It's Not Pessimism If It's True

With Newcastle surprisingly up 2-1 at half time versus Man City, I confidently predicted to Dennis a 2-4 loss.  Pessmistic perhaps but also grounded in the reality that 1)Newcastle had no bench and 2) City would be bringing in Kevin DeBruyne around the 60th minute.  In fact, KDB entered the match in the 69th minute.  He scored in the 74th minute, then assisted on the winning goal in the 91st minute.  Okay, I was way off, it was only a 2-3 loss.  

Probably a great watch for the neutrals (and City fans obviously), with the comeback and five quality goals.  Silva's cheeky backheel at 26 minutes, after a spell of dominance by the visitors, boded poorly for home side.  That's why the sequence of well-taken shots by Isak at 35 minutes and Gordon at 37 minutes were stunners.  Game on.  Well, sort of.  The second half was like waiting for a bomb to go off.  You could see the Newcastle players getting leggy.  DeBruyne's equalizer was study in finesse over power and Bobb's game winner, while partly the result of a lucky deflection, was some deft footwork.  We reluctantly make it this week's YouTubeableMoment; the finish was sublime but so was DeBruyne's entry pass into the box.  Sometimes you have to give the other guy credit.

Fighting Fire With A Water Pistol

He's got Jack Grealish hair now but still scores like KDB
Getty Images

In no way do I mean to demean Lewis Hall or Eddie Howe (or Guardiola for that matter), but the how telling is it that when Guardiola brought in Kevin DeBruyne, Newcastle's best move was to counter by subbing out Anthony Gordon for the 17-year old Hall?    Doesn't feel like that was one guy outcoaching another but just one guy with a better arsenal.  As Dennis notes, "Pep is brilliant.  He brought on the best player in the world and his team won.  I never would have thought to make that move."

BFS Travel Consultant Jeff K sends along this read from Football365.  It's a long but worthwhile collection of conclusions from the match.  I will disagree on a few points.  On No. 10, the author discusses how the injury to Ederson on one of those delayed offside flags may affect the issue.  Fair point that VAR means there will be a directive to ARs to hold the flag to let the play unfold.  Except, the threshold could be way tighter. For example, the directive could be if you see space between the attacker and the defender, put the flag up right away.  The issue isn't going away but it can be much less problemmatic.

On No. 15 the author suggests that Newcastle's response to the injuries and absences by "bleating about the 'rules' stopping them from buying the league really isn't going to cut it."  Okay, maybe we don't need to "bleat" about, but it is a fact that Newcastle cannot spend their way out of the current situation.  The league is clearly serious about enforcing the Financial Fair Play rules (well, unless you're Man City) so the restrictions are real.

Draws Good and Bad, But Mostly Bad

Moreno's shot found the back of the net but the goal
was chalked off for offside (Getty Images)

Three of the other four matches ended in draws.  Aston Villa can't be too pleased about a 0-0 draw with Everton, even if it was at Goodison Park.  The only silver lining there might be that the old Villa would have contrived to lose that match.  Vincent Kompany's Burnley were minutes away from a big three points against relegation rival Luton Town, only to see Carlton Morris level things in the 92nd minute; sure one point wasn't terrible but all three would have significantly brightened Burnley's chance of staying up.  Finally, in the old days a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford would have been more than satisfactory for Tottenham.  Off of United's recent form, Spurs might have been thinking more.  On the other hand, rallying twice from deficits while playing without Son doesn't sound all that bad.

In the only other weekend match, Chelsea continued to underwhelm, ekeing out a 1-0 win at home against Fulham.  We note that the only goal was a PK, called on the softest of touches against Sterling, who made a five-course meal of the foul.  

If At First You Don't Succeed

You get a mid-week FA Cup replay.  We had eight of them spread out between Tuesday and Wednesday.  For whatever reason, ESPN+ limited our choices Bristol City vs West Ham on Tuesday and Blackpool vs Nottingham Forest on Wednesday.  Happily enough, they both turned out to be entertaining.  West Ham fell behind in the third minute on a clusterfk of a screw-up (seen here) in the back.  Benrahma made things even more difficult for the Hammers, getting sent off for a straight red in the 51st minute.  Made for a close match but Bristol City held on for the 1-0 win.  

Nottingham Forest looked in control, taking a 2-0 lead early in the second half.  Blackpool gamely fought back to send the match into extra time (unlike the first match, the replay has to have a winner).  Chris Wood was the difference maker, slotting the game winner in the 110th minute.  Highly entertaining stuff.  

Note that Wolves - Brentford also went into extra time, with Wolves getting the game winner on a PK.  So here's the final tally for the third round by division

Division                        Wins   Losses

Premier League                15         5

Championship                  14        10

League 1                           0          6

League 2                           2          5

National League                 0          3

National League South       1          0 

Fourth round matches are Thursday - Monday January 25-29

 

Forest Green Sightings

We saw two more Forest Green players in FA Cup action, with Scott McKenna coming on to shore up Nottingham Forest's defense in their 3-2 win over Blackpool and George Tanner doing well as part of a back three in Bristol City's 1-0 upset over West Ham.

The virtual version acquitted itself reasonably well in a five-game gauntlet that featured consecutive matches against Tottenham, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Man United.  We managed to collect seven points in wins over Liverpool and Chelsea plus a draw with Spurs.  Arsenal was only a 0-1 defeat, although stats look really bad.  The Man United game was a 1-4 blowout.  That holiday performance was enough to keep us in third for the time being.  We celebrated with a totally frustrating 0-0 away draw against Championship Division Scunthorpe that earns us a mid-week replay for the right to face Man United in the 4th round.  Woo-hoo.

Second Half of Split Match Week

Frankly, not quite as exciting as last weekend.  For whatever reason, the schedule makers have again eschewed the 10 am time slot favor of one match at 7:30 and a second at 12:30.  Must be people who like to get Saturday errands done.  Anyway, we start with a London derby at 7:30 between Arsenal and Crystal Palace on USA; that's followed by the NBC Feature match at 12:30.  Sunday has Sheffield United hosting West Ham at 9 and Bournemouth versus Liverpool at 11:30; you can catch both of those on USA.  The drawn out match week ends on Monday with Brighton - Wolves at 2:45 also on USA.

Not a lot to work with there.  Brentford will welcome back Ivan Toney from his eight month suspension for gambling, which should do wonders for the Bees attack and might help them break their five game losing streak.  The Monday game might be interesting.

Don't forget the second leg of the Carabao Cup midweek semis.  On Tuesday, Chelsea host Middlesbrough, trailing 0-1.  Liverpool travel to Fulham on Wednesday, bringing a 2-1 lead into Craven Cottage.  

Wish I had some additional bandwidth to cover the Africa Cup of Nations or the Asian Cup.  All I know right now is that it's leaving a number of teams short on personnel.  You can catch a couple of Africa Cup games every day at 12 and 3 pm on BeIN Sports.