A Proper Derby

No, not the Liverpool-Everton 0-0 snoozefest, where the highlight was a shot that hit the post. I mean the Tottenham-Arsenal match, in which there were shots, saves, fouls and goals.

We hosted a small mixed group of Spurs fans, Gunners fans and neutrals and everybody was into the game.  The atmosphere was punctuated with "whoas," "ohs" and the occasional "damn." Can't say everybody left happy but the Arsenal fans were polite and didn't trash the house when the final whistle blew on the 2-1 Spurs victory. 2-1? Same as the scarf count (Michael B brought an extra). Probably just coincidence. Sure it was.                                                                                                                                               Michael B and Michael P shake hands (clearly before the match)


Give Us This Day Our Daily Blind
 
Manchester United eked out a 1-1 draw with West Ham when midfielder Daley Blind scored from the top of the box in the 92nd minute.  That was just one of four stoppage time goals that affected results this weekend.  James Milner also scored in the 92nd minute to allow Manchester City to come away with a 1-1 draw against Hull City; the Citizens are not going to repeat as champions if they can't win matches at home against squads like that.  Sadio Mane' scored in the 93rd minute to take Southampton past perpetually unlucky QPR.

Which brings us to the fourth stoppage time goal - Peter Crouch for Stoke City in the 90th minute (I know that's technically not stoppage time but it sounds better that way) to tie Newcastle 1-1.  This was not a particularly fine match though it did have some of the nastiness of a derby.  Jack Colback had put Newcastle up 1-0 in the 74th minute with a somewhat lucky strike from the 18.  Stoke manager Mark Hughes was livid as Colback could have been issued his second yellow seconds earlier.  Maybe, but he probably shouldn't have been given the first one so let's call it even.  Credit to permanent interim temporary until summer manager John Carver for subbing in Cisse' for Anita; though Cisse' was not involved in the goal, at least it showed that he was willing to sacrifice defense in going for the win.  The Magpies blew a couple of late scoring opportunities that left them thinking they could have had all three points.  Truth be told, a draw was a fair result.  Stoke had more possession, Newcastle the better scoring chances.

Playboy Mansion in Ruins

A once proud institution that has fallen on hard times indeed (Ted Lasso's Explanation).  A 2-0 loss to Hull finally puts the Villans officially in the relegation battle after a 3 month slide from second in the table.  There is nothing to say about this performance that I haven't said in the past 3 weeks, so I won't waste anyone's time with more sentences littered with depressing adjectives and curse words.  We've had the goal differential of a relegation team for months and now we have the place in the table to back it up.  

The loss also finally cost Paul Lambert his job, which can't really be a surprise at this point.  With multiple 6+ match winless streaks and the worst goal-per-game ratio in league history at 0.48, how can at least one head not roll?  I don't know if the change will really have that much of an impact as I tend to downplay the role managers have on a team, but this does kind of feel like a group of players that aren't playing up to their talent level.  It has even been suggested that players (*cough* Benteke *cough*) were out of shape and that there wasn't proper training at the club.  Weekly comments at my house back up this claim, as a constant refrain from Emily goes something like "Why doesn't Benteke run any faster?  I thought he was faster than that."

While two internal coaches take over in the interim, many names have been thrown around for potential replacements, with Tim Sherwood and Jurgen Klinsmann being the most repeated and most interesting names.  There will not likely be a full-time replacement until the summer, so no need for more speculating, but it will be interesting to follow the search.  Nothing else to do for now but ride out the rest of the season and hope they can score what few goals they have left at crucial moments. At least Mike B put my misery in perspective today (though I think it was accidental) when he mentioned that there are a lot of supporters going back before the 2012-2013 season - I don't have 20+ years of grasping at faded memories of glory to bring me down even further.

Handling on the Line

In more upbeat news, Adrian, goalkeeper for West Ham, got a red card!  Why is that good news you ask?  Because he was given the card for grabbing the ball after thinking he got fouled - the first cousin of being booked for simulation.  Adrian got into a sticky situation with Southampton's Mane', dribbled outside of the box, thought he was fouled, so he dove on the ball and grabbed it.  Everyone stopped playing and Adrian stood up, but no whistle had been blown to stop play.  So Adrian dove hands first onto the ball outside of the box, again.  He promptly received a red card for what Sky Sports reported as "handling on the line" [which of course is silly - if it is on the line of the penalty area then he is allowed to handle the ball; the handling occurred outside the box - I'm curious about the red - Pawson had to determine that Adrian's handling denied an obvious goal scoring opportunity - but for the first handling Mane was moving away from goal and for the second there were West Ham defenders goalside] and gave the best indignantly surprised look you'll see for some time.  Priceless.

Balotelli Scores

To the chagrin of Spurs fans. In the highlight of the midweek games, Mario Balotelli's clinical finish of a Lallana cross was the difference in Liverpool's 3-2 win over Tottenham; that was the Italian's first goal this season in EPL play.  Some sympathy for Tottenham in that they played well enough to maybe deserve a draw at Anfield.  On the other hand, Kane was pretty clearly offside when he made the pass on Tottenham's second goal.

The top three all won their contests so no change at the top.  But Southampton's draw with West Ham coupled with Arsenal (2-1 over Leicester) and Liverpool wins means the race for the Champions League is on.  After Wednesday, just five points separate 3rd through 7th.

Newcastle played a decent first half, then seemed to lose interest and came away with a 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace and their former manager Alan Pardew.  Five points in three matches means the threat of relegation is just about gone but so is the threat of Champions League or Europa Cup.  A cynic suggested that this was in fact a great January transfer window; for the first time in three years, Newcastle did not lose a key player.

FA Cup Weekend

Which means most of us are idle.  Does this say FA Cup or what?  Aston Villa (18th in the EPL table) will face Leicester (20th in the EPL table) in a round of sixteen match this weekend.