Gini Grants Newcastle A Wish

Silly me.  Recall that last week I chided the schedulers for setting Newcastle-Norwich as the only fixture for last Sunday.  Who knew that the Magpies and Canaries would put on such a fine show?  The final score reads 6-2 in favor of Newcastle but it was a much closer match than the score would indicate.  And a highly entertaining contest, too - beautiful crosses raining down in the box all afternoon with attackers applying clinical finishes to many of them.

Georginio Wijnaldum of Newcastle celebrates after scoring his fourth and Newcastle's sixth goal 2015 Newcastle United

No one enjoyed the day more than Georginio (Gini) Wijnaldum, who put four past Norwich keeper John Ruddy, all of them of the highest quality, no cheapies.  Mitrovic had a nice one where he took a long pass off his chest at the 18, let it bounce once, and buried the shot.  I made it this week's YouTubeable Moment because things were still tense at that point.  Perez also got one, based on superior footwork and concentration.  Norwich's two were special too - excellent crosses with difficult finishes.  Not a great day for defenders.

And as much fun as the match was, I need to be the glass is 5/8ths empty guy now.  First, despite scoring early and often, Newcastle were not in the clear until late.  1-0 became 1-1, 3-1 became 3-2.  From 45-60 minutes, with Newcastle up 3-2, Norwich was in total control and I had resigned myself to a 3-4 or maybe even 3-5 loss.  Two quick counterattacking tallies at 64 and 66 minutes put the margin at 5-2 and everyone started to breath easier.  Second, the match could have been 3-6 by the 60th minute since Norwich hit the post twice, had a certain goal cleared off the line by Wijnaldum (!)  and were denied a penalty shot when Anthony Taylor declined to call Janmaat for a shirt pull in the box.  He did indeed tug the attacker's shirt but I don't think that was why he fell and with all the shirt pulling we've seen it would have been just Newcastle's luck to get whistled.  Third, Newcastle is still not functioning well defensively.  It wasn't so much the back line this time but the midfielders failing to track back and stay with attackers (looking right at you Sissoko - the crosses were nice but you left Janmaat hung out to dry twice).  And fourth, this was Norwich.  But damn, that was some great finishing.


This Is Not My Beautiful Game

Went through a bunch of games this weekend but other than Newcastle, none were all that stirring..  Tottenham-Liverpool wasn't awful but...Neither team parked the bus and the ball moved well enough but both teams seemed to be able to cancel out the last pass or block the shot in a 0-0 draw.  Turned next to Chelsea-Aston Villa.  Ooh, not good, as Dennis will relate.  Okay, Everton-Man United will be better.  Well there was some good finishing but not really a compelling match.  Man United has been looking pretty good lately so maybe the easy 3-0 win shouldn't have been a surprise.  Watford-Arsenal?  The Hornets fought gamely but once the Gunners had their first, the match wasn't in doubt.  Swansea didn't look like themselves and went down to Stoke 0-1 on a penalty shot.  Man City didn't seem to be too troubled by Bournemouth as they rolled to a 5-1 win to stay atop the EPL.

Wish I had seen Southampton-Leicester; that sounded a bit more exciting.  Dennis's shadow team continues to impress.  My back up, Crystal Palace spent the second half down a man and ended up surrendering two goals in the last five minutes, losing 1-3 at home to West Ham; didn't see the match but I'm sure somehow it was Alan Pardew's fault.

I saw the halftime score of 2-0 to Southampton while watching another match, so I only watched the second half.  But when Leicester is involved, the second half is all you need to watch.  Vardy managed to score 2 for Leicester including the equalizer in stoppage time and, in all honesty, the more surprising fact is that he actually missed an excellent chance to score that equalizer ten minutes earlier.  Seriously, I have said it before and I’ll say it again – just watch them play already!  Their intensity cannot be matched and it brings a level of excitement that Aston Villa some teams can only dream of achieving.

Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away Now

I swear, the Aston Villa players must all be blasting this Red Hot Chili Peppers classic before every match.  I thought their giveaway problems were bad before this match but Guzan and Lescott decided to take it up a notch in the 34^th minute.  Guzan threw a routine outlet to Lescott who miscontrolled it directly to Willian at the edge of the box, leading to an easy Costa finish.  Usually we at least make the other team work a little to capitalize on our mistakes, but I guess this is easier.  Costa scored again early in the second half on a lucky deflection to seal the 2-0 loss.

This was easily the most frustrating loss of the season.  Chelsea looked like garbage and we simply handed them two goals instead of earning a probably deserved point.  Not that Aston Villa looked great or anything, but when both sides are terrible, it really hurts to not even get the draw.  I went to WhoScored.com to see if the Villans pass completion percentage for this match was worse than their season average since it felt like they gave the ball away at every opportunity.  While the results did not support my theory - 80% season average compared to 78% for this match - I did find the best summary of this match (and most of their matches this season):

Team showed no significant strengths indeed…

Fast Forwarded Past the First Goal

I couldn't even hit the stop button on the remote quickly enough to catch the Red Bulls first goal against the Union.  Seven seconds! And we had the tap!  Things proceeded downhill from there, ending up as a 4-1 win for the home side.  Dallas won its match too so they are still tied with the Reds Bulls for the Supporters Shield, except that the team that plays in New Jersey has a six goal lead on goal differential.  So if the Red Bulls win over Chicago, Dallas would need to beat San Jose by six.




Derby Derby

Two big derbys Sunday.  The Tyne-Wear derby is at 8 am, with Newcastle traveling to the Stadium of Perpetually Changing Managers to face Sunderland.  Sunderland have been awful but Newcastle can't seem to get anything going in this derby.  At 10 am, Man United and Man City square off at Old Trafford.  Both look to be in fine form so here's hoping for an entertaining match.  If you need more on Sunday, there's also Liverpool hosting Southampton at noon; that could be interesting football.  You'll have to stream Tottenham-Bournemouth as they also play at 10 am Sunday.

Of course, this is all after a crowded Saturday, which for some reason is mostly set for 10 am.  The TV games are Leicester-Crystal Palace on USA (ooh, shadow BFS derby!) and a London derby - West Ham hosting Chelsea on NBCSN.  Arsenal takes on Everton at 12:30 on NBC; the Toffees haven't been looking so good lately so this could be a tough assignment.

In England, they turn the clocks back this weekend so the games will be an hour later than usual this Sunday and next Saturday.  Adjust your alarm clocks as necessary.