Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Weekend of Sport #2

I missed last weekend's weekend of sport round-up and for that I am forever apologetic.

This weekend was Bank Holiday weekend and so there was an extra day to take into account!

Saturday 26th August 2006

I didn't see a great deal of sport on Saturday, mainly due to me being somewhere that sport failed to reach. However, I did manage to keep up to date with the latest happenings in the Premiership thanks to modern technology and was able to catch the highlights later in the day. I shall take two of the day's games that I was most interested in.

Watford 1 - 2 Manchester United

Despite the close looking scoreline, Manchester United were quite laid back in their victory. Watford arguably had the best chances in the game, but United were slack in the creation of their chances. That said, they took the ones that came their way. A neat bit of play from Saha to put the ball in the path of Silvestre led to the first goal. Before the half was up, Watford had equalised through Francis. Shortly after the resumption of play, however, United were back in front after a bit of shoddy defending and the forever quick-footed Ryan Giggs slotting home the winner to keep United's 100% record for the season.

Manchester City 1 - 0 Arsenal

Naturally I was most interested in this result after hearing of United's win. Arsenal are currently languishing (love that word) in 17th in the table thanks to Joey Barton's penalty at the City of Manchester Stadium. The highlights were brief and so must my comments be... Arsenal look bereft of ideas at the moment and really need something to spark off their season. Perhaps the overlong saga of Henry's "will he sign, won't he sign" contract negotiations have taken their toll on the Frenchman's will to play for the club and for all the talk of United's failure to replace Roy Keane, it seems that Wenger's failure to replace Viera is of more notice these days.

Sunday 27th August 2006

Sunday was a nice lazy day for Sambo... I got home early and watched some more highlights of the previous day's matches before the Turkish Grand Prix started. It was a pretty good race, a bit of overtaking and some neat prangs. Most notably Kimi Raikkonen's tyre exploding after running over some debris in the first corner and the resulting slide off into the barriers ending his race early. Felipe Massa scored his maiden GP victory three weeks after Jenson Button managed the same feat and a deserved win it was. Schumacher failed to capitalise on the Ferrari's dominant pace and showed the many cracks in his armour that have been appearing of late by not getting past Alonso's Renault when it looked impossible not to. Of the rest, Jenson Button was best of the also-rans in a solid and comfortable fourth ahead of De La Rosa and the rest.

After the race was another footie match, the 4pm kick-off.

Blackburn Rovers 0 - 2 Chelski

Another thing that annoys me intensely is the continued harking on by other clubs' fans about how United always get the luck, always get the ref's decisions, always get the extra time (the last time I heard that one was against Charlton in midweek when a Toon supporter decided to moan about the 4 minutes extra time at the end of the match, failing to realise that United didn't want the extra time as they were 3-0 up) and so on. My main reason for this gripe is that it tends to be Arsenal and Chelski who get the calls and the longest extra-time and so on. This match was little different, with Blackburn players getting booked for innocuous challenges while the likes of Makalele got away with everything. This was exemplified by John Terry's obvious dive and the resulting penalty, which Friedel was unlucky not to save. Drogba's second goal was a decent one, but the fact of the matter is that Blackburn, in the first half, arguably outplayed the defending champions and deserved more from the referee than they got. Chelski can look back at this match with a degree of luck, me thinks.

Monday 28th August 2006

Middlesbrough 0 - 4 Portsmouth

One of my friends is as bookie and was cringing when Portsmouth were 3-0 up... as he had offered his punters 150/1 for a 3-0 win to Pompey with Kanu scoring first.

Portsmouth were one of my picks pre-seaeson for a surprise and they've started great guns so far, played 3 and won 2 and so far haven't conceded a goal. Kanu looks to be an inspirational signing for Redknapp and James is looking like an international keeper again, all of a sudden. Even plogalong Campbell is looking good. As for 'boro, they were never in the game. I can't even remember a solid chance on goal for them. James was hardly tested throughout and they didn't look like the side who have beaten Chelski on their last two attempts. It looks like Southgate's side are going to have another of those seasons. I dread them playing Man United, cos they're bound to beat us now.

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