I can say without a doubt that this has been one of the craziest Prem League weekends I can remember. Just for fun I play "I Know The Score" on premierleague.com. I do very well and always fall into the top couple of thousand out of 200,000 participants. I will take it as a sign of the craziness this weekend, that despite picking EVERY SINGLE GAME WRONG and losing points (100) on every match except for the one with the insurance marker, I didn't drop in the overall standings at all. Which means? Everyone else lost points in this crazy weekend! I've never even come close to picking every single game wrong...but I wasn't sad about SOME of my mispicks:
CITY 1-0 CHELSEA:
I believe that my view on C-Scum has been well-documented here and I know I've been vociferous in saying that their 5 opening matches were as soft as Stay-Puft Marshmallows. In a poll recently on soccernet.com readers were asked what they thought about C-Scum's start to the season. The masses overwhelmingly selected "let's wait until City." And rightly so.
With all of their big guns back from injury, except for Lamps, they showed that their "scoring machine" can't score against better competition. I was perfectly happy to lose my 10 points on this one (I only chose C-Scum because I can in no way be seen as a supporter for City).
ARSENAL 2-3 WEST BROMWICH ALBION:
Ugghhh. United started the weekend in third place (tied on points with Arsenal but down on goals). I watched this match and West Brom fully deserved their win, as the Gunners were atrocious. The upside is United has now passed Arsenal in the standings and we are sitting second. The downside? I had my banker chip on this one so I lost double the points...
The Gunners and C-Scum will meet at Stamford Bridge next week. Guess where my insurance chip will be!
BIRMINGHAM 0-0 WIGAN
FULHAM 0-0 EVERTON
WOLVES 1-2 ASTON VILLA
WEST HAM 1-0 TOTTENHAM
BLACKPOOL 1-2 BLACKBURN
NEWCASTLE 1-2 STOKE CITY
Here is the league table if you're interested
LIVERPOOL ARE A BAND OF DESPERADOS
LIVERPOOL 2-2 SUNDERLAND
I believe everyone knows that I despise C-Club and City. As for everyone else in the Prem League (Liverpool included) I'm kind of...whatever. Until yesterday.
I've been a Nando Torres fan because he bucked the trend and left a Spanish club to come to a Premier side, saying it was always his dream. I can appreciate that and even moreso Torres chose to stay another year despite the upheavals at Merseyside. More plaudits.
But...his classless display yesterday against Sunderland dropped him quite a few pegs in my estimation.
What happened? Well, the clash between these two has been very interesting the past few years. Last year it was the infamous beachball incident, where Pool keeper (no pun intended here) Pepe Reina had the choice of two balls to keep out of the bag...the real ball and a beach ball. He went for the big colorful one. GOAL.
It hurt the Pool faithful even more since it was a young Red who threw the ball on to the pitch.
As comical as that was, this year's disaster was aided by the referees as well.
Sunderland won a free kick about 25 yards from their own goal. The Black Cats tried to take a quick kick and referee Stuart Attwell called it back. The irony of that decision plays into the ridiculousness of his next decision. After Attwell had sorted everything out, he was running towards the opposite goal (which is the direction you take a freekick). One of the Black Cats (Taylor) touched the ball and turned around to tap it about 6 feet in an obvious move to pass the freekick off to his keeper. Fernando Torres ran and got the ball, advanced on goal with his compatriot Dirk Kuyt in tow, and they scored. Of course all of the Sunderland players were still standing back waiting for the freekick. When they found out what had happened they protested wildly to the ref, who went to the touchline to ask the assistant ref what he thought. They both agreed that it was a good goal. Unbelievable.
Here is the rule:
Once a freekick ball is touched, it is a live ball. So when Fernando Torres went for the ball, it wasn't illegal, he actually had the right to do that.
The problem with this is INTENT. No defender would turn around with an opposing striker directly behind him and just lob the ball 6 feet unless he was intending to give the freekick to someone else.
First off, why would he kick it in the opposite direction of his goal? Secondly, it's not as if he really kicked it; it was just a tap. Thirdly, the referee was turned the other direction and didn't even see any of this transpire. So how could he make a ruling on it? The Professional Games Match Officials organization issued a statement in support of Attwell...go figure.
I have the video for you to watch, courtesy of Match of the Day. All three of the commentators are former Prem League players and all of them agreed, "that we haven't seen anything like this in the Prem League before."
Because? Liverpool are so desperate (being one point from the drop zone) that they will resort to anything to get points. Classless. Base. Ridiculous. Low. Pathetic. Liverpool.
So Fernando Torres and his band of misfits win my LOSERS OF THE WEEKEND award, hands down.
The interesting twist to this is that the same thing sort of happened to United a few years ago during a corner kick. Giggsy and Roo were in the corner deciding who would take it, when they took it quickly and launched it to the box, where a waiting Cristiano Ronaldo headed it home. They called the goal back, saying that Rooney or Giggsy failed to tell the corner judge who was going to take the kick. (?) United lost out on a perfectly legal goal.
The Prem League is Crazy. Can't wait for next week! :)
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