American midfielders have been getting their shine on in England. Clint Dempsey has been leading Fulham, Stuart Holden has been a mainstay for Bolton, and Jonathan Spector has been a surprise performer for West Ham. Moreover, Jermaine Jones recently debuted for Blackburn on loan from Bundesliga club Schalke 04–and we may soon see Michael Bradley also make the move to the Premier League from the Bundesliga (where he plays for Borussia Moenchengladbach). According to a Fox Soccer report, Sunderland is lining up a bid for Bradley (apparently spending some portion of that staggering £24m they got in return for letting striker Darren Bent go to Aston Villa).
We’ll get a chance to see Holden play this afternoon, as Bolton host Chelsea (3pm ET, ESPND & ESPN3.com). Meanwhile, both Dempsey and Spector scored over the weekend for their sides. In fact, Dempsey scored two for Fulham yesterday, giving him eight for the season (which makes him the 5th highest scoring midfielder in the league, behind Kevin Nolan, Tim Cahill, Samir Nasri and Rafael van der Vaart, and just outside the Top 10 scorers overall):
Meanwhile, Jonathan Spector scored for West Ham over the weekend against Everton (scoring on American goalkeeper Tim Howard); it was Spector’s first-ever Premier League goal–although he did cause quite a stir a couple months ago when he scored twice against Manchester United in a 4-0 Carling Cup victory for West Ham.
The USMNT played a friendly against La Roja yesterday evening, and snatched back a draw toward the end when Kansas City striker Teal Bunbury (born a Canuck, btw) converted a 75th minute penalty. We couldn’t tell you how the game was, or how the teams looked, but we can share the goal call from Telefutura. Also included here, the inevitable remix.
Our picks for the weekend–a couple Premier League games, a couple Serie A games, a USMNT friendly, and the final of the Copa Centroamericano. As usual, culled from SoccerInsider’s comprehensive listings, and all times ET:
Saturday, Jan 22
England, Wolves-Liverpool 7:30 a.m. ESPN2: This exact sort of fixture continues to bedevil Liverpool. Can they fix a two-year problem visiting the grounds of England’s lesser lights? If not, will Daiglish snap?
England, Aston Villa-Manchester City 12:30 p.m. FSC: Darren Bent’s debut for the Villans as they begin their campaign to avoid the drop. Gotta believe Kompany will have his hands full paired with the useless Lescott if Kolo Toure not back from injury. Can Dzeko grab his first or even play nearly as well as last time out? Who will Manciin rest after the FACup replay in mid-week?
Friendly, USA-Chile 10 p.m. Telefutura, ESPN3.com: Almost exclusively young, uncapped players for Team USA. A good chance perhaps to see who will take over for the current team, but only available on Telefutura/ESPN3 means very little chance of actually doing so. (Why is the game only on Telefutura and ESPN3? Details here)
Sunday, Jan 23
Italy, Udinese-Inter Milan 6:30 a.m. FSP: Inter on a roll after Leonardo replaced Rafa; a player to watch for Udinese: Alexis Sanchez
Italy, AC Milan-Cesena 2:30 p.m. FSC: it should (might?) be interesting to see how Italian teams approach being near relegation. We are all familiar with the English “Route One”, but how Cesena approach travelling to the leaders.
NFL – NFC Championship, Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers 3pm: For only the 2nd time, we expand our listings to include an contest of the “other” football. Why this one? Because CultFootball’s prehistory can be traced back to when we were (a variety of) the Monsters of the Midway.
Copa CentroAmericana final, Costa Rica-Honduras 6 p.m. GolTV
James Richardson is a multimedia juggernaut for the Guardian. He hosts their Football Weekly podcast (“James Richardson, Barry Glendenning, Sid Lowe and the rest of the Guardian’s football writers bring you their Sony award-nominated, twice-weekly podcast – mixing puns and punditry, a round-up of all the action from the Premier League and around Europe”) and also does a weekly video European newspaper review.
Listen to the prior (this week: “The pod ponders Darren Bent’s £24m transfer, Arsenal’s FA Cup win over Leeds and Ruud Gullit’s move to war-frazzled Chechnya”), watch the latter:
In case you missed it, watch the highlights of Arsenal’s 3-1 victory over Leeds yesterday, in a FA Cup replay (following the 1-1 draw a couple weeks ago). All four goals are worth watching: the first goes from Chamakh to Arshavin to Nasri in 5′; then crackers by Sagna & Bradley Johnson which made the score 2-0 and then 2-1; and then finally late in the 2nd half, after Wenger was forced to bring on Fabregas and Robin van Persie, the latter scored with a header off a great cross by Bendtner (didn’t think we’d ever have occasion to write those last few words).
We’ve been having some discussions about Arsenal’s optimal starting lineup, sparked by this post by Coach Larry–in particular his inclusion of Jack Wilshere among his list of “Players who if they play too much kill their chances” (along with Denilson and Bendnter btw).
Now young Jack Wilshere has been among the most lauded players in the Premier League this season, and he has been in Wenger’s top XI all season, as one of the 2 holding midfielders alongside Alex Song in Arsenal’s 4-2-3-1.
The “3-1” part of the starting XI has been under discussion as well: Nasri and Fabregas are given; Arshavin (on the other wing opposite Nasri) and Chamakh (up front) rounded out the starting XI for the first couple months of the season, but with Arshavin losing form, Walcott coming on strong, and van Persie coming back from injury, the ideal front four has been part of the discussion too.
Larry’s argument re Wilshere:
My contention is he represents a non-ideal Arsenal formation. Song is a better tackler and reader of the game, Nasri, RVP, and Cesc all far superior in distribution and possession. I’d prefer to play Chamakh up top as he adds an extra dimension in the air others not named Bendtner can offer. Arsenal are so good at holding the ball, they just don’t need to have 2 ball winners in the center. I do like how Wilshere and Song work together, especially in their flexibility to cover one another, but ultimately, they’d be better served with more pure attack so they can turn their dominance into more goals. And, hey, you never know when Arshavin will return from his moon pod.
Leeds v Arsenal, 19 Jan 2010 (via ZonalMarking.net)
In sum: take Wilshere off and replace him with Chamakh as a striker up front, meaning Arsenal would be playing a 4-1-4-1 (RVP pulled back from his usual striker position into a 4-man midfield: van Persie and Fabregas in the center (which is attractive), and Nasri and either Walcott or Arshavin on the wings. More explanation from Larry: “It has the beauty of adding an actual shooter/scorer to the very top of their formation [Chamakh], plus RVP should be able to find a couple of spaces underneath, so he can create some shooting lanes for himself, instead of having a defender right on his hip. And for when he gets injured, Nasri is more than capable of sliding inside.”
For reference, Arsenal’s starting lineup for this FA Cup match v Leeds was as follows is shown to the right (courtesy of ZonalMarking–click thru on the image for their analysis of the match). Wenger was forced to bring on van Persie and Fabregas for Chamakh and Arshavin in the 2nd half
Via Facebook: “Today and tomorrow, from 4 PM – Midnight, The New York Cosmos will be unveiling a digital billboard of epic proportions in Times Square to celebrate King Eric Cantona taking the throne at the New York Cosmos.”
Naturally that brought to the CultFootball mind the following aphorism: “When the seagulls follow the trawler, it’s because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much.”
Following up on our posts showing the fantastic goals by Cani and Ibrahimovic, here are a few more candidates. The top two slots in the following rundown of top goals in England were claimed by Man City in their win over Wolves: the top slot goes to Tevez, for what is admittedly a fine individual effort.
But more interesting is #2, with Yaya Toure’s B2B run–it’s not the finish itself that was spectacular, but the run. Watch the replay closely to see how Toure starts the play at the top of Man City penalty box, makes the run, and receives the ball back (from the newly acquired Edin Dzeko) at the top of Wolves’ penalty box. Toure is becoming a true box-to-box player for Man City, in a way that he didn’t get scope for with Barcelona.
We also rather like #4: Robin van Persie’s finish for Arsenal, off a rolling cross from Theo Walcott, made possible by a perfect dummy by Samir Nasri.
We’ve been pretty regular about putting up a “what to watch this weekend” post Friday of every week. Given all the good midweek fixtures (especially with the Champions League knockout matches starting in about a month), we’re going to add a similar weekly feature that will go up Monday or Tuesday.
So here’s your viewing guide for this week, today thru Thursday. A handful of good matchups–two FA Cup replays involving two Premier League heavyweights hosting Championship League sides fighting above their weight; two Copa del Rey matches, one involving our new must-see Spanish team, the other a Derbi Madrileño; and a Coppa Italia match, also a capital city derby–known, in fact, as Derby della Capitale.
As usual, all times ET:
Tuesday, Jan 18
2:45pm Man City v Leicester
England FA Cup
Fox Deportes, FSC
4:00pm Sevilla v Villarreal
Spain Copa del Rey ESPN3, ESPND
Wednesday, Jan 19
2:45pm AS Roma v Lazio
Coppa Italia
GolTv
3:00pm Leeds United v Arsenal
England FA Cup
Fox Deportes, FSC
4:00pm Real Betis v Barcelona
Spain Copa del Rey ESPN3, ESPND
Thursday, Jan 20
4:00pm Real Madrid v Atl Madrid
Spain Copa del Rey
GolTv
