This and That

Decidedly mixed results for teams of interest to the blog.  Everything from blow-out wins to draws good and bad to close losses to blow-out losses.

Newcastle started well, attacking from the get-go so the early goal from Almiron was not undeserved.  We make it this week's YouTubeableMoment; the finishing was excellent but don't miss the first pass from Willems and the deft touch from Gayle to put it on Almiron's foot.  Things pretty much went downhill from there.  Wolves took just seven minutes to equalize on a corner.  Paul Dummett returning from a groin injury had already been substituted with a hamstring injury to the other leg.  Symmetrically, Gayle, returning from a hamstring problem, had to go off at 28 minutes with a groin injury.  This is not what I meant by turning the injury situation around.  Joelinton was hurting the whole time but held on until 79 minutes. More on injuries below.

The second half was not pretty.  The two sides racked up 25 fouls between them (12 for Magpies, 13 for Wolves) and Newcastle accumulated three yellow cards in the final 25 minutes.  Announcer Gary Taphouse called it a "scrappy stalemate."  And you know what?   That worked just fine for me because the last thing Newcastle needed was to get into a track meet with Wolves.  Adama Traore is one of my favorite players but not so much when he is running at a depleted Newcastle back line.  The 1-1 final looks like another stolen point which we will gladly accept.

And about those injuries.  There was some discussion about whether this happened to the Magpies under Benitez.  Enough so that The Chronicle commissioned PremierInjuries.com to dig into their data base to compare Newcastle 19/20 to the previous two years.  The article is here and the website is here.  The number of injuries is basically unchanged over the three-year period.  Looking at the 19/20 and 18/19 numbers, I'm struck that there are seven players who show up in both years and eight that show up multiple times in a year.  Maybe this has more to do with the specific players than the training regimen and/or playing time.  I really like what both Shelvey and Dummett bring to the team but they have had five and four injuries respectively over the past two years. 


There Are No Points For A Moral Victory 

Dennis watching the Man City Aston Villa match

Tottenham played Liverpool as well as anybody has this year and got the same number of points - zero - as everybody else (except Man United) who's played them this year.  The Aston Villa experience against Man City was as bad as we feared it would be; the 1-6 final is very representative of the match I saw.  Arsenal could  manage only 1-1 draw with Palace.  Based on highlights I saw, best viewing of the weekend  was Leicester - Southampton. Danny Ings snatched the 2-1 win for the Saints with a late goal.  The Foxes had several off the woodwork and a tying goal in the dying moments was ruled out for offside.  Southampton's transformation is just about complete now as 538 has them with just a  3% chance of relegation.  Everton's turnaround is even more thorough.  After a 1-0 defeat of Brighton, the Toffee's chances of relegation dropped to less than 1%, which we note is lower than Arsenal's slim but registrable 1%.  Man United did get healthy against Norwich, recording an easy 4-0 win.  Chelsea's 3-0 win over Burnley keeps them well in command of the fourth Champions League spot.


Great Peril

BFS Goalie Consultant Graham points out that after losing to 0-3 to - at home - to Watford, Eddie Howe is facing great peril.  Here we see Bournemouth fans pointing that out to him.  Seriously, Howe now has the "best" odds of being the next manager to be sacked.  At 7+ years he's the longest serving manager right now.  Certainly he must have done something right to get Bournemouth into the top flight and keep them there for four years so far.  Maybe they got a little stale after a series of solid mid table finishes.


VAR Accidental Handball Fainting Couch

I will agree that VAR has probably been overused to make hair-splitting offside calls.  But IMHO the bigger rule change travesty this year has been the inadvertent handball calls to rule out goals.  And once again, most of the anger is misplaced.  It's not the VAR, it's that intent has been taken out of the equation if there is handling in the scoring or creation of a goal.

Case in point is last Friday's Sheffield United - West Ham match (a great watch by the way).  Sheffield United were up 1-0 when West Ham scored in stoppage time.  You can see the play here (should open to the incident).  Two things about Rice's "handling" of the ball.  First, it was not an offense until the goal was scored so there was no reason for Oliver to blow the whistle at that point. Second, in any other circumstance, there is no offense; it's simply an accidental touching of the ball that is not supposed to be whistled.  The purists have been yakking about how VAR is an affront when it was the purists who pushed for this stupid rule change because somehow it was unseemly to have a goal scored under this circumstance.  Keep VAR but chuck this rule.

Fun side note from the incident, as Dennis learns life as a fan of a relegation-threatened side:

West Ham scores - I get excited cause it was a cool moment.  Then I realize I don't want West Ham getting any points and literally say " I hope some VAR nonsense brings this back."

He subsequently clarified that he agreed that this was a problem with the handling rule, not VAR.


If At First You Don't Succeed

There's always the FA Cup replay.  Newcastle passed their test with a 4-1 win over Rochdale.  So what if the goals were mostly ugly, at least it was an easy win.  Spurs, again shunning the easy road, jumped out to quick 2-0 lead on Middlesbrough but never put the Championship division side away.  So things were tight at the end when Middlesbrough broke through at 83 minutes.  Man United and Wolves played again and despite great end-to-end stuff could only conjure up a 1-0 for the Red Devils. 

The schedule for the next round, with games to be contested the weekend (four-day) of 1/24-1/27, can be found here.  Wait a second.  The Watford - Tranmere replay is next Thursday?  So here's the Hornets schedule:

1/18 vs Spurs (H)
1/21 vs Aston Villa (A)
1/23 vs Tranmere (A)
1/26 vs Man United (if they beat Tranmere) (H)

That seems brutal.  Certainly those in the relegation fight with Watford don't mind.



Union Splash Some Cash

A collective sigh of relief that Monteiro
will be back in the midfield
MORGAN TENCZA / PHILADELPHIA UNION

Very welcome news that the Union agreed to a $2m transfer fee to make Jamiro Monteiro's move to Philadelphia permanent.  As discussed here, this was another fine piece of work by Sporting Director Ernst Tanner.  For some time it wasn't clear that 1) the Union would be willing to spend the money, 2) that FC Metz had a reasonable number in mind and - most importantly - 3) did Monteiro really want to stay.  Though the player rankings at WhoScored and the Audi Player Index listed CATS-purr shuh-BILL-koh higher, Monteiro was no slouch at 13th in the WhoScored rankings and 35th in the Audi Player Index.  Unofficial polling data of the Northwest Philly Union Season Ticket Holders (Steve, Graham, Jeff H, and Jeff K) actually had Monteiro as the team's most valuable player.  So instead of spending the rest of the off/pre season filling a hole in the midfield, like we have in successive seasons, Tanner can focus on building on last year's successful season.


Two Fer Schedule

We get a double dose of EPL this week with Match Week 23 covering Saturday and Sunday and Match Week 24 spread over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  And if we are to believe the 538 predictions, there's a bunch of tight contests, especially on the weekend.  Over the 20 fixtures, I count seven for which the win percentage difference is 10 or less.

Unfortunately Newcastle's fixture is not one of those.  The Magpies are the feature match Saturday at 12:30 on NBC as they take on Chelsea at St. James' Park.  Chelsea have of late been staking a claim to the 4th Champions League spot so we'll be more than thrilled if Newcastle can scrape out a point here.

Saturday starts bright and early (7:30 on NBCSN) with Watford-Tottenham.  Scarily for Spurs, 538 has this at 34-41-25 - meaning Watford has 34% chance of winning, Spurs have 41% and a draw is at 25%.  I would guess this is dismaying to Michael B and other Spurs supporters but Watford are unbeaten in their last five and Spurs have looked less than solid.

The 10 am slot is crowded with six fixtures.  The TV game is Arsenal-Sheffield United which could be lively enough though the Gunners are solid favorites at home.  The choices on NBC Gold look more inviting.  How about Southampton - Wolves (38-35-27)?  That could be a good back-and-forth match.  That would be my recommendation for the neutral.  If you're into the relegation specials there's Norwich (20th in the table) - Bournemouth (19th); that's listed 37-36-27).  West Ham hosting Everton is also tight at 36-38-26.  Though I might prefer the Southampton - Wolves contest, I'll likely be taking in the relegation-relevant battle between Brighton and Aston Villa, if only as moral support for Dennis and the Villans.

Sunday's matches are Burnley - Leicester at 9 am and Liverpool - Man United at 11:30.  Will probably check in on the latter though we doubt the Red Devils have an answer for Liverpool's strength.

The mid-week calendar isn't quite as tasty but some stuff is worth checking out.   TV viewers will be limited to Chelsea - Arsenal at 3:15 on Tuesday, Man United - Burnley at 3:15 on Wednesday and Wolves - Liverpool at 3 pm on Thursday; all those are on NBCSN.  Despite its pedigree, the Gunners will have to step up their game if they want to make that London derby interesting.  Tuesday we'll be stuck watching Newcastle deal with Everton at Goodison Park on NBC Gold and once again a draw is about as good as we can imagine there.  Some relegation specials on Tuesday as well, with Bournemouth - Brighton and Aston Villa - Watford.  Spurs might have a bit of break taking on Norwich at home on Wednesday.

With winter looking to settle in for a week or so, this packed fixture list is more than welcome.