Plus C'est La Meme Chose

French for it appears that nothing much has changed since we last spoke.  Not entirely true but pretty close.


Transfer Doings on the Tyne

Two weeks ago Newcastle's only transfer signing was to make the Christian Atsu loan permanent.  A lot of water has flowed under the bridge or over the dam since then and for all that activity, there has been exactly one more completed deal.  Returning to the old pattern, the Magpies have added a Frenchman who's under 27 and cost less than $15m.  Meet Florian Lejeune.  This does appear to be a good signing and Newcastle did not overpay.  There are plenty of stories and rumors about Benitez being frustrated and/or ready to quit because of the slow progress in the transfer window.  There may be a little bit of fire behind the smoke if owner Mike Ashley is limiting Rafa to younger, cheaper players.  On the other hand, Benitez may just be frustrated that the market is way overpriced right now and though he knows he needs to add players, Rafa is not likely to grossly overvalue his targets.  Hopefully the Lejeune signing will silence some of this noise.

Not all EPL teams have had such a quiet summer so far.  Everton have done well, adding keeper Jordan Pickford from Sunderland, playmaker Davy Klaassen from Ajax (altogether class, it's pronounced  I - yaks) and defender Michael Keane from Burnley.  Bournemouth have also been busy, adding keeper Asmir Begovic from Chelsea, Jermain Defoe from Sunderland and Nathan Ake from Chelsea.  Man City have done more housecleaning than anything else, dropping Pablo Zabaleta (picked up by West Ham), Gael Clichy, Jesus Naves, Willy Caballero (who chose Chelsea over Newcastle, imagine that) and Bacary Sagna.  Decent players all but not surprising they are gone as Man City will be aiming higher this year.  They did add a high quality playmaker in Bernardo Silva.

On the managerial front, we have "new" faces in Mauricio Pellegrino at Southampton, Frank deBoer at Crystal Palace and Marco Silva at Watford.  A new manager at Southampton is like the swallows returning to Capistrano - a regular annual event.


Union Doing Okay

Six points from three matches while we were away for the Union.  Not too bad, though the wins came against two of the division's weaker sides - DC United and the Revolution.  Still, as a colleague once noted, you can only beat who you play.  Made sense at the time.  Even in the loss to the Red Bulls, they showed heart.  After being pushed around in the first half and looking totally vulnerable at the start of the second half, Derrick Jones got sent off.  We expected a slaughter at that point.  Instead, they played much better and even had a couple of great set piece opportunities to take the lead.  In the end though they surrendered two late goals but maybe they learned something in the process.

A common pose for CJ Sapong lately

C.J. Sapong is having a great season, not only with his own goal scoring but in creating opportunities for others.  Haris Medunjanin leads the team in assists and is providing leadership on the pitch.  Simple but effective pass here from Med to Alberg for a goal; the quality of the strike makes it this week's YouTubeableMoment.  Fafa Picault provides speed like we've not seen before, which means that the previously annoying habit of sending long balls forward that no one could get to is now a serious attacking option.

Yes, it's been much better of late but let's not get ahead of ourselves.  The team is still prone to lapses on defense and has depended on some excellent shot stopping from Andre Blake.  Even in the 3-0 win over New England, at 2-0 the Revolution hit the post and at 2-1 that match could have gone in any direction.  The Union now have three straight away - Sporting KC on Thursday, Montreal on 7/19 and Columbus on 7/22.  The latter two are really big as they are trying to get separation from Montreal below them and catch Columbus, who currently hold the last playoff spot.    As of today, the Union are three out of that spot with two games in hand.


Glorified Friendlies

Tried to get into the Confederations Cup but just couldn't.  Recall that this is essentially a tune up for the host country in preparation for next year's World Cup.  Not clear how much the players are into summer tournaments after a long club season, especially with WC qualifying matches to be played later this year.  I did see the first Mexico-Portugal match and it was decent but still didn't entice me to watch any others.  Feel free to give me crap for missing out on good stuff if there was.  Germany won.

The Gold Cup, which is the bi-annual CONCACAF championship, is a little more real - more on a par with the quadrennial European Championships, except the teams aren't as good.  But it does tend to stir national rivalries and the matches will have more bite (if less quality) than the Confederations Cup. You can get more details here on the tournament.  The winner of the tournament does get a chance to possibly play in the 2021 Confederations Cup but having just sort of trashed that competition, it doesn't sound like such a big prize.  But it would be good for the US to play in a tournament like that.


Chester

Slightly ahead in the virtual calendar as we are well into pre-season friendlies.  The board has ramped-up expectations for the club this year.  In addition to competing for the EPL title (which we've won the last two years), they want us in the Champions League quarter finals and the FA Cup semi finals.  So I'm diligently fine tuning the roster, adding some older players in hopes of getting the wins in the tournaments, which is much different than the week-to-week process of winning a league title.

TV

The Gold Cup will dominate the schedule for the next few weeks.  Fox and FXX will have the games.  Only 37 days to the start of the EPL season.