Tales of Midtjylland and Other Not Made Up Names

Normally you would see a complaint in this space about all the mid-week Champions League and Europa Cup action the last few days.  But a stomach virus kept me home for much of the week and I was more than happy to take in the various competitions involving exotic names like Midtjylland which 1) is not a place from Gulliver's Travels 2) is a football club located in Denmark 3) is not pronounced "midgetland" though Brad Friedel came close to saying it that way and 4) gave Man United fits in the 6th round of the Europa Cup. So much to write about but other obligations will keep this shorter than I would like.


The Taming of the Shrewsbury

So Man United get an FA Cup win over Shrewsbury and beat Midtjylland in a two-legged Euro Cup tie, though only after falling behind in the first leg on the road, then surrendering an early goal at Old Trafford.  Still hearing that van Gaal is done and The Special One will be installed before the beginning of next season.


What's In A Number?

Or in this case numbers.  Check out the photo below from the weekend's FA Cup match between Chelsea and Man City.  Notice anything peculiar about the numbers?  No, this is not a shot of the Seattle Seahawks defensive line.  Man City manager Manuel Pellegrini was not happy with the scheduling of the match in front of a mid-week Champions League contest and the Capital One League Cup Final on Saturday so he played a side chock full of youngsters,who don't get assigned the numbers under say, 30.  Got a 1-5 thrashing and a departure from the FA Cup for his efforts.

Manchester City’s Bersant Celina, left, celebrates with his young team-mates after equalising before half-time in the one-sided fifth-round tie at Chelsea. Photograph: Gerry Penny/EPA 

What the Fox?

These guys don't get it yet.  Soccer is not football or baseball.  We do not want up to the minute scores on the other action because we're planning on watching the other action when we finish this game.  At least twice this week, Fox announcers spoiled games I was going to watch.  Shut up!  If I want the score I can read it on the upper right of the screen; if I don't, I'll drape a towel over that part of the screen - forget whether I learned that from Michael B or Dennis.

You got that one from me, as I tend to watch 99% of matches on replay and need to avoid spoilers constantly.  Avoiding the audio spoilers is easier with NBC because the "lesser" matches never have spoilers (though the "main" match will often contain both audio and visual spoilers) and as long as you watch the replays mostly in the order they happened live, it works out.  The main problem I have with Fox replays (FoxSoccer2Go, in particular) is that whenever you load a match, all of the "significant events" - goals, subs, yellows, etc - are shown along the time bar BY DEFAULT.  You have to turn them off, rather than turn them on, which is virtually impossible to do without at least partial spoilers.  If Fox would just change the default, this problem goes away.  Maybe I need to complain more loudly and more directly to their faces instead of passive-aggressively on a random blog....

Talking Arsenal

The Sirius talking heads were suggesting that despite Arsenal's current status as the betting favorite to win the EPL, it's probably still frustrating to be a Gunners fan.  (A brief aside, but they have no idea of what frustrating really is, right Dennis?)  If ever there was a year for the Gunners to coast to the title you'd think this might be it with Man City, Man United and Chelsea all struggling.  Yet there they are, still behind Leicester and, gasp, Tottenham.  Also heard some pushback on Wenger's comment that they always qualify for Champions League.  One wag said sure, but with their annual early exit from the competition, it's like saying you spent the night in Cindy Crawford's bed without, ahem, "closing the deal."  I've always liked Giroud and thought maybe he was an unfair target of criticism but lately I'm wondering if they make it to the next level with him as striker.

What's in Your Trophy Case?

The Capital One League Cup final between Liverpool and Manchester City kicks off at Wembley at 11:30 Sunday morning on BeIN Sports.  Since I'm assuming Pellegrini will play at least some players with single digit numbers on the uniform, it should be a decent match.

Most of the rest of the teams get back to league action.  Possibly the most interesting match is Man United hosting Arsenal at 9:05 on Sunday morning.  Nicely coordinated to not step on the League Cup final.  You paying attention Fox?  

Plenty of relegation related material, from West Ham taking on Sunderland (go Hammers), Leicester hosing hosting Norwich (come on Foxes), Watford facing Bournemouth (fly Hornets), and Tottenham hosting Swansea (COYS); the fact that all the relegation candidates are the away side gives me some hope.  Didn't mean to forget Stoke playing Aston Villa, another relegation challenged team on the road.  You'll note no mention of Newcastle, who's match with Man City is postponed while one side chases silverware.  At least no loss this weekend.

What's this?  Oh bloody hell, another set of mid-week league games next week on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Cough, I might be getting a cold.

Yeah, I know there was a lot of action this week but only have so much time to write.  Also, I see the Union with two very interesting acquisitions but that will have to wait as well.