Aug 31 2008
Chelsea - the version that raced to a dominant Premiership start - failed to show up for their home affair with Tottenham on Sunday. In their stead for their London derby they sent their understudy which, unfortunately, was a complacent side unwilling to push a outgunned Spurs team. The result was quiet day for the keepers and a 1-1 draw featuring two inglorious goals.
Aug 30 2008
Cesc Fabregas may not have directly contributed to any of Arsenal’s goals, but it is no coincidence that the Gunners played their best match of the season on the day the Spanish midfielder returned to the lineup. With Fabregas out for the first two matches of the season, Arsenal scored one goal in two games, had a 186 minute scoreless streak, and split matches against clubs expected to finish near the bottom of the table. On Saturday, Arsenal handed a quality Newcastle United team their first lost of the season, posting a 3-0 scoreline that did not do the Gunners’ form justice.
Aug 29 2008
Owen Hargreaves had been expected to return to Manchester United’s lineup today against Zenit St. Petersburg in the UEFA Super Cup. Although Alex Ferguson was going to use the exhibition as an opportunity to get the England international some playing time, the midfielder has been ruled out of today’s match after his knee was deemed not ready for the match. Having already ruled himself out of England’s internationals next week, Hargreaves will have two more weeks to get fit for Manchester United’s trip to Anfield on August 13.
Aug 29 2008
Michael Ballack hurt his foot against Portsmouth on August 14 and had to leave the match. He played last week, though it seems he probably should not have, as Chelsea has sufficient depth to prevent aggrevating injuries, Now Ballack will be out for two weeks, missing Sunday’s match against Tottenham as well as Germany’s two World Cup qualifiers.
It is an injury which, like Steven Gerrard’s, seems convenient. Continue Reading »
Aug 29 2008
Tottenham Hotspur many not have been able to prove themselves a big club this summer, having hit the end of the transfer window with few of their many rumored targets hit, but on the home-front they can at least show themselves capable of acting like a big-boy. That could be the resolution of the Dimitar Berbatov saga: Tottenham sitting on their best player, putting him on the bench or relegating him to the reserves, and implicitly telling him that nobody does this to Tottenham.
Aug 29 2008
I got too busy yesterday to publish my thoughts on Shaun Wright-Phillips moving to Manchester City, though I just updated American Soccer Reader with the story.
The move came about pretty quickly. Not so much the Wright-Phillips moved from Chelsea-part. That seemed to be a given all summer, and it was somewhat surprising when, over the last two weeks, it seemed Wright-Phillips would not be moving. If anything, he looked to play less under Scolari than he had last season. But this week rumors regarding Everton and Manchester City surfaced, and while they were initially denied by Wright-Phillips, the winger moved on Thursday.
Aug 29 2008
Newcastle United midfielder James Milner has joined Aston Villa. The former England U21 international has submitted a transfer request last week in what has become a highly publicized wantaway saga. Over the last two days, the transfer request become known after the club had asked the player and his representation to keep his August 20 request private. The Professional Footballer’s Association was brought in to help in what became a dispute after the news of his transfer request leaked.
Aug 28 2008
One of the more exciting days of the European club football season is the day the Champions League group stage is drawn.
The 32 teams that have qualified for the group stage are drawn into eight, four-team groups. Before that happens, all teams are broken into four pots, labeled A through D, where they are grouped according to a team’s strength (as determined by a formula called a coefficient). Each of the eight groups can have no more than one team from each pot, no more than one team from a country. The eight groups end up pretty even.
The draw is fun because you end up with a series of matches which, in addition to being high profile based on the quality of the teams involved, are rare. In the days before the draw, you start considering the possibilities and potential story lines: Chelsea and Fiorentina in a group, forcing Adrian Mutu to play the club he owes £14 million; Marseille being slotted with Arsenal months after having sold them Samir Nasri, and potentially getting Bayern Munich in the group, so they would have to face Franck Ribery; Barcelona being slotted with a Zenit St. Petersburg team whose star, Andrei Arshavin, so badly wanted to play at Camp Nou; FC Porto being grouped with Inter Milan and facing Jose Mourinho.
Here’s how the eight groups ended up being drawn, with the clubs listed in order of the group they were drawn from: A to D. Continue Reading »
Aug 27 2008
After Liverpool’s defeat of Standard Liège, it was announced that Steven Gerrard would undergo surgery Thursday morning to correct a groin problem that has bothered him for the last month. The Reds’ captain decided to play through the pain this weekend against Middlesbrough as well as tonight, though against the Belgian champions he was a none factor and Rafa Benitez probably would have been better served with somebody else in the lineup. That Liverpool does not have somebody to fill that spot may have contributed to the decision to play Gerrard, and thanks to the upcoming break in the club schedule for World Cup qualifiers, Liverpool should only have to go one match without Stevie G.
Aug 27 2008
Liverpool may be one of the eight teams in the top pool for tomorrow’s Champions League group stage draw, but they were the closest of the thirty-two teams to being out of the tournament after the final round of qualifying finished today.