in four days – this is the first time since 2004/05 that they have won their first two away games.

Last season over three quarters of Genoa’s goals came in the second half of Serie A games. They started the new season in very much the same vein with all their goals in a 3-2 win over Roma coming after tea and oranges.

A 3-2 win at Dallas brought a 13-game MLS winless streak to an end for New York Red Bulls.

Two late goals from Hamburg brought Wolfsburg unbeaten home run in league play to an end. The last team to leave the Volkswagen Arena with three points was Bochum on April 15, 2008. Wolfsburg then played another 20 games before tasting defeat on Sunday and the last 16 of the games were wins.

What was said….

David Lacey thinks that the best time for European Super League would have been in the 70s.

World Soccer editor Gavin Hamilton offers some thoughts on a European Super League as well.

James Eastham looks at this transfer window as the time when French football moved from a net exporter of star players to an importer.

Scottish football is in freefall and teams will pay a heavy price in future Champions and Europa Leagues.

This article is a few weeks old but given that it seems more likely every day that Landon Donovan is on his way to Europe (again) I thought it was worth debating.

Fans in Canada might want to check out this website that keeps track on what is on TV and when.

Coming up this week…..

Monday – Liverpool plays host to Aston Villa on Monday in the Premier League while Norwich who just appointed Paul Lambert as their new manager last week faces Sunderland in the Carling Cup.

Tuesday - The return legs of the Champions League play-off round. Debrecen (2-1) v Levski Sofia; Anderlecht v Lyon (5-1); Maccabi Haifa (2-1) v Red Bull Salzburg; Atletico Madrid (3-2) v Panathiniakos; FC Zurich (3-0) v Ventspils.

A close to full slate of Carling Cup matches with premier leagues sides involved in the following games – Blackburn at Gillingham; Burnley away to Hartlepool; Hull at home to Southend; Portsmouth home to Hereford; Birmingham away to Southampton; Bolton at Tranmere; West Ham home to Millwall; Wolves home to Swindon.

There are ten games in the Scottish League Cup but the teams that qualified for Europe (most of which have no further interest already!) have been excused from playing in this round.

Wednesday – More of the same in Champions league with Arsenal (2-0) v Celtic; Olympiakos (2-0) v FC Sheriff; Fiorentina (2-2) v Sporting Lisbon; Apoel v Copenhagen (0-1); Stuttgart (2-0) v Timisoara.

Seven more Carling Cup games with three more Premier teams tempting fate – Spurs (winners and finalists the last two seasons) are away to Doncaster Rovers; Wigan away to Blackpool; Stoke away to Leyton Orient. In MLS Chivas are away to Real Salt Lake.

Thursday – There are more Europa League qualifying games than you can shake a stick at while Manchester City squeeze in a Carling Cup game at Crystal Palace. Out of 12 Premier League teams involved in Carling Cup matches this week I am going to predict that at least a third will fall by the wayside.