More Interesting Results

Another batch of interesting results.  Interesting could be good or bad depending on your team.

Newcastle Beat the Forest for the Three

Though not at pretty as Joelinton's, Isak's goal got
Newcastle moving in the right direction (Nick Potts)

See what I did there?   Heading to an in-form Nottingham Forest, Newcastle were expecting a tough contest.  At the outset Forest were the better side and deserved their opening goal at 22 minutes by Murillo.  That did serve as a wake-up call and the Magpies started to take over from there.  That pressure wouldn't pay off until 54 minutes, when Isak got the equalizer.  They fairly well dominated the rest of the way and Joelinton got one at 72 minutes and Barnes added another at 83.  After being guilty of poor marking on the Forest goal, Joelinton was a force on both sides of the ball from there on in; earning a few 10's at some of the player rating sites.  His curling shot from just inside the box is this week's YouTubeableMoment.  The win moves them to 8th in the table, shockingly just one point out of third. We note that Newcastle have given up just 10 goals this season, behind only Liverpool (6!) and Forest (10).

Dropped Points Everywhere 

Well almost everywhere.  Seven of the top 10 sides going into the weekend failed to win, with only Liverpool, Brighton and Fulham coming away with all three points. Liverpool didn't play all that well but were better than tepid Aston Villa and deserved their 2-0 win.  Brighton got one of the big upsets, getting two late goals to send Man City to their fourth straight defeat across all competitions.  Chelsea and Arsenal came into the weekend level on 18 points and exited level on 19 points after a 1-1 draw; from what I remember the first half wasn't too good but the second half was a little more interesting.  Spurs inexplicably lost to Ipswich while Bournemouth fell 2-3 to Brentford in what looks like a lively mid-table affair.

Ipswich Get First Premier League Win Since 2002

The Tractor Boys last won a top flight match in April of 2002 so their 2-1 win over Spurs was a big deal.  It also moved them out of the bottom three.  We should note that they were out of the Premier League from August 2002 until this past summer so they can be excused for not getting any wins.  Check out this bicycle kick goal from Sammie Szmodics that gave Ipswich the lead.

In other news, Michael B announced he no longer follows English football.

Gappage But Also A Robust Mid-table

The largest spread in the table right now is the five points between first place Liverpool and second place Man City.  The next biggest gap is City's four point lead over third place Chelsea. Then, there are 11 teams separated by just four points, running from Chelsea to 13th place Man United. 

This Week In Refereeing  

Mostly a quiet week as we wrapped up intramural play.  We had one player who refused to take off a bandana that he was wearing as a neckerchief.  Law 4 says "a player must not use any equipment or wear anything that is dangerous"but it doesn't specifically references neckerchiefs.   Sigh, I guess we will have to send a memo out at the beginning of next season making it clear that neckerchiefs are considered unsafe and must be removed.  

The biggest news was clearly the release of videos of David Coote making disparaging remarks about Liverpool and Jurgen Klopp.  The story is here.  This reminds me of Too Long in the Wasteland by James McMurtry:

but whiskey don't make liars

it just makes fools

so I didn't mean to say it

but I meant what I said

Coote was suspended and the betting line is that he won't referee in the EPL again.  Dennis points out that many referees probably feel this way about Klopp or maybe some other coach they've been reamed by but the real question is did it affect their refereeing?  Most likely not.  Coote's indiscretion was saying it out loud.  His biggest problem may not be referring to Klopp as the "c" word but rathering including "German" in the list as well.

Conversation That Could Have Taken Place and Did

Brenna: MLS playoffs are a best of three?

Dennis: Only for the first round.

Brenna: That's so dumb.

MLS Cupertino Overlords Are Crying in Their Chardonnay

Speaking of "so dumb," how did those first round playoffs work out?  Well, surely Apple had been counting on Lionel Messi's Miami team featuring regularly on their telecasts through November but that won't happen now as they were busted by Atlanta in the third match of that series.  I love this quote from The Inquirer's Jonathan Tannenwald:

The soccer world hasn’t stopped moving just because the Union’s season is over. Or even after Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami was dramatically booted from the MLS playoffs in the first round on Saturday night, which left a box of eggs on the league and Apple’s faces.

Columbus and Cincinnati also lost their Game 3's as well, which means the Eastern Conference semi finals feature the 4, 6, 7 and 9 seeds.  Had they gone with one game playoffs, it would have been 1,3,4 and 7.  The West fared somewhat better and will see 1,2,4 and 6 play in the conference semis; it would have been the same outcome for a one game playoff as well.

To be clear, we're not necessarily advocating for one game playoffs.  Our preference would be fewer teams (four from each conference?) using the home-and-home aggregate score approach.  But that wouldn't produce enough product to fill their programming needs.  

Of course, you can accuse Champions League of doing the same thing with their expanded eight-game group stage.  No doubt, it was about more money from more matches.  However, I'd argue that far from mangling the competition, the new format has made it more interesting.  The old four team groups limited the match ups and meant that one bad result could keep a good side from advancing.  The eight-game format will do a better job of sorting out the quality teams.  

And while we're trashing MLS playoffs, how about the fact that after finishing the first round, they dont' play again until the weekend of 11/23 because of the international break.  For LA and Minnesota, who needed only two matches to clinch their series, this means they will go three weeks without a match.  Way to build the drama.  I know MLS doesn't have control over when the international breaks are scheduled but they could have tailored their playoff format and schedule to deal with it.

USMNT were up 1-0 on Jamaica when I posted this.  They play the second leg Monday night.

Between working on my dad's eulogy and two beers, this is all I got tonight.