Pardon My French

Can’t complain too much about the Newcastle effort against Stoke.  Though the Magpies only came away with a 0-0 draw, they played great attacking football and only the heroics of the Potters’ keeper Jack Butland kept Newcastle from walking away with a convincing win.  England’s number one keeper, Joe Hart, may be hearing footsteps, so quickly is Butland’s reputation growing.  If Newcastle play like this most of the time, relegation will not be an issue.  Of course, if they had been playing like this all along, they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in. 

Butland was the star of this stalemate Photo: AI

                                    

Whither Mourinho?

Chelsea-Liverpool provided the great theater I hoped it would.  The Blues scored early (too soon?) and then seemed to get conservative.  Coutinho leveled the match in first half stoppage time – actually about 30 seconds after the announced two minutes of stoppage time had elapsed; the announced time is only a minimum and the referee can add more as he deems appropriate but I didn’t’ see anything in particular that suggested a need to extend the half.  Chelsea were more lively after the break but it was Benteke, subbed in by Klopp in the 64^th minute, who made the difference; it was his header that set up the go ahead goal by Coutinho and he then tallied one himself to put the game out of reach.

Hearing two schools of thought on Mourinho.  On the one hand, how different can he be from the manager who led the team to a runaway title last year?  Sacking him would be stupid, let him manage the team.  The flip side is that people are suggesting his style has alienated enough players that he can no longer manage the team.  Watching some of the Chelsea players, I can see this as a real possibility.  As of this writing, he is still employed and the Champions League win over Dynamo Kiev may have bought some more time.  He will be serving a one-match ban this weekend.

I trashed the Everton-Sunderland match as unworthy of a Sunday morning featured match and then thoroughly enjoyed the scoring fest which saw Everton go up 2-0, Sunderland level with two of their own, then the Toffees net four unanswered goals.  The pseudo-South Coast derby between Southampton and Bournemouth should have been so entertaining. 

Saturday’s matches were largely forgettable.  Crystal Palace played Man United tough and came away with a gritty 0-0 draw.  Swansea was really no match for Arsenal; the 3-0 win for the Gunners keeps them level on points at the top of the table with Man City, who bested Norwich 2-1.  And when is NBCSN going to figure out that the Leicester plays the most entertaining football and start featuring their matches on TV rather than online?  Didn’t see the contest but I’m betting the Foxes 3-2 win over West Brom was the best viewing of Saturday morning.

Parlez vous francais?

And then there is Aston Villa.  Didn’t really expect much out of trip to White Hart Lane and the 3-1 loss to Spurs did not overdeliver.  Dennis adds…

...the unforgettable words of Luke P. "Eff Spurs".  Not really though.  Aston Villa just played like crap and deserved to lose.  Spurs dominated nearly the entire match and Villa needed a lucky deflection to even appear like they ever had a chance.  No points expected from this match, no points earned, and not really any positive talking points either. Villa did manage a couple of fairly decent chances, but only generating 2-3 decent chances over the course of a match gets you a lot of ugly losses with a few ugly draws mixed in.

The bigger and longer term (though I use that term loosely, given the length of EPL managers tenure these days) event of the week was Villa signing Remi Garde as manager.  I don't know much about him except that his Lyon clubs finished fourth, third, and fifth in his three season in Ligue 1.  So 17th or better in the EPL should be breeze, right?  Garde supposedly received an offer from Newcastle at the end of last season but said he wasn't ready to take a new gig yet.  We'll just have to wait and see if it is me or my dad that gets to use that an insult at the end of the season.

He started his tenure by banning the players from speaking French in the locker room and forcing them all to learn English, in order to promote better team communication.  Seems like a risky move to me - players could definitely take being forced to learn a new language the wrong way, especially when you have 4 young players that all speak French.  But I guess the alternative is a lot of suspicion in the locker room and it is definitely not good if you're unsure if your teammate is praising you or insulting your mother.  


Advantage, Mike Dean

Referees and refereeing are a common topic here at BFS.  We praise their good calls and question their eye sight.  This weekend, Mike Dean reminded me both that they are having fun and their job is really hard, so getting calls right is worth celebrating:

In the above play, Dean gives Spurs  an advantage call during which they promptly score.  With all the enthusiasm as if he just scored the freaking goal himself, Dean runs a dozen yards with his hands in the advantage signal, points emphatically towards midfield to signal a goal (6 times, I might add), and gives himself a little fist pump to top it off [the fist pump is just awesome].  Now there is a man that knows he made a good call and is having some fun with it.

Binge MLS Watching

Four second round MLS playoff matches (first legs) last Sunday from 3 pm to 11 pm, for those into binge watching.  I only took in two.  The Red Bulls and DC United may be the most intense derby in MLS, even if we don’t call them derbies over here.  What a nasty afternoon that was.  The Red Bulls come away with a 1-0 win on the road and head back to the friendly confines of Harrison NJ (first time that phrase has ever been uttered) in command, if not completely healthy.  Portland failed to capitalize on the home field advantage and drew 0-0 with Vancouver.  Both Montreal and Seattle did well in their home legs, coming away with 2-1 leads over Columbus and Dallas respectively.  Rinse and repeat – the second legs are this Sunday at 3, 5, 7:30 and 10 on ESPN (early two – NY-DC, and Col-Mon) and Fox Sports One (second two – FC Dallas-Seattle, Van-Port). 

Who’s In Charge of Programming?

Okay, even though I’ve incorrectly labeled certain games as duds before, I’m still puzzled by some of the programming choices.  Bournemouth-Newcastle as the Saturday morning opener?  As a Magpie supporter I’m pleased that I won’t have go online to see this match but we’re talking about 17^th and 18^th in the table.  BTW, this really has to be a W for Newcastle.  Looking at the 10 am matches we see Man United-West Brom on NBCSN and West Ham-Everton on USA; the former doesn’t offer much hope of a competitive contest but the latter does look worthy.  But once again, Leicester (uh, that would be third place Leicester) is left out in the cold, as their match with Watford is on live streaming.  Saturday’s late match is a Mourinho-less Chelsea traveling to Stoke; if Chelsea lose, can they sack Mourinho, even if he wasn’t the manager?  Guess I can’t argue with that one being on TV either

Sunday morning sees Aston Villa offered up as sacrificial lambs to hosting Man City; not hopeful of an interesting match there.  Then at 11 we have the North London derby with Arsenal taking on Tottenham at the Emirates.  Relegated to live streaming is the Liverpool-Crystal Palace match; I’d guess that one to be more entertaining the AVL-MCI but what do I know?