Fergie's Chewing Gum - Sep 30
Premier League
It’s one of the most heated rivalries in football. Liverpool vs Everton: The Merseyside Derby. And this year it was even more important given the poor start that each of them is off to. The points here were crucial.
Both of these teams have copped some deserved flak for the quality - or lack thereof – of their defending. So perhaps understandably it was a pretty cagey game. Neither side wanted to give an inch and it meant that for large parts the attacking weaponry of Mario Balotelli was silenced, while Romelu Lukaku at the other end found himself standing out on the right wing more than anything. There has to be plenty of due credit given to the backlines for that. Liverpool kept their rivals from mounting barely anything close to a goal scoring chance, while youngster John Stones filled in expertly at centre back for the Toffees, alongside Phil Jagielka who had his best game of the season. So too did Tim Howard, who has been well below par since his World Cup heroics. He made a number of good saves… but there wasn’t much he could do when Steven Gerrard stepped up to bury a free kick with 20 to play. Howard got a hand to it and that was all he could do. A wonderful strike from Stevie G, who also had a blinder, dropping passes 50 yards on the spot with ease. The best he’s played in months.
And it looked like that would be the winner until in stoppage time a loose ball fell for Phil Jagielka. In he strode, driving it first time and he could not have hit it sweeter. Curving away from the keeper, settling high and powerful in the top of the net. An absolutely incredible goal, perhaps the goal of the season even. 1-1 the final score.
There was also a feisty derby down south that ended 1-1. Arsenal hosted Tottenham, but not much happened. Nacer Chadli scored for Spurs, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain equalised with 15 to play. Some shots straight at the keeper and 6 yellow cards for Spurs was about all else. Still, a decent point for each of them.
The top two dogs keep barking away. City ran off to an early 2-0 lead against Hull, who pegged it back to be level after 32 minutes. Ah, City were too good though. Edin Dzeko added a second goal for himself and a third for his team before Frank Lampard (AGAIN!) scored off the bench near the death. 4-2. Meanwhile Chelsea did the business over a decent Villa side. They won 3-0 with a bunch of possession. Obviously Diego Costa got one of them.
Man United won. Nah, seriously. Rooney and Van Persie gave them an early 2-0 lead, and they were ripping West Ham to shreds, but the old defensive thing came through when De Gea wandered out for a cross and missed it, allowed the ball to eventually be bundled in. It still felt like a matter of time ‘til United scored again, until Rooney was sent off for kicking Stewart Downing in the hip to stop a counter when all he had to do was grab a handful of shirt. Suddenly West Ham were right back in it and United were clinging on by some well-worn fingernails. Kevin Nolan seemed to have the late equaliser but he was offside and United iced it from there. Nolan and his manager were both supremely pissed off about the decision, exhibiting both a downtrodden frustration and a lack of knowledge of the rulebook. Here’s the free frame for y’all:
And in the appendices: Stoke piled more pressure on Alan Pardew with a 1-0 win courtesy of Peter Crouch; West Brom smothered Burnley with a heavy pillow, 4-0; Crystal Palace brought Leicester City back down to earth with a 2-0 win; Sunderland and Swansea might as well not have bothered (4 shots on target combined in a 0-0 draw); Southampton beat QPR thanks to a wonderful goal from Graziano Pelle, one-upping a brilliant effort from Charlie Austin just minutes earlier.
La Liga
Oh, hey guys. Ronaldo scored. Again. For the sixth game in a row. Those Man Utd fan banners are starting to feel sorta desperate.
Real Madrid travelled to Villarreal and they came away with a 2-0 win. Luka Modric got the other one, though it was a very tough game. Possession was split and if anything it was Villarreal that had the more and better chances (skip to 3.38 in the vid below...). A win’s a win as they say. And a clean sheet’s a clean sheet… just ask any dry cleaner.
That has Real up to sixth on the table and recovering well from their early blunders. They’ve got nothing on what Barcelona are doing though. 6-0 over Granada and seven games into the season they STILL haven’t conceded a goal! They’ve a tough Champions League game away to PSG might change that, but in La Liga they seem untouchable. Bouncing back from a midweek draw, the Granada game wasn’t even a contest. Neymar scored three, Messi two and Rakitic the other.
It’s worth mentioning Real’s midweek game here too. They met Elche and quite a lot happened. First up, Ronaldo gave away a penalty trying to clear the ball. Pretty rough, but it was converted past a diving Keylor Navas – the Costa Rican World Cup keeper, making his debut here in place of Iker Casillas (who returned for the Villarreal game). But soon after it was 1-1 through a Gazza Bale header. Ronaldo scored a penalty himself after Marcelo took a great big dive, and Real ran away with it from there. Ronaldo scored another impressive header, then earned and scored another penalty. And he capped off another top performance with a fourth goal near the end. 5-1, and Ronny has his 25th career hat-trick for Madrid. After his hatty against Deportivo last week, that made it 7 goals in 4 days. Eat that, Diego Costa.
And Atletico of course. A 1-0 win at Almeria on a week day was welcome enough for a team famous for grinding out results. The 4-0 win over Sevilla on Sunday even more so. They padded it late, but this was a team with 7 goals in 5 league games previously. A welcome flurry. Atletico are two points behind leaders Barca, level with Valencia who only drew with Real Sociedad. Sevilla and Celta Vigo are also holding on, as a clear top six is beginning to emerge.
Bundesliga
Bayern Munich are a good team. Just in case you were wondering. A couple wins this week, keeping the oppo to nil each time and their tentative start is almost forgotten. They’ve established themselves at the top of the ladder and based on previous years they probably won’t ever leave. But we can always hope for the sake of competition. 4-0 over this year’s surprise darlings Paderborn followed by a 2-0 win at Cologne. Mario Gotze scored three times in those two games.
On their heels are Borussia M.Gladbach who had a pair of wins, a 1-0 over Hamburger SV then a 2-1 over Paderborn (who’ve fallen from first to eleventh in a week). Bayer Leverkusen had a shocker last week but claimed 4 points from this one, even keeping a rare (for them) clean sheet in the draw with Freiburg (in which Emir Spahic was sent off within half an hour for a second yellow). Stuttgart managed their first win of the season to climb out of relegation but it’s Borussia Dortmund that are really struggling. With designs of winning the thing, they’re currently way back in twelfth with just 2 wins from 6. A loss to rivals Schalke, bedazzled with defensive calamities, was the latest blow. They haven’t won a game since dismantling Arsenal in the Champs League.
Ligue 1
It was a decent week for PSG as they grabbed a 1-1 draw against Toulouse and a 2-0 win over Caen, but as seems to be the case this season most of the headlines revolve around Marseille. They had two wins with a 2-1 over St Ettienne and a 5-0 thrashing of Reims with our man Andre-Pierre Gignac's name being thrown around as a possible target for Liverpool and Arsenal. Well his name's being thrown around by his agent so take it with a grain of salt but Gignac's netted 8 goals in 8 games so you'd have to imagine he's on someone's radar.
Elsewhere at the top of the ladder, Bordeaux managed a draw and a win while Lille suffered a defeat and a win. The top 4 looks like this - Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille and PSG. The big news however was this moment of madness from Guingamp Angoua in Montpellier's loss to Moncao...
Serie A
The highlight/lowlight in the Serie A was Inter Milan's 4-1 home defeat to Cagliari who are, would you imagine dead last. It was a pretty horrible first half for Inter with Yuto Nagatomo sent to the showers for his second bookable offence which was followed by a Albin Ekdal hatty in 15 minutes. Of course Nemanja Vidic was once again having a shocker as he gave up his second penalty of the season. All this led to Inter coach Walter Mazzarri issuing an apology for his side's performance while also taking some of the blame himself, lovely.
It was business as usual at the top of the table with Juventus bagging two 3-0 wins over Atalanta and Cesena, while Roma had a 2-0 win over Verona and a 2-1 win over Parma. Carlos Tevez looks to be in a hot run of form for Juve as he netted his 6th goal in 4 matches through all competitions. Udinese sneaked in to third above Inter after an impressive week with wins over Parma (4-2) and Lazio (1-0).