Takin' Care of Business

Apologies to Bachman-Turner Overdrive

Newcastle and the Union efficiently dispatched their opponents this weekend. Lots of other stuff too.

You Can Only Beat Who You Play - Part II

No one has doubted Miggie's work rate
but now he's backing it up with goals (Getty picture)

Brentford at St. James' Park should be three points for Newcastle so the 5-1 final is not completely surprising.  The Magpies had looked to fall behind early but VAR rescued them with a correct reversal for offside.  Guimaraes converted a spell of Newcastle dominance into a 1-0 lead with a nicely placed header off a Trippier cross.  Jacob Murphy doubled the lead shortly after with a goal off a nice pass from Wilson.  An Ivan Toney PK briefly derailed the rout.  I thought the handling call on Burns was incredibly harsh; he was attempting a leaping header and his arm - as will happen when you strain to jump - was above his shoulder and the ball struck it.  Letter of the law maybe but still dumb.  No matter.  Guimaraes got a second goal two minutes later. all he did was steal the ball, dribbled to the goal and delivered a laser shot from 24 yards out.  Add in the context of an immediate response to the Brentford goal and it sounds like this week's YouTubeableMoment.  Almiron continued his run of form with a goal at 82 minutes and they finished the scoring with an own goal in stoppage time.

Certainly Brentford contributed to their own downfall with two howlers of mistakes and an own goal.  Still, Newcastle clearly were the better side here.  And they are not at full strength yet.  ASM and Joelinton did make second half appearances and look ready to return to the starting XI, but Isak is likely a week or two away.  Good work from Longstaff and Murphy to fill in during the interim.  The Magpies finished the weekend 6th in the table.  Yes, they have benefitted from a softer schedule recently but remember they have already played Man City and Liverpool

Distracted Viewing

So I saw a bunch of the matches but viewing was either incomplete or distracted.  I did see all of the close contest between Brighton - Tottenham.  The stats say the Spurs 1-0 victory might be a touch lucky but no doubt they played well against a solid team at home.  The match had an extra level of emotion for Spurs as their beloved trainer, Gian Piero Ventrone, passed away earlier in the week at just 61 from leukemia; you can read more about Ventrone here.  As you will read, he had a long history with Conte.

I only saw the second half of Arsenal's 3-2 win over Liverpool.  The Reds fought back from 0-1 and 1-2 deficits but were undone by a PK in the 76th minute.  I'm still not convinced that Jesus was fouled but probably not an obvious error for VAR to overturn.  At some point, we may have to concede that Arsenal may be the second best team in the league.  In the 12/24/20 BFS post, we made fun of Jamie Carragher for saying the until Arteta brought in 5-6 players of his choice it was not fair to judge him.  Apologies Jamie, it appears you were correct.  Speaking of second best teams, Liverpool are certainly working hard to convince us that they aren't.  They now sit 10th in the table and only Nottingham Forest, Leicester and Wolves have fewer wins.  

I had Crystal Palace - Leeds on the TV but can't remember much except that Palace got a late goal to win.  We fit in parts of  Everton - Man United before and at half time of the Union match.  MUN did just enough to take away a 2-1 win at Goodison Park and have climbed to 5th in the table after a shaky start.  

Not Good Enough

Though not as distressing as the draw to ten-man Leeds last week, Aston Villa's 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest shows that they have still not sorted out what kind of team they want to be.  The bad news is that they are perilously close to the relegation zone but the good news is that the mid-table is so condensed, a win or two could move them to the top half of the table.  But most concerning is that win, lose or draw, they just don't seem to be playing well.  Jordan Campbell at The Athletic offered this pithy assessment of Villa under Steven Gerrard.

As a manager, his team’s way of attacking can be so structured and repetitive that it can leave you feeling cold. That is what is happening now with the lack of individual expression within his system being seen in the three games since the City draw.

We always take these things with a grain of salt but this suggests that Gerrard position is under pressure.

He may take comfort that at least he's not in Brendan Rodgers' shoes.  Leicester may have restored their position as a relegation candidate with a 1-2 loss at Bournemouth.  Wolves 0-3 thrashing by Chelsea wasn't unexpected but does confirm that they could be right there too.  West Ham's 3-1 win over Fulham suggests that those two sides are heading in opposite directions after unexpected starts for both.  Southampton can't be feeling too good either; Erling Haaland only managed one goal against  them but they still lost to Man City 4-0.

Fun With Europa

Lots of Champions League action on Tuesday and Wednesday, which you can read about here.  For some reason, we had more fun watching Europa League matches, maybe because they simply had goofier club names.  First we saw Arsenal take on Boba Fett Bodo/Glimt.  The Yellow Horde made this a close match though some of it may have been Arsenal not at their best; the final was 1-0 Gunners.  Even more fun was Man United versus Onomatopoeia Omonia.  The Cypriot side fought bravely and went into stoppage time hanging by a thread to a 0-0 draw.  Alas, a late goal from McTominay turned Cinderella's carriage back into a pumpkin.  

Conversations That Could Have Taken Place and Did

Dennis: Arsenal are missing some key players for the match against Bodo/Glimt.

Steve: Yes, but Jesus is expected to return Sunday

Dennis: This is getting too easy

Steve: Hey look, former USMNT player Mix Diskerud just entered the match for Omonia

Dennis:

Fun Talking Point Shot to Hell

Until Copenhagen managed a 0-0 draw with Man City in Champions League this week, the only sides to have taken points from City in EPL or CL competition were BFS home sides Newcastle and Aston Villa.  We note that Man City had a man sent off at 30 minutes and Haaland did not play.  So big deal, you drew Man City who had two hands tied behind their back.  

Union Win the Eastern Conference

Gazdag's hat trick took him to 22 goals, one off the league best

Very nice of the Union to get down to business early on Sunday.  Daniel Gazdag had the U up 1-0 in the 4th minute.   Though one felt they were mostly in control, they took their time putting the second one on the board.  Uhre's goal at 42 minutes made things even easier.  Gazdag got two more in quick succession at 60 and 63 and the deed was done.  Mild disappointment that LAFC lost, meaning the Union had equal most points for the season but lost the Supporters Shield on the tiebreaker, number of wins.

Many all-time MLS "bests" for this season.  Among them, seventh highest point total ever, second best goal differential, fifth highest goals scored.  I can't find it now but I believe the 26 goals allowed is the fewest all-time since the MLS moved to the 34 game season.  Still reading about how this means nothing if they don't do well in the playoffs.  Drive me nuts.  This is an excellent season as is.  The MLS insistences on following the American obsession with playoffs doesn't change that.

For the record, Laura did sort of watch Sunday's match, in between taking Dennis's dog Kaya out to the backyard so we could watch the game in peace.  In retrospect, we may have put too much blame on her for last week's 0-4 loss at Charlotte.  BFS sincerely apologizes for any distress our inferences may have caused her.

It's Always About Health Care

BFS Health Care Consultant Jack W sends along this story about his former boss at United Health Care connection to MLS.  There's almost always a link to the health care in any sports franchise.  Check out the sponsors or take a look at the advertising conspicuously posted around any sports venue.  Maybe part of the reason health care is so expensive?

More Busy

With mid-week EPL matches and MLS playoffs,  we're looking at packed week with Monday our only footballess day [check that, two MLS games that day!].  The bad news is that I see a lot of darker orange on the 538 website, indicating a shortage of competitive matches.  

We start with Friday football at 3 pm (USA) as Brentford host Brighton.  For the weekend, the most important match looks to be Liverpool versus Man City at Anfield.  That's at 11:30 on Sunday on USA.  Even as the visitor, City are solid favorite here.  For the weekday matches, Man United - Tottenham on Wednesday at 3:15 on Peacock is the best choice as well as one of the tighter fixtures of the week.

Saturday's matches are spread out so you don't have to make tough choices.  Start with Leicester - Crystal Palace at 7:30 on USA; these are the kind of matches the Foxes will need to win if they are to pull out of the relegation funk.  At 10 you can choose between surprise mid-table entries Fulham-Bournemouth or relegation candidates Wolves - Nottingham Forest.  The latter is the USA TV option.  The NBC feature match is Spurs hosting Everton; Tottenham have had a way of winning yet making every match close so this might be fun.

For some reason the schedulers have piled four games into the 9 am slot on Sunday.  Newcastle travel to Man United for the one that USA TV has.  In the past, this was a hopeless cause but now I hold out some hope for a result.  Other choices are Aston Villa-Chelsea (yikes a tough match to "find yourself"), Leeds - Arsenal or Southampton - West Ham (538 has this has the most competitive match of the week).  The discerning reader will note nary a London derby in the weekend's fixtures.

Things are less well-distributed for the mid-week fixtures.  Tuesday has Brighton - Nottingham Forest at 2:30 (USA) and Crystal Palace - Wolves at 3:15 (Peacock).  Wednesday we will be going with Newcastle hosting Everton at 3:15 on Peacock; definitely expecting points out of that one.  A crowded day, the previously mentioned Man United - Spurs match is clearly your best choice.  But, you have three other choices - Bournemouth - Southampton, Brentford - Chelsea (phew, that was a long time to go without a London derby) or Liverpool - West Ham.  Matchweek  12 wraps up on Thursday with Fulham - Aston Villa and Leicester -Leeds.  

MLS playoffs start Saturday.  Full schedule is here. We will be at Subaru Park on Thursday as the Union will take on TBD.  But the brackets are set so TBD has to be either New York Red Bulls or FC Cincinnati.  The U will be solid favorites against either.

Yeah, sure I missed something in here but there's a lot going on.