Flying Kiwis – August 30
Winston Reid – West Ham United (English Premier League)
It’s always a fairly daunting task to take on Manchester City away, as Winston and the Hammers (dibs on band name) did this week. Even more so when they play as sublimely as they did in the first 45 minutes here.
Playing with a three-man central defence as Slaven Bilic has been wont to do in big games, Cheik Kouyate sat in deep with Winnie and James Collins but the trio couldn’t do a whole lot as David Silva, Raheem Sterling and company put on a clinic in the first half. But you know what? They may have gotten a schooling but at half time it was only 2-0 to City, goals from Sterling and Fernandinho.
Which meant that when Michail Antonio, soon to celebrate his first ever England call up, was able to rise above Gael Clichy and header in his second of the season, it was 2-1 and the game was there for the taking.
Hmm, but not really. Although WHU were technically in the running to snatch something from a team they took four points from last campaign, they didn’t really come close to adding a leveller. Instead it was Sterling that polished it off in injury time for a 3-1 MCFC victory.
But it could have been very different, perhaps, if referee Andre Mariner had spotted Sergio Aguero’s elbow to Winston Reid’s face. Yeah man, elbow to the face. It must have stung too because Winnie was subbed straight off. It’s sparked all sorts of debate and Aguero could face a retrospective three match ban that’d see him miss the Manchester Derby. The same thing happened when the ref missed a lashing out by Bastian Schweinsteiger on Winston last season.
That was in the 76th minute too with the score at 2-1. Seeing Pep’s boys down to ten men might have just made things interesting.
Mark Noble: “I didn’t see it, to be honest. I didn’t know what it was about. I know he [Reid] couldn’t talk [in the dressing room]. He said it was because he had got something in the throat.”
How did he say that if he couldn’t talk, bro? Ah forget it, do you reckon Aguero’s elbow was that something to the throat?
MN: “I know that he can’t talk in there so that must be the case.”
When Winston went off, they brought on Jonathan Calleri and went to a 4-4-2 formation that didn’t really change anything, though it did show some intent at least. Now we wait while the international break passes and hope that Dimitri Payet is finally available after that.
Graham Poll for the Daily Mail: “On 75 minutes Aguero, under close but fair attention from West Ham’s Winston Reid, clearly threw an elbow at Reid. His fist was clenched to add power to the elbow and inflict damage and he should have been sent off for violent conduct.”
Niall Quinn on Sky Sports: “When you draw your arm I think there’s intent there to put hurt or damage on the player. I think he’s a very lucky boy, I think he should’ve been sent off.”
BBC: “The Football Association will be establishing exactly what referee Andre Marriner saw of Sunday's incident between Sergio Aguero and Winston Reid before deciding their next course of action.”
That wasn’t the only game that Winnie played this week though. He also got in 90 minutes against Astra Giurgiu in the second leg of their Europa League qualifier and they fully buggered it up.
The Hammers went down 1-0 at home, meaning that they miss out on the group stage at the final hurdle, one qualifying round further than they made it last season and they’re eliminated by the same club. But short of acclaiming Astra Giurgiu to be a bogey team, West Ham know exactly why they missed out here. They wasted chances to win in Romania last week and this time they did the same before their own fans. Filipe Teixeira scored the only goal of this game, he used to play for West Brom.
Winston Reid was one of the players to miss a decent chance, though it was Argentinian striker Jonathan Calleri who had an absolute shocker, wasting two golden shots to score. He’s got a way to go to win over the Londoners yet, though Ashley Fletcher did supply a bit of energy off the bench. Albeit not enough, West Ham losing their first ever game at London Stadium.
Slaven Bilic: "The disappointment is massive. We didn't play good in the first half or with desire as a team. We were second best."
Unsurprisingly, West Ham soon responded with a flash new striker. Italian international Simone Zaza coming in from Juventus on an initial loan move with leanings towards a permanent £20m (on top of five mill quid for the loan). Coincidentally, Zaza scored at London Stadium in a pre-season friendly a few weeks ago.
From The Guardian: “Zaza joined Juve from Sassuolo last summer and helped the club to win the Serie A title and Coppa Italia, scoring eight goals in 24 appearances in all competitions. Capped 14 times by his country, Zaza played for Italy at Euro 2016 although his tournament is best remembered for a terrible penalty miss in a shootout he had come off the bench specifically to take part in as the Azzurri lost against Germany in the quarter-finals.”
Up Next: West Ham vs Watford, 2.00am Sept. 11 (NZT)
Chris Wood – Leeds United (English Championship)
After interesting week after interesting week to begin the season, Chris Wood finally had a quiet one. And not the right kinda quiet one where his team wins two-nil and nobody notices the striker who held the ball up well and laid it off throughout. Instead the kind of quiet one where they’re casually beaten by a better team on the day.
Nottingham Forest hit them the same way that several other clubs have already this season: corners. Leeds can’t defend ‘em and after surviving a scare or two early on in the game, they leaked the first goal to Pajtim Kasami beat his marker at the far post and side footed a weird one into the opposite top corner.
Leeds did more or less nothing in the first half though they did get better as the game went on. Like Marcus Antonsson's shot back across the goal which drew a good save, even if it was lacking in a bit of power. Chris Wood would play all 90 minutes but this was as good as he got this day:
YEP: “Whites head coach Garry Monk made no changes during the break, and the restart began with another decent pass from Hernandez setting up a half chance for Chris Wood who blazed over from 20 yards.”
But just as Leeds started to rate themselves a shot at equalising, Forest went and doubled it. From another corner too, this time from the left side of Leeds’ defence where Damien Perquis somehow earned an uncontested header on the edge of the six yard box. Not too many players in the world are missing that one.
A stunning free kick from Kalvin Phillips pulled one back for the Whites but in injury time the matter was settled thanks to Oliver Burke, the teenaged winger from Scotland, who slotted one from a tight angle. Raheem Sterling-esque. And just like Mr Sterling, Burke then came in for a big money transfer. Just days after this one he found himself sold to RB Leipzig in Germany for £13m, making him the most expensive Scottish player in history.
Garry Monk: "If not for the goals we conceded we would have won the game, definitely."
Yeah, no bloody kidding there, geezer.
YEP Player Ratings: “Chris Wood - Came into the match slowly after a very quiet first 45 minutes but didn’t carry much threat. 5/10”
It’s a funny story with Chris Wood, because while he’s copped a lot of criticism and is having to deal with articles like this: “Is it time for Leeds United to drop Chris Wood?”, he’s also scored seven goals in his last eleven games which is hardly chump change.
But on the positive side of things, Leeds are into the next round of the EPL Cup. Garry Monk made eleven changes so Woody was nowhere to be seen as debutant Tyler Denton’s goal led them past Luton Town 1-0. They’ll play Blackburn at home in the third round, which is a decent draw given all of the Premier League clubs are included by this round.
Up Next: Home vs Huddersfield, 2.00am Sunday (NZT)
Tommy Smith – Ipswich Town (English Championship)
Ah would you look at that? Tommy Smith was back in the Ipswich starting XI this week. He renewed his old partnership with Christophe Berra while new fella Adam Webster slipped to the bench.
After a tough draw against Norwich in which they played really well but couldn’t get the rewards, Ipswich hosted Preston North End. Looking to re-establish a bit of home field advantage, Town dominated early on. A few dangerous crosses and some positive play had them looking threatening, while on the other side Preston were set-back by an injury to striker Jermaine Beckford forcing him off the park.
About a minute after Beckford was replaced, Town won a free kick down the right hand side. In it was swung and out it was sent… right to the feet of Grant Ward. The lad signed from Tottenham in the summer got a touch on it to take it onto his right boot and then unleashed a quick trigger effort that found its way inside the post for 1-0. It was Ipswich’s first shot on target despite the initial promise but they’ll take that no worries. That’s Ward’s fourth goal already for the club. It was nearly 2-0 soon after but for a bit of profligacy from a kiwi-ish defender.
TWDT: “Town threatened again two minutes later when Bru whipped over a corner from the right but Tommy Smith was unable to get enough on his header. The New Zealand international clearly thought he should have done better.”
The rest of the game was your standard lower league English stuff. Preston had a number of half chances but nothing that drew a real save out of Ipswich’s keeper Bialkowski. Smithy had a moment here or there, he was outmuscled for a header at one point, but also did well to shove Eoin Doyle off the ball. Six headers won, six clearances made. It was good enough for him, clearly staying match fit in his U23 stint. 1-0 was the final score.
BBC: “However as the visitors grew in confidence Eoin Doyle almost reached Chris Humphrey's long throw, but Tommy Smith just blocked off the forward from reaching the ball.”
The ever-quotable Mick McCarthy: "I thought we were excellent today. We played really well in the first half and then we stood up to a right scrap in the second half - it was a real bloke's performance.”
Meanwhile a bit of disappointing news as Newcastle have swooped in with all their money and their power and prestige to buy Ipswich’s striker Daryl Murphy. The Irish international has scored 67 goals for Town in his time there. Bit gutting to lose him, no doubt. But as everyone has said, it was too good to turn down from all parties. A roughly £3m fee, they reckon.
Up Next: A good ol’ televised one, Reading vs Ipswich at 6.45am Saturday (NZT)
Bill Tuiloma – Olympique de Marseille (French Ligue 1)
Tui meanwhile, he had a proper busy week. The claim in these pages was that he’d be the fifth choice central midfielder as things stood, which would mean a spot on the bench if somebody should happen to get injured. Abou Diaby just so happened to be unavailable for their latest game. William Gallas said this week on French telly that Diaby was mentally the strongest player he ever played with, the reason for that was how he always kept a smile on despite his crippling injury history.
So yeah, Tui for the first time this season found himself on the bench for Marseille. He didn’t play, but there he was with his #25 on the team-sheet and everything.
And hooray, OM actually won as well! Their first win of the season, 2-0 over FC Lorient thanks to goals from Remy Cabella and Bafetimbi Gomis – two fellas who struggled big time in the Premier League last season. Also, with the club struggling for goals, no surprise after they sold their top scorer Mitchy Batshuayi to Chelsea, manager Franck Passi responded by giving a debut start to Batshuayi’s 18 year old brother Aaron Leya Iseka. Cabella’s goal was a beat, very similar to the free kick that Phillips scored for Leeds.
Ligue1.com: “Diarra pulled the strings in midfield, and although Cabella and Gomis got the headline-grabbing goals, the victory would have been impossible without the captain's game-high 56 passes completed and 17 challenges won in the middle of the park.”
And then a day later, Billy T was starting in the middle with Zambo, his fellow bench warmer for the Ligue 1 team, for the CFA side.
A big opportunity there, having edged closer to the first team. The club president Giovanni Ciccolunghi and sporting director Gunter Jacob were both in attendance. Tuiloma wasn’t the only prospective first teamer playing there either, as coach David Le Frapper attested to with some praise here for the fringe lads: "They're smart, they were there to play and have fun, it's a great satisfaction".
Have fun they certainly did, with a 3-1 win ensuring the reserves are still undefeated after three games. They defeated Hyeres. Jeremiah Porsan-Clemente continued his good form with a double amongst the scorers. Ali Mohamed was sent off conceding a late penalty, the one major blip for OM. Tuiloma picked up a yellow card in the first half. The president looked pleased.
La Provence: “The OM reserve team had great look Saturday afternoon come kickoff to face Hyères. Judge for yourself: Florian Escales in goal, Gaël Andonian in central defense, Zambo Anguissa and Bill Tuiloma in holding midfield, Maxime Lopez and Jeremiah Porsan-Clemente a notch higher and finally Antoine Rabillard at the forefront of the attack. Add to that the promising young defender Boubacar Kamara (17 years on November 23) and attacking midfielder Eddy Sylvestre (17 years), scorer of a goal and an assist against Monaco (2-0) a fortnight ago, and you get a rejuvenated team compared to last season, but, ironically, with more experience.”
Just a matter of time, at this rate, before he gets another nod off the bench for OM. Fingers crossed.
Up Next: Away to Nice, 6.45am Monday (NZT)
Ryan Thomas – PEC Zwolle (Dutch Eredivisie)
Well, the new season isn’t going all that well for the PECers, to tell ya that much. Their fourth game of the Dutch season saw them take on Heerenveen, another of the teams without an Eredivisie win so far but that ain’t the case no more after a 1-0 defeat.
This time Thommo saw himself start on the left wing this time, showing he can play pretty much anywhere as he’s starting to be used as a bit of a midfield utility. The important thing to note is that he’s back to starting regularly for this team. He played the full 90 here.
But, yeah, they lost again. In a game of few chances between two struggling teams, an impressive goal to Sam Larsson was the only score. For Zwolle, their best player was their goalie Mickey van den Hart, which is never a great sign. The state of it now is that after four games, Zwolle have only scored a single goal and they find themselves deservedly at the bottom of the table. There’s work to be done.
Up Next: PEC Zwolle vs FC Utrecht, 6.45am Sunday (NZT)
Jeremy Brockie & Michael Boxall – SuperSport United (South African Premier Soccer League)
The season is underway in South Africa now yet after all that fighting talk from Jeremy Brockie’s way in last week’s Flying Kiwis, it sure hasn’t started great. Two games to get to, the first was away to Platinum Stars in the PSL.
Both Boxall and Brockie played the full game, in which Robert Ng'ambi scored the only goal in a 1-0 win for the Stars. And they did that despite Sphamandla Mlilo being sent off for two yellows in the 54th minute. Nice little header from Ng’ambi from a whipped in free kick.
There were chances for SSU, but they didn’t take them. Brox had plenty to say about it:
Jeremy Brockie: “I missed the last couple of weeks of training because of niggling injuries so that probably showed throughout the game. I turned the ball over more than I would have liked and sort of ran out of steam towards the end. Overall, there were some good things that I need to work on.
“We are obviously disappointed that we lost the game, we would have loved to get off the mark with a win, but in our performance, we absolutely bettered them but it was the finishing that let us downs in the end, but this is something to move forward to and know that we can put a performance, we just need to take our chances when we get them.
“I think what let us down was our finishing in the final third, we had a lot of chances, and we created a good ten clear chances to put the ball at the back of the net, but we either missed the target or rushed it and let ourselves down in that department. So there are definitely positives to take from it but at the end of the day we still have a chance to work on those things that need working on and bounce back straight away.”
So that was that, next up they faced Mamelodi Sundowns in the quarters of the MNT8 competition. If the attack was wasteful in that other game, this time it was the defence struggling. Failing to clear a corner in the seventeenth minute allowed Wayne Arendse to give MS the lead, though SSU stuck to it and had a few oppos of their own, Brockie with one half volley past the post. And just before the break, SSU coach Stuart Baxter made a sub and a tactical tweak and within two minutes the man he brought on, Kingston Nkhatha, was rising above the defence to head in the equaliser – from a Jeremy Brockie cross no less.
Times Live: “A chipped cross from Jeremy Brockie sailed over the head of Sundowns new Brazilian centre back Ricardo Nascimento and Nkhatha looped his header goalwards. It fell just inside as Onyango was caught covering the wrong points.”
But then with 15 minutes to go, SuperSport could hold on no longer. Sibusiso Vilakazi and Khama Billiat both scored and SSU went crashing out of the comp, beaten by last year’s league champions and the same team that allegedly tried to sign Jeremy Brockie in the offseason.
Stuart Baxter: “It was a game in every way, shape and form until they scored the second goal. We had equalised, we got onto the front foot a bit more and our attacking play was better. But we gave away a very, very poor second goal from our point of view and after that we didn’t really have an attacking threat. So we didn’t keep our shape and we opened up the field for Sundowns, who kept the ball for fun.”
As for Mike Boxall? Mate…
Up Next: SSU vs Chippa United, 5.30am Thursday 15 Sept (NZT)
Jake Gleeson – Portland Timbers (American Major League Soccer)
Woah now, fellas. They may not be able to win a damn game on the road but the Timbers are still mightily decent at home. After losing 3-1 in Seattle last week, this time they took on their closest MLS rivals again but in Oregon and it was vastly different.
Needing a win to stay in the playoff spots, it took 15 minutes before Vytas headed in the opening goal, though it was so close to being saved with the Sounders’ keeper pushing it onto the crossbar but not keeping it out. Then five minutes later that same goalie, Stefan Frei, made two more very good but not quite good enough saves with a double denial of Diego Valeri and then Fanendo Adi, before Adi slipped in the third effort. Bingo, bango.
Portland were superb in the first half. They had eight shots on target in the first 45 minutes and right on 28 minutes played, Valeri turned one in to make it 3-0. Pretty insane, but it got even better in the 43rd when former Newcastler Stephen Taylor nodded in a free header from a free kick. Magic stuff.
Taylor helped make up for that after the break when he deflected one into his own net from a Andreas Ivanschitz shot. Seattle then pulled another one back through Jordan Morris to make things itchy but Jake Gleeson made a couple good stops and they held on for a crucial 4-2 win. Seattle were without their star player Clint Dempsey, who was having checks on an irregular heartbeat. Best wishes to him, obviously.
Timbers coach Caleb Porter: "We learn a bit of a lesson in not letting our guard down. But I thought the group was excellent in how we managed the end of the game after we gave up the two goals."
Up Next: Sunday 1.00pm, FC Dallas vs Portland Timbers (NZT)