Paddle Found?

Another week of confounding results in the EPL and the Union once again limp to the end of the regular season.


Not As Far Up the Creek As We Thought?

Twice now, Newcastle have gone into matches in terrible form against seemingly more formidable opponents and come away with 1-0 wins. First it was Tottenham, Sunday it was Man United.  That both of those clubs are struggling maybe should be no surprise.  Maybe they are up the same creek as Newcastle.

Dream PL debut for Matty Longstaff (PA Media)

And it was not an undeserved three points.  Arguably the Magpies had the run of play.  Except for Maguire's missed header, Man United didn't threaten all that much.  Neither did the Magpies but at least 19 year-old Matty Longstaff didn't miss his big chance - an easy choice for this week's YouTubeableMoment.

Could the Magpies actually be ahead of expected points through eight matches?  Maybe.  The way they've been collected makes it seem worse.  At best we could have planned on wins versus Norwich, Brighton and Watford and Norwich on the road might have been forecast as a draw.  Hard to expect any points from Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool, Leicester and Man United.  So somewhere between seven and nine points was our likely total and here we sit with eight.  Disappointing draws to Watford and Brighton, plus the debacle at Leicester have been overcome by surprise wins over Tottenham and Man United.


Keeper Follies

I hadn't planned on it being a regular feature but again this weekend, several keepers did not distinguish themselves.

1. Hugo Lloris possibly surpasses last week's performance with this gaffe.  Adding injury to insult, he's out with a dislocated elbow until January.  That goal was the start of a bad awful day for Spurs, as they put up an 0-3 stinker at Brighton.  There was nothing unlucky about this either, they were just plain bad.

2. If you're going to mess up, best to do it when you're leading 5-0.  Check out this incident late in Aston Villa's 5-1 thrashing of Norwich.  We do have to give partial credit to Tyrone Mings' ill-advised back pass but Neal Heaton didn't handle it all that well.  BTW, during this blow-out, Dennis says he only got comfortable when the score reached 4-0.

3. Maybe a little harsh but shouldn't Adrian have been able to stop this shot?  The goal by Maddison leveled things between Liverpool and Leicester at 1-1 late.  But a rash challenge by Albrighton in the box in stoppage time set up James Milner for the PK that gave Liverpool a 2-1 win.  A much anticipated match that more than satisfied.

4. Also maybe on the harsh side but looks like Guaita could have done better here.  No matter.  His Crystal Palace side rallied to get a 2-1 win at West Ham and move into 6th place.


Happy Learned How to Putt. Uh Oh.

If Traore can finish like this, look out (Getty)

So the knock on Adama Traore has always been that he's a marvelous athlete, lightning fast, but lacking in finishing skills.  On Sunday, he put away two goals late with confident finishing to sink Man City in their home park.  We couldn't help but think of the scene from Happy Gilmore in which Happy, who could hit the ball a mile but couldn't putt for sh**, can now putt.  Last year's giant killers look to have found their form.  Wolves absorbed  a lot of pressure until Traore broke free and calmly deposited the ball in the goal in the 80th minute. 

Everton's rocky campaign sputters on as they had Seamus Coleman sent off for a second yellow at 56 minutes and saw Burnley get the game winner at 72 minutes.  Sure it's only eight weeks in but there are the Toffees, sitting in the relegation zone.  After this weekend, I guess it's no surprise that the top three managers in the sack race are Marco Silva (5/4), Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (2/1) and Mauricio Pochettino (5/1).  Wow, Steve Bruce isn't even top four anymore.

Arsenal handled Bournemouth 1-0 and have quietly worked their way back to 3rd.  Likewise, Chelsea hammered Southampton 4-1 and sit in 5th, equal on points with Leicester.  So, it's not like things are totally out of whack but it has been an interesting season so far.


Union Shorthanded

The Union faced NYCFC without shuhBILLkoh (hurt his foot in warmups) and Santos so it wasn't exactly our most explosive line up of the season.  For about 70 minutes they stumbled around and trailed 0-2 on a massive defensive breakdown and an unlikely ricochet (set up by a giveaway at midfield).  They did rally some in the final 20 and did pull back a goal on a PK that was generated by invigorated offensive pressure.  But in the end it was still a 1-2 loss, their second in a row.  Worse, they seem to be adrift at exactly the wrong time.

Jim Curtin is taking heat in the comments sections again and that seems short-sighted to me.  They were not great in Columbus but that was their third road game in eight days.  For NYCFC (second best team in the league) he's already down a scorer with Santos out and he loses shuhBILLkoh in warmups - exactly what is he supposed to do?  People are already forgetting he made some bold line up moves at other points in the season.  They finished with the fifth best record in the league.  Shut up already.  Further evidence that the comments sections of every blog except this one are the seamy underbelly of the world.


MLS playoff Preview

So the playoffs are here.  You can get an explanation of the format here.  Note that it's all single matches now, no home and home series.  I believe the logic here was to give an advantage to teams with the better regular season record. The Union are strong favorites to beat the Red Bulls at home.  Maybe, but this will be a tough match.  Probably better than getting Toronto or New England. 


A Reunion of Sorts

Two legends of the game meet for the first time

BFS Scandanavian correspondent Philip S was in Portugal and met up with another of the game's greats.  My understanding is that Philip did all the talking.



More International Break

So the club scene takes a break for some international stuff.  Plenty of European Championship qualifiers, some you can actually see on ESPN or one of its 17 spin-offs.  Netherlands - Northern Ireland was a great match yesterday with the Dutch storming back from 0-1 to take a 3-1 lead with three goals after 80 minutes, including two in stoppage time. 

The USMNT is back in action with some semi-meaningful matches.  Welcome to the Concacaf Nations League. This is a similar competition to the European Nations League which is designed to replace friendlies with something that has at least some consequences.  Results in the Nations League will determine the 16 teams that qualify for the 2021 Concacaf Gold Cup.  It also provides for additional matches for the weaker teams in the federation, who always have trouble scheduling friendlies.  The US has matches vs Cuba (Friday at 7 pm on FS1) and Canada (Tuesday at 7:30 on ESPN2).  Yeah, it's sort of a made-up competition but it still beats friendlies.