After an eventful week that saw Roy Keane involved in all manner of banter to pad the England match being rained off we hope to live up to Roy's skills and review England v Poland and preview the return of the Premier League...
Tuesday night's fiasco brought one question to most fans' minds: why have a roof if you're not going to use it properly?! Surely it makes sense to pay attention to weather reports and close the roof accordingly if it's due to rain? Either that or leave the roof closed on the day of a game until shortly before kick off if the weather is alright? Anyway, the game went ahead on Wednesday afternoon and we were almost left wishing it hadn't. It was a dismal game from an England point of view. Unfortunately for Wayne Rooney, he had one of those games that seem to happen for him in an England shirt all too often. He had a passing accuracy percentage of 69% - to put that into perspective, only Joe Hart had a lower accuracy. Nonetheless, he did what strikers are there to do - he scored. More to the point he had a shot on target, which no other England player managed all game. Joe Hart has saved England and Manchester City on a number of occasions but unfortunately he made a big error in this game leading to Kamil Glik scoring a free header into an empty net. Hart rushed off his line - as Adrian Chiles put it (not that we like to give him any credit), he had made his mind up too early and was like a batsman playing the ball he wanted rather than the ball he was bowled. It's interesting that Joe Hart gets such an easy ride when he makes a mistake dealing with a cross yet foreign goalkeepers such as David De Gea are pilloried in the press if they make any kind of misjudgement when coming for a cross. Back to England though - it's worrying that they can have 58% possession in a game and yet have 5 fewer shots than their opponents - sounds rather familiar doesn't it C?! It looks set to be the same old story for England that when they meet a top quality side they will crumble yet again. They need to be more prolific in front of goal and more penetrative with their passing if they want to succeed.
Thankfully for everyone, the internationals are over (at least until November) and the Premier League is back this weekend.
This week's news has been dominated by the BBC's 'Price of Football' survey, which revealed pretty much what we already knew - C's season ticket is a rip off compared with other clubs of QPR's calibre but the Hoops' board can get away with it because of supply and demand economics, whilst Arsenal fans pay up to £1,955 to watch their team continue a run of seven seasons without a trophy. As you will know, we don't officially recognise Scottish football as a sport, but we particularly enjoyed the stat earlier this week that Montrose fans have seen their side lift more trophies in the last five years than Gooners fans have and yet they pay one tenth of the cost for their season ticket. Similarly, it is bizarrely more expensive to see Bury play than Barcelona's cheapest ticket. Joking aside though, the price of football is most definitely rocketing and attendances are continuing to decline - no coincidence seeing as we're in the midst of one of the biggest recessions for decades. But with more and more money being pumped into the game, clubs are forced to look to the fans to provide finances just so they can compete on the pitch, so I can't see the trend of rising ticket prices changing any time soon.
Anyway, enough about all that, let's move on to this weekend's action...
Tottenham v Chelsea - The early kick off on Saturday sees the battle of Andre Villas Boas against his former employers Chelsea. Besides the inevitable sideshow that will stir up the issues between AVB and Chelsea's senior players, this is a tasty affair between 2 in form sides. Chelsea are unbeaten this season in their 7 league games and they've won their last 3 games on the trot, while Spurs are unbeaten in their last 6 league games and have won 4 in a row. Spurs haven't beaten Chelsea in the last 5 meetings between the two teams and it should be interesting to see if AVB's resurgent Tottenham are the real deal this season. Chelsea still haven't convinced us yet that they are real title contenders. They've been a strange team this season as they sit top of the league yet haven't really dazzled us yet. Gareth Bale has been on fire the last few weeks for both Spurs and Wales and it's notable Chelsea are definitely weaker on the right side of defence than on the left. Branislav Ivanovic has been good this season but it has been notable it's been going forward he's impressed rather than defensively. This game could be won or lost on that side of the pitch. AVB went through a lot of media persecution during and after his spell at Chelsea and it would actually be quite good to see him get one over the likes of Lampard and Terry who arguably forced him out of Stamford Bridge last year, then proceeded to play out of their skin for Roberto Di Matteo.
Prediction: Tottenham 2-1 Chelsea
Sunderland v Newcastle - Sunday sees the Tyne-Wear derby, as the Mackems host the Toon Army. In stark contrast to the game previewed above, this is a derby clash between two out of form sides. They only have 3 wins between them in 14 league games this season (2 for Newcastle, 1 for Sunderland). In their last 14 league games Sunderland have failed to win in 13, and 3 out of the last 6 games between these two teams have ended in draws. This game could be a tale of two strikers - one on each side. Steven Fletcher and Demba Ba have together scored 11 goals this season and Fletcher's tally of 5 goals represents 100% of Sunderland's goals this season while Demba Ba's return of 6 goals represents 75% of Newcastle's goals this season. Only 3 players from either team have scored in the league this season (Hatem Ben Arfa has Newcastle's 2 other goals) so if Ba or Fletcher aren't firing it is unlikely that their team will be firing either. Don't expect this to be a high scoring affair, and we can see this being a low scoring draw, since neither team can afford to lose.
Prediction: Sunderland 1-1 Newcastle
All four of our teams are in action this weekend after having two weeks off (or one in the case of The Railwaymen).
In what is surely a novelty for Manchester United fans, they find themselves with a home Saturday fixture kicking off at 3pm! The Potters make the relatively short trip north to Old Trafford where they have lost on their last eight consecutive visits. But this year there's every possibility they will start with the former England first choice strike duo of Crouch and Owen. Not that that will have any material effect on the outcome of this game...
QPR are the weekend's Super Sunday game as they take on Everton at Loftus Road. The Toffees strengthened their squad this week with the signing of one of our all time favourite Premier League players - Thomas 'Der Hammer' Hitzlsperger. Presumably they felt they needed someone who can strike a ball hard from distance after Royston Drenthe finished his loan spell at the club last summer and the club opted not to sign him (largely because he was wildly inconsistent and a bit of a loose cannon). Still, even without a player that can do that, the Blue half of Merseyside have made a fantastic start to the new season and won many plaudits for their scintillating football this season which has catapulted them to 4th in the league. In the home dressing room there should at least be some refreshed and fitter players after the two week break but in spite of having all this time, Armand 'half a game' Traore will probably end up amongst the substitutes and not on the pitch at the start where his services are so desperately required by the R's right now (Clint Hill at left back simply isn't an option and neither is Nedum Onuoha).
In an all Polish affair, Crewe travel to Warsaw's Banks's Stadium where they will fancy their chances of a result considering that the home side have lost their last two home matches. The Saddlers have a similar side to Crewe and I'm sure that Steve Davis will welcome the chance to play a game of football again this week after last week's wrestling match at Fratton Park.
Finally across the Nordsee and a few hundred miles further east after that, Union Berlin have FSV Frankfurt at home whilst you all eat your Sunday roasts, so make sure you have a live feed on in the background. Die Jungs from Köpenick are gunning for a third successive success on home soil.
C will be present in the Lower Loft as ever this weekend and will return with a match report early next week. We'll also have the usual weekend round-up in tow. Until then, have a good weekend and brave the rain, get out the house and go see some football!
C&J
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