Not Arrogant, Just Better

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Sir Alex makes three changes to the side that lost to Arsenal last weekend, including John O’Shea in for an injured Patrice Evra, Fabio slotting in to right back to replace his brother Rafael, and Park Ji-Sung relegating Nani to the bench.  Chelsea go with largely the same side that has terrorized United in the past, their front line composed of Drogba, Malouda and Kalou, and David Luiz, no longer cup tied, in central defense.  Worryingly for United, Fernando Torres can’t crack the Blues’ starting lineup and remains on the Chelsea bench.  It’s an all or nothing kind of day, particularly for Chelsea, who need a win just to prolong the season.

Somewhat unbelievably, the game starts with a shocker, Chicharito sending David Luiz back to remedial defending school and opening the scoring for the home team inside of 40 seconds.  The little Mexican is picked out shoulder to shoulder with Chelsea’s newest defender, found on a perfect ball from Park, and there’s little work to do to put the ball past a stunned Petr Cech as United grab a shockingly easy and early goal.  The goal works front to back, Rio to Carrick, Carrick to Park, and Park to Hernandez as the Chelsea defense looks about as easy as a cheap hooker on a the day of navy shore leave.  Cue joyous hugging on the United sideline with Fergie reaching over for Mike Phelan and Berba and Ando celebrating, and Carlo Ancelloti sending Alex to the warm-up line for Luiz, whose pride seems to be the biggest injury sustained on the play.

United go all out on attack, looking to kill the game off early, with waves of intent being shown by Rooney, Valencia and Park in particular.  Rooney is almost on target with a 35 yard laser that would have rivaled his City goal of one of the season’s best strikes, but a stretching Cech is just up to the challenge, and tips it wide.   Park is everywhere in the match’s first 10 minutes, the Korean playing as if trying to erase the bad taste left from last week’s game at the Emirates.   Chicharito almost doubles the lead on 10 minutes, a stretching Luiz just getting an unspotted foot on a through ball to Hernandez, throwing off the Mexican’s timing by a mere milisecond.  On fifteen minutes it’s Rooney's turn to nearly double the lead, capping off a flowing move begun once again by Park with Valencia picking out the striker, who is not closed down properly by Chelsea.

Watching

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Thoughts from a busy football Saturday:

Fantasy Watch: Charles N'Zogbia and Yaya Toure -- Another weekend I've neglected to pick them for my fantasy team, another game they've each scored. That's three times in the last four games for the Frenchman; the guy is flat out hot.  And as a rule I try not to pick City players, but with my fantasy season getting even tighter than the real EPL, and City playing twice this game week, I have to admit I was tempted....

Swear Watch: Apparently you're allowed to swear at the referee, and even intentionally bump into him, if you play for Aston Villa.  If you don't believe me, just watch what Emil Heskey did to Mike Jones on Saturday. Somehow, though, the yellow card Heskey was given feels like a more appropriate punishment than the three game ban received by Wayne Rooney for a lesser offense. No need for confusion, though, as I'm certain someone from the FA will be along straight away to explain the incredible discrepancy.  ABU anyone?

It's in the Stars

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In which Correspondent Ed and farlieonfootie go mano a mano regarding the Champions League final:


Ed: I still hate Barca, but I have to ask: Can United beat these guys?  


farlieonfootie: Of course they can, Ed.  You don't win 18 English titles and three European Championships by being scared of the opposition.


Ed: Real, a team that I think is similar to United, had the ball all of 22% of the time in the first half.  What Barca doesn’t get enough credit for is how fast they are, and how well they shut people down when they lose the ball.  Real was taken completely out of their game Tuesday night.  


farlieonfootie: Your flaw's in your assumption, Ed.  Manchester United is like Real only in that Cristiano Ronaldo played for both teams, but the similarities end there.  Real plays like a pampered collection of stars; United plays like a team.  United may not have the pure celebrity wattage associated with Los Blancos, but I'll take a Nemanja Vidic, Park Ji-Sung and Antonio Valencia any day of the week over guys like Sergio Ramos, Kaka and Xabi Alonso.  Stars do win championships -- sometimes.  More commonly, though, they are won by teams.


Ed: All that said, Mascherano should have been tossed out for flopping ridiculously on several occassions, and I’d say about 50% of the penalties that were called in the first half were actual fouls, while 50% were pretty much touch fouls, if anything at all.  I’d also say Messi, who everyone says doesn’t flop, simply flopped on several occasions Tuesday night.  Once again, if I played like that at Wednesday night league it'd be laughable. 

Transformers

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Tuesday, May 4, 2011 / Camp Nou / Barcelona, SPAIN

It was a dark and stormy night....

And then there was the matter of a certain football match in Catalonia Tuesday night, although the game was far from a classic. Sure, there was less flopping, diving and whinging than six days ago, but this game was more pure drudgery than jogo bonito. Nevertheless, herewith some observations about a few of the many transformations which occurred during the fourth and final clasico, a result which sent Barcelona to the Champions league final at Wembley to face Manchester United:

• The game's announcer transformed Carles Puyol linto a "beast of a man."  Only in La Liga could that description be apt. Nemanja Vidic is a beast of a man. Vincent Kompany is a beast of a man. Christopher Samba is a beast of a man. Hell, even Brede Hangeland is a beast of a man.  But Carles Puyol is a bad haircut. He may be a decent defender, but his haircut alone is enough to make me totally discount him as both a player and a person.

  One Bad Haircut  
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• Jose Mourinho transformed from Special One to Absent One.  Apparently he had other things to attend to. You think there's any coincidence that Osama Bin Laden was killed earlier this week?  Some things are more important than football.

• Emanuel Adenayor transformed from a semi-decent attacker in his Gooner days, to semi-decent goon in his Real Madrid days.  What is he thinking?

The B-Side

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Sir Alex trotted out an alternate side for the Champions League semi-final tonight, electing to keep his ideal first XI on the bench and rest them for the EPL decider against Chelsea taking place in four days' time.  From the pre-match shrieks of protest on Twitter you'd have thought Sir Alex's choices today included Pogba, King, Morrison and Keane (Will, that is, not Roy). Instead, the side featured Dimitar Berbatov, the EPL's leading scorer, Paul Scholes, a veteran of two European winning United sides of the past, and Edwin Van Der Sar in between the sticks. It also included whipping boy Darren Gibson, another Twitter-abuse victim, and the oft-maligned Brazilian midfielder, Oliveira Anderson. All in all, not a bad side, but definitely a side that must have caused a certain Josep "Pep" Guardiola to wonder why he had traveled all the way from Barcelona to watch, as well as a side with something to prove. 

Which they did on 26 minutes, as Darren Gibson offered a perfectly-weighted through ball to Antonio Valencia, steaming in from the right and not having to break even the smallest bit of stride before he banged it past United's nemesis from the prior match, Manuel Neuer.  Gibson may have been awakened from a season-long slumber by a rib-rattling collision with Jefferson Farfan approximately 15 minutes before his pass settled the home crowd's nerves. It was only a mere five minutes later when Gibson hit back at his doubters yet again with a semi-final goal that stunned the home crowd as well as the 'keeper formerly known as the Berlin Wall.  Neuer reduced both his transfer price as well as his team's chance of a miracle three goal comeback when he had a bit of a howler, letting Gibson's soft-ish effort slough off his hands and into the net.

Here Comes the Sun

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Columnist Scott returns to our pages by popular demand, reminding readers of who the real royalty are in the City of Liverpool:


Neither Andy Carroll’s absence from the starting XI nor the prominent shade darkening the far side of the pitch could overshadow the brilliant sunshine that drenched the majority of Anfield, as Liverpool welcomed Newcastle on a cartoonishly pleasant Sunday afternoon on Merseyside.  While the crowd was singing “Here Comes the Sun” (or they should have been, if they weren’t) as both a tribute to George Harrison’s most popular contribution to the city’s mop-headed quartet, and as a musical metaphor of the Reds’ recent run of form, Kenny Dalglish was caught, in an open-mic moment, calling Jamie Carragher  “Little Darling” before going on to note that “it’s been a long, cold lonely winter,” but now “the smiles [are] returning to the faces.”

Which comment proved to be an understatement when the overdose of all-natural vitamin D kicked in at the 10 minute mark, and Maxi Rodriguez extended his scoring streak with a volley that ricocheted in off a hapless Toon defender.  And just like that, when combined with the criminal refereeing that spurned Tottenham and awarded Chelsea an ill-deserved win a day earlier, Liverpool was knocking on Europa’s automatic qualification door.

Special Ops

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Columnist Ed's take on OBL and the EPL:

Let’s begin by celebrating the eradication of Osama Bin Laden from the planet.  OBL was gunned down by some special ops Navy Seals while at home in his million dollar mansion in the middle of the affluent golf course community of Addamatta or Whatsamatta or something stupid like that.  Despite all the negative talk out there, the US of A still can and will put the hammer down when need be.  I should note that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing some guys from college who became Navy Seals, and recall them to be totally and completely nuts, totally and completely geared up with things that kill the bad people of the world, and totally and completely itchy to go anywhere to do so, whether it be a cave in Afghanisatan or the back nine at Riviera.  So thanks to you guys, and to the US military in general, and to the CIA, and to the President!!!!  And as Coach Tom pointed out to me with comically sarcastic glee, we know one guy who won’t be winning the club championship this year (See google maps at 34.154556, 73.226838). 

So riding that wave of patriotic joy, let’s return to the pursuit of happiness, which here at farlieonfootie means watching, writing, and chatting about football.  Where to begin?  How about with this question:  What happened to Spurs? 

Flattened

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For all the highs this United side reached mid-week versus Schalke 04 in the Champions League, the weekend represented a cruel comeuppance, as the team managed to hit a new low only five days later.  Mailing in an insipid, uninspired performance in which they never really got out of third gear, Manchester United lost 1-nil to Arsenal today at the Emirates, in a match that opened the title race back up.  Now faced with two crucial matches in the space of seven days, Sir Alex's side will be forced next Sunday to confront an increasingly confident Chelsea on only four days rest.

Not that you can say they don't deserve to be in this position: United were bland all afternoon and came out seemingly set up as if to generate a nil-nil scoreline.  Arsenal 'keeper Wojiech Szczesny was never really tested on the afternoon, and the number of true chances the Reds had in the game could be counted on one hand with several fingers to spare.

Call it a Champions League-sized hangover or whatever you want -- all four semi-finalists bit the dust in their respective domestic leagues this weekend -- but United never appeared to want the game, failing to show urgency even in the match's closing minutes.  The midfield combination of Carrick and Anderson once again failed to impress, and Nani and Park on the wings were relatively useless.  In the day's most shocking development, Park -- United's human dynamo, after all -- was seen lazily walking back toward goal and left Aaron Ramsey completely unmarked inside the 18 yard box on the play which turned the afternoon in the home side's favor.

Game Day Beer Review: Abita Brewing's Save Our Shore German-style Pilsner

(7.00% ABV). Pours a straw colored yellow into a pilsner glass. Abita's SOS shows lots of carbonation, and a head that just won't quit. The smell is mild hops, and even milder citrus. SOS' taste is bready, and only very mildly hoppy. It's a mellow pilsner that's incredibly easy to drink. Maybe it's because I'm on vacation as I write this review, but if this beer is sending out a message on conservation, I'm all in  -- except as it relates to SOS: I want more. A-.

Spurs 1 - Chelsea 0*

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*We here at farlieonfootie have decided we want to live in world in which all refereeing decisions are correct, and only deserved goals are awarded.  Unfortunately, those two circumstances would negate the "hard earned" three points Chelsea picked up at the Bridge on Saturday, in which the only real labor was coming from Sky TV announcers as they tried ponderously to think of excuses why Chelsea still deserve to be in the title race.  And absolutely no one at the FA was up in arms at all, due to Spurs' sudden crumbling into "also ran" status, and the organization's desire to see Chelsea fight on 'til the final week.

Herewith, the "unofficial" write up from Saturday's game:

Season Over and Blues in Disarray

Saturday, April 30 / Stamford Bridge / London England

Spurs hung on for an uncomfortable 1-nil victory over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening, effectively ending the Blues' hope of retaining their Premiership title.  This, despite Chelsea still having to travel to Old Trafford to face Manchester United next week, with the London-based club now having almost nothing at stake and reduced to playing solely for pride.

Befitting a final scoreline showcasing the thinnest of margins, the match was not without its controversial moments. Linesman Mike Cairns incorrectly signaled for a goal on a Frank Lampard shot which Spurs' 'keeper Huerelho Gomes hideously mishandled, the ball skidding through the Brazilian's legs and onto the goal line.  But not over it, as Referee Andre Marriner correctly deduced from his angle, and the initial goal ruling was quickly and correctly overturned, despite Chelsea's heated protests to the contrary.  Skipper John Terry, belying his usual even temperament, managed to pick up a yellow card for dissent in arguing the incident with Marriner.

Terry was later ejected from the game when, in the 88th minute, Marriner once again managed to get his angle spot on, correctly adjudging Solomon Kalou to be in an offside position just before the Ivorian tapped in what he and the home crowd thought to be a last-gasp equalizer.   Terry's vehement protest earned him a trip to the shower only five minutes before the rest of his teammates joined him to wash their season away.