Flying Kiwis – September 27
Chris Wood – Leeds United (English Championship)
Vengeance is a dish best served cold which is suiting for Chris Wood who happens to live in Yorkshire these days. All the criticism he’s copped this season for a struggling Leeds, that time he got dropped… mate, all in the rearview now. Woody’s on fire and your defence is most certainly, if not terrified than at least mildly uncomfortable at the prospect.
Shall we begin at the beginning? That’d be the League Cup midweek. Up against Blackburn, who Woody had scored against off the bench last week, he was again named on the bench this week as Garry Monk picked a typical midweek cup kinda team.
We’ll skip the non-Wood stuff, both teams had a few sparse chances and overall it was a little boring. They subbed on Pablo Hernandez and it got a bit better. They subbed on Chris Wood and this happened:
Count it and the victory, friend. He might have scored prettier goals in the past but that’s three goals in three games for the big man. Leeds advance to the round of 16 where they’ll meet Norwich – quite a good draw that given there’s a Liverpool vs Spurs game and a Manchester Derby as well. All up Wood got in 19 minutes so he was good and fresh for the weekend when they played Ipswich, sadly sans Tommy Smith.
SING IT TO THE RAFTERS, MONKMAN!
Garry Monk: “I am obviously pleased for him. He came in for criticism earlier in the season which I don’t quite understand. His contribution in terms of goals has been very good but I don’t judge him and I don’t judge the players on that, I judge on what they can contribute to the team and how they work for the team, their effort and commitment to what we do and it’s those things that I judge them on. Of course, with strikers, you want them to be scoring goals and you want them to be scoring goals for their confidence and they want to be scoring goals themselves. But I thought his all-round performance in terms of his contribution to the team, along with Marcus and the other guys in the team, I thought it was a very high level. That’s really for me, as a manager, that’s what I look at and they are the reasons why we are contributing to a good turn of form at the moment.”
Rightio, now to Ipswich. Wood started up top on his own like he’s been doing recently, with Hernandez in the hole behind him. It was Leeds who started on the front foot too, Hadi Sacko with the first shot at goal although it was in more danger of taking down low-flying objects than busting a hole in the net. Woody came much closer a few minutes later when he took the ball down the left, cut inside and from the corner of the box he ripped one off the inside of the far post.
A few Ipswich corners took some dealing with but the shots kept coming at the other end too. 35 minutes in the goal did arrive.
The City Talking: “Taylor was overlapping and in the centre Wood’s right arm was flapping; he’d run to the near post but was waving to the far, and Taylor took a careful moment to swoop the ball to the middle of the goal. Wood, normally restrained by gravity, leapt above his marker and his downward header was Goldilocks: not so short it bounced up and over, not so deep it went over the bar, but just right, on the goal line, into the back of the net.”
Lovely. Wood got the ball in hold-up play, turned his man and laid it wide. Charlie Taylor whipped it back in as Wood made a clever run to get free and his header was never gonna miss from that close. Make that seven goals this season and four games in a row with a net-rustler.
Into the second half, Wood had a chance to make it 2-0 but his shot was well saved by Bartosz Bialkowski with his legs. Later on a deflected shot of his found its way to Sacko who took a touch and then somehow missed the target altogether – the kind of miss that Woody was pulling out of the bag earlier in the season. A couple of dangerous set pieces followed. Wood had a follow-up shot saved. A late effort dragged straight at the keeper. They couldn’t get that second goal they deserved but they won it all the same and it was mighty impressive. Leeds and Wood’s best performance of the season, both of them.
YEP Player Ratings: “Chris Wood - Yes, he scored again and a good finish it was, but it was more pleasing to see Wood properly hammer a Championship backline. 9/10”
Mick McCarthy: “I thought Chris Wood was outstanding, the focal point and the big difference in the team. When they hit it up there they stuck up there and he ran in the channels. He showed why he had good money (spent on him) and why he’s a good player. Leeds have a very good player. He played well.”
Yorkshire Evening Post: “Six weeks ago, Wood was receiving hammer from sections of the Elland Road crowd as his 60th-minute substitution against Birmingham City was greeted by jeers and cheers. Nine games later, the Kiwi has bagged four goals from his last four games and already has seven in league and cup from 11 games. His Championship tally of five so far also puts him joint-third in the league scoring charts with Brighton’s Glenn Murray, behind Bristol City’s Tammy Abraham, with eight, and Brentford’s Scott Hogan, with six. Wood is growing in confidence each week and gave the Ipswich defence a torrid time throughout. He was unlucky not to have a hat-trick having also thumped the post from range and brought about a good save from Bartosz Bialkowski with his legs. Wood was odds-on - 5-6 - with Leeds bookmaking firm Sky Bet to net 20 league goals or more before Saturday’s clash with Ipswich. He’ll be even shorter now and 20 looks inevitable should he stay in form and injury free.”
Up Next: Away to Bristol City at 7.45am Weds & home to Huddersfield, 3.00am Sunday (NZT)
Winston Reid – West Ham United (English Premier League)
Oh sweet as, so Winston was good to go against Southampton this week. Pity it was at London Stadium though, right? To be fair, they sorted out a lot of the stadium issues. They had a full complement of stewards on hand to fix things, more than full in fact, and each of them had been thoroughly drilled in how to deal with loud-mouthed hooligans as well and wouldn’t you believe it but actually trying harder to make things work made a genuine difference. Now the next issue they need to fix with the stadium is how to win a bloody footy game in it.
Yes, Winston was back against the Saints. He started at the back for James Collins who was out of the squad entirely. Alvaro Arbeloa made his club debut too, though he did so at left back instead of his favoured right with Masuaku injured. Havard Nordtveit carried on at right back and that was a little regrettable as it turned out.
For 40 minutes nothing really happened. It was a Sunday stroll, each team happy to take their time without taking too many risks. Slaven Bilic would later say that his team’s work off the ball in this stage was very good… only when they got it they didn’t know what to do with it. Then, 40 minutes in, Charlie Austin scored and the Hammers never recovered. Nordtveit was burned by Dusan Tadic and Ryan Bertrand down the wing and a clever shot from Austin was the game breaker.
The second goal came a spot after the hour mark. Reid gave the ball away cheaply, then Cheikhou Kouyate gave it away even easier and by the time Tadic was skipping around a stranded Adrian there were blushes all around.
Then, right before the end, Southampton topped it off when Winston was dragged out wide, beaten, and James Ward-Prowse eventually turned the ball in for 3-0. As was written in The Guardian afterwards:
“Reid, so reliable for the Hammers for so long but looking error prone this term, did not cover himself in glory for Southampton’s third, either.”
Hey and he picked up one of these just for fun too:
“Winston Reid - 5.5: Improved the West Ham defence after absence last week at West Brom but still major problems back there.”
“Winston Reid - The New Zealander would have been welcomed back before the game but made too many errors. 5”
Five Premier League defeats out of six, 11 goals conceded in their last three games. Sitting third to last and in the relegation zone. Say, what did you reckon of that junk, Winnie?
Mark Noble was even more to the point:
"I thought we started all right and then 'bang' we conceded a goal and to be honest we never looked back in it. If I'm honest it could have been six in the end. Adrian pulled off some good saves and on the bright side, I don't think it can get any worse. Eleven goals in three games is laughable and it's not good enough. I think we could have kept playing until tonight and we wouldn't have scored."
Meanwhile in the Daily Mirror:
“When even Winston Reid is caught dawdling close to the edge of his own area – as the New Zealander was in the build-up to Southampton's second – then Slaven Bilic, once a no-nonsense defender himself, really has got some serious work to do on the training ground.”
Yeah not good. Also, they played in the EFL Cup and won, which is nice. Not so nice is that it took them 96 minutes to score – yup, six minutes into injury time – for Dimitri Payet to make the difference against Accrington Stanley. A team they really oughta be beating easier, you’d have thunk. Winston didn’t play that one.
OY SIT UP STRAIGHT, DIMI!
Up Next: West Ham vs Middlesbrough, 3.00am Sunday (NZT)
Ryan Thomas – PEC Zwolle (Dutch Eredivisie)
Injuries are a pretty recurring thing in Flying Kiwis for whatever reason. Tommy Smith is out for a few months, Bill Tuiloma is still nursing his latest thing and Winston Reid is only just back himself. Last time we looked in at Thommo he was being subbed off in the first half with an injury of his own. Well, the good news is that he lasted until half-time this game.
Thomas was back from the thigh injury that hampered him in the defeat to AZ and it must have been a bit precautionary because he was straight back in the starting XI to face Ajax. Left wing of a 4-3-3. And, you know, despite being away to the team that’s won four of the last six Dutch titles, it couldn’t have started any better. Let’s not forget that Thommo scored a double against these folks when Zwolle won the Cup in 2014, here he set up Wout Brama for the opener after only four minutes with a clever inside ball between a couple of defenders. Woohoo.
Except the lead lasted only a few minutes and by the break Davinson Sanchez had scored two headers and Ajax were up 2-1. Which was when Thomas was subbed off. Kingsley Ehizibue replaced him, apparently for tactical reasons rather than injury ones which is a bonus of some sorts. They didn’t get better without the All White winger, by the way. Zwolle ended up losing 5-1 and are even further adrift at the bottom of the table with two points in seven games. It’s quite ugly, really. Survival is gonna be the only operative from here.
Up Next: PECers vs ADO Den Haag, Saturday 7.00am (NZT)
Jeremy Brockie & Michael Boxall – SuperSport United (South African Premier Soccer League)
Brockie’s chances of winning that golden boot he’s after are perfectly fine this early in the season but he’s gonna have to get a move on soon. The whole team does, scoring just once in four league games so far. On the plus side, they’ve still garnered five points from a win and two draws in that and Michael Boxall is a part of a defence that’s only conceded once in four games. So… don’t go watching SSU right now if goals are what you’re into.
Two of those games were on this week, the first of them a Thursday night in South Africa where a Thuso Phala goal late in the first half was the difference for SuperSport in beating Maritzburg. Brockie was subbed off in stoppage time with his best chances being a header that he couldn’t hit the corner with. Boxall played the whole thing with a yellow card for his troubles. Hey, but a win is a win and they won 1-0.
A few days later they were held scoreless at home by Free State Stars and that one they should have gotten all three points from. FSS are in a fairly shambolic state right now, however they started the more positive team. Couldn’t put one away though and soon SSU were all over them. Both kiwis got all 90 in that one. Maybe next game there’ll be more goalmouth action for ‘em.
Up Next: Golden Arrows vs SSU, 6.30am on Thursday (NZT)
Jake Gleeson – Portland Timbers (American Major League Soccer)
There are good weeks and there are bad weeks for the Timbers and they seem to depend entirely on whether or not they played at home or on the road. See, in front of their own fans they have the best home record in the Western Conference. On the road they haven’t won a damn thing all season. This week… they were away. Bugger.
And, against the Houston Dynamo, true to form it took only 34 minutes before Liam Ridgewell was sliding in to block a shot only for said shot to hit him on the arm and up went the ref’s own arm pointing to the spot. Nope, Jakey Boy didn’t save it. On the plus side Diego Valeri was on alert to shoot in on the follow up after Darren Mattocks (star of last week’s edition – well, the non-kiwi star at least) had smacked one off the post. That made it 1-1 early in the second half. Very quickly Mauro Manotas had his second of the game to put the Dynamo back in the lead.
Oregon Live: “After Valeri scored, Manotas responded in the 51st minute with his second goal, a left-footed shot on a ball sent in by Boniek Garcia, beating Timbers goalkeeper Jake Gleeson from close in. The third goal came when he slipped past the Timbers defense, gathered a pass, drove in one-on-one against Gleeson and slotted his shot into the goal.”
Keep an eye on the ol’ Timbers though because they’re about to take that horrible away record to El Salvador for a CONCACAF Champions League clash with CD Dragon. Who, if they wanna have any chance of progressing to the quarters, they absolutely have to beat. That’s on Wednesday arvo.
Meanwhile even if the on-field stuff didn’t offer a whole lot up for Flying Kiwis here, the good people of Oregon sure did with this lil thang:
There’s a full length version of that article available to read on Oregon Live, covering a pretty fascinating career rise full of lucky timings and perseverance. Including a few nice quotes as well:
Caleb Porter, PT Coach: "He has great size and quick reactions. He's up there with the best goalkeepers in the league as a shot stopper."
Adin Brown, PT Goalie Coach: "He's worked really hard to get here. He’s been around long enough to know what's expected of a No. 1 and he's stepped into that role nicely."
Jake Gleeson, the man himself: "It's been worth the five years of work to get here because these last few months have reminded me why I love the game."
Up Next: CD Dragon vs Portland Timbers, 3.00pm Weds (NZT)