Fergie's Chewing Gum - October 7
Premier League
It’s Arsene vs Jose. On the field and off it.
Well, actually, on the field isn’t so much of a competition. Wenger has never beaten Mourinho in the Premier League and that didn’t change when Arsenal and Chelsea met at Stamford Bridge. Arsenal didn’t play badly or anything, they just didn’t look like breaking down the Chelsea defence. Things were heated early on when Alexis Sanchez copped Thibault Cortois on the noggin, which eventually left him having to be subbed off 10 minutes later with a line of blood seeping from his ear. They took him off to hospital, where he passed all concussion tests. Petr Cech replaced him, a keeper not unfamiliar to getting copped on the head himself.
Gary Cahill went out and took some revenge on Sanchez with a ruthless mauling of a tackle. Cahill got a yellow and Wenger went red. He waltzed over to Jose Mourinho, encroaching on the Arsenal technical area, and gave him a little shove. The ref had to give them the old high school dressing down.
Eden Hazard had the first knockdown of the bout on the pitch, when he went waltzing in fast-forward past Arsenal defenders to win one of the more blatant penalties you’ll see this season. Some argued Koscielny shoulda been sent off, but that would have been rough. It’s not like he had time to move/think/react. Hazard buried the spot kick.
It never much looked like Arsenal were gonna hit back. They had more shots and more possession than Chelsea, but did nothing with it. Zero shots on target. Nil, nada, nothing. Jack Wilshere got all feisty when denied a possible penalty for a handball. Diego Costa finished things off with soft lob after Cesc Fabregas hit him with a pass so goddamn accurate it’d make the ghost of Paul Scholes’ Career wet itself just a little bit. 2-0 and CFC are still unbeaten. Who’ll catch ‘em?
Well, Man United are doing their best to make up for lost time. Another win, this time a tough one over Everton. As LVG himself said, they’re getting results without playing all that well. Good sign, supposing they can find those extra gears. Angel Di Maria scored in the first half, before Luke Shaw gave away a penalty right on the verge of half time… which David De Gea saved. Leighton Baines’ first EPL penalty miss.
After the break, Baines made amends, putting in an inch perfect cross to Steven Naismith. Falcao hit back shortly after, guiding a mis-hit ADM shot past Tim Howard. Everton fought hard to equalise, and it looked like they would when Leon Osman got through, but Dave saved again. Then he topped even that with the save of the season so far, following Tyler Blackett's block. Man U are in the top 4.
Man City did it the tough way over Aston Villa. They had the better of it, but couldn’t find the breakthrough until Yaya Toure finally did something, smacking one in from the edge of the box with less than 10 to play. Sergio Aguero scored a blinder to make sure of things.
Liverpool didn’t have a great day at the office, though they grabbed the three points too. Adam Lallana scored a wonderfully worked goal, but West Brom levelled from the penalty spot. Five minutes later it was Jordan Henderson that gave the Reds the lead for good, a valuable three EPL points, after three games without a win, leading into the international break.
Papiss Cisse is keeping Alan Pardew in a job. He scored twice to steal a point for Newcastle against Swansea. Burnley scored very late from a free kick to draw 2-2 with Leicester. Sunderland beat Stoke (3-1), and Hull fended off Crystal Palace, 2-0. West Ham won 2-0 over a pretty sloppy QPR side. And Cristian Eriksen scored to give Spurs a 1-0 win over Southampton.
La Liga
This is just insane. Cristiano Ronaldo went and bagged another hat-trick for Real Madrid, his third in four league games. It’s become so second nature to write about he and Lionel Messi breaking records that it has almost lost its significance, but even under that fog, this is a special one. It was his 22nd Spanish treble and that ties him with the Real legend (which is almost too light a word for a man of this stature), the late Alfredo Di Stefano. Telmo Zarra, of Athletic Bilbao in the 40s and 50s, also hit that mark. Ronaldo has 13 goals in 6 league games, a feat no man has matched in the Spanish top flight for 71 years. The man is a phenomenon.
The goals came in a 5-0 rout of Bilbao. Notable as well for the fact that Real kept a clean sheet for once. They’ve now got four of those in all comps. That’s four league wins in a row for Real, with a couple tougher Champs League wins mixed in there too.
Lionel Messi has 19 Liga hatties. He and Neymar both scored in the space of two first half minutes at Rayo Vallecano, as the hosts’ chances of a comeback were done in by a couple of second-yellow red cards in the second half. Although they had enough shots to have done something if they could have been more accurate. A nice way to bounce back for Barca after losing to PSG in the Champions League. Those three goals are the only ones they’ve let in all season and they incredibly now have a goals for/against of 19/0 in the league.
There are question marks over whether or not Atletico can maintain their progress from last year. No Diego Costa or Thibault Cortois, obviously, along with a few others, and they’ve been a lot more vulnerable this campaign. Perhaps the surprise team of 2014/15 will be Valencia, who just beat Atletico 3-1? Guillherme Siqueira’s missed penalty didn’t help Atletico very much. They were 3-0 down after 13 minutes. Valencia are clear second on the table now, and this is with Alvaro Negredo still to return from injury.
Sevilla also had a big win over Deportivo, while Celta Vigo lost ground in the European chase with a loss to Villareal.
Bundesliga
What’s the problem with Borussia Dortmund? Four games without a win in the Bundesliga, after thudding to new lows with a 1-0 loss at home to the bottom team, Hamburger SV, whose only win all season in all comps was a shootout triumph in the cup over third tier Cottbus. Yet Dortmund looked so good in the Champions League! Pierre-Michel Lasogga's winner was just the second goal Hamburger has scored this Bundesliga season.
No such issues for Bayern Munich, who coasted past Hannover, 4-0. Arjen Robben and Robert Lewandowski both got doubles as Bayern played them off the park. There were no weak links. They’re 4 points clear at the top and still unbeaten in the league. Hoffenheim moves up to second after beating Schalke, as Leverkusen and Gladbach each drew. Meanwhile Werder Bremen’s draw with Freiburg drops them to last after Hamburger’s win.
Ligue 1
When I say it was business as usual, what comes to mind? At the moment, business as usual in the Ligue 1 means PSG failing to impress while Marseille continue to charge on. PSG suffered a 1-1 draw against Monaco, I say suffered because they were leading thanks to a Lucas Moura goal only to give up a goal in the 90th minute to Anthony Martial.
Marseille took care of Caen 2-1 with our man Andre-Pierre Gignac getting the winner there taking his goal tally up to 9 for the season. It's getting interesting on the goal scoring tally with Lyon's Alexandre Lacazette bagging a hatty as Lyon touched up Lille 3-0. The only non-business-as-usual type of thing was Bordeaux loosing to Reims 1-0.
Here's the top 5 goals of September as well...
Serie A
The big game from Italy was Juventus taking on Roma, with Juve bagging the win. The match was a top of the table encounter at looked to be heading in the the cul de sac of a 2-2draw before Leonardo Bonucci grabbed the winner with a nice volley. The match was pretty dramatic as both teams fell victim to that evil little red card after Juve's Alvaro Morata and Roma's Kostas Manolas had a wee scuffle on near the sideline.
While Sampdoria and Udinese sit pretty in 3rd and 4th, who would have thunk it? Inter Milan fell victim to a rather demoralizing loss to Fiorentina 3-0. Poor Inter huh, bet Jose's having a laugh though. The game included this screamer from Khouma Babacar to give Fiorentina the lead...
Peace.