To Bed, For Tomorrow We Rise at Daybreak

Well, 7:45...ish

A new EPL season gets underway with Man United vs Tottenham at Old Trafford at 7:45 on NBCSN.  Luckily for us, Aston Villa is also on NBCSN, in the 10 am match away at newly promoted Bournemouth (who play at Dean Court).   Chelsea closes out Saturday with the home match at 12:45 vs Swansea.  I'll be "relegated" to streaming Sunday morning at 8:30 for the home opener against Southampton; NBCSN choosing Arsenal/West Ham over our match, imagine that.  Stoke hosting Liverpool is the 11 am match and Monday sees Man City traveling to the Midlands to face West Brom.

BFS has obtained a copy of Steve McClaren's pre-match speech to the Magpies.

Newcastle did add one more player - Ivan Toney - but at 19 coming up from League Two, it's hard to imagine he'll see playing time right away.  So we are still only halfway done the makeover and most critically have not added any more help at center back.  A fragile, aging back line with some mediocre components is no way to go through life.  With the transfers already made, a decent back line could have seen the Magpies well into the mid-table.  As it stands, I fear we are lower mid-table at best.  The highest I've seen in the forecasts is 11th and I have found one pundit who finds Newcastle relegation worthy.  Nice summary of all The Guardian writers predictions here.


EPL Sack Race

I assumed this was some sort of charity event.  No, this is the betting on which EPL manager will be shown the door.  Useful explanation of the phenomenon here.  Despite their recent successes, names like Brendan Rodgers (left) and Manuel Pellegrini top the list.  Money quote from the article is that if guys like that are on the chopping block "football is a reckless, illogical business absurdly incapable of anything other than short-term, knee-jerk, reactive decision making."  I know it's only a computer game but I've found the same experience in Football Manager.  The fans were in my face that we had acquired a striker from rival Liverpool - said it was a very poor decision.  Then he scores four goals in three games and they're saying that the signing looks to be a good piece of business.  Fickle indeed.



Union Sink Deeper

Jeff H and I watched in person as the Union effortlessly moved the ball around the PPL pitch, with particularly effective attacking down the wings. Unfortunately every shot ended up in the stands behind the goal.  Even 13 corner kicks yielded few serious threats.  This was very costly when new acquisition Tranquillo Barnetta entered the contest and promptly got called for a foul in the box.  To their credit, the Union offered a quick, if ugly, goal in response and I said to Jeff that this was still our match to win.  Silly me.  Before the colored smoke from the celebration had dissipated, Wright-Phillips put the Red Bulls back up.  Which Wright-Phillips you ask.  Both actually.  Shaun (late of QPR) did the work to get past Gaddis, then passed to his brother Bradley, who redirected the ball into the net.  The Red Bulls scoring ended with Abang (Anatole) getting a meaningless tally in stoppage time.  The 3-1 final is flattering to the Red Bulls but the inability of the Union to convert good chances left them with little chance of getting a result.  We were generally impressed with Barnetta's ability to move the ball around and create scoring chances and hopefully they won't be wasted in the future.


In addition to the full EPL calendar, the Union travel to Orlando for a Saturday match, then face the Chicago Fire at PPL Park on Wednesday in the US Open Cup semi.  Though they sit in last place, the Union have an excellent chance of again making it to the final.  No, seriously they do.


Here's to lost weekends again!  Unfortunately lost can have several meanings in this context.