Tuesday 8 February 2011

Saturday Siesta

FA Clubs MapImage via Wikipedia
On Saturday afternoon I started to watch Stoke v Sunderland. Kieran Richardson scored early on to give Sunderland the lead. Then the ball went here and there without any pattern. I began to feel sleepy. I woke up an hour later to find that Stoke had won 3-2. I had missed 4 goals. 


Anxious not to miss anything else I did a bit of channel hopping and found a German channel showing Newcastle v Arsenal. The screen showed 12 minutes had gone but I could hardly believe the score: Arsenal 3 Newcastle 0! I had missed 3 more goals, and surely the match was over in substance. Toothless (allegedly) Newcastle with the feeling of the loss of Andrew Carroll on their backs would never recover.


Then Newcastle’s J.Barton kept showing up everywhere, taking the corners, free kicks, and falling down blithely anywhere reasonable between adding a biting tackle for good measure. One such caught Diaby’s legs. He showed his feelings by getting J. Barton by the back of the neck and pushing him to the ground. Along comes Newcastle-captain K. Nolan like a policeman in a comedy saying, ‘“Hello, hello, hello!”. The suspect Diaby promptly pushes him in the chest. A crowd gathers and the ref pulls out a red card. Exit Diaby; no doubt glad that he didn’t get his leg broken again in a tackle. In fact, Barton’s tackle looked clumsy more than dangerous but you felt that it came from a player willing to do whatever it takes for his team and his role as a villain (aka Man of the Match).



By now 4-0 in the lead, Arsenal are down to 10 men. Inspired by Barton’s insistence and his two penalties Newcastle go on to a unique (in the Premier League) four-goal recovery. Final score: 4-4. 


My personal score 7-6: asleep for 7 awake for 6.



The goals galore at the weekend delighted fans at grounds and football fantasy league players everywhere. There were 25 goals For and 16 Against; a total of 41 in eight matches, 5 per match barring fractions. And no fractures!

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Tuesday 1 February 2011

Did you hear the sounds of breaking glass ....

as huge snowballs of money struck the transfer window last night? A couple of strikers were involved. The biggest snowball broke the record for a player coming to a British club and was thrown by Chelsea at Liverpool for Torres for £50 million. It gave Liverpool some daft money to throw one of £35 mllion at Newcastle for Carroll which broke the record for the transfer of a British player. I hope those snowballs don't melt too quickly.

F. J. Torres, although 'fit' now, has had injury problems in both of the last two seasons and A.T. Carroll is currently injured. Torres is at least tried and tested as a top level striker. But Carroll is in his first season in the Premier League, with 11 goals from 19 matches.  Promising and exciting, but for £35 million - the things that can go wrong! A few weeks ago Carroll was living in Newcastle-captain Nolan's house. A kind of supervision by order of a magistrate before whom he had appeared.



As a Chelsea fan I am delirious with joy, or as I would normally put it - quite pleased. I cannot wait to see Torres net a rebound after Drogba hits the post (again), or see Torres turn and shoot from outside the box into the top left corner of the goal as he did for Liverpool against Chelsea earlier this season...before adding another goal for two of his few this season. And how many more will the Drogba score as spin-off from a new partner? The £50 million should spice things up at Stamford Bridge for ..........at least the rest of the season. Will it bring the Champions League success so expensively sought by the actual thrower of the £50 million snowball, the Chelsea owner, Roman Abramovich?



There are signs of wet snowballs already - I have just heard that Andrew Carroll did not really want to leave Newcastle.


Chelsea are at home to Liverpool on Sunday. Will Drogba, Anelka and Torres play? I can't wait to find out.