EPL Week In Review : February 23rd
- What is with all this praise for Guus Hiddink? Granted Aston Villa are a top team and a new coach can’t change the make up of this squad over night but that was a Mourinho era performance which wasn’t deemed good enough 18 months ago. Chelsea took an early lead then soaked up all the pressure Aston Villa could mount. A nice win going into their Champions League match against Juventus but I wouldn’t grant Guus Hiddink keys to the city yet.
- Sometimes I forget that Arsenal are without Fabregas, Walcott and Adebayor but there are a lot of players like Robin van Persie who claim to be world class and wish to be paid like world class players but often fall short when it’s time to prove it. Yes, Arsenal are undefeated in 12 games I believe but it doesn’t do much good when it seems like 11 of those games are draws. With Aston Villa losing, Arsenal had a great chance to close the gap which makes Saturday’s results even more disappointing.
- How in the world is Tomáš Rosický still injured? Even Eduardo has come back from his broken leg before Rosicky.
- When your last league goal was scored on January 10th you have problems. If Middlesbrough are to save themselves this season somebody needs to find the back of the net. No shame in grabbing a point against Wigan but Boro need wins in a hurry to avoid the drop.
- Speaking of goals James Beattie now ups his tally to four goals in five games for Stoke. In a game that was a bore to watch for 75 minutes turned into a roller coaster ride of emotions as Portsmouth jumped out in front thanks to Niko Kranjcar only for Stoke then take the lead and finally a Ryan Shawcross own goal split the points between another two teams hoping to avoid the drop.
- I know being a referee is a thankless job but if Howard Webb is the best referee England has to offer, it doesn’t say much about the other referee’s in England. It truly takes a special skill to annoy both coaches during a game. In the first half Johnny Evans goal was disallowed thanks to a soft foul against Ronaldo. An even bigger missed call was Rafael tug on Morten Gamst Pedersen in the box which wasn’t called a penalty. How that wasn’t called I’ll never know, United caught a huge break there.
- Credit to Blackburn, usually United don’t have to defend a lead late in games but Blackburn had the defending Champions on their heels for large parts of the game. If it was anyone else rather than Ryan Nelsen who struck the post for Blackburn they could of easily taken the lead.
- The facts of life told us, You take the good, You take the bad, You take them both and there you have the facts of life. Yesterday both the good and the bad of Nani were on full display. His pass to set up Rooney’s first goal caused havoc but his lack of focus caused Blackburn to score on the counter attack. Maybe one day what is between his ears will catch up to his god given talent. Needless to say look for Park Ji-Sung to start against Inter.
- The commentators during the game kept mentioning that Ronaldo was lucky to be still on the pitch after getting a yellow card for diving. The premise is all too simple really. Ronaldo should of got a yellow card for kicking out against David Dunn but on a yellow knowing that Howard Webb has no issue sending him off it’s doubtful Ronaldo would of taken that swan dive.
- Oh yeah, nice free kick Cristiano.
- What an ugly tackle by Kevin Nolan who should know better than to go in two footed.
- Liverpool, Liverpool, Liverpool. Why must you wait for the other team to take a lead before playing your best. If Liverpool would played the final 20 minutes for an entire game they would of won going away.
- Liverpool’s fatal flaw is the fact Benítez doesn’t like the Liverpool ownership structure and quite frankly the ownership doesn’t like Benitez. Hicks and Gillett are praying public opinion turns on Benitez one day so they can fire him and Benitez himself knows this. When everyone isn’t on the same page any team will have an uphill battle trying to succeed. The Glazer’s for example aren’t sitting around in Tampa hoping Sir Alex Ferguson retires so they can replace him.