At Least We've Got a Good Head of Hair: Week 2 in the Barclay's Premier League

Week two is done and dusted, and farlieonfootie's regularly insightful and often irrelevant insights on the Premier League are here for your reading pleasure:

o You've got to hand it to the English, who use their own language better than any other speakers of the mother tongue -- no surprise there, in that they invented it.  But just try to imagine an American broadcaster describing the scene in Cardiff, as the home team walked onto a Premier League pitch for the first time in over 50 years, by saying "[The atmosphere] borders on the febrile." A US announcer talking in such a manner would soon find himself on the unemployment line for "talking over the heads" of his listeners. Instead, we say well done Jon Champion.

 

On our Shores....the Head of Hair Rules

 

o Meanwhile, over on our shores.... Does NBC's Kyle Martino have one fine head of hair, or what?! The part alone is worth whatever amount NBC are paying him to offer his opinions on the Barclay's Premier League. But overwhelming evidence to the contrary,  don't confuse Martino with a certain hair obsessed primadonna:  We're willing to bet he doesn't have an assistant whose job is to fluff and heat up his sweaters with a hairdryer so they're just the right temperature....

o And then back to England again: Steve Bruce is looking more like Jabba the Hut every week now.

o If you looked up the term "scrappy" in the dictionary, you couldn't possibly come up with a better definiton than this: a game of football in which Marouanne Chamakh, Charlie Adam and Ryan Shawcross score all the goals.

o This Spurs side is going to be good this season -- Daniel Levy has bought well -- but at times on Sunday they looked a bit like 11 people who hadn't met each other more than an hour prior to kickoff.

Obsequious Fawning: Week 1 in the Barclay's Premier League

photo by slopjop	via PhotoRee

Week one is in the bag, and farlieonfootie's regularly insightful and often irrelevant insights on the Premier League are back for your reading pleasure:

o Don't know about you, but we were left scratching our collective heads over the style of football that Sparky is attempting to play at Stoke City....  If "no possession and relatively few chances" are what the Potters' owners had in mind when they sacked Tony Pulis in search of a new footballing identity, then we guess they're well on track.

o After watching Sunderland lose at home to Fulham this Saturday, we're wondering if Jozy Altidore will live to regret his move from the Eredivisie to the Prem.  Racking up 30 goals a season will give a striker some confidence, and Jozy's recent play for the US National Team has shown that he was positively coursing with self assurance after his year in Holland. But playing for a Sunderland side that looks as if they could be relegation fodder could have a belief-sapping effect on the young American. Only time will tell, but we're already watching.

o And speaking of Jozy Altidore, his former employer -- the Hull City Tigers, for those paying attention -- were playing the role of sacrificial lambs for the love-in that was Jose Mourinho's to Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Looking more toothless than tiger-ish, Hull City showed the drastic gap in talent that often exists between the top teams in the League and those coming up from below.  And Steve Bruce, with his embarassingly obsequious fawning over the 'Happy One,' has just demonstrated once again that all great players do not turn out to make great managers. It's gonna be a long year at Hull.

Of Peter Pan and Supermodels: EPL Week Eight in Review

photo by Loren Javier	via PhotoRee

o Mario Balotelli's overhead kick aside, Manchester City looked a bit pedestrian in the first half without Kun Aguero and David Silva in the lineup against Villa on Saturday. Not that you couldn't say the same thing about Manchester United earlier in the same day, with Wayne Rooney, Nani and Chicharito on the bench. I guess these stars really do earn their paychecks...! City pulled it back around in the second half, and Aston Villa never looked as if they were in the contest after the break. The stage is now. set for quite the Manchester derby next weekend, but the  question is which Roberto Mancini-led team will show up: the cantennacio, defensive-minded one, or the more attack-minded side that has featured more often this season.....

o I'm beginning to think Baltotelli's hairdo is a stick-on strip  It changes much too often to be real.

o Owen Hargreaves limped onto the pitch for the Sky Blues on Saturday without pulling a muscle in the process. Will wonders never cease....?

o Alex McLeish had Villa looking in form on Saturday; or rather, that should be he had them looking in the same form that he had Birmingham City last season. Hope the Villans fans didn't get overly excited about their undefeated start.

o I thought I'd heard just about everything in an English accent, until I heard the commentator during the Chelsea - Everton game refer to the Blues' owner as Ro-MAN Ab-ra-MO-vitch.  I don't speak much Russian, but isn't that a case of putting the accent on the wrong syl-LA-ble?