Welcome to another issue of the blog which, like Arsenal, is easy on the eye but always flatters to deceive, which builds up like the Chelsea midfield but finishes like Torres and which goes along steadily, before ending in ruins like a Forest play-off campaign.
The past week
It's been a sad week for sport and it's only right that we pay tribute to the great Seve Ballesteros. Here was a man who was loved by all and like with Sir Bobby Robson, was a person who no-one has ever had a bad word for. Hopefully the likes of Tiger Woods can see that it's possible to win and be loved.
As expected, the Champions League will be contested by United and Barcelona, although fans of Mourinho can certainly point out that Madrid got a number of poor decisions over the two legs. It is certainly a shame to see one side profit over the other from dodgy referees, except when the manager is Mourinho. He should look at how Crawley Town played at Old Trafford when they were massive underdogs to see that playing attacking football is more important than spending lots of money, winning ugly then moving on to another "project". Top marks this week go to Mascherano for managing to con referee Wolfgang Stark into ruling out Higuain's goal. A masterful performance.
Speaking of Crawley Town, they put in a much better performance than Schalke managed. Even Darron Gibson, who left Twitter after being abused by fans, managed to look good. Remember, Twitter is the home of Piers Morgan and Gary Neville, so the abuse must have been seriously bad for Gibson to decide to quit.
Kop-out of the week came from the FA, who waited until the last day of the Championship season to decide on the fate of QPR, before finding them guilty on two counts, then slapping them with a pathetic fine. For a club owned by Ecclestone, Briatore and Mittal, £875,000 is loose change, but clubs like Luton and Plymouth who go into administration are immediately docked 10 points. No comment by Neil Warnock on whether that is fair or not. Still, at least I get to now suffer the play-offs which won't be finished for another 3 weeks. If Forest do make it to the Premier League, I don't think I'll be in any state to celebrate, although getting past Swansea is going to take some doing.
It has been a relatively standard week of sport for many reasons: United won a big match, Arsenal lost to a tall team, Vettel won the F1 and Djokovic won the tennis. Cricket has been the exception, with England pioneering the three-way captaincy. The message they have sent is Strauss will no longer play one-day cricket, Collingwood will soon be left to play for Durham and Pietersen will never, ever, ever, ever be captain again. Then again what's we said about Terry.
Flop(ianski) of the week
The FA were my original choice, but the Chelsea back four have done enough today to change my mind. David Luiz's English is clearly good enough, as even amateur lip-readers could understand him tell Ancelotti that Hernandez's goal wasn't his fault. Quite what Ancelotti is thinking after spending so long talking about tactics and preparing a team-talk, only to see his side 1-0 down after 36 seconds, is anyone's guess.
Luiz wasn't the only defender to struggle. Ivanovich tried his best to get himself sent-off and I took immense satisfaction in seeing Valencia side-step Cashley Cole before sending in a cross which should have earned his side a penalty.
Hall of Lame
Watching Chelsea concede the title reminded me of a more famous capitulation, that of Liverpool against Arsenal in 1989. It was the ultimate title decider, Arsenal needing to win at Anfield by two goals to win the trophy. If you are an Arsenal, Everton or United supporter, or you just hate Liverpool, then this is the video for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jiBIdtUKhs
The week ahead
The build up to the FA Cup final will start now. Yes, that's right, it's on Saturday. City go in as favourites, but after seeing Birmingham pull off an upset in the Carling Cup, the stage is set for a Stoke victory. Stoke won't score from a Delap throw-in, because Balotelli will take off his shoe and throw it at him and will park his Ferrari illegally in the penalty area before racking up a huge fine, so the Potters will be forced to play a patient, passing game which is easy on the eye. However, that won't work, so Kenwyne Jones will score a last minute header from a corner after muscling Yaya Toure out of the way. Tony Pulis will head climb the stairs with his baseball cap on and accept the trophy, before giving it to Delap who hurls it in to the net.
Play-off predictions: Forest 1-1 Swansea, Cardiff 2-3 Reading
Djokovic wins the Rome Masters. Standard.
Quotes of the week
Jose Mourinho - nothing
Sir Alex Ferguson - "I urge the Chelsea board not to sack Carlo Ancelotti. I further urge them to start Torres up-front, to sell Drogba and play Mikel in every match."
Arsene Wenger - "The title is still ours to win."
Avram Grant - "We will not go down, we have Robbie Keane to score the goals for us."
Mick McCarthy - "I hope we batter Sunderland and I hope we get awarded lots of penalties and I hope our fans abuse their players and the ref and their chairman..."
No comments:
Post a Comment