What's in Your DVR

Hmmm…can’t be good when the best result of the weekend was the 4-1 victory by the computer Chester Blues over Derby, which moved us, if only temporarily, into first in the Championship Division.  It’s January 3^rd in that space and so I’m trying to use the transfer window to shore up the defense and maybe add a midfielder.  My transfer budget of $60,000 doesn’t exactly give me wide latitude to pursue talent.  I’m finding a lot of 34 year-old veterans who really aren’t that much better than what I have and who often have higher salaries than I’m willing to pay.  Such is the life of a manager.  Still, the Premiership is in sight with just 19 games to go.

Sigh, back to reality, starting with the Union.  The 1-2 home loss to Sporting Kansas City ended all the silly talk of playoffs.  Not that it is terrible to lose to a quality side like SKC but the Union looked awful.  Very disorganized, like players weren’t really sure what they were supposed to be doing.  That seems to me somewhat on Hackworth.  Clearly a better season than last year but it’s hard to see how they progress further with this squad.  Chris is undoubtedly happy with the Red Bulls taking the Supporters Shield.  Good luck to them in the playoffs, though the Supporters Shield is a legitimate trophy in its own right.

  

Things weren’t much better in the EPL, at least for me and Dennis.  Saw some highlights of Aston Villa’s 0-2 loss to Everton and it looks like they ran into a hot Tim Howard.  Though you might have hoped for a result, Everton is a good side so you can’t call it a disaster.  Not like, say, Newcastle’s 2-1 loss at the Stadium of Light to Sunderland (the team with only 1 point going into the match).  Stunned right out of the gate by a quick goal at 5 minutes, the Magpies struggled to find their game.  They seemed to do better after moving a second striker up top and got an equalizer at the 57^th minute.  I was becoming comfortable with the prospect of a draw when Borini put that to rest with a quality strike in the 85^th minute.  I believe somebody pointed out this was a trap game and it proved to be so.  Fortunately, most of the top teams beat mid and lower table teams (thank you Tottenham - 1-0 over Hull - and Arsenal - 2-0 over Crystal Palace despite playing down a man) so the damage wasn’t as great as it could have been.  Luke and Michael have to be happy with the campaign so far, though I can already hear Michael talking about how the Spurs will find a way to finish fifth. 

And as bad as you might feel, it can’t be worse than Joe Hart and Matija Nastasic, who combined for a nightmare ending in the Man City loss to Chelsea that reminds me of the line from the movie Cool Hand Luke (“what we have here is a failure to communicate”).  I have not read whether Hart called his defender off but Nastasic’s header back to his keeper went over his head and Torres did a nice job to get the ball into the empty net.  It’s almost November and there is no Man U or Man C in the top four; how long since that was case? 

Top matches for this weekend look to be Eve-Tot and Ars-Liv so Michael and Luke have their hands full this weekend.  Newcastle will be live on Saturday morning hosting Chelsea – will be happy if we can get one point from that fixture but even that feels like a long shot.  Aston Villa are on the road but have some prospect of a result against West Ham, who have not exactly been setting the league on fire.

To complicate matters for the managers, many of the EPL teams have mid-week matches in the Capital One Cup.  Arsenal host Chelsea today while Newcastle host Man City and Tottenham host Hull City tomorrow.  Luke, make sure the Gunners tire out those Chelsea boys for Saturday's match.