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.
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.
While most of America will no doubt be focused on the American version of football this weekend, there are plenty of futbol matches for you to watch instead. Here are a bunch of selections; one each from the German Bundesliga, the Italian Serie A, and the Spanish La Liga; a handful from the English Premier League; and an international Copa Centroamerica match, broadcast live from Panama City.
As usual, all times Eastern–you do the math for your time zone:
7:00pm, GolTV – Costa Rica v Honduras: We choose this Copa Centroamericana matchup since a few members of the CultFootball team will soon be travelling to Costa Rica, and hence should start getting familiar with Costa Rican football. Also a chance for all you fans of the USMNT to scout out their CONCACAF WC qualifying competition.
Saturday Jan 15
10:00am, FSC & Fox Deportes – Manchester City v Wolves: Man City’s latest (& last?) big money signing, Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko, is set to get his English debut after being brought in from German club Wolfsburg for a mere £27 million. Mancini’s Man City has been much-criticized this season for their “negative” tactics–will Dzeko somehow make them an attacking squad? Mancini said this past week he may on occasion use all five of his strikers at once (Tevez, Balotelli, Silva, Johnson, and now Dzeko; Adebayor is quite out of favor, and apparently on his way out of Manchester–maybe to Madrid!). Although Balotelli is hurt, this match against Wolves could be a chance to finally entertain the home crowd.
12:00pm, FSP, foxsoccer.tv & ESPN3.com – Napoli v Fiorentina: The Neapolitans are 2nd in Serie A, a mere four points behind AC Milan. Could this be the year of the club’s 3rd Scudetto–and the first outside of the near-mythical Maradona era? Napoli’s standout striker is Edinson Cavani. He was somewhat overshadowed in the World Cup by his teammates Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez, but he’s come into his own this season in Italy–he’s tied for the Serie A scoring lead with 13 goals, including a hat-trick last weekend against Juventus–including un scorpione.
12:00pm, GolTV – Villarreal v Osasuna: Osasuna is mired down in 15th place in La Liga, but we choose this one to because Villareal is a team to watch. We linked to this Sid Lowe column a couple months ago, which hailed “Villareal’s miracle” and their “perfect football ecosystem.” Lowe’s column this past week was also about Villareal, following their unfortunate loss at to Real Madrid, in which they outplayed the home side during the first half: “Santi Cazorla, Bruno and Borja Valero controlled the midfield, moving the ball swiftly and with great variety, short and sharp then suddenly long, opening up the pitch. On either side of them, the full-backs Angel and Joan Capdevila gave width. [Jersey-born] Giuseppe Rossi – arguably the season’s best player outside the big two – was quick-footed and clever, always on the move. And Cani and Marco Rubén provided wonderful finishes.”
12:30pm, Fox Deportes & FSC – West Ham v Arsenal: Which Arsenal team will show up? The one that beat Chelsea 3-1 a few weeks ago–or the one that lost to Ipswich Town on Wednesday? You’ll find out only by tuning in.
Sunday Jan 16
9:00am, FSC – Liverpool v Everton: A Merseyside derby is a match to watch under any circumstances–but this weekend especially so. King Kenny back at Anfield, managing his club after two decades away, against their crosstown rivals–with whom their tied on points in the table, and whom they lost to 2-0 back in October. American John Henry will also be in attendance; although that’s not really a reason to watch, the camera will probably find him for reaction shots.
11:00am, FSC – Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester United: The match of the weekend. Man U are still undefeated in the Premier League. We keep waiting for them to lose, and we think this is the weekend it will happen. The biggest match at White Hart Lane since Inter Milan came to town in November…and we all remember what happened in that one. In any case, another crucial match in the Premier League race–here’s the top of the table as it stands going into this weekend:
