Fergie's Chewing Gum - November 11
Premier League
Will anyone catch Chelsea?
The Blues continued their superb start to the season with another ground out win. 11 games in and they’ve won 9 and drawn 2. They haven’t lost in any competition yet, something only Bayern Munich and PSG can say among the five major leagues in Europe (That’s assuming you discount Bayern’s Super Cup loss to Dortmund - effectively the German Community Shield - and PSG have drawn so many games, they aren’t even top in France). Chelsea have already played City, Arsenal, United and now Liverpool and come away unscathed, with 2 wins and those 2 draws.
They met Liverpool at Anfield early Sunday morning. Liverpool were coming off a narrow loss to Real Madrid midweek where they rested the likes of Steven Gerrard and Raheem Sterling for this very match. It started well for the Reds as Emre Can driving one in via a massive deflection off Gary Cahill. However Chelsea equalised within five minutes, Cahill putting in a scrambled ball which Simon Mignolet couldn’t quite keep from crossing the line, Goal Line Tech confirming it.
Liverpool dominated possession comfortably but had trouble creating much from it against a superbly rehearsed CFC defence. Jose Mourinho lauded the efforts of Nemanja Matic in particular afterwards. A draw started to seem a real possibility when Diego Costa slammed home a loose ball in the second half. His tussle with Martin Skrtel was a thriller all game as they tussled and argued and battled away. Costa got the final laugh though, his goal proved the winner. He did have to swap shirts after Skrtel tore a handful of it as Costa went for an opportunistic bicycle kick.
What was already a good week for Chelsea got better when Arsenal fell 2-1 to Swansea and Manchester City could only draw 2-2 with QPR. Arsenal had led 1-0 with 20 to play, Danny Welbeck cutting back on the counter and laying it off to Alexis Sanchez for the Chilean’s eighth goal in ten Premier League games. But Gylfi Sigurdsson scored a wonderful free kick to equalise and then Bafétimbi Gomis rose up for a headed winning goal a few minutes later.
City, meanwhile, had to equalise twice – both through Sergio Aguero – after Charlie Austin scored and Martin Demichelis put one in his own net.
Manchester United beat Crystal Palace 1-0, Juan Mata coming off the bench to score just as it looked like a dominant performance may go to waste in a game they really needed to win. It could well have been different if childhood Man U fan Frazier Campbell had been able to score after some defensive miscommunication. United climb to seventh at the international break.
Southampton are still second. Shane Long scored twice off the bench to see off Leicester City, while West Ham couldn’t find the back of the net in Andy Carroll’s return against Aston Villa and it wasn’t through lack of trying. That one was 0-0, The Hammers still fourth.
Burnley are still dead last, but at least they have a win now. Ashley Barnes scored the only goal in a 1-0 home win over Hull City. Newcastle had been down in the drop zone for a while but after beating West Brom 2-0, they’re now up to eighth with four wins on the trot. Incredible turnaround. Sunderland managed to earn a point at home to Everton, Seb Larsson scoring midway through the second half before a Leighton Baines penalty levelled. And Tottenham couldn’t salvage anything against Stoke, despite a powerful Nacer Chadli volley pulling it back to 2-1, which is how it finished.
La Liga
The craziest news from Spain this week came this morning when David Moyes was unveiled as the new manager of Real Sociedad. It’s a brave decision to head to a new country with a new language, but one probably safe given what the English media did to him. Best of luck, Davie.
Sociedad, who finished seventh last year, had been lingering in the relegation zone when their last manager got the flick. As is so often the case, the change brought an immediate impact as caretaker Asier Santana coached them to an upset win over defending champs Atletico Madrid. Mario Mandzukic gave Atletico a 10th minute lead but Carlos Vela equalised 5 mins later. Remember him, Mexican forward, used to play for Arsenal? Guillherme Siqueira got sent off for AM in the 50th for a second yellow, and Imanol Agirretxe gave RS a massive boost with the winner in the 82nd.
Barcelona were able to arrest their little slide in the league, though it didn’t come easy. They were 1-0 down at half time when Luis Suarez came on, and although he didn’t find the net, he did lay on both goals and hit the woodwork as Barca beat Almeria 2-1. With Valencia being held 0-0 at home to Athletic Bilbao and Sevilla 1-1 against Levante (plus Atletico’s loss), Los Catalans move back up to second.
Trailing, of course, to Real Madrid. Five different players scored as they smashed Rayo Vallecano 5-1. Gareth Bale and Sergio Ramos were first, but Alberto Bueno pulled one back just before half time. It didn’t matter, Karim Benzema and Toni Kroos each scored in the space of five minutes and Cristiano Ronaldo buried his 23th goal of the season to cap things off.
Bundesliga
Bayern Munich just keep on rolling. Thomas Muller scored a hatty in a 4-0 win over Frankfurt. Xherdan Shaqiri scored the other goal. Things are so dominant for Bayern, that Manuel Neuer is having to find some creative ways to combat his boredom.
Good news for Dortmund, they finally won a game after 7 Bundesliga games without one. The bad/hilarious news? This was the winning goal. A stunning OG from Christophe Kramer (German guy, got his head bandaged in the World Cup) from miles out.
Wolfsburg won 2-0 and are still on a wild run of wins. They’re all the way up to second place. Hannover have won 3 in a row, while Bayer Leverkusen couldn’t find a winner against Mainz and drop to sixth.
Ligue 1
France had its own version of the Spanish Classic last weekend. Le Classique, as they call it (make sure to read it in an outrageous French accent): Paris Saint Germain vs Marseille. PSG had been inconsistent, winning and drawing back and forth while Marseille won 8 of their first 10. Lucas Moura scored the first goal of the clash for PSG, but Marseille’s chances of fighting back were spoiled with a little under 15 mins left to play thanks to a ridiculous red card decision for Giannelli Imbula. Edinson Cavani scored late to finish it off, though there was a little drama between Cavani and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Ibra was returning from injury, during which time Cavani failed to really take the mantle, and it looked like Zlatan seemed to be avoiding passing to him. A bit of schoolyard justice, there.
The pick of the other results was a 3- 1 win for Lyon against Guingamp. That makes it five wins on the trot for Lyon, who are just 2 points off Marseille in top. PSG sit between them now with four wins in a row.
Serie A
Carlos Tevez, take a bow.
That was one of two goals he scored as Juventus annihilated Parma 7-0. Morata and Llorente also got doubles. Juve sit top in Italy on 18 points.
Roma are sticking close though. They won 3-0 courtesy of goals to Tosoridis, Keita and Ljajic in a game that marked Kevin Strootman’s return from a long injury break. Both Milan teams drew 2-2 and finished with 10 men. Inter’s was the worse blow, they equaliser coming in the 89th minute. They missed a penalty in that game too.