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'