Portsmouth 2-0 Liverpool
Liverpool’s eight defeat of the season to the team seating comfortably at the bottom of the league makes you wonder what exactly needs to be done to help bring the club back to the status of a top four club. I must say watching this game Liverpool started off strong as usual, but seemed to fade away as the game wore on, lacking energy, motivation or desire. This has basically characterized a great percentage of Liverpool’s games this season and I think that should be a concern for Rafa Benitez more than anything else. It’s hard to break away from a cyclical pattern and the Reds are in one of their own right now. Morale has to be boosted and remain boosted for the next few games.
Portsmouth on the other hand remain bottom of the league despite this win. So they go into the Christmas break being candidate for history repeating itself or writing itself. What this win might do though is provide them with some needed confidence and belief to face the next couple of games that might take them out of the relegation zone.
Blackburn Rovers 0-2 Tottenham Hotspur
I guess this win away from home, will placate Harry Redknapp putting him in a mood better than during the week when it was reported in the papers that sixteen, yes sixteen members of the squad led by Robbie Keane travelled to Dublin for a Christmas Party night out after he had specifically said no parties and no alcohol so that they can concentrate on breaking into the top four (haha, not happening). Needless to say he was furious and said they would be ‘severely punished’. It’s too bad it’s been dealt with internally; I would like to know how exactly they would be punished. Crouch may have bought himself an exempt with his two goals in this game……hmmm!
Fulham 3-0 Manchester United
This is by far the best result of the weekend. There’s nothing like Manchester United losing handsomely. It’s not just the score line that makes this a good win, it’s the performance and the losers. Zamora was on fire again and Clint Dempsey is gradually becoming a household name in Fulham. The cottagers looked like the team in the top four while Manchester United just looked average as they have for most games this season. To be fair to Man United, they have seven defenders on the injury list. But I think even though that’s major concern, Sir Alex needs to also figure out what he’s going to do about the lack of creativity in the midfield. Someone has to be responsible for that final pass that will make even the worst striker look like a superstar.
Kudos Mr. Hodgson.
Manchester City 4-3 Sunderland
Every time I write a review about Manchester City, I’m almost guaranteed to start it off with “What a game” and this is no exception. This Manchester City side has shown the ability of playing free flowing attacking football coupled with free flowing defensive blunders. Despite their multimillion pounds defensive unit, Mark Hughes was never able to find the formula for a rock solid defense. Yes, the whole world probably knows by now, that Mr. Hughes was sacked even before he marshaled his team out on the pitch on Saturday against Sunderland according to reports. Not the most respectful way of sacking a manager but I’m not surprised as it written ‘a rich man answers harshly’.
Back to the game itself, it was a seven goal thriller that at every point in the game gave the impression there was a lot more goals coming. Craig Bellamy was again a handful for the opposition defense and frankly in my honest opinion has been City’s best player this season. He scores one and assists in two out of the four goals. Roche Santa Cruz scores two while Tevez converted a spot kick. Sunderland’s resilience paid off coming back thrice in the match through Mensah, Henderson and Jones but couldn’t find a fourth goal which would have secured them a point for their hard work on the day.
Arsenal 3-0 Hull City
The party poppers are in town again – Hull city. After their heroics in the corresponding fixture last season and the Gunners lack of consistency against the bottom teams, this game had ‘you never know’ written all over it. Fortunately for Gunners fans, it turned out to be a pretty good day at the office eventually. Some very questionable calls by the referee in this game especially the penalty being award to Hull for an alleged tugging of shirt by Silvestre. There really wasn’t a lot of pulling certainly neglible if anything but the consequent penalty taken by Giovanni which was saved by Almunia (Hallelujah). The surprising thing was no Arsenal player challenged for the rebound. They must have thought Giovanni was going to score or Almunia wasn’t capable of a save? Hmmm, I wonder which one it is.
Emmanuel Eboue played well at right back but the same could not be said for Silvestre on the left back position. Hull City recognized this early and tried to capitalize on it. Song was brilliant as usual in the midfield and Denilson had a good game as well. His free kick was essential to give Arsenal some confidence going into the break.
The Gunners have not really been as expressive as they’ve been labeled as this season. Very few times in games this season has the beautiful passing game been evident. This match was no exception. It was all thanks to Abou Diaby’s run towards the Hull City’s 18 that provided flashbacks of what these players are capable of. His one two combination passes with Alex Song throughout the game proved decisive late in the second half as his subsequent cross into the 6 yard box presented a tap in opportunity for Eduardo which he gladly obliged for the second goal of the match. Diaby then went on to score the third after another imposing run into the Hull City 18. He might be the temporary solution to the gunners attacking dilemma. Theo Walcott had a glorious chance to nick a fourth but his lob over the keeper goes just wide of the goal.
Wolverhampton 2-0 Burnley
Mick McCarthy’s decision to rest his entire first team during the week against Manchester United received a lot of criticism from all over but was something I thought was blown out of proportion. Every team has a rooster of 24 players and not all those players can take the field at a time hence there’s something called a second team. But because certain players are in the second team does not mean they are not capable of doing the same job the first team players do or even better. The manager felt it necessary to rest these players for this big game against Burnley which he felt they had a better chance of winning than the game with Man United. This result and performance on the day by Wolves may not be a vindication of McCarthy’s reasoning but it sure validates his knowledge of his team’s capabilities.
Everton 1-1 Birmingham City
Good point for Birmingham but David Moyes must be speaking Irish tarts wondering why his team didn’t get all three points from this game. Haven had a goal wrongfully disallowed, Everton didn’t seem short of ideas going forward. They just were short of ideas on how to get beyond the goalkeeper and into the net. I think for Everton to climb it’s way back to the top half of the league, they need Yakubu and Saha to start scoring again consistently. Otherwise, they can kiss Europe good-bye next season.
West Ham United 1-1 Chelsea
The league leaders on a short ride to West Ham were favorites to win this game considering West Ham’s problems on and off the field. Seating second from bottom in the league table and non-ending rumors of takeovers and club ownerships seemed to be all West Ham had bringing into this game. But on the day, they played their hearts out and for good periods of the game gave Chelsea some headaches. It was a well deserved point for the hammers even though they remain second from the bottom. In his post match comments, Carlo Ancelotti blames too many games for the lack of concentration, pace and energy in this game. Sir, welcome to the Premier league. Being a few points clear at Christmas means nothing because the league is won in May, so save the excuses till then.
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