Well, the
1416 Days of Football (every EPL side played four matches between 12/19 and 1/3) are over and the results for the BFS home sides are not good. Not much better for the back up teams either. Somebody must have had a good run.
Three teams made it through the holidays undefeated - Tottenham (three wins and a draw), Chelsea (two wins and two draws) and West Ham (also two wins and two draws). Some of the bigger upsets included Southampton's 4-0 win over Arsenal, Norwich 2-1 over Manchester United, and Chelsea 3-1 over Sunderland (half-kidding). Biggest wins were probably Arsenal 2-1 over Man City and Chelsea 3-0 over Crystal Palace (again only half kidding). Best match of the holidays - easily the Stoke City-Everton which the Potters won 4-3 on a late PK (runner up is the 1-1 draw between Everton-Tottenham).
Let's turn to the ratings for the period, using the exclusive BFS Holiday Rating Scale (
including a new, special rating for this year) described below:
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| From Paul McCartney - "Simply having a wonderful Christmastime" |
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| Santa obviously read your list very carefully |
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| Nice enough but you didn't get the Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time you really wanted |
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| Ties are a nice gift but how many do you really need? |
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| You may have been naughtier than you realized
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| You're still Aston Villa
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It's one only because I didn't feel like taking the time to do half a Santa and a blank would have looked weird. Not a good holiday Tyneside. Newcastle played what Arlo White called "binary football" - all the scores were 1's and 0's. After a 1-1 draw with last place Aston Villa, the Magpies dropped three straight contests 0-1, with the goal coming late. In the case of Everton, it was the last play of the game. After picking up one point and one goal in four matches, the focus has to be on picking up a striker in the January transfer window. Charlie Austin is still a possibility, as is Loic Remy. But Austin is out for another three weeks with a hamstring problem and Crystal Palace may beat Newcastle to Remy. Yes, it's another winter-spring in the relegation zone.
Steve's original rating was one Santa, but I don't think that adequately captures how devastating these two weeks really were. Sure, getting two points out of 4 matches is actually an incredible pace for them, but losing in consecutive weeks to the 17th and 19th place teams - Norwich and Sunderland, respectively - after drawing with the 18th place team - Newcastle - is certainly the death knell for Villa. Remi Garde says the team needs to win half of their remaining matches to stay up (which, by the way, with 18 matches to go, would amount to 27 points, putting them at.......35) and I'll be damned if he hadn't counted at least one or two of these as some of those wins. On top of that, the only real spark the team had (Traore) broke his foot and will miss at least ten weeks. I'm sure they'll play hard but I would not be surprised if some players simply can't recover their motivation after this holiday.
Started out well enough with a win over Stoke but ended with two scoreless draws against Bournemouth and Swansea, then a shutout loss to Chelsea. To be fair, the Eagles were missing Cabaye (one game suspension for yellow card accumulation) and Bolassie (several weeks with an injury) so they were a bit shorthanded. The talk is that Pardew has assembled a decent 11 but not the depth needed for a long EPL season. Let's see how active they are in the January transfer window.
Might be a little harsh here as the Foxes did get five points with a win and two draws (
seems about right to me). But, after a 3-2 win at Everton, they went scoreless in the next three matches. The first was a 0-1 loss to Liverpool, followed by two 0-0 draws. I suppose 0-0 versus Man City is an acceptable result but not against Bournemouth, who were playing a man down for much of the match. They got to where they are by playing like the result doesn't matter; now it's like they're playing not to lose. Definitely not as much fun to watch though they still sit in second.
I am very disheartened by their quite obvious change in tactics and style, though their draw to Bournemouth could also be placed at the feet of Mahrez and Vardy - the former had a PK saved and the latter missed two golden chances. Hopefully the reasoning has more to do with trying to keep legs somewhat fresh for the late season push and less to do with silly reasons like caring about the FA cup. Having reached the 40 point mark, Ranieri will now be bombarded with questions as to the team's next goal and his responses could be quite telling. Whatever the case, I hope they don't turn into another typical defensive minded EPL team as I have had enough fun sucked out of this season already.
Okay, this is depressing, I know there were some happy campers out there.
Three wins and a draw for 10 points was the best anybody did. Frankly, the schedule was not overwhelming and four wins was possible given the competition. After wins over Southampton, Norwich and Watford, Spurs settled for a draw against Everton. Dele Alli is a much a goal scoring threat as Harry Kane while Eric Dier and Toby
Edelweis Alderman the Belgian guy have shored up the back. Tottenham look to be in good form right now and a top four finish seems very plausible.
Except for a uncharacteristic clunker at Southampton, it was a good run, worth nine points, for the Gunners. They got an important win over Man City, a workman like win over Bournemouth and a grind-it-out win over Newcastle, where they were clearly less than their best but won anyway. They sit first in the table and seem to have the fewest weaknesses of any of the top teams.
Not that we follow the Canaries that closely but as one of Newcastle's primary competitors in the relegation battle, we were quite distressed to see them pick up three wins including a definite upset over Man United and a mild upset over Southampton. The win over Aston Villa, maybe not so impressive, but still a critical three points. Their only loss was to Tottenham.
Maybe if the order of the results was reversed, this would have been a two but seven points looks pretty good. The loss to Arsenal had to hurt but they easily dispatched Sunderland, drew with Leicester on the road and managed a great come-from-behind win, also on the road, over a tough Watford side. Injuries have taken a toll but they had to be encouraged by Aguero's late game winner against Watford.
Harsh? They did go undefeated. But one of the wins was over Sunderland and the other was against a depleted Crystal Palace. Draws against Man United (ugly football) and Watford weren't all that impressive. Still, it was eight points and moved them a little farther away from the relegation action. Not convinced they have found their way out of the woods yet.
Not sure where these guys are going. A good win over Leicester and an okay performance in beating Southampton. But these are paired with shut out losses versus Watford and West Ham. They sit 8th in the table and haven't given a clear indication of whether they're going to compete for a spot in Europe or languish in the indistinguishable mid-table region.
Just four points for the Toffees but they did have a tough schedule and maybe some bad luck. They certainly played in some of the best matches of the period. The 3-4 loss to Stoke might have been the best game of the year; they lost that on tough PK call. They also had good efforts in a 2-3 loss to Leicester and a 1-1 draw versus Tottenham. Their only win came against, wait for it, Newcastle on a corner kick that was the last play of the game. In 11th right now, they could still mount a challenge for a spot in the Europa Cup.
After losses to Norwich and Stoke, you had to figure Louis van Gaal was toast. A draw with Chelsea (did I mention that was an ugly football match?) and a late winner from Rooney to beat Swansea appear to be enough to keep the Dutchman in his job. Old Trafford is not a happy place right now.
FA Cup Time
It's that time again, the venerable competition that everybody loves to hate. Check out
this post for a complete explanation/refresher on the how competition works. The quaint practice of not seeding the teams in each round means we'll have matches like Tottenham-Leicester in the same round as Hartlepool-Derby County. Aston Villa get Wycombe while Newcastle have to travel to Vicarage Road to play Watford. Ooh, looks like one and done for the Magpies. Arsenal drew an EPL team but it was only Sunderland. Man United get Sheffield United while two strong mid-table EPL sides - Crystal Palace and Southampton get to beat up on each other. Everton play Dag and Red, who are not the two guys who hang out at the bar at McMenamins but are a League Two (fourth division) team. Somehow this is all supposed to be charming or something like that but mostly it seems goofy. Yes, a lot of EPL teams get knocked off along the way and lower division sides go deep into the tournament but the winner always ends up being an EPL team.
EPL games resume on Tuesday and Wednesday so the phrase "match congestion" remains operational. Newcastle have Man United and Aston Villa host Crystal Palace on Tuesday. Wednesday has a bunch of interesting match-ups, including Chelsea-West Brom, Man City-Everton, Liverpool-Arsenal and Tottenham-Leicester (again?).
In short, plenty of action to take in.
