Judgement Day Arrives....Finally

Steve is busy romping around the European countryside, leaving me to cover the action of the week.  Naturally, I had 13 hours of yard work to do over the weekend, which severely limited and/or delayed my viewing.  But never fear - we will persist and bring you our patented half sarcastic and half pessimistic brand of commentary.

Last in, First Out

As far as Aston Villa are concerned, the commentary will skew a little farther towards pessimism.  The Villans were at least afforded the chance to delay their own fate by Sunderland's (critical and apparently dominant) win over Norwich earlier in the day, a fact I did not even learn until moments prior to kickoff.  Did their imminent demise inspire the team to put forth a herculean effort and pull off the massive upset of Manchester United at Old Trafford?  What do you think?

The goal that sent the Villans to the Championship

They allowed this somewhat decent, somewhat soft goal in the 32nd minute and never looked like they had an answer.  A brief flurry around the 80th minute sparked by Gestede coming on gave a fleeting image of hope, but was short lived and did not provide an equalizer.  So after months of knowing their fate but not actually knowing, Aston Villa are officially the first team relegated after being the last team to survive last year.  They are still possibly relevant to the remainder of the season - though that Newcastle match has now lost at least half of it's intrigue - but I can't imagine their matches will be anything worth watching since they couldn't muster any energy before becoming lame ducks.  I'll autopsy their season in the coming weeks and assess my future with the club, but let's just say that this season was a bit of a disappointment.


Booked for Simulation Indeed

You know all those 1-0 wins that Leicester has been wracking up (including last week's disguised as a 2-0)?  Yeah, this contest was not one of those.  A West Ham header hit both posts in the 2nd minute, Vardy scored in the 34th on a classic counter, and things appeared to be sailing along smoothly.  Then Vardy decided to throw the Foxes into the deep end (see that diving pun?  Sweet, I know).  Even though I gave up tracking the bookings for simulation across the league a little while ago, I don't think I was going to miss this one.

The dive that changed the EPL title race?

I have no idea what he thought he was doing here, especially knowing he was was already on a yellow.  Even if the refereeing was rather inconsistent throughout the match (more on this in a second) this was so blatant that he deserved his fate.  Leicester were reduced to 10 men with 35 minutes to play and a slim 1-0 lead, but they have made their living holding 1-0 leads for weeks now.

"Let me just step right in front of you....WHEEEEEE!"

That was not to be the case today, as the Foxes held out for 25 minutes before allowing a PK, which was converted by Andy Carroll.  3 minutes later, West Ham struck again on a fabulous volley to take a 2-1 lead.  In the 90th minute, Huth was clearly dragged down in the box but was not given the call.  Finally, on the last attack of the game, Carroll turned villian by conceding a PK right on the edge of the box, which was converted by Ulloa to finish off the 2-2 draw.

The various PK calls/non-calls felt borderline random to me in this match.  The first West Ham PK was definitely correct, but the same situation happened several times earlier and was not called.  The missed PK on Huth was very similar to the one given to West Ham while the PK given to Leicester looked like minimal contact to me.  Counting the Vardy dive, I have the ref at 2/4 on PK calls, which is not great.

All told Leicester scraped by with a point, which doesn't appear to change the math a whole lot at this juncture, but could turn out to be critical in a few weeks.  Equally important could be that Vardy misses the next match at Swansea, which appears to the most winnable of their remaining fixtures.

Bottom of the Table

Apparently Newcastle decided to grow some stones at just the right moment, snagging 4 points in fairly convincing fashion.  Steve did find time to watch their matches and adds:

This was St. James Park as it should be.  50,000 lunatics driving a suddenly interested Newcastle side on.  Even with the renewed (wait that should be newly found) passion, the match with Swansea was still in doubt late.  Up 1-0, the Magpies generously afforded the Swans numerous opportunities to draw level, which they politely declined deposited in row M. Soon there were two more Newcastle tallies and the match was no longer in doubt.  That's two points we didn't have in the model.

Sunderland's aforementioned stomping of Norwich tightened up the relegation battle as well, leaving Newcastle trailing Sunderland by 2 and Norwich by 3 after the weekend.  Sunderland still have an all important extra game in hand over Norwich and could be in the driver's seat if they get 3 points from it (though it's against Everton, so don't count on it).

Newcastle also had a match in hand over Norwich as well...but it was against Man City so it wasn't like we really had an extra match.  Except, Newcastle continued the passionate play on Tuesday at home against the Citizens.  Of course they coughed up a goal early (Aguero was so far offside it's hard to believe the AR missed that one) but the diminutive Dutchman, Vurnon Anita, making a resurgence under Benitez, leveled things at 30 minutes.  The rest of the night was a taut back and forth with Newcastle having the upper hand but 1-1 was the result.   Another point we didn't have in the model.  New prediction has Sunderland escaping by one point with 32 over Newcastle and Norwich at 31.   BTW, speaking of Benitez, I sort of dissed him last week for the lack of urgency we saw in the Norwich and Southampton matches. That was clearly not the case on Saturday or Tuesday so maybe he's figured something out.

On a related note, it seems increasingly increasingly likely that the team to finish 19th will have double the point total of Villa.

Top of the Table

Too many games, mixed with too many story lines and too much yard work means I barely followed most of the remaining action.  I saw Tottenham's routine 4-0 win over Stoke.  Spurs look they could drop 3-5 goals on anyone right now, which is definitely a scary proposition, especially considering their relatively weak final schedule.  Manchester City cruised past Chelsea on the back of an Aguero hat trick before the draw with Newcastle.  Arsenal drew with Crystal Palace and won at West Brom, while the other side of Manchester banked two wins to draw within a single point of the top 4 (though Arsenal has a game in hand).  West Ham also earned 4 points to remain a lingering if not totally scary threat for a Champion's League spot.  The "Race for the Title", as NBC are fond of saying, is definitely down to two, but the Champion's League spots have 4-6 contenders, depending on your level of optimism.

The weekend did not change anything for Leicester and Tottenham in the model;  West Ham-Leicester was a draw in my forecast (though maybe not as crazy as it played out) and Tottenham was always going to beat Stoke.  So, Leicester are still winners by three.  Man City's failure to get 3 at St. James Park effectively ends their chances though, and though Arsenal are not technically out, they are out of it after that draw to Crystal Palace. 

The 4 most crucial matches of this weekend seem fairly one-sided: Newcastle traveling to Anfield, Sunderland hosting Arsenal, Leicester welcoming Swansea to the King Power, and Tottenham vs West Brom at White Hart Lane, with Norwich's match against Watford postponed due to FA Cup semifinal action.  Of course anything could happen, but I don't expect a whole lot of movement at either end of the table this weekend.

And Another Thing

I figured I'd be able to catch at least some of the action on NBC Live Stream.  But no, it doesn't work here in France.  What's up with that.  So I explored other streaming options but was worried about catching some kind of Euro virus.  Eventually I found an acceptable choice with a small but clear screen and was able to see most of the Swansea and Man City matches. 


Undermanned Union Again

Didn't see that match (I think it was on at 4 am here in Arles) but the Union fell to Seattle after going down a man early in the second half - Alberg this time.  I saw the second yellow and it looked deserved.  Still, it was a close match and the Union lost just 1-2 on the road in Seattle.  Red Bulls took another loss, this time in Colorado.