Fergie's Chewing Gum - August 26
(Ian Hodgson/Daily Mail)
England
Manchester City vs Liverpool was at the top of the bill this weekend. With Mario Balotelli watching on from the stands as his new team clashed with his old team, it started out as a fairly even affair. However City eventually took control and a mistake by debutant Alberto Moreno and Stevan Jovetic blasted in the opener five minutes before the break. From there on it was all Blue. Jovetic had a rough first season at the Etihad but he doubled the lead soon after the break, getting on the end of a lovely City move to double the lead. Lazar Markovic gave Liverpool some spark off the bench, yet it was Sergio Aguero who had the biggest impact. He scored within 23 seconds of coming on! Goal-line technology confirmed a consolation goal for Liverpool as Pablo Zabaleta turned one into his own goal following Rickie Lambert heading a sitter back across the goal and into Joe Hart. Beetroot Rickie missed another chance late on as he passed back across the goal in a one-on-one situation. 3-1 final score. City looked slick and comfortable, Liverpool with the early setback.
Elsewhere Man United looked insipid again as they drew away at Sunderland. Juan Mata scored early but Jack Rodwell hit right back from a corner. United failed to control the midfield and Chris Smalling was subbed off early with a groin injury… another victim to a bloated injury list. Adnan Januzaj ended up coming on in centre midfield. Maybe Angel Di Maria will bring a little pace and penetration?
Arsenal battled back from 2-0 down against Everton to salvage a 2-2 draw, Olivier Giroud scoring the second, although he picked up an ankle knock that could keep him out for up to three months. That’s another late flurry for the Gunners, another draw for Everton. Tottenham join City at the top of the table with a 4-0 win over QPR (who were pretty awful), and West Ham managed a 3-1 away win over Crystal Palace (who were even worse). Elsewhere there were 0-0 draws between Southampton and West Brom, and Aston Villa and Newcastle. Swansea beat Burnley, Hull and Stoke met a 1-1 stalemate and Chelsea coasted to a sleepy 2-0 win over Leicester City.
Spain
Viva Atletico! Picking up where they left off with a two-legged victory over Real Madrid in the Supercopa. James Rodriguez had scored late in the first leg but Atletico quickly tied things up. The second leg was typical AM too. New signing Mario Mandzukic scored early and they shut up shop after that. Luca Modric was sent off late for a second yellow and Atletico claim the first silverware of the Spanish season.
However they’ll be without Diego Simeone for 8 games after he clashed with officials. It’s a harsh punishment but they’ve taken into account his long rap sheet of similar offences. On the field it was a bland start to the league as they stumbled to a scoreless draw at Rayo Vallecano. There was no such trouble for Real Madrid and Barcelona, who each recorded easy wins – Messi grabbing a silky double with Munir El Haddadi getting one in between (despite Javier Mascherano getting sent off in the first half) and Benzema and Ronaldo scoring for Real. 3-0 Barca over Elche; 2-0 Real over Cordoba.
Sevilla and Valencia drew, while Celta Vigo, Villareal, Granada, Eibar and Malaga all grabbed opening wins. Next week we’ve got some tasty early clashes with Barca playing at Villareal and Real Madrid travelling to Real Sociedad. Early upsets on the cards?
France
It seems that anytime a team is linked to an expensive striker, those strikers are usually Radamel Falcao and Edison Cavani. They're both long haired, talented strikers who both happen to play in France. However, with constant murmurings about who will snap either of them up next, Falcao looks to be pretty sure that he's staying with Monaco. After scoring their only goal in their 1-0 win over Nantes, Falcao oozed all the right signals for Monaco fans and he looks likely to play out the season in the lovely, very poor, un-materialistic, loving kindness place that is Monaco.
Elsewhere in the beautiful nation of France, big boys PSG bundled their way to their second draw of the season. They ended up with a 0-0 result against Evian Thonon Gaillard with Yohan Cabaye picking up a red card and David Luiz putting in another less than spectacular performance. I'd love to see PSG fail on the back of such extravagant pieces of business #justsayin.
A brief summary of the state of the table after three games reads - Bordeaux, St Ettienne, Lille and Caen make up the top 4 with Bordeaux and Lille likely to be the teams that stay around the top 4. PSG sit in 6th, Marseille in 9th, Lyon in 13th and Monaco in 17th. You'd have to hope that PSG continue to struggle as that would level the playing field a great deal and we might have ourselves a competitive Lique 1 this season.
Italy
Well, Italy's favourite son has left the country to head back to the country that loves him even more. Mario Balloteli left AC Milan and while many people are looking at this through the eyes of a Liverpool fan, it's a strange deal on Milan's behalf. They've let Balloteli go despite the fact that Balloteli is arguably their best striker and they are now left to form an attacking crew around Stephan El Shaarawy, Jeremy Menez, Alessio Cerci and Keisuke Honda. El Shaarawy and Honda are attacking midfielders with plenty of ability but in terms of pure on field antics, surely Balloteli would have been an asset ... everyone at Milan is apparently happy he's gone though so what eveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer.
Not much else has happened in Italy so far with games set to start this weekend. The big game involves AC Milan who are up against Lazio which will be a great chance to see what Milan are likely to dish up this season.
Germany
Bayern Munich kicked things off with a 2-1 win over Wolfsburg. A powerful looking Munich side did the business with Muller and Robben both scoring either side of half time and they ground things out from there. No stumbles out of the blocks for the champions, however you can’t say the same for the perennial runners-up Borussia Dortmund. They hosted Bayer Leverkusen and things really could not have started worse with Karim Bellarabi scoring the fastest ever Bundesliga goal after just 9 seconds! He then set up the sealer in stoppage time for Stefan Kiessling. 2-0 final.
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar found the net for Schalke, though they fell to Hannover 2-1 in a comeback win. Hoffenheim, Frankfurt and Hannover also managed victories in an entertaining opening weekend in Germany that also saw Borussia M.Gladbach equalise late on through Christoph Kramer against Stuttgart, a 2-2 draw between Hertha Berlin and Werder Bremen, and a couple other draws to round things off. Obviously Bayern are the team to beat, but second place could be more of a battle this season.