BFS Jinx?

Have we become like Sports Illustrated, where a club or individual featured in the publication one week hits a spell of bad luck the next week?  Probably not, but consider the fate of Burnley.  Last week we noted the near invincibility of Burnley at their home venue - Turf Moor.  Saturday it became Turf Less as the Clarets were beaten at home by fifth division in their fifth round FA Cup match.  The stats suggest Burnley had the run of play but I don't remember them dominating.  Regardless, it was still scoreless rolling into the 89th minute when Sean Raggett's header sent the Lincoln City fans out of their minds.  I do not exaggerate.  Check out this fan video from the Lincoln City section, this week's YouTubeableMoment and Possibly Most Awesomest Video Evah.   It captures the ultimate upside of being a football fan.  I think the fans are chanting "C'mon Imps" or "Red Imps," the Imps being the club's nickname.

Burnley wasn't the only EPL side to struggle.  As of noon on Saturday, Premier League sides were 1-1-2, with only Middlesbrough through to the quarters.  Leicester had gone down to Millwall and Man City only managed a 0-0 draw with Huddersfield.  The latter score was mildly satisfying to me, as Huddersfield now find themselves with a Wednesday replay at the Etihad just three days in advance of their critical Championship Division match against Newcastle.  Form held for the rest of the weekend as Chelsea, Man United, Tottenham and Arsenal all managed to beat non-EPL opposition.

As I had hoped, the Sutton-Arsenal match was fun.  Lower fifth division Sutton did not go quietly into the night, probably helped a bit by the home advantage of playing on artificial turf.  Arsenal had to work for their 2-0 win and Sutton had some decent chances, including a ball off the cross bar.  Great atmosphere, though some fans got carried away, requiring ejections.  All in all though, memories of a lifetime for Sutton faithful.  Between matches like Burnley-Lincoln City and Sutton-Arsenal, I feel some softening of my mild disdain for the FA Cup.


Some Days You Eat the Pie

And some days eating the pie will get you fired.  By all accounts, Sutton's back up keeper, 45 year-old, 322 pound Wayne Shaw, is a character.  Add him to the carnival-like situation of lowly Sutton hosting Arsenal and hilarity was bound to ensue.  First, Jon Champion reported on the telecast that Shaw had been spotted in the bar at halftime.  Photo on right suggests this was true.  Then, late in the match, we had views of Shaw munching on devouring practically whole, a meat pie.  Unprofessional?  Maybe, but given the setting it didn't seem that outrageous.

Ah, but that was not, shall we say, the whole enchilada. Turns out that Sun Bets (a Sutton club sponsor by the way), possibly in an effort to grab business from competitors had offered a seemingly harmless but fun bet at 8-1 odds that Shaw would eat a pie on the sidelines during the match.  Shaw knew about this and apparently so did some of his friends.  Though he didn't benefit directly, those friends did.  Maybe not big time bet fixing but not cool in any case.  Shaw was asked to resign and he he did.  Details here.  Unfortunate.  The story could have added to the FA Cup mystique but now it just looks bad.


Winning Ugly

Not a happy sight for Magpie fans - Gayle leaves
 pitch with recurring hamstring problem

Another good result but poor performance from Newcastle.  Though energy and work rate were fine, their first touch was horrendous, passing was inaccurate and playmaking was uncreative in the 2-0 home win over Aston Villa.  The Villans did not deserve to lose this match, though neither did they deserve to win.  Newcastle's goals came off corners but not brilliant headers or anything like that.  The first was Gouffran putting away a ball that spent too long in front of the net.  The second glanced off the post, then off a defender's leg and into the goal. (Karma! The defender was Henri Lansbury, whose thespian activities had helped get Shelvey and Dummett sent off in an earlier match this season).  Face it, this was not an advertisement for the beautiful game.  We will take the three points, which with everybody but Reading winning, left the table mostly unchanged.

Michael B will tell me to relax but I'll give you three reasons to be queasy about automatic promotion.

1. Newcastle's current form, despite the victories, is terrible and it's hard to see good   results continuing against better sides with these kinds of performances
2. Dwight Gayle is out again until possibly early April and Isaac Hayden will be missing for a few more weeks
3. Newcastle still has to play all five top opponents - four on the road - while the chase pack teams only have two or three on their schedule

I almost added a fourth bullet - Don't forget, this is Newcastle we're talking about.


Was It Something We Said?

I didn't know it at the time I was writing in last week's post about Mark Clattenburg and the Arsenal-Hull match, but Clattenburg had resigned to take a job refereeing in Saudi Arabia.  Though he did not specifically reference this, he's made no secret of his frustration with the refereeing authorities of the FA.  Looks like a 50% to 200% raise as well.  Plus no more English winters.  But, it probably reduces his standing in international circles for things like the World Cup.  Which makes me think he was really tired of the FA administrative crap.  He is not everyone's cup of tea but I think he's a decent referee.


Can't Gent Much Worse

Until a few weeks ago, no team was in better form than Tottenham.  Then there was the awful performance against Liverpool and the lackluster showing in the first leg of Europa League action against the Belgian side Gent.  But that was only an 0-1 defeat and with the second leg back at Wembley, advancement was still highly likely.  A good showing against Fulham - a 3-0 win at Craven Cottage on Sunday - boded well.  When Eriksen scored a mere 10 minutes into the second leg, things did indeed look good.  But a Harry Kane own goal and a straight red for Dele late in the first half put Spurs under the gun.  The second half was played mostly in Gent's end, despite their man advantage and Wanyama's strike at 61 minutes left one thinking that Spurs could pull this off.  Alas, a goal on a quick counter at 81 minutes put paid to that notion and Tottenham again crashed out early in Europa League.

There were some questionable calls in the match - the corner that led to Kane's OG should have been a goal kick and there were a few fouls that went uncalled.  But more than once, Spurs players lost their cool, plunging into retaliatory tackles that earned cards of various colors.  Some are questioning whether Spurs have a problem playing at Wembley which is a daunting prospect given that they will play all their home games there next year.  Tottenham's position in the EPL table is such that even a short slump could see them fall to 6th.  Pochettino will be earning his salary in the next few months.


Ranieri Sacked

As expected, the dreaded vote of confidence has claimed another.  Claudio Ranieri got the sack about two weeks after ownership proclaimed "unwavering support" for him.  He started at Leicester in July 2015 so his tenure with Leicester was short and mercurial.  Bob K suggested the timing was a bit curious as Leicester's 1-2 loss away to Sevilla in the Champions League was actually a pretty decent result; the away goal means that even a 1-0 win at home in the second leg will be enough to advance.

No shortage of opinions on the internet.  Some express outrage - because of last year's performance, the club owed him a chance to turn things around.  Many just note that this is the way things work nowadays.  I do find it somewhat humorous that he got credit last year for using a stable line up, rarely making changes and criticism this year for sticking with those players even though they're not performing at anywhere near last year's levels.  IMHO, Leicester's roster is so paper thin that Ranieri's actions seem less like a conscious choice but simply a matter of the personnel he had to work with.  Further, since they can't make any personnel changes until July, the only way this makes sense is if you believe the players have stopped playing for Ranieri and that a change will somehow snap the players back into better performances.  Maybe ownership was looking at Swansea's response to putting Paul Clement in charge.  For the record, put me down as a "No" as to whether this was a good idea.  


Union Preview

The new MLS season has snuck up on us.  Opening matches are next weekend and the Union will start the season in Vancouver next Sunday.  SoccerAmericaDaily's Ridge Mahoney's sneak preview of the Union can be found here.  His take his moderately positive;

It has added solid players who can vie for starting spots in several positions, and while the starry array on the rosters of conference rivals continues to frustrate Union fans, they should be treated to a better brand of soccer as well as a more competitive one even though playmaker Tranquillo Barnetta has returned to his native Switzerland after two seasons.

This is some ways from projecting the Union as a contender for the conference title but given the resources the club works with, might be all we can hope for right now.


First Hardware of the Season

The first of the various cup competitions of the season to be concluded will be the EFL League Cup as Man United will take on Southampton at Wembley Stadium 11:30 on Sunday (beIN Sports). The oddsmakers have installed Man United as a heavy favorite (11/13 versus 22/5 for the Saints).  But two things to note are that Southampton have yet to concede a goal in this competition and that Man United may be missing Henrikh Mkhitaryan, who left Wednesday's Europa League contest with an ailing hamstring.

In Championship division action, this is one weekend where the schedule does favor Newcastle.  The Magpies take on Bristol (21st in the table) at St. James' Park; this should be an easy three points so I am expecting the usual tense struggle.  Top sides Brighton and Reading play each other, as do Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday.  Huddersfield has a tricky match away to 9th place Barnsley.  Newcastle will have a quick turnaround to face Brighton on Tuesday.

The EPL schedule does not look all that exciting.  The Manchester derby is postponed because of United's participation in the League Cup final and Arsenal are out of action with Southampton also playing in that final.  Probably a good thing for Man City to have the weekend off; they're likely still tired from Tuesday's classic 5-3 Champions League win over Monaco.  Tottenham host Stoke (Sunday 8:30 on NBCSN); given recent events, this is a big match for Spurs.  Chelsea host Swansea (10 am Saturday NBCSN); sure the Swans have been doing better but not expecting an exciting one here.  On Monday Leicester and their new manager will host Liverpool. The NBC "feature" match Saturday at 12:30 is Watford-West Ham; actually it might be competitive contest between two mid-table sides.

Crystal Palace-Middlesbrough (10 am Saturday, CNBC) is clearly a relegation clash with Middlesbrough a mere three points up on the Eagles; I may choose this over the Chelsea-Swansea contest.  Relegation compatriots Sunderland take on Everton at Goodison Park and Hull are home against Burnley.   With just three points separating 16th thru 20th, every match for these teams is critical.

Outrunning the Bear

There's this old joke about two campers:

walking through the woods when a huge brown bear suddenly appears in the clearing about 50 feet in front of them. The bear sees the campers and begins to head toward them. The first guy drops his backpack, digs out a pair of sneakers, and frantically begins to put them on. The second guy says, "What are you doing? Sneakers won’t help you outrun that bear." "I don't need to outrun the bear," the first guy says. "I just need to outrun you."

I was reminded of this when Michael B asked why I was annoyed that Huddersfield had snatched a 3-2 come-from-behind win over Rotherham on Tuesday, when both Newcastle and Brighton got draws, leaving the Magpies top of the table.  In the race for promotion, the top two spots automatically move up while 3rd through 6th go through a playoff to determine the last spot.  So Newcastle do not need to "outrun" Brighton, they just need to "outrun" Huddersfield.  And by the end of this week's matches, they had closed the gap on Newcastle.

So two matches for all the Championship division sides.  Saturday I got to watch the Magpies sort of sleepwalk their way to a 1-0 win over Wolverhampton.  My one line Football Manager post match remark to the team would have been "It was a good result but not a very good performance."  However, I would have also been very complimentary of the back line (Yedlin, Lascelles, Clark and Dummett) as they kept things pretty tight.  Diame had a good work rate but wasn't as effective as in the prior match.  And Mitrovic was his usual roller coaster self.  Already yellow carded (one of five the Magpies who would eventually collect before the final whistle) by the 15th minute for persistent fouling, he still came flying in on the Wolves keeper and looked to catch him on the heel.  Could have easily been a second yellow.  Ironically (Wolves manager characterized it differently), Mitro would score the match's only goal in the 44th minute and was substituted at the start of the second half as Rafa feared the Serbian would get himself sent off.  Of the chase pack, Brighton, Huddersfield, and Sheffield Wednesday won, Reading drew and Leeds lost.

Newcastle United's Jamaal Lascelles (third from left) scores his side's second goal
of the game during the Sky Bet Championship match at Carrow Road, Norwich. (Photo: PA)

They laced the boots back up for a full slate of games on Tuesday.  On the road at Norwich, Newcastle jumped to an early 1-0 lead which fairly quickly turned into a 1-2 loss, with Lascelles not playing well and Darlow making a rare costly mistake.  Second half reports read like Newcastle dominated with lots of shots and a few off the woodwork.  Their persistence paid off with Lascelles leveling things off of a Shelvey free kick in the 81st minute.  Unfortunately, all the pursuers, save Brighton, won and the top six got more compact.  On the whole though, four points from two road matches in four days is not a bad result and the come-from-behind draw at Norwich showed some character.


There's No Place Like Turf Moor

Is there a tougher place to play these days than Turf Moor, home of Burnley?  Technically there are sides with better home performance than the Clarets but their 9-2-3 record is among the best; only Man City, Arsenal and Swansea (one of these is not like the others) have beaten them at home.  Chelsea were the latest side to discover the joys of playing at Turf Moor.  Though the Blues dominated possession and had an early 1-0 courtesy of Pedro, Burnley's defense was solid, only allowing three shots on target and just one corner.  And they got a stunning free kick from Robbie Brady (this week's YouTubeableMoment) in the 24th minute that would get them a well-earned draw.

The rest of the top six, save Tottenham, got wins, so Chelsea's margin at the top is down to a "mere" eight points.  Man City endured a potentially season-ending injury to Jesus (imagine having to pick a substitute for Jesus!) and got a 2-0 win at Bournemouth.  Arsenal took a 2-0 win over Hull (which will be discussed further below) and Man United handled Watford 2-0.  Liverpool reversed their slide with a 2-0 win at Anfield over Tottenham.  While trying not to take anything away from the Reds, was that not the worst Spurs performance of the season?  I reminded myself that they had sort of righted the ship when they had an awful first half and were down 0-2 to Chelsea but this time they just kept getting worse.

At the other end of the table, Claudio Ranieri has survived more than a week since getting the dreaded vote of confidence.  However, Leicester were awful again against Swansea; the scoreline says 2-0 but it seemed much worse than that.  And how about Swansea - fourth win in six matches and they are now four points above the drop zone.  I will own up that I thought the problem was the players not being good enough but Paul Clement does seemed to have turned things around.  Middlesbrough grabbed a point off of Everton, which meant they also added a little breathing because Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Hull all lost.


Handling - One More Time

Clattenburg apologised to the Hull players
 (Photo: Getty Images Europe)

This time it was going so well until suddenly it turned into a clusterf***.  There was no doubt that the ball struck Sanchez in the arm and went into the net to give Arsenal a 1-0 lead in the 33rd minute at the Emirates.  Not finding great videos but this one at least gives you a decent sense of what happened.  Mark Clattenburg took a minute to confer with the assistant - who had a clear view of the play but recall that in that situation his first three priorities are watching for offside, watching for offside and watching for offside - and let the goal stand.  I thought it was the correct call.  Ball to arm and he didn't use the arm to propel the ball after contact - it was a pure ricochet.  Unlucky for Hull but no more unlucky than if the ball had bounced off his face into the goal.  The announcers thought it was the correct call.  The PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited - the governing body for referees) sent a message to the booth saying Clattenburg got the call right. In the studio at halftime Robbie and Robbie both thought it was the correct call.   Alrighty, move along people, nothing to see here.

Then it got weird.  After the match it was revealed that Clattenburg had apologized to some Hull players as they came out for the second half because he felt he had made the wrong call.  On what basis did he change his mind?  He's not supposed to be looking at video to confirm or refute his calls.  But wait, it gets worse.  This is a transcript of Rebecca Lowe's reporting.

Let’s go to the Emirates earlier, Alexis Sanchez’s first goal struck his hand before going into half. Robbie and Robbie at the time felt it was a fair goal because it was not a deliberate hand ball and the laws of the game back that up but referee Mark Clattenburg apologized at half time to the Hull City players saying ‘we should have disallowed it’ because apparently you’re not allowed to score a goal from your hand even if it’s not deliberate because it doesn’t sit well in the game. And that’s the quote that we were given from the head of the PGMOL (Mike Riley) who we have since called.

"Doesn't sit well in the game?"  Watching live I could only sputter a big WTF at the TV screen  I have never heard that phrase mentioned in connection with interpreting the rules around handling.  It certainly didn't come up when Koscielny got a late game winner earlier this season against Burnley.  Absolutely stunning.  A few days later Howard Webb, technical director for PGMOL, was restoring some order to the situation, outlining in clear terms why it was the right call.  Phew, for a little while there it was like the Trump White House was handling the matter.  Really helpful article here, which includes some key passages from the rule book.

And while we're on the subject, a word about Arsenal fans and referees.  Collecting information on this matter I came across several Arsenal fan websites that have, in the past, charged referees with systematic bias against the Gunners, especially Mark Clattenburg.  So he had three controversial calls in Saturday's game - the Sanchez goal, the DOGSO call on Hull's Clucas and the DOGSO non-call on Arsenal's Kieran Gibbs; all went in Arsenal's favor.  Recall on that Koscielny play, the referee correctly did not disallow the goal for handling but the crew missed that he was offside.   Please take off the aluminum foil hats and move past the conspiracy theories.  Your lives will be so much better.

And another thing...the annual debate about whether it's time for Arsene Wenger to step down/be fired as Arsenal manager is in full swing.  Wednesday's 1-5 loss to Bayern in the first leg of the round of 16 will add fuel to the fire.  Rafa Benitez is being mentioned as a replacement.  Hey, what you guys do on your own time is fine but leave Rafa out of it.


More Newcastle Live

For the second weekend in a row, I get to see Newcastle live, this time hosting Aston Villa on Monday.  This ancient BFS derby that dates back to 2012 has lost some of its luster with both being relegated last year but is still an important match, at least for Newcastle.  Villa have lost four straight and are 19 points out of the last playoff spot for promotion.  So naturally I expect this to be a tight contest, with Newcastle struggling to put them away and yielding a late goal to the visitors that results in a draw or maybe even a loss.  Brighton are away to Barnsley which could be a tricky match for the Seagulls while Leeds visit Ipswich and Nottingham Forest host Sheffield Wednesday Saturday.  Huddersfield are in FA Cup action so their match with Reading is moved to Tuesday; the good news there is one of those two will drop some points.

For EPL teams already out of the FA Cup, this is an off-week.  Fox Sports will televise most of the eight 5th Round matches Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  What are the odds that with eight EPL teams still in the competition, none got drawn against each other?  So all the other divisions could be out after this round.  Or with eight upsets, none of the EPL teams would make it to the quarterfinals.  Yeah, that's going to happen.  Arsenal, 4th in the EPL, play Sutton, 17th in the 5th division.  This is like Kansas playing the Central Connecticut State in the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament.  Still, I will at least check it out on Monday for the novelty of seeing Arsenal play at Gander Green Lane and its artificial surface. The other matches are listed here.

Nice weather forecast so get out and play, then watch on dvr.

An American in Newcastle

No, not me as part of the Five Men from USA looking for football and pubs. I'm talking about DeAndre Yedlin, the Seattle native who has been playing right back for the Magpies since Vurnon Anita went down with an ankle injury.  Yedlin has done more than an adequate job filling in for Anita; in fact, his player ratings have typically been higher than Anita's.  He's been an attacking threat from the back (which he was always good at) but he seems to have upped the defensive side of his game.  There's a lot of positive press about him and Yedlin is becoming popular with the Toon Army.  He also apparently has a great sense of humor as evidenced by this Twitter thread.

His performance last Saturday against Derby earned him a Man of the Match award; once again he was excellent coming forward but most importantly, he cleared a ball off the goal line in the final minute of stoppage time to preserve a 1-0 win for the Magpies.  What a tense match that one.  Following on Chronicle Live I was expecting to see the notice that the Magpies had again surrendered a late goal.  Very happy when that didn't happen.  The only goal came from a Matt Ritchie shot that fortitisuly fourtututously luckily took a massive deflection.  By all accounts, Mo Diame had a decent game, though apparently less so after he had to move into Isaac Hayden's spot after he went down with an injury.  Regardless of the nature of the victory, it was an important three points.

A good weekend for the Magpies.  Besides their win, Brighton and Reading could only manage draws.  Btw, beIN Sports might have done themselves well to choose to televise the Brentford-Brighton match.  Brentford had a 2-0 lead before Brighton leveled things with goals at 75 and 78 minutes; Brentford slipped back into the lead with a stoppage time goal but the Seagulls got their draw with a final tally at 90+7.


Why Bother Playing?

Sports Analytics Machine (SAM), a football forecasting model developed at the University of Salford in Manchester predicts that Newcastle will win the Championship Division with 99 points, edging out Brighton's 95 points.  The more interesting result for me is that SAM projects third and fourth places (Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds) to come in at 75 points, which gives the Magpies a 23 point cushion for a top two finish.  If that does play out, Newcastle will clinch automatic promotion early to mid April.  Recent results have seen Newcastle and Brighton trading the top spot so that projected result makes sense.  On the other hand, the spread from second to third has, I believe, been no higher than nine points so the model is projecting a growing gap between Newcastle/Brighton and the rest of the league.  We can only hope reality follows the model.  More details and article here; the author of the piece - Ben Pringle - was on the Chester Blues for a spell.


Jesus Saves

Gabriel Jesus - impressive start at Manchester City GETTY

More accurately, he scores.  Manchester City's new acquisition, the Brazilian Gabriel Jesus (pronounced Zhay-zoose according to Manchester Evening News) scored a late goal (his second of the game) to save the Citizens from an embarrassing draw to Swansea City.  The wunderkind has three goals and an assist in 188 minutes of EPL play; his performances to date have relegated Aguero to the role of a substitute.  The pundits are citing that Jesus covers more ground and perhaps has a higher work rate as reasons for Pep Guardiola's choice.  And now rumors are surfacing that Aguero may be on his way out.  Maybe, but there are also reports that both Aguero and Jesus will start Monday against Bournemouth, meaning one of Sterling or Sane will sit.  This sounds like a fun problem to have.

Man City's 2-1 win moved them ahead of Arsenal and Liverpool, both losers on Saturday.  That Arsenal didn't get any points at Stamford Bridge isn't shocking but the way they played in the 1-3 loss to Chelsea was.  Lethargic, uncreative, disinterested are words that come to mind.  Certainly some of this had to do with the quality of the opponent, as Chelsea are in fine form right now. Look no further to this fine piece of skill from Eden Hazard (this week's YouTubeableMoment) as evidence.  But The Gunners contributed to their own demise here.  For Liverpool, the 0-2 loss at Hull means the slump (three points in five matches) continues and they fall out of the top four.  Strange match (I saw the second half, having given up on the Crystal Palace disaster at the Stadium of Light) with Liverpool dominating but unable to finish.

Rounding out the top six, Tottenham were workmanlike in their 1-0 win over Middlesbrough and Man United thoroughly trashed Leicester 3-0.  So Chelsea remain nine up on Tottenham, who are one up on Man City and three up on Arsenal.  Liverpool are only one point out of the top four while Man United are just two outside the Champions League spots, though the two clubs may be moving in different directions.  Man United haven't lost since 10/25 against Chelsea; however, many of those "non-losses" were draws that should have been wins if the team is really top four material.  For example, turn the home draws against Burnley, West Ham and Hull into victories and they would be sitting in second place.


Dead Man Coaching

Uh oh.  Just a few days after the 0-3 loss at home to Man United, Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri got the dreaded vote of confidence from ownership.  I am reminded of this scene [link fixed]from "Jerry Maguire.  Seriously, does the coach ever not get fired shortly after a vote of confidence?  (Leicester's hard fought FA Cup 3-1 replay win - nice shot in the fourth minute of extra time from Wilfred "Yes" Ndidi [nickname courtesy Stewart Robson] - over Derby might help a little but results in league play are going to matter more.)  Combined with other results, the loss left the Foxes a mere one point out of the drop zone.  Sunderland absolutely destroyed Crystal Palace, taking all the fun out of a relegation match and leaving the two at the very bottom with 19 points.  Hull's win over Liverpool got them off the bottom but not out of the relegation zone.  Swansea (who played well in the losing cause against Man City - though their goal probably should have been disallowed for offside), Leicester and Middlesbrough all lost so the bottom six got even tighter, with just two points separating 15th from 20th in the table.


What's More Fierce Than A Lion?

Cameroon’s Vincent Aboubakar, centre, celebrates scoring
 the winning goalagainst Egypt in the Africa Cup of Nations
 final.Photograph: Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images

An Indomitable Lion, that's what.  Cameroon spotted Egypt an early goal in the AFCON final but rallied for a 2-1 win.  The second goal came in the 88th minute ("squeaky-bum time" as The Guardian characterized it) from  Victor Aboubakar, a second half sub.  After a string of mostly tepid affairs, this was a contest worthy of a final.  And for me, the Indomitable Lions were definitely the better side, especially in the second half and deserved the title.





More Virtual Reality

Chester had a mixed week.  I got careless, went too deep into the bench and got burned with a 1-1 draw vs Notts County in the FA Cup.  The post-match talk should have been "Sorry guys, I messed up" but the game did not give me that option.  So we get a mid-week replay in the midst of an already crowded schedule.  Oh man, the fans have been on me about this one.  Consecutive 2-1 league wins over Chelsea and Newcastle helped soothe things.  We have a seven point lead over Tottenham and have nearly wrapped up a Champions League spot for next year.  Speaking of CL, next on the calendar is Real Madrid in the first knockout round of this year's competition.


"Lighter" Weekend

Relatively speaking at least.  Hooray for beINSports, who will be televising Newcastle's away match to Wolves at 12:30 on Saturday.  Wolverhampton currently occupy 18th place so on paper (and probably in the SAM model) this should be a win, which of course means this will likely be another taut afternoon of viewing for the Magpie fans.  The chase pack sides have similarly winnable matches so the best I'm hoping for is maintenance of the status quo.

By and large, it's the same story in the EPL.  Other than Liverpool-Tottenham (Saturday's 12:30 match on NBC), the top sides have what, on paper, look like winnable fixtures.  Chelsea travel to Burnley, a tough squad not to be taken lightly (8:30 Sunday), Man City are at Bournemouth (Monday at 3), Arsenal host Hull in the early Saturday match and Man United take on Watford at Old Trafford.  The latter match is another one of those where the Red Devils have arguably been leaving two points on the table.  Who knows what to expect from the feature match?  Will this be the Liverpool that drew Chelsea or the one that lost to Hull and Swansea?  Spurs recent form is excellent but it did look like they missed Danny Rose (out until late February?) against Middlesbrough.

This week's Featured Relegation Match is clearly Swansea-Leicester in the second game on Sunday.  We remain big fans of these matches despite the turkey that Crystal Palace -Sunderland gave us last week.  Though NBCSN does have some bias towards Chelsea and the Manchester sides (when are those ever not televised, regardless of the opponent?), they also do a decent job of making sure we don't miss these other matches of consequence.  The other three relegation candidates (Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace and Sunderland) have games against mid-table sides that offer some, though probably small, chance to gain on the others.

Throw in track and field's Millrose Games (4-6 pm on NBC) and you've got a great weekend ahead.

Re-run

I have seen this movie before.  Team struggles in first half of season.  Team identifies positions that need to be shored up.  Team finds targets to fill those holes in the January transfer window.  Team is unable to complete any deals.  Team gets relegated.  The only thing different this year is the last step is: team doesn't get promoted.

Though the onfield results were bad enough, the most distressing part of this week for Newcastle was that they didn't add a creative midfielder to back up Shelvey or a winger.  Wait, the distressing part is that the failure to complete a deal may have been owner Mike Ashley's unwillingness to spend money in January.  If Ashley is reasserting control, then the near-term prospects for Newcastle are terrible.  Benitez will leave and even if the Magpies are promoted this year,their stay in the Premier League will be short.  As of Friday the situation remains tense but no dramatic actions.  Two key points from Rafa's press conference:

• On his future: “I will not quit, I will not leave. I am ready to fight. It’s so simple, so clear.”
• But there is a warning there - very thinly veiled - for Ashley and the hierarchy. “This club has made mistakes in the past. We can’t make them again. Fans want promotion, the club can’t make same mistakes again,” he said.

As if the games this week weren't bad enough.  Saturday saw a wretched effort against League One Oxford United and the 0-3 FA Cup defeat was well deserved.  Meh, better to focus on promotion, especially given that all the other top contenders in the Championship division, except Huddersfield, were already out or went down on Saturday.   Wednesday's draw with QPR in league play at St. James' Park is a different matter.   The manner of the non-win - QPR leveling things via an own-goal courtesy of Ciaran Clark in the 90th minute - is frustrating but the truth is that a draw was probably a fair result, at least based on the accounts I was following.  Against the 18th place team at home, this is just not good enough.  This quote from bbc live account of the game sums it up well:

Lets be frank. The end of that Newcastle-QPR match was the stuff of nightmares for anyone that has anything to do with Newcastle United.

I wish people would stop taking promotion for granted.  The only slice of good news was that despite dropping two points to every club in the chase pack, they actually picked up one on Brighton, who were 1-3 losers to Huddersfield.  Newcastle start the weekend one point behind the Seagulls and four up on Reading and Huddersfield with a game in hand.


More FA Cupsets

At some point we'll have to start calling them piranhas, not minnows.  Both National League (5th division) sides won, beating top rating Championship division teams in the process.  Sutton, on its home artificial turf, thoroughly outplayed Leeds while Lincoln City put a home hurting on Brighton.  League One teams were 2-0-1 as Millwall upset Watford 1-0 in addition to the aforementioned Oxford win over Newcastle.

The top two divisions?  Premier League sides were 7-1-5 and Championship squads were 4-1-6.  The match of the weekend was clearly Tottenham-Wycombe. If you were able to watch on Fox Soccer Plus or FoxSoccer2Go, good for you;  I did get to see the last few minutes.  Spurs spotted the Wanderers a 2-0 first half lead but goals from Son and Janssen evened things up.  Surprisingly, Wycombe then retook the lead in the 83rd minute but Dele got it right back in the 89th.  Tottenham were facing an annoying replay at Wycombe but Son got the game-winner in the dying seconds. We'll make it this week's YouTubeableMoment; this video also captures the agony of defeat experienced by the Wycombe players.

Also highly entertaining, unless you are a Liverpool fan, was Wolverhampton's 2-1 win at Anfield. Not a good week for the Reds who lost in league play, the League Cup and the FA Cup.


Meanwhile, A Continent Away

The Africa Cup of Nations continued to offer mixed fare.  Basically, about one of every four matches I've seen has been interesting.  My favorite watch so far was Ghana's 2-1 win over Dr. DR Congo.  Even at 0-0, the play had been up and down the field with some good scoring chances.  Jordan Ayew's marvelous strike at 63 minutes for Ghana was matched five minutes later by Paul-Jose M'Poku.  A deserved PK was buried by Andre Ayew (Jordan's brother) and Ghana advanced to the semis.

But by-and-large, the matches, though feisty enough, have lacked quality in the final third.  Of course, just as I was making that point to Laura in the Egypt-Burkina Faso semi, there were two marvelous finishes minutes apart.  But that had been after an hour of less than scintillating football, and after the two goals, everything shut down all the way through 30 minutes of extra time.  Egypt ended up winning on PKs from the spot.  The other semi, Ghana-Cameroon, wasn't any better, with the first Cameroon tally coming off some poor communication in the box and the second on a breakaway late with Ghana pushed forward.  Maybe the defenses are that good - that's what we always say at Monday Night Basketball when we're having trouble scoring.


Stirrings From the Relegation Zone

Liverpool's Mignolet stops Costa PK to preserve 1-1 draw

So the bottom six clubs got more points from the midweek matches than the top six.  Of the relegation group, only Leicester failed to get a result.  Word of advice to the fans of the Foxes - don't listen to that crap about "too good to go down."  We heard that about Newcastle and look where they are.  Of the top six, only Man City could manage a win  (3-0 over West Ham).  Tottenham and Man United will certainly feel they left two points on the table with draws against Sunderland and Hull City.  Arsenal lost - at home - to Watford.  Liverpool-Chelsea did not disappoint as the marquee match of the day; the biggest moment may have been Mignolet's PK save on Costa in the 76th minute.  Swansea got a second straight league win (over Southampton) but Crystal Palace's 2-0 road (!) defeat of Bournemouth meant the Swans didn't create any space between them and the relegation zone.

Heading into the weekend Chelsea have a nine point cushion on the pack while Tottenham (47), Arsenal (47), Liverpool (46) and Man City (46) are packed together and Man United are struggling to keep contact at 42 points.  Saw some debate on NBCSN about whether Man United are better than last year and it was a split decision.  After 23 matches last year they were 5th instead of 6th but had only 37 points versus 42 this year.  They do seem more capable of getting a result even when they are not at their best, but they do seem to be "not at their best" a lot.


Union Sign Onyewu

Earnie Stewart, continuing to rummage through the bargain bin for deals, has signed former USMNT center defender Oguchi Onyewu.  The positives?  He's big, experienced, provides some depth and maybe some mentoring.  The negatives?  He's not particularly fast and he hasn't played professionally since 2015.  I'm okay with this because between Tribbett's inconsistency and Yaro's injuries, Onyewu looks like a inexpensive way to add some depth.

Jeff H sends along this analysis that suggests the Union had one of the best January transfer windows, not just in the MLS but in all of football.  Money quote:

he seems to have made all of those moves at little or no expense, quickly turning the Union into one of the stronger squads in Major League Soccer — or at least one of the most exciting ones.

For me, this is about whether Stewart's gambles work out.  On the face of them, none of the moves would seem to transform the Union from a marginal playoff side to a contender but looking below the surface, there could be some surprise upside potential.  The dark cloud side of this is that while the moves didn't cost very much, if they don't work out, we're still a marginal playoff side.


Quick Chester Update

So as not to offend Michael B, I'll keep this brief.  The Blues went down the League Cup semi to Wolves; still getting an earful from the fans about that.  But in league play, we've opened up a four point lead on Tottenham with two games in hand.  Hah, take that Michael.


Super Weekend

Good stuff in the Championship Division that you won't be able to watch because beIN Sports doesn't seem to be able to sort out the important matches.  Instead of seeing Newcastle-Derby and Huddersfield-Leeds, we get Wigan-Sheffield Wednesday Friday and Nottingham Forest-Aston Villa Saturday.  Brighton are on the road to Brentford and Reading to Ipswich.

EPL has some better looking TV options.  Start at 7:30 Saturday morning (NBCSN) with Chelsea-Arsenal.  Even Michael B may be forced to root for the Gunners here as Chelsea's lead could get out of hand with a win.  The 10 am NBCSN match is Hull hosting Liverpool (critical for the Reds to get all three here) but I may opt for the smell of relegation flop sweat and check in on Crystal Palace hosting Sunderland on CNBC.  NBC feature match is Spurs-Middlesbrough at 12:30; simply no room for Spurs to come away with less than three.

Sunday is Manchester day with City hosting Swansea at 8:30 and United traveling to Leicester at 11.

Also Sunday has the AFCON final between Egypt and Cameroon - 2 pm on beIN Sports (I think).

I'll bet no one has ever said about soccer, I only watch the game to check out the commercials and eat chili. Just sayin'