Football for the Holidays

So many matches over so many days!  For most teams this means four games in 12 days.  Even more challenging is that most will have a nasty two-day turnaround between Boxing Day (Thursday 12/26) and Saturday 12/28.

The first set of matches is this Saturday and Sunday.  And we must say, an inviting set of fixtures it is.  Two we'll be focusing on are Man City - Leicester (12:30 Saturday on NBC) and Tottenham - Chelsea (11:30 Sunday on NBCSN).  Leicester have generally done well in the big tests to its status as a top six club but this is a tough assignment.  And Spurs, for all their farting around so far, could move into 4th place with a home win against a decidedly erratic Chelsea squad.

Speaking of erratic, the weekend kicks off at 7:30 Saturday with an up-and-down Arsenal traveling to face Everton.  The Toffees looked to have agreed in principle to bring in Carlo Ancelotti as their permanent manager but that might not be a done deal by Saturday.  Duncan Ferguson has a win and a draw in his role as caretaker manager.

Five matches in the 10 am slot and I think the schedulers picked the wrong one for TV.  I like Wolves as much as anybody but their match with Norwich seems the least interesting of the five on offer.  My attention will be with Newcastle hosting Crystal Palace and that's not a bad choice for a neutral.  But you could also do Brighton - Sheffield United, Bournemouth - Burnley or Aston Villa - Southampton; any of those could be good viewing based on their places in the table.  Sometimes having NBC Gold is worth the price.  Sunday's warm-up match at 9 am is Watford hosting Man United.  Hard to see the Hornets halting the Red Devils' six game unbeaten streak.

Round Two runs Thursday and Friday after Christmas.  Nine matches are on Boxing Day and they save one for Friday.  For Boxing Day you could do up to four live matches spread out from 7:30 am to 3 pm.  As of this writing, the TV schedule was not on the EPL website.  Pretty sure you can count on TV for Tottenham-Brighton at 7:30, Man United - Newcastle at 12:30 and Leicester - Liverpool at 3 pm.  We'll be taking in Aston Villa - Norwich at 10 am here at 6911 as BFS co-founder Dennis will be in the house.  You might find one of the other five choices more interesting.  Friday is giant killer Wolves hosting Man City at 2:45.

Round Three is Saturday and Sunday 12/28-29.  That weekend's best looks to be a London derby featuring Chelsea vs Arsenal Sunday at 9 am.  I'll be interested in how Wolves fare taking on Liverpool just two days after facing Man City; that's at 11:30 on Sunday.  I'll definitely be in for Newcastle - Everton at 10. Again, TV schedule not up but pretty sure on Saturday you'll be able to see Brighton - Bournemouth (7:30), West Ham - Leicester (12:30) and Burnley - Man United (2:45).

Round Four is January 1-2.  Arsenal - Man United at 3 pm on New Year's Day looks pretty good. 

Newcastle's fixtures for the holidays include home to Crystal Palace, away at Man United, home for Everton and home to Leicester.  Despite three home matches, this could be a rather barren period.  Can hope for three maybe this weekend but the holiday haul could be as little as one point.  Ah well, best to remember the Magpies have more points to date than could have been expected.  Christmas is a time of giving.

Eyeballing other teams, I'm not seeing real obvious ball buster or patsy schedules. A notable exception is Aston Villa, who get Southampton, Norwich, Watford, and Burnley.  Those four are 18, 19, 20 and 12 in the table going into the weekend.  I believe the expression is make hay while the sun shines.


Results, or Lack Thereof

Newcastle's Dwight Gayle misses golden opportunity to
level the match with Burnley

First time this season that the result might be considered "unfair" to Newcastle.  Looked to me like the teams were even despite the 1-0 scoreline in favor of Burnley.  Stats at 538 support that view.  The Magpies were definitely undermanned as Shelvey, Saint-Maximin and Almiron were all sidelined due to injury.  Frankly I was surprised that Newcastle made it a close match without those guys.  They were forced into a more direct, Route One, approach without the dribble possession usually offered by Saint-Maximin and Almiron.  Though those two are short on goals and assists, their value to the team was pretty apparent in their absence. 

Elsewhere, we pat ourselves on the back for suggesting Wolves - Spurs was the match to watch.  Just an awesome display of attacking football with both sides getting their chances.  The Molineux crowd was certainly into the game.  Looked like a draw was in the offing before Vertonghen slipped in the game winner in stoppage time.  We'll do a two-part YouTubeableMoment using some fan cam shots.  Here's Traore goal that leveled the match at 1-1.  Part two is Vertonghen's goal.  Love the reactions.

We did need some quality after Saturday's action, though some of it did have drama in one form or another, if only in that the scores were close.  Liverpool took forever to put Watford away in a sleepy 2-0 win.  Hopefully you skipped Burnley - Newcastle as we recommended; that was a snooze.  I watched Crystal Palace play totally disinterested football for 70 minutes against Brighton; after Zaha's goal the Eagles looked poised to steal all three points but the final was 1-1.  Chelsea paid dearly for not putting Bournemouth away earlier as the Cherries sneaked home with a 1-0 win thanks to a stoppage time goal from Dan Gosling.  The goal had initially been waved off for offside but VAR showed it was legit.  Nice flick from Gosling, which you can see here; they don't show the VAR part but my take was he was clearly onside and the goal was correctly allowed.  Leicester dropped two points at home to Norwich, managing only a 1-1 draw.

The "Manager Sack Race" special between Southampton and West Ham was exciting enough, if not high quality.  Somewhat surprised that Hasenhuttl survived the 0-1 loss at home to the Hammers.  Not sure he'll be quite as lucky if Southampton fall to Aston Villa this weekend.  Didn't see the 1-1 draw between Man United and Everton; a home draw couldn't have gone down well for the Red Devil supporters.  While I was watching Newcastle struggle, Dennis was doing the same with Aston Villa, taking in their 0-2 loss to Sheffield United.  And Man City made life uncomfortable for Arsenal, scoring early and often to take a 3-0 road win. 

So Liverpool go into the holidays with a huge 10 point bulge over Leicester, who can now likely hear the footsteps of Man City in third.  Chelsea cling to fourth, just three up on Spurs.  Incredibly, Newcastle are 11th, level on points with Arsenal!?  The bottom three are Southampton, Norwich and Watford; Aston Villa are ahead of Southampton on goal differential.  Let's see what the holiday fixture overdose does to the standings.


The Kids Were Alright (apologies to The Who)

Who's the running back?
  Liverpool reaches deep to field a team against Aston Villa

One suspected the day might be difficult for Liverpool in their quarterfinal Carabao Cup match with Aston Villa as a bunch of teenagers took the field sporting uniform numbers worthy of NFL interior line men (recall the A team was in Qatar for the World Club Cup tournament).  Actually they had the run of play for about 15 minutes.  Even as they were slowly falling behind, the Liverpool youngsters look the better side.  The 0-5 final is a tad harsh.  Aston Villa survived what was clearly a no-win situation for them and advance to the semis to take on Leicester, who beat Everton on PKs.  The other semi will be an extra Manchester Derby as City bested Oxford United 3-1 and United handled Colchester 3-0.  The semis will be two-legged affairs with matches on January 7th and January 28th-29th.  Dennis hopes that Leicester will be more focused on the title race and will also field a B squad for the semis.


Club World Cup

The minnows were not in the mood to be eaten by the sharks and provided some entertaining Club World Cup semi-finals.  The Saudi club Al-Hilal took a 1-0 lead into the halftime lockerroom and were still tied 1-1 late into the match against Brazil's Flamengo.    Alas, a 78th minute goal followed by an own goal minutes later put an end to that upset scenario.  Liverpool had nearly the same fate against Mexican side Monterrey.  The teams traded goals early (the Monterrey goal from Ramiro Funes Mori who you might remember from his days at Everton), then traded punches for the rest of the match.  Only Firmino's stoppage time goal saved us from extra time or PKs, which was a good thing because I had not set my DVR to allow that. 

Pre-tournament favorites Flamengo and Liverpool now meet in the final at 12:30 on Saturday; you can catch it at 5 pm on FS2.  DVR tip: since it is not a live event, you will not be prompted to add extra time so record the next show as well if you don't want to risk missing the whole thing. 

A financial note:  Top prize money for the Carabao Cup is £100,000 (for the team, not per man), while the Club World Cup winner gets £3.75 million.  I guess that explains the Liverpool's personnel decisions.



Don't expect to post next week.  We'll be back in two weeks with the exclusive BFS ratings for the EPL sides during the holidays.  In the meantime, celebrate the holiday of your choice by watching a football match or twelve.