Fergie's Chewing Gum - November 25
Premier League
Well, this is a strange season, isn’t it? Manchester United are into the top four, yet just 2 points ahead of tenth, while Southampton are second and Liverpool in the bottom half. Go figure.
Arsenal hosted Man United in the poster game of the week. The Gunners dominated early against an extremely inexperienced United defence but failed to take their chances. United started Antonio Valencia and Luke Shaw as wing backs, and Shaw was replaced with an ankle injury early on, while Chris Smalling headed a back three with rookies Tyler Blackett and Paddy McNair. Jack Wilshere missed a sitter, then headbutted Marouane Fellaini (though avoided punishment because of how comically shorter he is than the Belgian).
In the second half Wilshere limped off and United took the lead soon after. It was a slapstick own goal, with Keiran Gibbs turning in an off target shot while lying on the carpet.
By that stage United had sorted themselves out pretty well at the back and while Arsenal pressed forward for an equaliser, Louis Van Gaal was able to implement his counter attacking nous with the Gunners leaving holes at the back. And so it was, with Wayne Rooney finishing off a swift attack and Man U led 2-0 despite having just 1 shot on target. Olly Giroud pulled one back after Angel Di Maria missed a similar chance to Rooney’s but it was too little too late.
Chelsea are still the team to beat by a long distance. They’re pulling away at the top, too. Goals from Eden Hazard and Diego Costa gave them a win over West Brom, which could have been more if it’d had to be. Chelsea just easing along in autopilot. Manchester City beat Swansea to avoid losing any ground, they stay in third.
Second place is Southampton, though they only drew with Aston Villa. Maybe that’s harsh. The Saints dominated however they struggled to score. A mistake by keeper Fraser Forster let in Gabby Agbonlahor to score, with Nathaniel Clyne equalising late. 1-1 the score.
Liverpool. What can we say? Brendan Rodgers has started to admit doubts over his job security after they lost to Crystal Palace for their third consecutive loss. With Mario Balotelli hurt, Rickie Lambert got his second start and he replied with an early goal. The Reds didn’t manage another shot on target. Dwight Gayle scored for the fourth time in three games against Liverpool.
Everton were too good for an injury damaged West Ham. Leon Osman scored the winner in his 400th game for the club, nice moment that. A valuable win for Everton, who are now 5 games without a win. Meanwhile Newcastle’s resurgence remains after a 1-0 win over QPR, Moussa Sissoko scored the winner with 12 minutes left to play. Newcastle, after not winning any of their first 7 Premier League games, have now been victorious in 5 straight since. They’re up to fifth, stunning.
Elsewhere it’s been over 500 minutes since Leicester City last scored, but at least they didn’t concede, drawing 0-0 with Sunderland and Burnley beat Stoke 2-1 with a pair or early Danny Ings goals – despite only having 27% of possession!
And to top things off, Christian Eriksen hit last minute winner for Spurs against 10 man Hull. Jake Livermore had opened the scoring for the Tigers but Gaston Ramirez picked up a red early in the second half and Harry Kane equalised after the hour mark.
La Liga
That Lionel Messi, eh? He’s finally topped Telmo Zarra’s record tally of Spanish league goals, scoring a hat-trick against Sevilla to put him now on 253 in his career. And he’s still only 27! Here’s the record breaking goal.
That game ended up 5-1 to Barca, Naymar and Rakitic also getting goals. They’re still two points behind Real Madrid though. They beat Eimar 4-0 away. Ronaldo got a double and if you were wondering, he has 197 Liga goals. Atletico had a feisty 3-1 win to move into third, after Valencia fell to Levante 2-1.
David Moyes’ first game in charge of Real Sociedad was a bit of a bore, as they drew 0-0 with fellow underachievers Deportivo La Coruna. It was a mess all round as their plane was forced to land 70km away from the destination due to bad weather. Still, even if he said he wasn’t too happy with a draw, it must have been nice for Davie when he applauded the travelling fans and they actually applauded back!
Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund’s season from hell continued as they drew with Paderborn. They had been leading 2-0, until star guy Marco Reus was badly injured. Reus had scored the second goal, but after he went off they crumbled, conceding twice to draw 2-2. Sounds like Reus will be out until at least January too.
Bayern Munich, though. Too good. After beating Hoffenheim 4-0 (Arjen Robben was brilliant), they’re now 7 points clear at the top with 9 wins and 3 draws in their 12 games so far.
That’s the case because second place Wolfsburg lost 3-2 away to Schalke, snapping the Wolves’ 8 game winning streak in all comps. International breaks’ll do that for ya. At least Lord Bendtner scored his first goal in the German League. Good for him.
Munchen Gladbach also lost, falling 3-1 at home to Eintracht Frankfurt with Granit Xhaka getting an injury time red card. Bayer Leverkusen took full advantage of those slip ups with a 3-1 win of their own at Hannover.
Serie A
The big one in Italy was the Milan derby, funny that because neither Milan team is anywhere near the top of the table. It ended in 1-1 draw but the main story here is that this was Roberto Mancini's first game in charge of Inter who currently sit mid-table in 9th. He'd be reasonably happy with his side as they came back from a goal down to earn the draw after AC Milan's Jeremy Menez scored this beauty
Elsewhere in the Serie A ... I mean at the top of the table, Juventus had a good 3-0 win over Lazio, 2nd placed Roma also bagged a win - 2-1 over Atalanta while 3rd placed Napoli ended up with a 3-3 draw against Caligari. As we toast to Juve who are 3 points ahead of Roma, let us toast to Antonio Di Natale who scored his 200th Serie A goal as Udinese drew with Chievo 1-1.
Ligue 1
It's Marseille and PSG who are having a cup of tea at the top of the French Ligue 1 ladder, with Marseille one point ahead of the Parisians. Marseille had a solid 3-1 win over 5th placed Bordeaux, with Andre-Pierre Gignac again getting on the score sheet to take his season tally to 11. PSG secured a 3-2 win over Metz with Metz getting both of their goals courtesy of the penalty spot, in quick succession.
Marseille could be in a spot of bother however as the copper's are investigating a few of their previous player transfers. The weird thing is that this investigation kicked off two years ago, with club officials being question recently as a part of the investigation. Not too sure if anything will happen as a result but we'll keep an eye on how things pan out.