Chris Wood – Leeds United (English Championship)

Hey, a busy week for Chris Wood, aye? It started with transfer rumours that he was off to West Ham or maybe Sunderland. Both looking for strikers and here they have one, in form and everything. Of course Leeds didn’t wanna sell so they slapped a hefty price tag on him. The thing is, these dramas are almost never what they seem. Here are some words on all that which are worth a read (if we do say so ourselves):

Morale of the story being he probably thought he could wrangle a new contract, hence the rumours. Except that might not have worked because the very same source, ESPN FC, only days later had him linked with a move to China, apparently eyed up as Tianjin Quanjian’s backup to Diego Costa with him seemingly back in favour at Chelsea. Umm… what!?

“Chinese Super League club Tianjin Quanjian have turned their attentions to Leeds United striker Chris Wood, having failed to secure the signature of Chelsea's Diego Costa, sources close to the player have told ESPN FC.”

Oh, they really did say that. Jaysus, guys.

Tianjin Quanjian are managed by Italian legend Fabio Cannavaro. Cast your minds back to 2010 when New Zealand played Italy at the World Cup and drew 1-1. In the second half there was a substitution made by Ricki Herbert, on went a young striker named Chris Wood. Safe to say that after half an hour of marking the big fella, Mr Cannavaro became a lifelong fan. What other explanation is there?

“Their interest in Wood follows club owner Shu Yuhui revealing failed moves for a series of strikers in Monaco's Radamel Falcao, PSG's Edinson Cavani, Benfica's Raul Jimenez and Real Madrid's Karim Benzema.”

Hahaha, honestly.

Funky Monky: “We focus on our jobs. All the players are committed to what we’re doing here and fully focused on going forward with us. It’s only a case of adding one or two to the squad.”

At least Woody had his priorities in the right place.

Chris Wood to YEP: “There’s no point getting ahead of yourself or getting giddy saying, ‘oh look at (the table)’. Anybody can beat anybody. Rotherham can beat anybody on any given day. This league’s renowned for that and we’ve got a long way to go. Twenty games to go. It’s a long season and we’ll just keep working the way we have been. I’ve been in promotion teams before. You don’t really think about it. You just keep playing and enjoying playing games, winning games, scoring goals, keeping clean sheets. That’s what the boys do here. They come into training happy, enjoy playing, and, if you enjoy playing, then you see the rewards on the pitch. That’s where we’re at.”

In that article they talk about the form that Chris Wood has been in and how his manager Garry Monk is out there trying to sign backup for him, knowing that his kiwi striker is one of the first names on the team sheet. But what’s to credit for this season’s form?

Woody: “I wish I knew the secret, then I’d be able to sell it! It’s just one of those things – you’ve got to keep going and going and you don’t get disappointed or downhearted. You know it’s going to come.”

And keep going they did, all the way to Barnsley… which actually isn’t very far away, also being a Yorkshire club (one of five of them in the Championship – with Hull and Middlesbrough in the Prem). Not entirely at full-strength, mind. Pontus Jansson, the legend that he is, was still out for another match with suspension while Hadi Sacko and Liam Cooper missed this one with injury. Woody up top though, that’s what we wanna see most of all.

17 minutes into things, he showed exactly why:

Seven games without defeat and now 1-0 up early on, Woody poking home from the corner. Pablo Hernandez had won the corner, bursting down the right hand flank and lifting one into the box where it was headed behind. Hernandez then took the corner and bingo. This after Barnsley had started the game pretty steadily, albeit without looking like scoring.

Leeds then straight bossed it for a while. Wood had a header cleared off the line which would have doubled the lead and who knows where they’d have gone from there. Then he was inches from getting onto Kemar Roofe’s through ball but Adam Davies, the keeper, was able to get to the pig’s bladder first.

Then Barnsley scored. Right before the break, worst time to concede so 'they' tell you (they’re all the worst time to concede, in truth). Tom Bradshaw got the goal with a header after a quick free kick had caught the Leeds defence static. Then almost straight after the break they were behind as Ryan Kent (on loan from Liverpool) then slammed one into the bottom corner after a sharp turn that beat Lewie Coyle badly. That goal was nice but the third, in the 54th minute, was even better as Conor Hourihane whipped a free kick right into the top corner. A famous goal for the Barnsley captain, who’s heavily linked to be leaving this transfer window. All of a sudden Leeds found themselves down 3-1.

Oh by the way, you know who was reffing this one? Mike Dean, dropped from the Premier League rotation for the weekend and finding himself in Yorkshire where he naturally offered Leeds a way back into the game midway through the second half with a gutsy call that happened to be a bit of a howler. Woody was running on the end of one and he almost stopped dead to argue the handball off of Marc Roberts. Penalty whistled, Wood grabs the ball and walks back. Except the thing was the handball looked to be a full metre outside the box. Nonetheless, Wood made no mistake from the spot.

That gave them a shade over 20 minutes to equalise and get something from the contest but although Kemar Roofe came close, they couldn’t manage it. Stink, a first loss in eight and against a local rival as well. Never the best. There was a fair amount of crowd trouble after Wood’s first goal as well, which delayed the restart while security worked to separate all the muppets. Once they did though, the game carried on without further (reported) dramas in the stand.

Fun Fact: This was the first time that Chris Wood has scored for Leeds and they’ve still lost. And he got a double too, taking his season’s tally to 16 of them in the Championship. Only Dwight Gayle has more Champo goals this season with 20 – and he’s currently out injured.

Garry Monk: “A disappointing result and we're frustrated to lose the game. We made the critical mistake of conceding on the stroke of half-time. We were too reactive and they got the goal. In the second half they get two quick goals and from our point of view they're poor goals to concede. We've been playing at such a high standard so we will have this odd game now and then where we don't perform at our usual high levels.”

YEP Player Ratings: “Chris Wood - Two goals to his name which takes him to the threshold of 20 for the season. Considering how disjointed Leeds were, he did well to claim them. 7/10”

Losing here means that Leeds slip down a spot on the table to fourth below Huddersfield, who beat Ipswich 2-0. If you’ve been wondering how Ipswich are tracking without Tommy Smith the answer is: not well. They’re firmly in mid-table and there’s been some chatter about Mick McCarthy getting sacked, though that seems unlikely unless things really get ugly. Smith should be back sometime in the next month. Maybe, possibly.

Up Next: A Thursday morning game, 8.45am at home to Nottingham Forest (NZT)

Winston Reid – West Ham United (English Premier League)

Ringo Starr got by with a little help from his friends. Winston Reid will be hoping for a bit of the same now that the Hammers have signed a new centre back partner for him: Jose Fonte from Southampton. Fonte, who had been transfer listed at his own request, joins the club for £8m and as a European Champion with Portugal, you’ve gotta imagine he goes straight in to join Winnie at the back – with Angelo Ogbonna’s up and down form they were always looking to strengthen there and now they have. Good deal.

In other transfer news, Dimitri Payet is still around as of the time of writing – the Hammers are making no secrets about their desire to play hardball with that one. He’s under contract for a good few years longer and so they can afford to get frisky with it. In the meantime he’s been nowhere near their first team though… not that they needed him on the weekend.

Away to Middlesbrough, this one took an early turn as Andy Carroll got loose in the box (somebody call the authorities!) and headed in a ninth minute corner. Manny Lanzini the lucky man to have his cross land on the hirsute head of the man they call ‘The English Chris Wood’.

Boro hit back to score a nice one via Cristhian Stuani but on the brink of the break Carroll struck again, pouncing on the parried shot of Michail Antonio to make it 2-1 and the Hammers held that lead for the rest of the game, adding to it deep in injury time just for the sake of it as Jonathan Calleri scored. Apparently Carroll was laid up with whiplash this week after his overhead kick, it’s almost poetic. Didn’t stop him scoring with his only two touches in the Boro box this game.

In fairness, it was only a coat of paint on the crossbar that kept Boro from a second equaliser when Stuani rapped it with a shot in the second half. He wasn’t the only one who came close either and it’s fair to say that Boro were more than unlucky not to get something from that. Football though, that’s the way she goes.

Tell you what though, Winston had a good one himself. Really commanding stuff. See, here’s an example… in fact, no, make it TWO examples.

He made a pair of interceptions along with 12 clearances and a blocked shot – both he and Ogbonna were fair dominating those Boro crosses. And there were a few of them: Boro brought on new signing Rudy Gestede with eight minutes to play. They even gave him the captain’s armband when Mark Noble was subbed off.

Vavel.com Player Ratings: “Winston Reid (7) - He is West Ham's most consistent player this year by some distance. He is the leader at the back and very rarely does anything go through him. This is the form he was showing a couple of seasons ago when he attracted attention from some of the biggest clubs in England.”

ESPN FC Player Ratings: “Winston Reid, 7 -- Was dominant in the air and led by example.”

Somehow West Ham are all the way up to tenth now. Wasn’t this a horrible season a few weeks ago? Credit some good old fashioned team spirit.

Up Next: Nothing until February 2, which is a Thursday. That’s when they host Man City in the PL @ 8.45am (NZT)

Bill Tuiloma – Olympique de Marseille (French Ligue 1)

Going by that tweet, Tuiloma and Gael Andonian were amongst a list of players sent to GS Marseille Consolat that are available for loan as the two teams look to set up some kind of feeder system. That’s hardly dramatic news, he was linked to those buggers going back to the end of December and we still haven’t seen anything come to fruition yet. Seems we’ll have to wait a while longer.

In the meantime, Tui got the full 90 minutes for the CFA team as they drew 0-0 away at Hyeres. He picked up a yellow card in the second half too – that’s four yellows in his last six games for OM II.

Up Next: OM II vs Paulhan Pezenas, 6.00am Sunday 5 Feb (NZT)

Ryan Thomas – PEC Zwolle (Dutch Eredivisie)

After seven games without a win stretching back way before the winter break, it’s safe to say that Zwolle fans haven’t had the best time of it lately. Returning from that break they got smoked by Ajax. This week they took on ADO Den Haag who were pleasantly placed just a few spots above them on the ladder. This was more like it now, a chance for them to end that crappy run of results.

It started rather awful, though, as Gervane Kastaneer gave ADO the lead in the tenth minute. That fellow had to be replaced with injury ten minutes later, while it wasn’t until the 38th minute that Zwolle were able to level things up. Who else but Ryan Thomas too. He didn’t score it but he did set it up, sliding a ball in behind for Kingsley Ehizibue who was able to finish one on one with the goalie. Lovely. And then, as they say, that man Ehizibue turned provider in the second half for Nicolai Brock-Madsen to score and give the PECers their first win in bloody ages. Phew.

NOS.nl: “PEC came after the 1-0 better in the game and when the Hague defense Kingsley Ehizibue saw the head, he jabbed within 1-1. Ehizibue did, admittedly edge offside after a fine pass from Ryan Thomas.”

(Apologies for the poor google translate there, sounds like it was a ‘fine pass’ from Thommo and that Ehi was probably offside.)

It doesn’t get them out of the drop zone (the playoff spots for the drop zone, that is) but it does get them within range of it. A win next week could lift them as many as four places and they’re only now where they are because of their poor goal difference. Better start setting them up on the regular, Thommo.

Up Next: PEC Zwolle vs FC Twente, 2.30am Monday (NZT)

Stefan Marinovic – SpVgg Unterhaching (German Regionalliga)

You want an update on Mari’s situation with Wolves? You’ve come to the right place, friend. Here’s the update straight from the horse’s mouth, via Kicker.de:

Stefan Marinovic: “No, it's all the same, I did not want to leave the SpVgg in the winter, I want to stay in Unterhaching and make the climb to the 3rd league.”

The club president echoed that sentiment by saying there was no way they were going to sell him, even with his contract running down and Mari supposedly added (unquoted though) that the Wolves trip was a way to stay fit during the winter break, especially with the Confederations Cup coming up in the off season for the All Whites. That sounds a little silly, he’s clearly opening options for the end of June when his current contract expires, but it’s also true that he was never gonna leave at this time. Check last week’s Flying Kiwis for more on that whole thing.

Up Next: The season resumes for Mari & Unterhaching on March 4, so he’s got time for a few more trials yet

Jeremy Brockie & Michael Boxall – SuperSport United (South African Premier Soccer League)

Ooh look, SSU won a trophy. Not a major one, just some mid-season exhibition tournament thing but both Brockie and Boxall started the final. Brockie set up a goal there, even.

Up Next: The proper season recommences in two more weeks