"A smoked salmon sandwich of a football match if ever there has been one."
End-to-end stuff. Non-stop action. Positive football. You've heard the cliches, but for once a big match lived up to them. Too bad neither Manure nor Chelski showed the finishing touch - at all. The lone goal was a Fletcher pass intended for van Nistelrooy that somehow, Ronaldhino-like, nestled in the side of Cech's net.
Ah well. Toon supporters will have been hoping for The Special Ones to walk away with the points, but no matter - Drogba picked up an idiotic yellow card for dissent, one of three such namby-pamby warnings issued by Graham Poll, and so he's out of our match. Of course, whom would you rather face, Drogba, or Crespo or Gudjohnsen?
That's right, TDH still doesn't get this Gudjohnsen the Midfielder thing. He's their best striker in the air, and the Blues had about half a dozen corners before he was brought on the pitch. And we can only wonder why Robben wasn't on the bench ready to skin Wes Brown, or whomever Mourinho thought was starting, alive....
In the meantime, let's commiserate about the many deficiencies of Sky Sports' presentation. Like a true monopolist, they just don't care about quality. In the 62nd minute, the satellite cut out and TDH's local was forced to switch to the Premier League franchise on Chinese television. At halftime on Sky, Gavin Peacock showed that his brain is roughly the same size as that of his namesake: "So, Gavin, what do Chelsea need to do in the second half?" "...(ten-second pause) Well, uhhh, they need a goal, that's for sure." Not exactly Dr. Science, are you, Gavin?
And lastly, what is with Sky starting the Man-of-the-Match voting immediately after kickoff? There can be no more barefaced attempt to extract money from silly teenagers via SMS. Rupert, we won't forget this when the revolution comes.
Ah well. Toon supporters will have been hoping for The Special Ones to walk away with the points, but no matter - Drogba picked up an idiotic yellow card for dissent, one of three such namby-pamby warnings issued by Graham Poll, and so he's out of our match. Of course, whom would you rather face, Drogba, or Crespo or Gudjohnsen?
That's right, TDH still doesn't get this Gudjohnsen the Midfielder thing. He's their best striker in the air, and the Blues had about half a dozen corners before he was brought on the pitch. And we can only wonder why Robben wasn't on the bench ready to skin Wes Brown, or whomever Mourinho thought was starting, alive....
In the meantime, let's commiserate about the many deficiencies of Sky Sports' presentation. Like a true monopolist, they just don't care about quality. In the 62nd minute, the satellite cut out and TDH's local was forced to switch to the Premier League franchise on Chinese television. At halftime on Sky, Gavin Peacock showed that his brain is roughly the same size as that of his namesake: "So, Gavin, what do Chelsea need to do in the second half?" "...(ten-second pause) Well, uhhh, they need a goal, that's for sure." Not exactly Dr. Science, are you, Gavin?
And lastly, what is with Sky starting the Man-of-the-Match voting immediately after kickoff? There can be no more barefaced attempt to extract money from silly teenagers via SMS. Rupert, we won't forget this when the revolution comes.
posted by Daniel Altman at 6:05 PM
3 Comments:
It was a good game, and United were just hanging on by the end. Ultimately, its all pointless if they lose another match, because I have a feeling Chelsea are about to embark on another winning streak.
Did you catch any of Milan's game this week? It looks like we've finally solved our two biggest problems: lack of pace and penetration on the wings and an over-reliance on Shevchenko for goals. We played a back four of Cafu, Maldini, Nesta and Serginho, with the two Brazilians given license to bomb forward with gattuso covering back, and it worked a treat. Sergio the littler was fantastic, and set up two of the five goals, one with a 50 yard run past 4 defenders.
As for reliance on Sheva, it's looking like Gilardino will weigh in with the goals this year. He scored numbers 6 and 7 of the season, his first at the San Siro, and had another disallowed for a tight (but prolly correct) offside decision. What's more, Pippo Inzaghi actually set up two goals (one for Gila and one for Seedorf). Shocking...
all in all, our best performance of the season, even better than the tonking of Juve. The problem is all the old legs can't possibly keep it up all the way till the final whistle in Paris, can they?
Well, Chelsea looked the better team, if the less dogged. Clearly the Red Mist had more to lose in this one.
I haven't found any Italian matches over here yet, so I'll have to see your boys in the Champions League. I note that they're not favorites to win it, according to Betfair. Barca and Chelski are at 5-1, Juve 7-1, Milan 10-1. Actually, 10-1 looks like a nice price for them....
muchly in agreement re Chelski. They looked very strong, and I doubt they'll lose more than one or two more in the league. They'll still win the league, and probably at a canter.
The champs league is a bit more open. I don't think Juve have the inspiration to win it, and doubt Milan have the resilience and stamina (much as it pains me to say it). My head says that it's Chelsea's this year, but for some reason I have a gut feeling that Ballack is going to power Bayern to another cup.
The other favourite for me is Barca, but I think their defence isn't good enough to keep out Chelsea, or Milan for that matter. When it comes down to it, I'd bet on Chelsea/Milan being more capable of keeping Barca out than vice versa.
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