What Were We Worried About Again?

Ho hum.  Another win for Newcastle.  Not great stuff from the Union but a draw anyway.

And You May Find Yourself in 9th Place

Joe L puts in his second against Norwich

And you may ask yourself "Well, how did I get here?"  So Eddie Howe decides to give Joe L Linton a break from defensive midfield duties and lets him run loose up front.  And Joe responds with a brace!  You know you have a hot hand as a manager when that happens.  Yes, it was Norwich.  And yes, the first 30 minutes looked distressingly like Championship Division football.  From there though, Newcastle was in command and the 3-0 final looks about right.  Can't help but think about how a few months ago this looked like a crucial six-pointer and it turned into a rout. Mathematically not done but no team with 43 has ever been relegated since the top division went to 20 teams.  

Bad Time For A Drought

Tottenham struggled through another match without a shot on target and could only manage a 0-0 draw with Brentford.  With no shots on goal, this is also a bad time for their third leading scorer - own goals - to have a slump.  Coupled with Arsenal's solid 3-1 beating of Man United, you have to say the advantage in the chase for the fourth Champions League spot has swung back to the Gunners.  The Man United loss and West Ham's 0-1 loss to Chelsea on a late goal by Pulisic mean those two sides are effectively no longer in the hunt.  United did grab a point against Chelsea on Thursday but that can't be enough.  They trail Arsenal by five points and have played two more matches.  And it won't help if Arsenal lose to, say, Tottenham because Spurs are three up.  

Can You Have A 12 Pointer?

If you play a side close to you in the standings twice in less than two weeks you can.  We really don't think Aston Villa are relegation threatened at this point but they do play Burnley on 5/7 and 5/19.  Losses in both those fixtures would wipe out the current six point difference in the table between the two, although Villa would like still have a better goal differential.  In any case, Villa will play a big role in whether it's Burnley or Everton who eventually go down.  Hopefully it will be most interesting soccer than the snoozefest we saw in the Aston Villa - Leicester 0-0 draw on Saturday.  That game was awful, even at 8x fast forward on dvr.

King Makers?

And Aston Villa have a role to play at the top end of the table too.  They face Liverpool on 5/10 and take on Man City on the final day of the season - 5/22.  For that matter, Newcastle have dates with both the title contenders as well - Liverpool on 4/20 and City on 5/8.  Who would have thought the road to the EPL title has to go through both Newcastle and Birmingham?

No change at the top this week as Man City cruised 5-1 over Watford while Liverpool put up with some serious "shithousery" from Everton but prevailed 2-0.  Pickford was doing the keeper flop and taking extra time on each goal kick within the opening 10 minutes.  

Marsch vs Viera

Marsch and Viera were much better behaved on Monday

I didn't have time to do the research but I wonder if Monday's contest between Patrick Viera's Crystal Palace and Jesse Marsch's Leeds was the first time former MLS managers had faced each other in the EPL.  Recall that Viera led NYCFC and Marsch was at the helm of the Harrison Red Cows New York Red Bulls.  And apparently they had some history.  Good match on Monday.  The 0-0 final doesn't reveal how good the action was, including a bit of snarl between the two sides.

Conversation That Could Have Taken Place But Didn't

Dennis: Did you say Burnley kidnapped a Star Trek - Voyager character

Steve: No, I said Burnley have taken seven of nine

Good Thing We Don't Run the Team

Recall that both Dennis and I (and to be fair, a lot of pundits) thought sacking Sean Dyche with eight games to go was a bad idea.  The Clarets have responded with two wins and a draw.  Okay, maybe we overreacted.  The seven points have pulled Burnley out of the bottom three and made Everton the prohibitive "favorite" at 538 to go down.  Looking at xG suggests that Burnley might have been expected to get just four points instead of seven.  But they have been doing that all season, grabbing more points than that metric would suggest.  In other words, it would be hard to say their luck has changed because it wasn't all that bad to start with.  Maybe it helps that in the two wins they were playing sides (Southampton and Wolves) that might already be planning their summer vacations.  Whatever, Burnley ownership got exactly the response they wanted.

Conversation That Could Have Taken Place and Did

Dennis: There are protests again outside Old Trafford before their match with Chelsea

Steve: Are you saying the Man United fans are revolting?

Not Firing On All Cylinders

Yes, that's former Spur Victor Wanyama chasing Gazdag

The Union looked like world-beaters for the first 20-25 minutes of their home match with Montreal.  Their only goal was a PK but it was fully deserved given the pressure they were putting on the visitors and the foul itself.  Then, nothing.  Tannenwald at the Inquirer suggests that Montreal essentially parked the bus after struggling in the opening minutes.  They did have some huge defensive midfielders.  The other problem is that the Union haven't managed to sync the passes with the runs.  Countless times we saw Uhre make a run and Gazdag make a pass behind him.  The Brotherly Game reports that the Union pass completion rate is 66%,  "the worst rate in the league in the last ten years." In some ways, how could we not expect this, given that Uhre didn't even get here until the week of the first game.  We're going with the glass is half full here - they got a 1-1 draw against a defensive-minded opponent on a day when we weren't at our best to begin with.

Champions League Semis

Wish I had more time to comment but the 4-3 first leg between Man City and Real Madrid was a corker.  It was good enough that we'll make the extended highlights this week's YouTubeableMoment. The other tie, Liverpool - Villareal wasn't quite as compelling with the Reds taking a 2-0 win over the Yellow Submarine.  Both matches head to Spain next week.

When Pastimes Collide

Penn Relays are going to severely cut into Saturday's viewing.  I'll probably get to see Newcastle host Liverpool at 7:30 on USA and that'll be it.  Have no expectations of a result here but I am very curious to see what type of the game this is.  In the "old" days, Newcastle would come out in a 5-4-1 (10-0-0) and hang on for dear life.  On the other hand, they did get too aggressive against Tottenham and got opened up.  Let's see if they can strike a better balance.

The four 10 am games are an interesting mix, with three looking like close contests.  However, as close as Southampton vs Crystal Palace (Peacock) and Wolves - Brighton (Peacock) might be, we gotta go with relegation six-pointer between Watford and Burnley.  Watford are probably toast anyway but this looks like a last chance for them.  BTW, I'd say the TV schedulers agree with us as that it is the USA choice. The other 10 am option is to see if Aston Villa drive another nail in the Norwich coffin (CNBC).

The NBC feature match at 12:30 is Leeds - Man City.  There might be some goals there.

All three Sunday matches have implications at one end of the table or the other.  At 9, Everton host Chelsea (USA); the Toffees could find themselves five points adrift of safety by kickoff.  Also at 9, Tottenham hope to 1)break out of their funk and 2) keep their Champions League hopes alive as they take on Leicester; that one's on Peacock.  At 11:30, there's a London derby featuring West Ham vs Arsenal on USA.  The Hammers are already a real long shot but lose this one and they are 11 points out of fourth.    

The matchweek concludes with a Monday match ( 3 pm on USA) between Man United and Brentford.  United are basically in the same straits as West Ham.  

Don't miss the second legs of the Champions League semi-finals.  Villareal - Liverpool is Tuesday, Real Madrid - Man City Wednesday.  Both are at 3 pm and if I read my guide right, both are on CBS.  Don't forget to add 90 minutes in case they go to extra time.

The U are headed to Tennessee for a tough away match versus Nashville SC.  That's Sunday at 4 pm.  I'll be on delay for that one as I'll be recording a concert of the Delaware County Symphony.  I gotta get my interests to coordinate their schedules better.