Sunday, September 10, 2006

All go in the Premiership

International weekends can be good, let's face it watching your team stroll to a 5-0 win beats watching your team get a 0-0 draw down at Roots Hall, as fun as that was. Yet there is something so enjoyable about the Premiership and I don't mean Match of the Day 2. For instance why don't you take the shock results. Everton beating Liverpool 3-0 anyone? And Pepe Reina morphing into a goalkeeping version of Djimi Traore? Priceless. Enjoy this effort from Andy Johnson who is rapidly closing in on Frank Lampard for the ratio of lucky goals (deflected shots and goalkeeping errors are the house speciality).

By the way anyone else catch Hansen going on about how Andy Johnson should have gone to the World Cup. I don't recall that at the time, actually I recall everyone in the world saying we needed another striker but that it should be either Defoe or Darren Bent. Anyway that's a subject for another day.
There were injuries: Jimmy Bullard dislocated his kneecap (about 2 months), John Arne Riise fresh from recovering from injury is injured again (about 2 weeks) and Aaron Lennon does his knee in training on Friday.
There are penalty misses galore: Frank Lampard makes it 3 out of 4 after Scott Carson saves his effort against Charlton. And in the comedy match of the day, the butchers of Blackburn have one penalty saved (Lucas Neill) whilst Brad Friedel makes my day by saving two Pig penalties, by David Unsworth and Rob Hulse, at the other end.
One penalty that was buried was by Gary Speed, the man with the most Premiership appearances, as Bolton undeservedly nicked all 3 points off Watford. The Hornets certainly got stung in the tail there. Hitting the bar for fun is all well and good but when points are of a premium and when in Danny Shittu you have a centre-back who is likely to live up to his surname at any time, some chances must be put away. This time the Titus Shambles impersonation of the day came in the 96th minute when Shittu tripped Idan Tal in the area allowing Bolton to get away with the greatest theft since Charles Ingram was on Millionaire (I know he didn't get away with it in the end but I needed a punchline. Got a better one? Put it in the comments and I'll update accordingly).
There were strange things aplenty too. Chelsea defender Khalid Boulahrouz being made squad number 9 and William Gallas wearing 10. Why give defenders traditional strikers numbers?It's stupid. No it's more than that it's sick and for this reason alone I now want Man Utd to win the Premiership. It was good to see Ashley Cole make his Chelsea debut and similarly good to see Gallas don the Arsenal shirt (although it was a disgrace that he has the number 10 shirt). Given that one of Gallas' reasons for leaving Chelsea was that he didn't want to play left back, it was not incongruous in the slightest to see him make his Arsenal debut at...oh, left back.
And finally, how good was Jonathan Woodgate? Plain and simple, if he stays fit he'll be in the England squad very soon and, in my humble opinion (which in this instance happens to be 100% right), will displace Rio Ferdinand and will partner John Terry in the heart of England's defence. He even came out for his Match of the Day post-match interview with those massive retro 80s headphones. Woody is da man!

Comments:
Goalkeeping blunder of the week had to be Aston Villa, when a mis-kicked clearance sent the ball right to Harewood in the box.

We don't like to talk about what MArlon did next..
 
Have to agree that it was a classic Saturday night action packed MoTD. Only problem was that it was delayed by the Proms (AGAIN) and finished at nigh on 1am. Why can't they switch either the proms (preferably) or MoTD to BBC2 so mere mortals like me, who need their beauty sleep, can get to bed before the witching hour? Let's face it, the audience profiles for the proms and MoTD aren't likely to clash too much! Will not mention the Toon's performance this weekend. Why can't they defend in the last 10 minutes! Another season of disappointment looms!
 
Biggest theft since Thatcher introduced Right to Buy?

Am sick of us being the better team and losing.

4 games 1 point. :-/

Loved Woodgate's earphones - and grumpy attitude! :-)
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?