A Slow Week?

Only a few things to review but a lot coming up with weekend and mid-week matches.  Spirits Tyneside could be much improved by Tuesday night.  Or not.


FA Cup

A flattering picture of Newport County's pitch;
 I didn't remember that much grass

Not much memorable in the 5th round matches.   I did catch AFC Wimbledon lose 0-1 to Millwall in front of an enthusiastic 4,795 fans. Biggest thing I saw was League Two Newport County hold Man City scoreless until 50:32 on a pitch that made the Water Tower field look like a paradise.  That was the first time the Citizens hadn't scored in the first half since being shut out by Chelsea back on December 8.  Back when Chelsea seemed like they might be good.  The Blues exited the FA Cup looking mostly disinterested or maybe disoriented in a 0-2 loss to Man United.  Reports of Maurizio Sarri's departure are rampant.  This article goes as far as identifying potential replacements.  If he does get sacked, the obvious headline should be "Sorry, Not Sarri."  You heard it here first.

The quarterfinals are set and tournament officials are probably breathing a deep sigh of relief that the draw did not end up with Man City facing Man United.  Complete match ups can be found here.  I guess my rooting interests now shift to Crystal Palace, who are enjoying a deep run in the Cup despite a less than stellar season in the EPL.


Fourth Most Important Competition Final on Sunday

Ranking a distant fourth behind the EPL, the Champions League and the FA Cup title is the League Cup, commercially known as the Carabao Cup.  In Football Manager, the board of my Chester Blues has set these objectives for my team:

EPL - challenge for title
Champions League - reach semi-final
FA Cup - reach final
League Cup - not high on our list of priorities

Not much different in real life. The final is this Sunday at 11:30 between Man City and Chelsea.  Consistent with the step-sister treatment of this tournament, the only place you can see it in the US is on ESPN+.  I will be very interested to see the squads that each team fields for this championship.  Chelsea have a critical match with Tottenham on Wednesday and Man City will have to deal with West Ham.  Not saying I won't watch but going in with low expectations.


Speaking of Chester

Between too many other activities, in cyber time I'm about a month behind.  The team is doing okay but we have had issues.  We sit second in the table, five behind Liverpool but with two games in hand.  We're into the knockout round in Champions League, just got a fourth round win in the FA Cup and have made it to the League Cup final.  Sounds good enough but we can struggle.  Spending much of the time figuring out how to deal with match congestion; more than once we've had four matches in the space of 10 days.  I thought we improved our depth in the off season but it may be that with so many players, we're not gelling as a squad.  Could be worse but could be better.


Champions League

So that Michael B doesn't give me crap for writing about Chester but not Champions League, I note that Atletico posted a convincing 2-0 home win against Juventus in their first leg knockout match.   The Man City Schalke match might have been a good one too with the Citizens scoring a stoppage time goal, down a man, to take a 3-2 road win.  Tuesday's enticing matches ended up as 0-0 draws  involving Liverpool-Bayern and Lyon-Barcelona; I believe I was caught napping during the second half of the Liverpool contest.


A Critical Four Days

Newcastle are staring six big points right in the face.   The Magpies have home matches with Huddersfield and Burnley on Saturday and Tuesday.  This is a big chance to put the relegation zone farther back in the rear view mirror.  And for some reason, the schedulers have decided that both should be on TV - Saturday at 10 am on Tuesday at 3 pm, both on NBCSN.

Feature match of the bunch is Man United hosting Liverpool on Sunday at 9:05 on NBCSN.  Spurs at Chelsea on Wednesday at 3 pm (NBCSN) is probably worth a look too.

The rest of the TV schedule is "interesting."  Friday (probably too late by the time you read this) you can catch a London derby between West Ham and Fulham at 2:45 (NBCSN).  Saturday's early game is Burnley-Tottenham.  Magpie fans will be Spurs fans for that one.  The Saturday NBC match is Crystal Palace away to Leicester; that might not be too bad.  There's a relegation special between Southampton and Fulham on Wednesday.  The weekend's matches are nicely spread out over three days and different starting times.  The midweek stuff is crammed into two days with similar starting times; makes it harder to see multiple contests.  Hashtag First World Problems.

Close to Worst Case Scenario

Despite results that conspired to leave Newcastle perilously close to the drop zone, the football has been pretty good the last few days.  We'll start with the Newcastle mini-disaster train then move on to happier things.


Best Team in EPL Through 90 Minutes?

Probably not but we have coughed up a bunch of points in stoppage time.  This time Newcastle snatched a draw from the jaws of victory on basically the last play of the match.  Was I ticked off?  Surprisingly no where near as much as you might expect.  First, as I said last week, a draw on the road to Wolves would be a good result so 1-1 was okay.  Yeah, but you coulda had a win.  The four minutes of stoppage time had been played and Dubravka was fouled on the goal.  Where's your outrage man? Here's the play.

On the stoppage time point, I had expected four minutes to go up on the board so I don't think that was excessive.  Benitez made a sub after 90 minutes so that should have added at least another 30 seconds. Wolves were clearly attacking and Traore's cross went into the box at about 94:32.  Hard to see the ref blowing the whistle without allowing that play to, well, play out.

Upon further review, the ruling on the field was wrong

As for the foul on Dubravka, initially I thought the play was okay.  But this picture with Boly's hand in Dubravka's face makes me think otherwise.  Still, remember that Yedlin got away with a clear shirt pull in the box in the first half?  We got lucky on that one.  More generally, Wolves had more and better chances.  The Newcastle goal was on keeper error.  Metrics at 538 back me up here.  In many ways, Newcastle were lucky to come away with a draw.  BTW Dubravka took a lot sh..tuff for that play; should go a little easier on him given the facial wash he was getting from Boly but he would have been better served punching that ball anyway. On a positive note, the 20 or so minutes we saw from Almiron looked promising.  Though his role at that point in the game was more about possession than scoring, he looks lively, quick and skilled.  He will probably draw a lot of fouls; alas, he might flop a bit too.  In sum, we got an unexpected point and have added some attacking power.  The glass is one-quarter full.


Making the Case for VAR

I've made no secret that I support the EPL plan to implement VAR next year.  Touring around this week's results only reinforces that position.

The most obvious (glaring?) example came in the Brighton - Burnley contest.  With Brighton down 0-2, Burnley defender Jeff Hendrick looked to have deliberately handled the ball in the box.  There was no call and the clearance went directly to a Burnley attacker who might or might not have been offside.  He went directly onto goal but was fouled by the Brighton keeper before he could get a shot off.  That PK was awarded and converted so instead of a PK to make the score 1-2, Brighton found themselves down 0-3.  Though the Seagulls scored two minutes later, the deficit was just too great at that point and the match ended 1-3.  Fast forward to about 2:32 in this video to see the incident; the attacker was in his half of the field so no offside but IMHO VAR would have overruled the decision on non-handling.

Overall a great match that one.  Yeah, I remember that I said it was a weird choice for the 12:30 feature match.  Attacking football from both sides with many excellent scoring chances.  I hadn't realized that Joe Hart had been demoted to Burnley's #2 keeper.  Ouch.  His replacement - Neal Heaton -  came up big at least three times and was a major reason Burnley left the coast with all three points.

Exhibit B is Tottenham's 3-1 win over Leicester.  Also a great watch by the way; truly fun viewing.  That aside, in the first half,  Michael Oliver booked Son for simulation; on the replay it looked to me like there was clear contact by Maguire (?) and the correct call should have been a PK for Tottenham.  There were also suspicions of offside on a Tottenham goal and possible handling in the set up of another.  Oliver probably got those right but they were close.  Other thoughts from that match include a question as to whether problems between manager Claude Puel and Jamie Vardy led to the striker's benching for the match.  He came on as a sub and his first touch was to take a PK, not a very good one that Lloris saved.  Also realized that Shinji Okazaki, Leicester's irrepressibly happy forward, is what Matt Kuchar would be if he was a 5'9" Japanese footballer instead of a 6'4" American golfer. 

Exhibit C is Liverpool - Bournemouth.  I confess that I sped through the DVR of Liverpool's 3-0 win.  But I saw enough to note that the Reds get another goal that probably would not have withstood VAR review for offside.  Not quite as bad as Monday's non-call on Milner and Liverpool added two more so it was not quite as critical a call.


Take the Points 

The match that I did think worthy of so much attention was a bust.  I had fully expected that Chelsea could keep the margin under a field goal against Man City but not even close.  The Citizens had a 4-0 lead by the 25th minute as they buried Chelsea 6-0.  Despite the blowout, if I were Pep I'd be very concerned about this trend:

                                          Time to First

Date      Opponent      MCI Goal
1/29       Newcastle       :25
2/3         Arsenal           :46
2/6         Everton       46:09
2/10       Chelsea         3:26

Not forgetting you Jeff H.  Man United was not pressed at all handling Fulham at Craven Cottage easily for a 3-0 win.  Arsenal were also comfortable winners over Huddersfield.  Both sides pass Chelsea in the race for top four.


Relegation Special

The most dramatic match of the weekend was clearly Southampton vs Cardiff City.   Those who eschewed the TV matches and hunted this one down were rewarded.  Not so much with great football but with tense match that featured a crazy ending.  Cardiff carried a 1-0 lead late into the match with Southampton creating chance after chance that they couldn't convert.  Finally, in the 91st minute they got the equalizer on a corner and looked set to rescue a point.  But Cardiff put in a second one in the 96th minute.  Things are so tight at the bottom that the late goal briefly catapulted Cardiff out of the bottom three and into 15th while dropping Southampton to 18th.  Later results for Burnley and Newcastle sent them back to 17th but still out of the bottom three.


Unlucky or Ungood

During the Southampton Cardiff match, as the Saints were squandering chance after chance, Dennis and I wondered if missing three in a row is bad luck or bad football.  Well, the EPL website does have a stat called Big Chances Missed (haven't found a definition yet).  We also know goals scored, though of course, not every goal comes from a big chance.  But we can take the two and at least get a rough idea using Goals/(Goals plus Big Chances Missed).  The table is provided below.

	Big
	Chances	Goals	Conversion
	Missed	Scored	Rate
Brighton and Hove Albion	17	28	62.22%
Manchester City	47	74	61.16%
Arsenal	35	53	60.23%
Liverpool	39	59	60.20%
Tottenham Hotspur	37	54	59.34%
Manchester United	36	52	59.09%
Cardiff City	17	24	58.54%
West Ham United	27	32	54.24%
Burnley	26	29	52.73%
Newcastle United	20	22	52.38%
Wolverhampton Wanderers	31	34	52.31%
Chelsea	42	45	51.72%
Everton	34	36	51.43%
AFC Bournemouth	35	37	51.39%
Huddersfield Town	14	14	50.00%
Crystal Palace	28	27	49.09%
Leicester City	34	31	47.69%
Southampton	32	28	46.67%
Fulham	31	25	44.64%
Watford	44	34	43.59%

Also, the league average is 54%, as in one out of every two good chances turns into a goal.  So on average, the probability that a team misses three good chances in a row is about 10%.  So then I ran a correlation on points in the table with conversion rate and got about 60%, which suggests at least some relation between a good conversion rate and success in the league.  The bigger news is that the correlation between total chances (Big Chances Missed + Goals) is about 94%, which seems staggering.  Continuing down the rabbit hole, the correlation between Big Chances Missed and points in the table is 75%. I'll be sending the spreadsheet over to BFS Director of Operations Research Dennis F for further study.


Champions League

Huge night Wednesday for Spurs as they took on Ballspielverein Borussia 09 c.V. Dortmund (simply Dortmund to their friends) at Wembley.  Tentative first half but Son got things going off this beautiful cross from Vertonghen; we'll make it this week's YouTubeableMoment.  Vertonghen (and when did he become an offensive force?) got one for himself and Llorente added a third late.  They'll be quite happy to take the 3-0 lead to Germany.  Not as happy a picture for Man United as they went down 0-2 to PSG and will now miss Pogba due to red card suspension in the return match in Paris.  First time losing under Ole Gunnar.  This week Liverpool host Bayern on Tuesday (TNT 3 pm) while Man City take on Schalke on Wednesday.  Michael B will give me sh..stuff about being parochial if I don't also mention Atleti hosting Juventus on Wednesday (also TNT at 3 pm).


The Training in Spain

This weekend is 5th round FA Cup so you know where Newcastle will be.  That's right, doing some warm weather training in Spain.  Unfortunately you'll need ESPN+ to catch any of this weekend's matches.  The full schedule is here.  Mostly scheduled sequentially so you can catch them all.  The feature match of the set is clearly Chelsea Man United Monday at 2:30.

"The Son Was In My Eyes"

Son lets go the winner; note Newcastle once again in
University of Pennsylvania kit

Newcastle keeper Martin Dubravka did not offer that up as an excuse but any way you look at it, he should have been able to stop Heung-Min Son's shot.  So 82 minutes of resolute defending went out the window and the Magpies lost 0-1 to Spurs.  True enough, Tottenham missed some golden opportunities, hit the post once and were denied a goal with a brilliant clearance off the line by Schar.  But Newcastle, despite a mostly defensive posture, managed some decent attacks of their own and were also denied by the post.  Really can't get too upset at either Dubravka, who has mostly been more than dependable, or the result.  It's just that they seemed so close to walking out of Wembley with a point.  Will be interesting now to see how much the style of play will change with the introduction of Almiron.  We can only hope that the Magpies offense will consist of more than the occasional counterattack.


A Paws in the Action

Yes, even BFS is resorting to cat videos.  Shortly after Wolves went up 3-1 over Everton, a black cat invaded the pitch.  The best part was that no one was willing to take on the invader so it had the run of the field for over two minutes. As I suggested, turns out, this might have been the most interesting match of the weekend.  The 3-1 win was purrfect for Wolves and while it was another disappointing result for Eveton, it wasn't a catastrophe.

All I remember of the Cardiff's 2-0 win over Bournemouth was being annoyed that a relegation foe was going to get three points.  Didn't see any of the other Saturday matches.  A 1-1 draw between Southampton and Burnley was probably a good thing for Newcastle.  Chelsea did in fact take a pound of flesh out of Huddersfield, easily winning 5-0; the Terriers are looking more doomed to relegation every week.

The Sunday games were better.  Leicester Man United was decent flowing football though there was just the one goal on a beautiful ball into the box from Pogba to Rashford.  Man City took just 46 seconds to get the jump on Arsenal, though some might say it was a rather pedestrian start given they only needed 25 seconds to score against Newcastle on Tuesday.  Koscielny got one back for Arsenal at 11 minutes but Aguero's hat trick was too much for the Gunners.  Man City's second goal is this week's YouTubeableMoment, so many fundamentally sound elements leading to Aguero's tap in.

Note that Man City's mid-week win over Everton means they are top of the table based on goal differential but have played one more match than Liverpool.  The contest was rescheduled because Man City and Chelsea will be playing in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday February 24th. 


Why Do You Even Do This?

Recall this was Ted Lasso's (Jason Sudakis as the short-tenured manager of Tottenham) reaction upon finding out that the EPL allowed ties but no playoffs.  I was reminded of that quote while reviewing the latest projections from 538, shown here. I draw your attention to the three rightmost columns in the table.  Note that there are six sides (Wolves, Watford, Leicester, Bournemouth, Everton, and West Ham) that all have less than a 1% chance of winning the league, qualifying for champions league, or being relegated.  Not exactly nothing to play for but pretty damn close.  I suppose there's a slim chance of Europa League qualification.  The prize money difference looks like no more than about $12 million between 7th and 12th.  Doesn't seem like it's a good thing that on February 8th, there is so little to play for.


FA Cup Replays

Alas, the last true minnow - Barnet of the 5th division - went out in the replay to Brentford.  Newport of League Two is still alive but face Man City in the next round.  Good luck with that.  I'll shift my allegiance to AFC Wimbledon (currently last in League One), who face Millwall.  Hats off to the loyal Don fans, who could easily choose to follow any of the other London franchises.  Sort of like rooting for a AA baseball franchise located in Mt. Airy instead of being a Phillies fan.


Union Looking to Sign Fabian

Not a Union transfer target

Union replacement for Dockal?

I realize that the MLS is generally limited to signing talent past their prime but I fail to see how signing a 73 year-old singer is going to help.  What?  Oh, that Fabian.  That makes a little more sense.  Though we still have the issue of talent past its prime.  Fabian does have pedigree but also some medical history.  Some are saying his failure to sign elsewhere was about money and not medical issues.  If that's true, this may be a good gamble for the Union.  Additional details here, apparently he's in town Friday for the medical exam.


This Week in U-12

Uh, we call that even after the first week in U-7

But ref, my fiancee's going to be really mad if I take it off

The otherwise decent 1-1 draw between West Ham and Liverpool offered two of this year's best U-12 Moments.  First we had the most incredible foul throw I can recall in EPL history.  Sadio Mane didn't just fail to keep both feet on the ground, he lifted his back leg just like a U-7 player in the first week of the season.

Then in stoppage time, Arthur Masuaku comes on for Felipe Anderson.  Except he's wearing a ring.  The fourth official points that out but Masuaku has trouble getting the ring off, eventually pulling it off with his teeth.  But the clincher for me was when Masuaku gives to his manager Pellegrino, who sticks it in his pocket.  A classic.  This is how I ended up with a collection of rings, necklaces and earrings.  I'd stuff them in my pocket but the players would never remember to ask for them back.


Schedule

Last week I meant to include the observation that any match week that begins with absolutely no chance of Newcastle ending the weekend in the relegation zone is a good one.  Probably safe this week too, although there's a chance with a big enough loss to Wolves, we could find ourselves in 18th again.

The weekend begins early with Fulham hosting Man United; I'd be inclined to sleep late, though I will say that the Red Devils rarely blow teams out of the water.  TV is offering two of the 10 am matches - Huddersfield vs Arsenal and Liverpool vs Bournemouth.  Neither of those sound real competitive.  I'll be more likely to use NBC Gold to check in on the relegation special between Southampton and Cardiff City; not saying it will be quality but could be compelling.   For the second straight week, the NBC game of the week is a head scratcher featuring Brighton (who appear to be ready to abandon the mid-table and fall into the relegation scrap) and Burnley (who are already in the scrap, sitting 17th, just two points above the drop line).

Sunday looks a little better with Tottenham-Leicester at 8:30 and Man City-Chelsea at 11.  Figure the home sides should be favored there, although Spurs have been leaving until late to take care of business so that could be a fun watch.  We would hope that Chelsea can keep the spread under a field goal and make it interesting.

Newcastle play Monday afternoon at Wolverhampton. We lost the reverse fixture in early December on a late goal after playing down a man for most of the second half.  Wolves are a good team, arguably the best outside the usual top six suspects.  Almiron may help, as will the return of some injured players but I'm not holding out much hope for a result here.  A draw would be more than satisfactory.

Heart-on-Sleeve Club

I forget who was doing Tuesday's game on NBC Gold but he said there is "no more heart-on-sleeve club than Newcastle."  And what a crazy ride the last week has been.

First, on Friday came the news that there is indeed a more dysfunctional organization than the US Government and that is Newcastle United.  Just as I was reporting that Newcastle were going to complete a January signing, that deal fell through but by 9:30 that evening the US Government was back in business.  Follow that up with a totally lifeless performance on Saturday morning against Watford.  The final was 0-2 but it was way worse than that.  Yeah, I know it's the FA Cup but Watford were an eminently beatable side and we just weren't even close.  Also yeah, that was a weak line up that Benitez sent out there but Watford sat many of their key players as well.

To paraphrase Will Rogers, I am not a fan of any organized football franchise.  I am a Newcastle fan.

Then on to Tuesday, where we were facing the prospect of a beat down at the hands of Manchester City, a squad that had scored something like 30 goals since last surrendering one.  Or something like that.  The point spread was greater than the Pats-Rams line.

But wait, what light through yonder window breaks?  It is the MLS, and Miguel Almiron is the sun.  Suddenly the acquisition of the Atlanta United star is back in high gear.  He's actually on a plane to Newcastle for a medical exam.  This could be happening!

Ah crap, first we have to deal with Man City but the mood is definitely improving.  Benitez puts our best line up out there and maybe we can keep the goal differential down.  Surrendering a goal in the first 25 seconds seems to put a major dent in that plan.  After that though, Newcastle keep things pretty tight and occasionally mount an attack of their own despite playing a 10-0-0 5-4-1 formation.  In the 66th minute, one of those attacks actually results in a goal, a scruffy looking finish from Rondon.  Well alrighty then, a point from this match would be awesome.  But wait, there's more.  In the 80th minute, Man City are penalized for pushing Longstaff in the box (happy Michael B?) and Matt Ritchie converts the PK (Barely? Luckily? It actually went under the keeper).  We'll make it this week's YouTubeableMoment.  And there it was a 2-1 upset win, three points from out of nowhere.

Reveling in the win, we just sat back and read the news accounts as the signing of Almiron actually went through.  Newcastle also ended up signing Antonio Barreca on loan from Monaco; though not on the seismic scale of Almiron's signing, this does address a glaring lack of depth on defensive left side.

There is hope on Tyneside.


Beware the Minnows

Some butchering of the form chart in the 4th Round FA Cup matches over the weekend.  Premier League sides came away with five wins, two draws and six defeats.  Championship Division and League One sides actually fared better, 4-4-2 and 2-2-2 respectively.  To be fair, there were four match ups with PL sides facing each other.  But in the five matches involving a PL side and a lower division team, the PL sides only got one win and two draws against two defeats.

Most fun match of the weekend was AFC Wimbledon (bottom of League One) taking the measure of West Ham United in front of a delirious crowd in southwest London.  I didn't see the match but 5th division Barnet kept their hopes alive with a 3-3 draw against Brentford.  Some of the more notable sides dispatched from the competition this weekend include Tottenham (0-2 loss to Crystal Palace), Arsenal (1-3 loss to Man United) and Everton (2-3 against Millwall).

Looking ahead to the 5th round, we see the "charm" of not seeding teams in this competition.

Fixtures set to take place the weekend of February 15-18.

Date	Match	TV?
Feb 15-18	Chelsea vs Man United	TBC
Feb 15-18	Middlesbrough or Newport County vs Man City	TBC
Feb 15-18	Bristol City vs Wolves or Shrewsbury Town	TBC
Feb 15-18	Doncaster Rovers vs Crystal Palace	TBC
Feb 15-18	Brighton or West Brom vs Derby County	TBC
Feb 15-18	QPR or Portsmouth vs Watford	TBC
Feb 15-18	Wimbledon vs Millwall	TBC
Feb 15-18	Swansea vs Barnet or Brentford	TBC

Kind of jumps right out at you doesn't it?  One of these matches is not like the others.  Arguably the 2nd and 3rd best teams - Chelsea and Man United - left in the tournament will face each other in the 5th round.  In a way I guess it is exciting that some of the lesser lights will go deep into the tournament.  On the other hand, doesn't it turn the whole thing into a novelty as opposed to a serious tournament.


Midweek Mayhem

Already told you about Man City going down.  Liverpool hosted Leicester in snow and could only manage a 1-1 draw.  Chelsea wish they could have been that lucky, losing 0-4 to Bournemouth.  Tottenham struggled mightily against Watford but managed to get the win with late goals by Son and Llorente.  Now we know why Spurs fans were rejoicing when South Korea got knocked out of the Asia Cup; Son would not have been available had his country advanced to the semis. Arsenal didn't exactly dismantle Cardiff City but did get a 2-1 win.  For drama though, we probably have to give the award to Man United.  Down 0-2 at home no less to Burnley, Pogba converted a PK in the 87th minute and noted goal scorer Victor Lindelof got the equalizer at 92 minutes.  Burnley were lucky that stoppage time was limited to just five minutes.


Did anyone else think that Deulofeu (left, bottom) looked like a Saturday Night Live Killer Bee (left, top) with that away kit and black tights?  I know they are the Hornets but maybe they're taking that too literally.




What Did Your Team Do in the January Window

Nice team by team summary of transfers in and out in this window is available here.  Aside from Chelsea adding Higuain and Arsenal getting Suarez (Denis, not Luis), can't say that the top six did all that much. 


Worst Dive Evah

Giving new meaning to the term "booked for simulation," we have this Randolph NJ man who dumps ice on the floor, then fakes a slip and fall.  Maybe Neymar could have helped him stage it a little better.


Schedule

Saturday morning finds me at a referee re-certification clinic so I'll can't take in the Spurs-Newcastle 7:30 am match live.  Nor any of the Saturday matches for that matter.  Not a huge loss looking at the fixture list.  Some great relegation matches in Burnley-Southampton and Crystal Palace - Fulham.  The 10 am TV match is Chelsea - Huddersfield; that could get ugly if Chelsea take out their frustrations on the Terriers.  The NBC feature match is a head-scratcher - Cardiff City hosting Bournemouth?  If I had the time, I might be inclined to check out Wolves at Everton.  Wolves are on track to put up one of the better finishes ever by a newly-promoted side; they won't hit top five ever but have a shot at the top 10 best (details here).

Sunday looks a bit more inviting with Leicester - Man United first, then Man City hosting Arsenal.  Monday completes the week with West Ham - Liverpool.

And barely a month until MLS starts.  I would be really happy if the Union could complete a signing of a #10 just like Newcastle just did.  Not holding my breath.