Game On

Well, except for Newcastle, who continue to sink into irrelevance. I mean for the EPL title race, places in the European competitions and the final relegation spot.  

Different Tune, Same Chorus

Newcastle found a new way to get to a 2-1 loss but it still involved conceding a late goal.  After falling behind to Bournemouth in the first half, they leveled the match at 68 minutes on some good work by our only apparent offensive weapon William Osula.  He received what looked like a killer pass from Guimaraes and did some nice solo work for the goal only to see the flag go up for offside.  The replay showed Osula was indeed in an offside position when he received the pass but it also revealed that the brilliant pass from Bruno was actually an "own assist" from the foot of Bournemouth's Evanilson; thus the goal stood.  You can see the play here.  Unfortunately, the game winner would come from Truffert in the 85 minute and the Magpies got their third straight 2-1 loss.  

Conversation That Could Have Taken Place and Kinda Sorta Did

Steve: I wonder who leads the league in dropped points from tied positions.  It's gotta be Newcastle.

Dennis: Since every match starts out level at 0-0, it's simply games played minus wins and draws.  The leader is Wolves with 22, followed by Burnley 21.

Steve: 

Also, time stamps will prove that I texted the question to Dennis mere seconds before Newcastle conceded the winning goal to Bournemouth.

Gunners OutManned

Vastly more entertaining than the EFL Cup Final, this edition of Man City versus Arsenal was a tense 2-1 win for City.  The Citizens got an early lead on a nice shot by Cherki that was almost immediately negated by this incredible howler from Donnarumma.  The game winner game from Haaland, who basically outmuscled Gabriel for a header inside the six.  The two ended up in a tussle later in the contest, getting matching yellows for extracurricular activities; for our money, Gabriel should have seen red for the headbutt.

My headline is perhaps a bit unfair to Arsenal.  They did have several good chances to equalize and weren't badly outplayed by City.  Expected goals at 1.91 - 1.81 (favor City) were pretty close, suggests a draw wouldn't have been an outrageous result.

Gabriel is no angel

Perhaps the better news for Arsenal is that Opta still has them winning the league.  Their chances dropped from 85% to 73% and City still have the game in hand.  They dropped to 71% after City's 1-0 midweek win over Burnley.  However, as outlined here, Arsenal do have an easier schedule compared to Man City. The Gunners have Newcastle (well there's a sure three points), Fulham, West Ham, Burnley and Crystal Palace.  City have Burnley, Everton, Brentford, Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa.  Should be fun to watch.

Do Spurs DeZerbi Relegated?

Well, they did have a better quality of crappy result in Roberto DeZerbi's first match in charge of Tottenham, a 2-2 draw with Brighton.  They definitely played better than in recent weeks.  And yet, it was very Spurs-like in that they gave up equalizing goals in both first half and second half stoppage time.  

Meanwhile, everybody above them were getting points too.  Leeds pretty much put their relegation chances to bed with a 3-0 win over Wolves.  Nottingham Forest also got three points from a 4-1 defeat of Burnley.  And, West Ham maintained their two point lead over Spurs with a surprisingly interesting 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace.  

I was a little surprised to see that Opta has Spurs as the likely third team out.  They are at 58%, West Ham is 38%, Forest is 4%.  I see that Newcastle are .01% (so you're telling me there's still a chance).

"Post" Season

Most of the spots for next year's various European competition are wide open.  Arsenal and Man City are in for Champions League.  Wins for Man United (1-0 over Chelsea) and Aston Villa (4-3 in a wild one over Sunderland - check out Tammy Abraham's winner in stoppage time, this week's YouTubeableMoment ) have them sitting pretty.  Liverpool look like the best bet for the expected fifth spot.

The Europa League and Europa Conference League spots are in play for pretty much anyone not in the relegation race.  I kid but only sort of.  It's also complicated by who might win the FA Cup, Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League.  This article tries to make some sense of the picture.

I did get a good laugh when Ian Darke suggested during the Newcastle-Bournemouth telecast that the Magpies were sort of in the hunt for one of those spots.  You can see my reaction here.

Merry Go Round Goes Around Again

Well this is brilliant.  Chelsea have sacked Liam Rosenior after barely three months in the position - he was hired on 1/6/26.  Overall he was 11-2-11 but was 5-2-7 in EPL play.  Tuesday's 3-0 loss to Brighton was Chelsea's fifth straight league scoreless defeat.  He was having a good run in the FA Cup, though many will note that none of his four wins there were against Premier League sides. They were smoked pretty badly by PSG in the Champions League Round of 16 and lost to Arsenal in the EFL Cup semis.  Also too, they lost to Newcastle, which is hard to do these days.

But I am not here to defend his admittedly checkered record. I am here to ridicule BlueCo (Chelsea ownership) for firing their fifth manager since September 2022.  In that time, they've gone through Tuchel, Potter, Pochettino, Maresca and Rosenior.  One is left with two conclusions in situations like this and neither is flattering - either you did such an incredibly shitty job in choosing the guy that you can't afford to have him on the job for one more day, or you have the patience of a four year old.   Not that Chelsea ownership is alone on this.  We have Spurs (Frank and Tudor), West Ham (Potter), Nottingham Forest (Dyche and Postecoglou) among others.  Happy to see teams "rewarded" for this type of behavior with poor results.

    

Two Points for the Union

Jeff H provided a succinct review of the Union's 0-0 draw with DC United in last week's comments section.  For your convenience, we provide a copy here:

The U continued to struggle on a cool night in Chester. Had most of the possession, corners, shots and shots on goal. But couldn’t finish. Cav came on in the 63rd and made a difference, but to no avail. Alladoh played the whole match but was mostly invisible. 0-0 tie, so a point at home? And we are not DFL in the east. On the positive side- Kelly Davis! Attended the match, enjoyed a great sausage sandwich and convo w the Sullivan’s.

As with too many Union matches lately, the sausage sandwich was again the highlight of the trip to Subaru Park.

Wednesday's 3-3 draw in Toronto was nuts.  A quality goal from Iloski and a "lucky strike" from Danley put the Union up 2-0.  But the "fun" was just beginning.  Josh Sargent got one back at 56 minutes and Kobe Franklin leveled the match at 64 minutes.  Undeterred, the Union took the lead in the 89th minute after Bedoya did one of his patented flick-on headers to Harriel, who buried it for the winning go ahead goal.

The keeper never scores; well almost never
Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP

You know the play where the keeper for the team trailing by a goal comes up for a free kick in the dying seconds of the game?  Works about once every 50 years, right?  Well it worked this time.  Toronto keeper Luka Gavran actually didn't score on the free kick itself but when the ball wasn't cleared he stayed in the box just in case.  He was rewarded when a high looping cross came his way and he got his 6'6" frame above everybody else and headed it in for the equalizer.  You can see the play here. Given all that Blake has done for this team we are a bit reluctant to point this out but it sure looks like he made a mistake coming out for that ball.  We also thought he got his positioning wrong on the Sargent goal.

With five points in the last three matches, things have been looking a little better but the hole is incredibly deep.

Still Busy

The weekend EPL slate is slightly truncated as they fit in three fixtures midweek to accommodate the FA Cup semis, leaving just seven for the weekend. Just about all are relevant in one way or another.

Friday has Sunderland - Nottingham Forest with Forest trying to stay ahead of Spurs and West Ham.

Bright and early Saturday am is Fulham Aston Villa; both have shots at some European competitions so they'll be trying hard.  There are three 10 am matches including West Ham - Everton, Wolves - Tottenham and Liverpool - Palace.  West Ham and Spurs are working to avoid relegation, Everton have a legitimate shot at Europa League or Europa Conference League and Liverpool can't afford to slip up if they want to hang on to a Champions League spot.  I'd probably go with West Ham - Everton as it looks the most competitive but any of them good be a good watch.

We'll be serving as an infield clerk at the Penn Relays so we won't be able to watch Arsenal - Newcastle at 12:30.  This is such an historically bad fixture for the Magpies, I can't say I'm sorry I'll miss it.  No matches on Sunday but there is Man United - Brentford on Monday.

The aforementioned FA Cup semis are Man City vs Southampton on Saturday and Chelsea - Leeds on Sunday.

Midweek has the first leg of the semi finals of the three European competitions:

Champions League has:

PSG - Bayern on Tuesday

Arsenal - Atletico Madrid on Wednesday

Europa League has:

Nottingham Forest - Aston Villa on Thursday

Braga - SC Freiburg on Thursday

Europa Conference League has:

Rayo Vallencano - Strasbourg on Thursday

Shakhtar Donetsk - Crystal Palace on Thursday

Union are away to Columbus Saturday night.

That's right, football seven days a week.