That Was The Week That Was

A Thanksgiving cornucopia of stories for this week.


Howay The Lads!

Gayle scores number two. Photograph: Nigel French/PA

The Rafalution marches on and for once I got to watch, though not the full 90 minutes as discussed below.  Newcastle came out strong away at Leeds and though the actual goal was lucky, the 1-0 lead was fully deserved.  Around 30 minutes, momentum shifted and the Magpies were being pushed all over the field. Leeds fans probably feel cheated there was no call for handling in the box against Jack Colback but I think the ref got it right.  Then there was some good keeper play from Karl Darlow to preserve the lead.  Around 50 minutes I texted Dennis to suggest this had all the makings of a 1-2 loss.  No sooner had I hit send then Shelvey, Anita and Perez made some incisive passes which ended with an unmarked Gayle making a sliding run to the far post for the second goal.  The air went out of Leeds sails and Newcastle smartly chose not to give up a late goal just to make the last five minutes more interesting, as they have been wont to do lately.  Newcastle finished the weekend five up on Brighton and nine up on Reading.


Who Let Rosemary Woods Into the Editing Room?

For some inexplicable reason, as a youth I was a big Notre Dame football fan.  I told my parents I was going to play football for them.  They said "but you're not Catholic."  "Neither is Joe Theismann," I responded.  A cool thing about being a Notre Dame fan back then, in the era of four VHF and maybe five UHF TV stations, was that late Sunday morning there was always a replay of Saturday's game. The only problem was they had to cram it into an hour; I clearly remember the constant refrain "with the score still the same, we skip to further action in the game."

I bring this up because the time slot for the Newcastle-Leeds contest, shown on delay, was 1 pm to 2:30 on beIN Sports.  Clearly, there was going to have be some editing to fit the match in the allotted 90 minutes so I was watching closely.  For nearly an hour, everything was kosher.  Then at 59:40, Leeds were whistled for offside.  The camera pans downfield in anticipation of Darlow's free kick. The ball lands and the clock reads 70:40.  Wow, talk about your hang time.  Probably didn't miss anything and if you weren't paying attention, the edit was seamless.  Still, I was surprised they went for a big cut as opposed to multiple smaller ones.


Oh To Be In England Now That Stoppage Time Is Here

I see two North London sides that are happy that matches are 90 minutes plus stoppage time. Tottenham was facing a completely unacceptable 1-2 loss at home against West Ham while Arsenal were close to a disappointing but not awful 0-1 loss away at Man United.

In the 89th, Harry Kane was able to bring Spurs level with a real poachers goal.  So an unacceptable loss had been converted to a slightly less unacceptable draw.  But two minutes later, Son was fouled in the box and Harry Kane converted the PK to complete an improbable 3-2 comeback victory.  This was a total surprise to me as earlier someone had told me the score was 2-2 at 90 minutes.  I cited him for dvr violation but he tried to cover his tracks by saying well, it wasn't full time so anything could happen.  I did not rescind the yellow card but was glad I watched anyway.

Though technically not in stoppage time, Olivier Giroud's 89th minute header snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat for Arsenal at Old Trafford.  A 1-0 win for Man United would have been a fair result for the home side given their strong play for most of the game but they paid for not putting away earlier chances.  They will also feel hard-done by Andre Marriner's decision not to whistle Monreal for a foul in the box in the first half.  Monreal did put out a straight arm and there may have been contact with Valencia's chest.  As we have discussed here many times, if you do those things in the box you have little room to argue if the referee signals for a PK.  However, IMHO Monreal did not impede Valencia, who decided he needed to fall down away, and Marriner got the call right.  The match ended with Rooney complaining to the referee about a different non-call, which as we have noted before, usually means a good result, unless you're a Red Devil fan.


The Stadium of Cellphone Light

A running joke here at BFS has been to make fun of Sunderland's woes by altering the name of their park - the Stadium of Light - to reflect the hard times faced by the club.  Last Saturday, we didn't even have to make it up, as reality and ragging caught up.  At about 51 minutes, the stadium experienced a power failure and for 10 minutes the pitch was illuminated solely by cellphone lights. Turns out the joke was on Hull, as the Black Cats put a 3-0 hurting on the visitors.  They may have also stumbled on a winning formula - get a man sent off.  They now have two wins against one loss in matches that they play a man down.  Addition by subtraction perhaps?


The Shrinking Middle Table

Have you looked at the table lately?   There are five teams within three points of the relegation zone, another two within four points and two more within six points.  At the top there are five teams that are five or more points clear of sixth.  That leaves three mid-table sides - Man United, Everton and Watford.  Leicester are only two points clear while Crystal Palace and West Ham are only safe by one point.  Not even a third of the way into the season I realize but the smell of relegation flop sweat is already in the air.  This might make for a really busy January transfer window with teams overpaying for players to avoid the demotion.


That's Entertainment


I have vague recollections of being unimpressed with the MLS conference finals in previous years.  Not so this time around as the first legs of both series were highly entertainingly, if not high quality.  The Eastern Conference match got off to a slow start as, in this week's U12 moment, the field was improperly lined.  As you can see from the picture (left) the penalty areas were about two yards short on both sides.  Once this was corrected, Montreal went nuts, staking themselves to a 3-0 lead.  Usually, you can afford to lose 1-0 in the road match and maybe 2-0 but a 3-0 deficit is big trouble.  But then the stars came out for Toronto as Michael Bradley and then Jozy Altidore pulled the visitors to within one.  They are now well-positioned for the home leg; scores like 1-0, 2-0 and 2-1 are now good enough to advance to the final.  In Seattle, the field was properly lined and it was Colorado that jumped to the early lead.  But the Sounders responded well and completed a 2-1 win in the first leg. Still, Colorado's position isn't awful on the strength of the away goal, though their margin for error isn't as good as Toronto's.


Jurgen Out

We knew it was a distinct possibility that Klinsmann would not survive the week and indeed he didn't.  We can't say "Jurgen, we hardly knew thee" as his tenure was one of the longest for a USMNT coach.  As I said last week, I've been more supportive than most but I'm okay with this decision, even though it comes in the middle of WC qualifying.  To wait until March was just too risky if things didn't get sorted out.  Bruce Arena was a safe the only choice given the timing in the qualifying cycle.

I don't think his tenure was as awful as people suggest.  Some say the US advanced out of the 2014 World Cup group stage despite his efforts.  That seems harsh; they got out of the most difficult group, drew Portugal (and came with a minute of winning that match) and took Belgium to extra time. Sacking him after the 2015 Gold Cup debacle and subsequent loss to Mexico in the playoff for the Confederations Cup might have been fair, given that Klinsmann himself had put so much weight on those competitions.  The 0-2 loss to Guatemala in the early stages of WC qualifying certainly provided enough justification to let him go.  But after reaching the quarterfinals of the Copa America Centenario, it was harder to pull the trigger.  My memory may not be complete here but I can think of only three times the US won a match in the knockout phase of a tournament (1994 WC Colombia, 2002 WC Mexico and 2016 Copa America Centenario Ecuador) and Klinsmann has one of them.  But in the end, I think you can point to a lack of progress as the ultimate factor here.  We are still not the biggest fish (at least regularly and by a wide margin) in the little pond of CONCACAF so how far have we really come?  Some significant part of that must be attributed to Klinsmann.


Other Stuff

Yeah, I know there was Champions League and Europa but sorry.  Also, in virtual reality of Football Manager, Chester suffered a few losses - to Atletico in Champions League and Man United in EPL play - but we are on to the knock out stage in CL and have a three point lead in EPL so something must be working.


A Quiet Weekend?

Easily the most interesting match this weekend in Chelsea-Tottenham at 12:30 on Saturday (NBC).  My second choice would be Swansea-Crystal Palace because of the desperation of both managers to get a win. Pardew has all but conceded he is out unless they get a result in Wales; Bradley probably has a little more rope but not that much.  Unfortunately, you can only stream that match.  Another match infused with some relegation drama, that you can see, is Leicester at home against Middlesbrough (Saturday, 10 am CNBC).   Matches involving other top of the table sides include Burnley- Man City (Saturday 7:30 NBCSN), Liverpool-Sunderland (Saturday, 10 am NBCSN) and Arsenal-Bournemouth (Sunday 9:15 CNBC).

Don't forget second legs of MLS conference finals.  Colorado-Seattle is 4 pm on Sunday (ESPN) and Toronto-Montreal is 7 pm on Wednesday (FS1).  I'm expecting the field marking lines to be spot on for both matches.