Weekend In Review:
Stoke City 1-0 Manchester City
Rory Delap gets a red card, then Stoke manages to score a goal and hold on through the second half for victory. City only have one more day to spend their fortunes on adding more overrated Brazilians to complement Robinhoʼs overratedness.
Arsenal continue to drop points, which is about the only league development of late that Iʼve continued to enjoy.
Aston Villa 0-0 Wigan Athletic
Wigan continues to frustrate the Big 5 (thatʼs right, Iʼm inducting Villa, at least for now), and Emile Heskey fails to haunt his former team.
Bolton Wanderers 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur
First, what in the fuck is a Sebastien Puygrenier? Secondably, Tottenham have once again become synonymous with thrilling comebacks (Bentʼs two goals in two minutes to tie the game in the 74th minute) and then subsequently conceding winners extra late (Kevin Davies getting his double in the 87th for the winner).
The Nuge tallied for Pompey, but only after Team America had opened a 3-0 lead. Itʼs still early, but maybe Fulham wonʼt be needing miracles on the final day to stay up this year.
Hull City 2-2 West Bromwich Albion
While their great start got plenty of attention, hereʼs something that hasnʼt: Hull City have conceded more goals (46) than any other Premier League team. Thatʼs a stat youʼd expect from the team that won the promotion playoff last year, and one you wouldnʼt expect to coincide with a team thatʼs still hovering in the middle of the table.
Middlesbrough 0-0 Blackburn Rovers
90 minutes that Boro and Blackburn fans probably wish they could have back.
Edwin Van Der Sar passes Readingʼs Steve Deathʼs record from 1979 for most minutes without conceding a goal. The previous record was 1,103 minutes, or approximately the amount of time you would have to work out consecutively to burn off just a portion of the Bacon Explosion.
Newcastle United 1-1 Sunderland
The Tyne-Wear Derby comes to a draw after Shola Amoebi converts a second half penalty.
Dirk Kuyt hasnʼt scored in his last 13 appearances for Liverpool. Robbie Keane has been much better than that. And yet Benitez stil favors Kuyt in his starting lineups. Seriously, WTF Rafa? Anyway, Frank Lampard gets sent off an hour in, Torres finally scores late after a flurry of pressure that lasted the entire second half, Jose Bosingwa gets on my shit list when he somehow escapes getting any sort of penalty for kicking Yossi Benayoun in the back when he took the ball into the corner late (see above picture), and Torres finally cleans up the match with a second toward the end of stoppage time.
LOLSoccer Picture Of The Week
Top of the table:
Man U 53 Pts +30
Liverpool 51 Pts +24
Chelsea 48 Pts +29
Aston Villa 48 Pts +14
Arsenal 43 Pts +13
Liverpool finally breaks through and gets a win, and their first season sweep over Chelsea since 1990, to stay two points behind Man U. Arsenal falls ten points behind the leaders, and frankly no matter how far behind they fall, Iʼll probably leave them on this list for comic effect as the season goes on.
Relegation Musical Chairs:
Fulham 29 Pts +3
Man City 28 Pts +9
Hull City 28 Pts -15
Bolton 27 Pts -7
Sunderland 27 Pts -8
Tottenham 24 Pts -5
Newcastle 24 Pts -10
Portsmouth 24 Pts -15
Stoke City 24 Pts -17
Blackburn 23 Pts -11
Middlesbrough 22 Pts -17
West Brom 22 Pts -22
Fulham barely remains in the group, being six points above the relegation zone. Hull City joins the party as their great start is falling apart rather quickly. Blackburn, Middlesbrough and West Bromwich Albion are the three sides currently on the wrong side of 18th place, but there are four teams just one point ahead of Blackburnʼs pace, so it is still decidedly early for panic.
For The Record:
Your current promotees to the 2009-10 Prem would be Wolverhampton Wanderers and Reading, with the ensuing playoff between Birmingham City, Cardiff City, Sheffield United and Preston North End.
Elsewhere:
Red cards were the theme of the weekend in Spain. After Barcelona took the lead for good over Racing Santander, Rafa Marquez and Gerard Pique were sent off for the Spainsh leaders. At the other end of their league, Mallorca and Osasuna, both battling to get out of the Primera Division relegation zone, saw an early goal in the third minute for Osasuna, followed by red cards to Mallorca in the 60th and 79th minutes, and a red card for Osasuna in the 87th minute.
In Italy, The Special Oneʼs Inter squad are 6 points clear at the top despite being held by 18th place Torino. Arch-rival AC Milan goes into second with a 3-0 win over Lazio, as Juventus lost a 3-2 decision at home. Actually, Iʼm not sure thatʼs true, I highly doubt there was a game between two Italian teams that resulted in 5 goals. That defies logic.
And, in one weekend surprise, Scottish power Celtic were held to a scoreless draw against bottom-feeding Inverness Caledonian Thistle, which means their lead is two points heading into their next league match, two weeks from now, against Glasgow Rangers, in the most heated and vicious derby in Great Britain.
We Can Rest When We're Dead:
In England, itʼs FA Cup 4th Round replays midweek, headlined by yet another Merseyside battle, this time at Goodison Park. Nottingham Forest hosts Derby County in the other, um, derby replay, and Arsenal and Aston Villa will host Championship teams in their replays.
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