Flying Kiwis – September 20
Chris Wood – Leeds United (English Championship)
A week can sometimes make all the difference and Chris Wood goals seem to have the same effect. Seven days ago Leeds were lingering in the drop zone and now they’re closer to the playoffs than they are the foot of the table. Credit six quick points and a couple of Woody goals.
It didn’t start that way though. In fact it started with Woody dropped to the bench. In an attempt to figure something new out, Garry Monk switched up to a 4-2-3-1 formation with Marcus Antonsson taking the 1 spot at Woody’s expense. But after an hour of missed chance against the bottom team on the table, Blackburn Rovers, Monk gave the signal to his kiwi striker. He went on in the 62st min and within five minutes this had happened:
Not quite as good as his bicycle kick but they all count and this was a crucial goal. It appeared to put them on course for a much needed victory but 13 minutes from time – unlucky for some - Marvin Emnes cannoned in an unlikely equaliser and it felt like Typical Leeds United all over again. Except that right near the end Woody won a free kick, which Alex Mowatt crossed in and Kyle Bartley rose to score the winner. Nine minutes of injury time and Rovers’ corners ensued but the Whites held on, mercifully.
Next up was Cardiff, who were also playing a bit rubbish. The result was arguably the best performance of the Monk Era. 4-2-3-1 remained but Antonsson did not with Wood reinstated as the lone striker.
Cardiff started brighter but Leeds grew into it and a Stuart Dallas cross only just evading Woody. His next chance was less excusable as Hadi Sacko put him through and he shot straight at the goalie. 0-0 at HT though the second half was more impressive. Wood shot over the bar from an acute angle but in the 62nd minute he got the chance he really wanted. Pontus Jansson, their new (and impressive) centre back went down in the box and the ref pointed to the spot.
Cardiff immediately threatened an equaliser but for once Leeds defended stoutly and Woody might have had another had Pablo Hernandez played the square ball instead of shooting himself. But Hernandez made amends (to the coach if not to Woody) a few minutes from time when he curled in a lovely finish. There were standing ovations for both he and Wood in a 2-0 victory.
YEP: “Chris Wood was always likely to come back into the starting line up after scoring when coming on as a second-half substitute in the win against Blackburn and there can be no doubts that Wood is a better lone striking option than Marcus Antonsson who is best in a 4-4-2. If Saturday’s second half showing against Cardiff is a sign of things to come then the improving Pablo Hernandez also has to be starting as a no 10.”
More YEP: “Chris Wood - Might have scored in the first half, did score in the second and little by little his goals are creeping up. So should his confidence. 7/10”
The City Talking: “Either way, cutting that lazy route from the wings to Wood should actually give Wood better chances to score, so that he’s not always striving to get on the end of wayward crosses — or gazing at perfectly good crosses like a short-sighted cow at an incoming banjo, as he did when Dallas whipped the ball across in the first half. Apart from that Wood’s best chance came when Sacko, rather than cross straight to him, dropped the ball inside for Hernandez who popped it perfectly for Wood on the edge of the box. Wood hit it straight at the keeper, and I’ll say straight out that Marcus Antonsson would have scored it, but maybe Wood will score one like it some other time, with more confidence and more chances like these.
Wood did score; he doesn’t have a confidence problem about penalties, for some reason. He’s such a weirdo.”
Woohoo, now let’s pass the mic to Neil Redfearn, former Leeds manager that he is: “I thought he led the line really well. He kept Leeds in the game when they needed him. He put defenders under pressure. The lad’s got a knack of getting in front of goal. It doesn’t faze him if he misses chances he keeps going. In the end he gets his penalty and takes it superbly well.”
And for the final work in this segment, we leave you with an opinion piece on The72:
Up Next: Leeds vs Ipswich, 3.00am Sunday (NZT)
Winston Reid – West Ham United (English Premier League)
Winnie has to make do with second place this week because not only did he score two fewer goals than Woody but he played two fewer games as well. It was a shocker for the Hammers as they fell 4-0 down to West Brom, eventually losing 4-2, but thankfully Winston was spared the ignominy as he missed the rout with injury.
The defeat means that WHU have only won one of their five PL games and sink now into the relegation zone with 13 goals conceded already. Only Stoke’s 14 are worse – they also gave up foursies in consecutive games to teams they shouldn’t have. If the Europa League exit was tolerated then this will not be. Big drama going on there… but don’t read about it here – it’s already been done within these Nichey pages.
Instead we’ll focus on the guy we’re supposed to be focussing on.
Wonder what it was he felt. A particularly strong emotion? Some fine Chinese rugs? His bloody hamstring again? Physio Room report it as a “knock” with “no return date” specified. Usually those only happen when players need to get out of international duty so here’s hoping for a speedy recovery. There’s a League Cup game midweek against Accrington Stanley which they really ought to win or else things might really get drastic.
Also, West Ham need to update their records because Premier League Pass died a valiant death in between seasons. We’re a beIN nation now, apparently.
And to close out this week’s Winstonising, here’s an excerpt from a piece on HITC Sport about Reid’s crap form to begin the season:
“This season Reid has continued to look out of sorts and is like a jittery bag of nerves every time he takes to the field. His awkward displays have been rubbing off on his teammates and he has shown no command of the back four.
Consistently caught out of position for second balls the curious case of Reid is puzzling. Playing through injury? A change of tactics by Bilic? Or just a loss of form?
Many supporters cannot understand why Ogbonna has been dropped but if recent performances are anything to go by it won't be long until he takes Reid's place in the starting line-up, even if it means Bilic tinkering with his defence yet again.”
Funny thing is, Ogbonna did replace Reid in the last game and they still conceded four times.
Up Next: Acc Stanley at home, 6.45am Thursday & Southampton, also at home, at 4.00am Monday (NZT)
Tommy Smith – Ipswich Town (English Championship)
No sooner had Smithy won his place back in the Ipswich starting XI than he'd disappeared from it altogether. Midweek against Derby and they won it 1-0 but it was Adam Webster and Christophe Berra playing magnificently in the middle of defence. A good old fashioned Mick McCarthy performance as well in which Ipswich had a rotten pass percentage, only 40% of possession and had 5 shots to Derby’s 24 and still won thanks to Luke Varney’s goal early in the second half. Sweet as.
Mick McCarty: “I said to the lads ‘sod the two draws, let’s lose one and win one’… We’ve mugged them to be fair.”
Smith missed the game with a back injury. Initially it wasn’t considered to be too bad but then, nah, turns out it was very bad and it needed surgery.
MM: “Tommy unfortunately has a problem with his back, with a disc and it looks like he’s going to require an operation to fix that. It’s going to be a lengthy one. He’ll get it done, we’ll get the best people doing it, it’ll probably be 12 weeks. We’re going to miss Tom, he came back and he was excellent in the games he played. It’s sad for him, but we’ve got Adam and Bez and Chambo still, so we’ve still got cover there.”
Bro, that sucks. How does that even happen?
MM: “I think he’s had it before, it’s just centre-backs jumping and heading all the time, it’s a fairly long lever in the back and you end up with that. He just complained about it a few weeks ago, whether he’s had it before that I don’t know. And in the Reading game and it really started to bother him. He’s been and had it looked at and he’s got to have it sorted out.”
And then they played Aston Villa and drew 0-0.
Up Next: A Flying Kiwis derby against Leeds Utd, guts bro
Ryan Thomas – PEC Zwolle (Dutch Eredivisie)
Argh Jeezus not another loss. This one came at home to AZ Alkmaar, by a score of 2-0 so you can see those striking woes haven’t gotten any better, condemning Zwolle to another week at the foot of the table. Six games, two draws and four losses. Two goals scored and twelve conceded. It looks like it’s gonna be a long season.
And it gets worse, because before Wout Weghorst gave AZ the lead right before half time and long before Guus Til made sure of the result a few minutes from time, Ryan Thomas was subbed off after only 28 minutes. Injury of course, we’ll find out the diagnosis in the next few days probably.
Ron Jans: "In the second half we came back well and we were at one time the better team. Then I saw a team that I really can live with. Panic is not there, but it is worrying, of course."
Up Next: Ajax vs Zwolle, 6.45am Sunday (NZT)
Tyler Boyd - Vitória S.C. (Portuguese Primeira Liga)
Let’s check in with this guy, why not? In his first season in Portugal, Boydo went and played 25 times for the reserves, with 14 starts and 5 goals amongst them – as well as getting two appearances for the senior team and becoming the first kiwi to play in the Portuguese Primeira Liga. For his first season in Europe, and coming from being a fringe youth player at the Welly Nix, that was pretty outstanding.
Well, he hasn’t been spotted with the seniors yet in 2016-17 but he’s been a regular for the ressies. 6 starts from the team’s 7 total games and a further nod off the bench. As it happens, that bench spot was this most recent game where he didn’t get on until the 64th minute. No worries there, he soon popped up with a goal as Vitoria II beat Olhanense 3-0 on the road. Boyd’s goal was the third of the game. It was also his fourth of the season. Four goals in seven games, that’s a fine start to campaign.
Oh look here it is:
Poor keeping but still cool to see him scoring and he did well to get the shot off.
Vitoria II are dead middle on the Segunda Liga table with three wins, a draw and three losses so far. Boyd’s four goals have him tied for third on the top scorer’s list.
UPDATE: LIES, FILTHY LIES! Boyd's not actually the first kiwi to pay Primeira Liga, he's the second. The former Wellington Phoenix fella preceded by a former Wellington Olympic lad (back in the early 80s) named Panayotis Todorya (also known as Douglas Todorya, also known as Santamaria), who played a single match for Farense in 1987. He played under-20s for NZ but never senior footy for the All Whites.
Up Next: 3.00am Thursday vs Uniao Madeira (NZT)
Jeremy Brockie & Michael Boxall – SuperSport United (South African Premier Soccer League)
Second game of the season, not much to write about. SSU drew 0-0 at home with Chippa Utd, leaving them with one point from those 180 minutes. No goals scored either which is a bugger. Brocks and Box both played the whole game but despite having a lot of the ball, SuperSport couldn’t fashion too many decent shots at goal. And when they did, well…
Soccer Laduma: “Chances were hard to come by in the final 20 minutes, although Brockie was guilty of missing a glorious chance in stoppage time as the score remained goalless at the full-time whistle.”
He also had a header saved at the far post but it was that late one which really had palms striking foreheads in Jo’Berg. Here it is described on Supersport.com, who also referred to the chance as an “absolute sitter”.
“Brockie should have put the game to bed with a minute remaining following a swift counter-attack, but the New Zealand international scuffed his effort wide as a frustrating night at the office came to a rather disappointing end for the hosts.”
Up Next: Maritzburg United vs SSU, 5.30am Thursday (NZT)
Jake Gleeson – Portland Timbers (American Major League Soccer)
Two games in a week? What is this, England? Guts for Steven Taylor who probably thought he was getting away from it all, but yeah the Timbers were pretty busy these last few days. First a CONCACAF Champions League tie and then a homer against Philadelphia Union.
Continental duty first. Portland had beaten Dragon of El Salvador 2-1 at the beginning of August but their next opponents, Deportivo Saprissa of Costa Rica went and beat those guys 6-0 (and then drew 0-0 in the reverse fixture) so defeat to Sappy would severely dent the Timbers’ chances of making it into the quarters.
Given that they haven’t won a home game all season, getting three points in Costa Rica seemed like a long shot but Diego Valeri went and put them ahead in the sixth minute. But by half time they were losing. First Steven Taylor gave the ball away in the corner and the ball was turned in accidentally off the inside of Jermaine Taylor’s leg – Gleeson left with no shot. It was a penalty that gave Saprissa the lead and Gleeson went the wrong way there too. A bit of weak defence and some sublime skill from Fabrizio Ronchetti made it 3-1 on the hour and then Marvin Angulo finished things off with another penalty after Fanendo Adi had pulled one back. 4-2 the final score and Portland are left on 3 points with two games to spare – away in San Salvador and home to Saprissa – while Saprissa have 7 and a far superior goal difference. The Timbers are probably gonna need to get a result away to Dragon. That game is on September 28th in NZ Time.
Moving on to Philly. In some typically Portland driving rain, flowing footy was not really on the cards and as such it was a quiet one in the first half, highlighted mostly by half chances and a few injuries. Like this one:
Oregon Live: “… six minutes later, Ridgewell misplayed a ball in the back that Herbers attacked upon and in making a chip to the spot, Gleeson took the ball right in his nose and was down for several minutes.”
He was alright though, just a flesh wound. After that 0-0 arm wrestle in the first 45 though, few would have expected the drama to follow. It took 20 seconds for Portland to score after the kick off, Darren Mattocks with a clever turn and Diego Valeri storming in to stab it home. Except that roughly two minutes later it was 1-1. A thumping shot from Chris Pontius after Fabian Herbers had carried the ball to the edge of the box and then sorta left it behind him. Gleeson couldn’t get to it as it rocketed into the far side of the goal. Hey but within five minutes there was another goal! And this one didn’t need picking out of the net by Jakey Boy. Again it was Mattocks beating a defender and his drifting shot was turned in by Adi.
Following three goals in eight minutes, things settled down but Mattocks had one more moment of involvement when he was stomped on by Joshua Yaro, who earned his second yellow and a five minute headstart to the bath. Portland won 2-1, good-o.
Oregon Live: “For their troubles, the Timbers defense was holding up well with Gleeson making some great saves with only some unforced errors from Ridgewell to provide tense moments.”
Oregon Live’s Five Takeaways: “Timbers goalkeeper Jake Gleeson once again came up with some massive saves Saturday to preserve Portland’s lead and help the Timbers earn a critical victory. Gleeson came out to make a save in a 1v1 situation in the 21st minute, made a massive kick save in the 59th minute and tipped a shot over the bar in stoppage time. Gleeson now leads MLS in saves this season with 107 in 23 starts. Having Gleeson in the net has been important for the Timbers this year as they’ve tried to stay above the red line. Gleeson is quickly proving himself as one of the best shot stoppers in MLS in his first year as a starter.”
High praise indeed. But wait, there’s more.
Chris Pontius (Philly forward): “Yeah. I think the one he makes, the kick save on the near-post shot from me, it’s a pretty good save because he can’t see. There’s a number of different bodies in there. It’s a reaction save at that point and he did well with it. He had a couple other ones that were pretty good.”
Up Next: Houston Dynamo vs Portland Timbers, 1.30pm Sunday (NZT)