Uncle Dysfunktional:
Luis Suarez – Top goal-scorer, most creative player, and best to watch, Suarez is no doubt the player of the season. Basically without him Liverpool wouldn’t have been so close to winning the title.
So the Premier League season is over, a time where people look back and choose their picks of the season. Players of the season, teams of the season, and games of the season have all been debated and us at The Niche-Cache will hit you with ours soon but for now I want to debate those that have slipped under the radar over the years.
Ladies and gentlemen, your 2013/14 English Premier League Champions are Manchester City! For the second time in three years the former noisy neighbours have claimed the league title for their own, though this one was a little more comfortable than 2012’s heart-stopper.
Maybe it’s not the way he’d hoped to finish his season, but Winston Reid was given a front row seat for the Manchester City coronation at the Etihad. After a long and gruelling season, it all came down to game 38.
So I was all ready to divulge into the drama of a Premier League race that had gone down to the wire. On top of that a relegation battle, where each goal counts for so much, and heroes are made...
Roy Hodgson sure has a big job on his hands. Every four years the English football team trot off to a World Cup with inflated expectations and ’66 comparisons. Only to lose in the quarter finals. In a penalty shootout. Usually, anyway. It’s been so long since England were a genuine contender at this thing. But fans have long memories.
Liverpool. What can you say? Joe Allen gave them the half time lead against Crystal Palace with a headed effort, and they extended that lead after the break thanks to one for each of the SAS marksmen. 3-0 down at home with nothing left to play for and only 25 minutes left, Palace threw on Dwight Gale, and it proved inspired.
Flying Kiwis will keep you up to date on the endeavours of New Zealand sports folk overseas. Not the battlers, mind you, but the genuine overlooked and underappreciated superstars that for some ridiculous reason don’t get a look in on local media.
Chewing over the recent happenings in the top European footy leagues. So to speak...
Flying Kiwis will keep you up to date on the endeavours of New Zealand sports folk overseas. Not the battlers, mind you, but the genuine overlooked and underappreciated superstars that for some ridiculous reason don’t get a look in on local media.
David Moyes is goooooooooooooooooone. Poor guy, he copped a lot of flack and from all accounts he seems like a decent fella so I won’t dwell on his sacking too much. Hope he can find another job sometime soon, but it will be pretty raw for a while! All hail Ryan Giggs. Temporary I hear them say. 4 wins could change that...
A win against Chelsea & Liverpool will be on the verge of the EPL title... (Andrew Powell)
24 years is a long time to wait for football fans, but it may only be a few more weeks for the Scousers. They ran out to an early lead against Norwich and held off a spirited fight back for a 3-2 win, their 11th in a row. To make things even better for Liverpool, Chelsea fell to a 2-1 loss to Sunderland. Mourinho’s men went up early, only to lose to a late, controversial penalty. Jose was not OK with it. Sunderland’s win keeps them back in with a chance to save themselves. Of course, they drew with Manchester City last week too, making them every Liverpool fan’s second favourite team now. Remember the balloon-on-the-field saga? All is forgiven. Liverpool are 5 points clear with three games to go. Not an unbridgeable gap, though it’s all in their hands from here. Liverpool vs Chelsea – 1am Monday 28th (NZT). Save the date.
The Chelsea bench were pretty pissed after Mike Dean awarded Sunderland a late penalty (Reuters)
That relegation battle didn’t take too many other twists this week. West Brom were done by City, Fulham were well beaten by Spurs, Cardiff nicked a point against Stoke. Aston Villa earned a valuable point against Southampton, snapping a 4 game losing streak, Swansea had a vital away 2-1 win and Hull lost big to Arsenal. The Gunners needed that win to hold on to fourth place, which they did, despite Everton ruffling some feathers up north. They welcomed David Moyes back to Goodison Park with a shockingly comfortable 2-0 win over Manchester United. United only managed 2 shots on target, despite needing the win to have any realistic chance of improving on their current 7th place position on the table. Rumour is now that David Moyes is on the chopping block, having finally lost the faith of a supportive Manchester United board. If it happens, Ryan Giggs is expected to finish the season out as player manager. Dortmund’s Jurgen Klopp is a name being thrown around for the long run.
via http://www.whoscored.com/
The thing about La Liga is just how disparate the standard between the top teams and bottom teams is. The lower quality sides have virtually no chance of beating the top boys, which is what made Barcelona’s loss last week so shocking. Therefore the table doesn’t change a whole lot week in week out, unless the big fellas are playing each other. Only two of the top three sides won in the last seven days, but that was only because Real Madrid didn’t have a game after their Copa del Rey victory. That means they fall to third, only they now have a game in hand. Atletico Madrid kept their lead in tact with a 2-0 win over Elche, once again with an opposition player sent off. Diego Costa scored the last minute penalty following Cristian Sapunaru’s dismissal. This after David Villa missed one for Atletico earlier in the game. Poor old Sanuparu conceded both penalties. Miranda finally gave Atletico the lead in the 72nd minute in what was a tense game, and 2-0 was the final score. Another clean sheet for the best defence in La Liga.
Atletico stay the course, Diego Costa scored again.
Barcelona had their own troubles in trying to keep pace. Playing against relegation threatened (to put it lightly) Atletico Bilbao, they still had the best of possession, though nowhere near to the degree they usually do (a measly 56%...). Not that they didn’t still have their chances. Bilbao had a few too, and it was they who opened the scoring after halftime. Barca were on the verge, with only 30 mins left to play, of another embarrassing and devastating loss to a lesser team. Instead they showed some fight, and Pedro equalised, before Lionel Messi buried the winner all within the space of 240 seconds. 2-1 it ended and Barca stay in the fight. Bilbao are a loss away from confirmed relegation.
via http://www.whoscored.com/
Remember Dimitar Berbatov? Yeah well the joker with the silky touch and finishing ability has put back PSG's title celebrations by scoring the only goal in Monaco's 1-0 win over Nice. The former Manchester United and Fulham big lad did this... cooler than a polar bear's toe nails.
Despite how awesome his effort was, PSG still remain in the prime position. PSG played Lyon in the French Cup final, which they won and so they've got a game in hand with Monaco seven points back. PSG play Evian Thonon and Sochaux this week to catch up and they should bag two easy wins against two teams near the bottom of the table. Lille didn't do too much to put pressure on either either PSG or Monaco with a 0-0 draw against Marseille who sit in 6th. Lille look to have secured a Champions League spot. Monaco play AC Ajaccio who are dead last so if PSG manage to slip up then things could become very interesting. Mona
Juventus continue to dominate the Serie A with a 1-0 win over Bologna which saw Juve squeeze a Paul Pogba goal past a resolute defensive effort from Bologna. AS Roma are determined to push Juve... which has really just made Juve play better, but they kept the pressure on with a 1-0 win over 4th placed Fiorentina who now look to be out of the Champions League battle. Napoli appear to have done enough to maintain 3rd with a 1-1 draw with Udinese, but the back news out of the Serie A involves Napoli hitman Marek Hamsik drawing plenty of interest from other clubs, especially some in the EPL after rumours swirled regarding his unhappiness in Naples. Obviously Napoli are pretty keen to keep him and they should do with Hamsik outlining his love for Napoli only a few weeks ago... but if he wants out it will get very interesting.
There really isn’t much left to happen in the Bundesliga, just the formalities. Bayern are champs and they bounced back with a win – 2-0 away to Braunschweig, thanks to late goals from Claudio Pizzaro and Mario Mandzukic. Dortmund won too, in a 4-2 thriller, while Schalke fell to Stuttgart, meaning Dortmund are a win away from guaranteed second place, and Stuttgart are four points clear of the relegation playoff spot, with the bottom three teams all losing. Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg kept Europa League pace with wins, and Borussia M.Gladbach lost, falling to sixth.
New York based (but Lancashire born) graphic designer, James Campbell Taylor, has created a bunch of these images in which he reimagines legendary footballers on old album covers. They're all really cool. Check out the lot of them on his website:
Flying Kiwis will keep you up to date on the endeavours of New Zealand sports folk overseas. Not the battlers, mind you, but the genuine overlooked and underappreciated superstars that for some ridiculous reason don’t get a look in on local media.
Liverpool’s title to lose? I’m not so sure that’s the case. The premier league has upsets every week and I reckon this title race will go down to the wire.
They were calling it the biggest Premier League game in years, perhaps ever. Liverpool vs Manchester City at Anfield. The winner goes a long way towards sealing the EPL title. So much hype, so much excitement. They even had live radio commentary of the Liverpool team bus arriving.
Flying Kiwis will keep you up to date on the endeavours of New Zealand sports folk overseas. Not the battlers, mind you, but the genuine overlooked and underappreciated superstars that for some ridiculous reason don’t get a look in on local media.
And then there were three. So my beloved Arsenal are long gone but the fight up top goes on! Liverpool, City and Chelsea.
We’re at the stage now where nearly every game has something riding on it, be it a factor in the title race, European spots, or the constant threat of relegation in the bottom half of the table. Meaning there’s a bit to cover here.
West Ham had the unenviable task of hosting a rampaging Liverpool team this morning. Reid started and played 90, meaning he and James Tomkins got to spend the game marking Suarez and Sturridge, and to be fair to them, they did better than most have this year.
It’s been a long time, that’s for sure, since the dominating days of Shankly and Paisley. Brendon Rodgers has a long way to go before he can ever be mentioned in the same breath as those two legends, but with only 6 games remaining in the Premier League this season, he has the chance to do what no manager has done since Kenny Dalglish...
