Hello everybody, it's me again, the Head. Almost forgotten about this until I came back a while ago. First day scores: Aston Villa 1-2 Liverpool Fernando Torres did well for his debut. Aston Villa put on a fight to level after going down to a great own goal. Then MBE stepped in... Crosscourt & Fend. : Ryan Babel is quite a gem of a player, similar to Walcott. Bolton 1-3 Newcastle Big Sam is doing wonders with the squad, Little Sam is going to have big troubles this season. Derby 2-2 Portsmouth Always dangerous to meet promoted teams during the first day of the season. Good on Derby. Everton 2-1 Wigan Wigan is the other team to be facing big troubles this season. Middlesbrough 1-2 Blackburn Santa Cruz got off to a goal on his debut. Sunderland 1-0 Tottenham Well in, Black Cats! 'Keano' must be chuffed to bits. It's now a matter of keeping it in stride. Good debut for the most expensive Premiership keeper, Gordon. West Ham 0-2 Man City Great intros for Elano, Bojinov and the rest of the Man City new signings.
Arsenal 2 - 1 Fulham I was pretty upset when Arsenal got their penalty and then going on to win a match when they don't deserve to. Van Persie was totally out of sorts, missed every single chance set in his path until it was from 6-yards away in spot kick. Tony Warner the backup keeper was in superb form to deny every chance that Arsenal had. Fault was with Fulham too for not converting their own chances to secure a famous victory at the Emirates. Gooners everywhere would be breathing a sigh of relief at their escape (yes, escape) from the jaws of defeat. To a neutral, it was thoroughly disappointing. Chelsea 3 - 2 Birmingham The Brummie keeper sucks big time. That is all. Man Utd 0 - 0 Reading Marcus Hennehman(sp?) was in sparkling form to deny everything thrown at his goal from United. The best jokes on the match were about Paul Kitson being shown the exit within 30 seconds as well as O'Shea as striker after spending £60million for the summer. Referee Styles gave the Mancs every chance to win the game but it just didn't happen. Still early days but I'm pretty sure that was a welcomed change.
Blackburn 1-1 Arsenal Scrappy goals as well as comical goalkeeping from Lehmann. Honours even. Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea It was difficult to keep a straight face when Rob Styles pointed to the spot for a penalty that only the most deluded or myopic fan could accept. Chelsea got a 'Get out of jail' card, free. Fans from both sides and neutrals spoke about this match up for the whole week, wanted it to be about both teams fighting like mad for the points. Ended up Styles became the talking point. Add some stupid decisions and trigger happy card waving and the whole thing sours. Robbed. As Steve McMahon on ESPN said, referees had gotten into the headlines far too much of late. If memory serves me right, that was the second time Styles awarded a penalty to an attacking team's player charging into a defender, the first being at Highbury. How can he sleep at night? Man City 1-0 Man Utd Famous victory that. It seems like Sven's team is picking up really well while United is still stuttering without a win from their first three matches. They top the league for now. Birmingham 0-1 West Ham Finally a win for Magnusson after some poor performances to start the season. Fulham 1-2 Middlesbrough Away victory followed by Yakubu joining Everton. Southgate has done well despite being reduced in resources. Newcastle 0-0 Aston Villa Snorefest. A Geordie on RAWK started a thread waiting for this. Suffice to say the piss take was funny. Portsmouth 3-1 Bolton That John Utaka can fly! Sammy Lee is going to have a very tough time now. How long will Gartside keep his sword sheathed? Reading 1-0 Everton Reading had been showing signs of reversing the trend of a bad season following a good one for promoted teams with impressive performances against some difficult foes. Tottenham 4-0 Derby Angry and smarting Spurs spanked the promoted boys. Could've been more if not for wasteful finishing. Wigan 3-0 Sunderland Top of the league for a while. Manager Hutchings was the favourite to get sacked first this season. Safe for now I suppose. The Black Cats were brought back down to earth after their opening day heroics.
I wanted to cry when I watched that blunder by Lehmann. Wasted download quota while streaming it online -__-"
Another one goes "It's a marathon not a sprint"! Is anyone prepared to stick their neck out and make predictions about the top 4? Despite ManC's flying start I'm going to bet that it will be the same 4 as last year and also that it will be the same order. If I'm brutally honest I would have to say that we're (Arsenal) the team most likely to finish outside the top 4. I hate to say it but I think it's true.
No doubt that the refress made a blunder there (not to mention the "second" yellow card shown to Essien). But to be fair to Chelsea, they deserve the point. Liverpool ran out of steam towards the last 15-20 minutes and Chelsea was pretty dominating with their physical team.
If they scored, that is. The only problem is that throughout the whole match they had just one shot on goal - that verschunckent penalty. In short, "... when Styles equalised for Chelsea..." Styles is suspended for the weekend for this debacle and had issued an apology. Further investigations on the cards fiasco may put him out for one whole month. So, the sun is clear and the birds are singing again, yes? The heck it is. The Premier League had pushed for video and technology earlier than expected due to this problem and most especially the last minute goal by Fulham at Middlesboro which was denied when it was shown to have passed the line. The assistant linesman for this match has also been suspended for the weekend. I won't continue ranting about that incident as there would always be controversies but the need to reduce the most horrendous or basic of errors must be minimised to ensure that the players/clubs/manager get to determine the outcome of the match, not the referee - goals, saves etc. I only hope that the decision won't cost us much come May as one victory over your rivals for the crown is worth 6 points, not 3.
tonite england will be without gerrard, rooney and more stars in a friendly match against germany... whats u guys prediction?? i predict germany won 2-1 ... hehe
Drop Lampard and they might suddenly play well again. He's an absolute waste of quorum on the pitch for England.
heehee I didn't mean it but I'm going to use it a lot from now on! When will the Liverpool spending spree end! Two more players? I missed the England game but from the highlights I saw England could have easily won if the finishing had been just a little bit smarter. Anyone disagree?
we should've got 3-4 goals though. Our finishing is a bit off but some good signs. Torres looks like a good buy for liverpool!
haha man city lost finally and conceived a goal, that was a good game. but im still pissed because Toronto FC are now holders of the worst record ever....ahhh *cry* longest time in MLS between goals.....642 minutes since last goal....ahh....poor Mo Johnston thats hard