Thursday Night Football?

If you make the top four in the EPL you play in Champions League on Tuesday or Wednesday nights.  Finish 5th or 6th and you get Europa League (the NIT of soccer) on Thursdays. Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal and Man United have recently been playing like they prefer the latter for some strange reason.

Arsenal are the worst offenders so far, as the Gunners' 0-3 loss to Leicester was their third straight defeat.  Man United haven't been much better.  The 1-1 draw with Chelsea was their only point in the last three matches.  Chelsea have managed two draws in the last three.  Tottenham are the only side with a win in the last three but blew a chance to punch their CL ticket with a 0-1 loss to West Ham.  For those of you keeping score at home, that means of 36 points on offer, the four sides have managed to garner six.  Spurs remain in the best position; in theory with their goal differential, draws in the final two matches get them in.  With a two point cushion over Arsenal, Chelsea control their own destiny; neither Watford at home or Leicester away would be considered a slam dunk at this point.  Arsenal and United basically need to win out and hope for stumbles elsewhere.  The Gunners host Brighton then travel to Burnley so that's not impossible.  United close at Huddersfield then home to Cardiff so that is likely too.  Could go down to the wire.

A quick note that Arsenal and Chelsea have a back up route to the Champions League via winning the Europa League.  Both begin their semi-final ties today.  If I read the rules correctly, should one of them win Europa and finish in the top four, that does not open up an additional CL spot for the 5th place side.

These are not radar maps of the two storm cells that delayed
action at the Penn Relays on Friday.

Liverpool and Man City held form so no changes at the top. Burnley bunkered in but City still managed to nick a 1-0 win. The heat map on the left shows how densely the Clarets packed their defense.  Liverpool made hash of Huddersfield in a 5-0 win.

Newcastle went to Brighton for a match that was of serious consequence mostly to Brighton, who remain in the relegation battle.  But the Magpies looked the much more interested side and took a 1-0 lead on another goal from Perez.  Brighton came out in the second half a bit more focused and did manage to level things.  But then they again seemed to dial everything back, like the single point was too precious to lose.  With Cardiff's loss to Fulham, maybe Chris Hughton figured the point was going to be enough; they are four points up on Cardiff. 


Disappointing Champions League

Spurs had an off night and missing Son didn't help.  Their crosses were either overcooked, straight to the keeper or easily cleared.  They were a bit lucky not to surrender more than one.  A 0-1 scoreline for the home leg is not great but they are still in this tie.  Not so much for Liverpool, who played well enough but were undone by the master, Lionel Messi.  Check out this week's YouTubeableMoment - multiple angles to appreciate how good it was.  Coming home to Anfield down 0-3 was probably not the plan for Liverpool.


The Ultimate In Sportsmanship

Leeds United played Aston Villa this weekend in the Championship Division.  Villa in 5th were assured a spot in the playoff for the third promotion spot while Leeds were in 3rd, assured of a playoff spot as well but also with an outside shot at 2nd place and the automatic promotion.  A Villa player went down with an injury and the Leeds players appeared ready to kick the ball out for a stoppage.  Except they didn't and went on to score.  This naturally inflamed the Villa players - to the point where one got a red card.  But Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa told his team to let Villa score from the ensuing kickoff.  Except his center back didn't get the memo and tried - unsuccessfully - to prevent the goal.  Glorious chaos which you can view here.

Union Spring

The Union grabbed four more points with a 1-1 draw in Vancouver and a 2-0 over Cincinnati at home.  That makes 17 points in the first 10 matches compared to just 11 at this point last year.  To be fair, they got two wins and a draw in the next three matches so they had 18 after 13.  So they sit in first place though note that Toronto actually have more points per game (and why have they only played seven matches to this point - an annoying point about MLS?).

Sure Vancouver are not great but for me any points garnered from matches played in the Pacific Time Zone feel like a bonus.  Plus they were missing Blake (injury), Fabian (injury) and Wagner (suspension).  But Freese looked fine as replacement for Blake and Mbaizo did well filling in for Wagner.  Last season's late acquisition - Kacper Przybylko (pronounced smith KATS-pehr Shuh-BILL-koh) - got the start and his first goal.

Check out defender's back leg - no offside

It used to be that we would think it's only a matter of time until the Union surrendered a goal.  Now we are thinking it's only a matter of time before we score.  Such was the case on Wednesday at home versus Cincinnati.  Good possession in the first half but just 2 shots on goal.  Second half they were peppering the Cincinnati keeper.  Finally at 63 minutes, Smith Przybylko deposited Mbaizo's beautiful cross into the old onion bag.  Note to Cincinnati fans - he was not offside.  Ilsinho helped add to the lead with a very deft outside of the foot pass to set up Picault, who did well on the finish to get his first goal of the season.  So instead of spending the summer making up for a terrible spring, the Union have something to build on as opposed to chase.


Four Day Weekend

So we have matches Friday through Monday plus Champions League on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Probably not too many will be following Everton-Burnley on Friday at 3 pm but you never know.  But seven of the 10 weekend matches do matter in one way or another.

Early Saturday match is the chance for Tottenham to clinch CL spot on the road against Bournemouth.  Just two 10 am matches - the other two without notable implications.  Cardiff host Crystal Palace for the 12:30 NBC match, fighting for survival.  Newcastle host Liverpool in a special 2:45 match on NBCSN.

Sunday brings three more important contests.  At 9 am we have Chelsea-Watford (CNBC) and Huddersfield - Man United (NBCSN).  At 11:30 NBCSN will have Arsenal - Brighton.  Monday rounds out the schedule with Man City - Leicester at 3 pm on NBCSN.  No room for error for any of the favorites in those matches.

The Union will try to keep things moving with a 7:30 home match on Saturday night against New England.  Don't want to get cocky here but the Revolution do sit at the bottom of the table.

Don't forget CL matches on Tuesday and Wednesday as Liverpool and Tottenham try to dig out out first leg messes.