As City wheel and deal in another transfer window, Samir Nasri falls further down the pecking order. And he just joined. Think how early-adopter Wayne Bridge feels. It’s hard to watch several leagues simultaneously, which somewhat tempers the distaste for the phenomenon of sugardaddied Manchester City and makes the team an intriguing entity to behold. No one particularly likes a team of mercenaries, but for watchers of the English Premier League, City’s current and prospective roster is like a one-stop shop of some of the world’s best players. Sergio Aguero, Mario Balotelli, Edin Dzeko and David Silva were hardly unknown before they arrived in Manchester, but seeing them play week-in and week-out showed EPL spectators just how skilled they truly are. And with the transfer window again upon us, a whole new crew of the best and brightest are being linked with MCFC. At the very
Van Persie celebrates one of his 35 Premier League goals in 2011, second only to Alan Shearer's 1995 calendar year tally of 36. A few quick comments as the minutes tick closer to midnight. Robin rules. It would be impossible to heap too many superlatives on his form this season. He finally got to show what he could do when he remained injury-free. Long may it continue. He's shown himself to be a great captain so far and hopefully he sees his future with the Arsenal going forward. Welcome back, Henry! But this does not mean we don't need another striker… Repeat, this does not mean we don't need another striker. Park is the invisible man. Can someone please un-invisibility-cloak the poor guy? When Wenger finally plays him in the league, it really will seem “like a new signing.” And the award for first-class jackass goes to
Another fantastic match between two teams near the top of the table Thursday at White Hart Lane--Spurs hosting crosstown nemeses Chelsea. Gareth Bale gets wide for Spurs vs Chelsea First from Sean, written in real-time during the first half: What a low camera angle at the Lane. Used to seeing the camera a little higher in the stands for more of a top down look – I think this may have been a switch over the last decade or so in camera placement, where english clubs used to have more ground-level camera placement, while league like serie a have had higher placement. THe later was useful when coming up as our coaches would show us those games to watch the tactical formations. This low-to-the-ground look make sit harder to appreciate the shift of all players across the ptich. Spurs have come out flying, dominating the first
A big game--especially in the world of CultFootball, which seems to be heavily populated by Gunners fans--took place this past Sunday in Manchester. Arsenal visited Etihad Stadium to take on the league-leading, Qatari-funded, completely stacked Manchester City. The result was a tense but exciting match, which ended 1-0 for City. Some commentary from one of the CultFootball head honchos: City deserved the win, though Arsenal had their chances and maybe the game would've tipped if Arsenal had scored first or at all. I wanted Arshavin in earlier after Walcott did nothing in the first half, only to wish the Russian had stayed at Zenit to begin with. Arsenal just don't have any game-changers they can bring off the bench (though maybe they should've tried the Ox) [i.e., Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain] The difference for Man City, not surprisingly, was a slight Spanish man named David Silva, who scored the goal in the 53rd
Who knew there's a full slate of games in the Premier League, Serie A, Ligue 1, Spain (Copa del Rey)? Though to tell the truth, not a whole lot of must-see TV today. Actually the one match today that we will try to watch just kicked off, so this will have to be a very quick post: Udinese-Juventus at Stadio Communale Friuli (12pmET, Fox Soccer Channel, RAI Internazionale, ESPN3 USA, FOX Deportes): 3rd vs 2nd - Udinese with 31 points, two behind Juve, who are in turn a point behind table-toppers Milan. Neither team was really expected to be competing for the Scudetto, but here they are. Udinese had a great season last year, but sold off three of their best players (Alexis Sanchez, Gokhan Inler, and a defender whose name escapes me right now). They failed to get past Arsenal in Champions League qualifying, but that may have been a blessing in
Remember how yesterday we wrote about our friend that we're aiming to initiate into the cult of football? (No? Read this real quick.) Well, we emailed that link to him--not only did he read the post, when we asked if he clicked through and read the three links we posted (one each for Messi, Balotelli, Dempsey) he replied via email (and gave us permission to blockquote): i just read them all. i definitely like your cross-section. i had no idea messi is only 22 ... looks and plays like a wise old owl. as you predicted, i instantly fell for the dempsey story of a gifted (texan?) american cutting his teeth until finding success in the premiere league. as for the italian/african UPPERCASE!! phenom from grantland, all i can say is awesome. i cant wait for his highlights to live up to his hype. awesome post. You can tell the guy knows sports,
We've got a good friend who's a big sports fan, but mostly of the traditional American variety: primarily basketball and football, both college and pro. We asked him if he'd ever thought about watching some soccer, and he said what it would take would be a compelling player for him to follow. Which obviously got us thinking which one(s) we're going to pick for him to watch. Here are our preliminary picks--one obvious choice, one a bit less so, and one American: 1) Lionel Messi 2) Mario Balotelli 3) Clint Dempsey (Not only is our friend American, but he's got an affinity for Texas--the teams he follows most closely are the Dallas Cowboys and UT football. Also the Lakers.) We'll be back with a followup post giving some context as to why these three, including some links to background articles and YouTube clips--not least for the friend in question. But
Here it is. An automatically generated "newspaper" consisting of links pulled from our Twitter timeline. Subscribe via paper.li to get it delivered to your inbox on a daily basis (and/or, if you're on Twitter, to generate your own--and if you are, make sure you're following us.)
