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.