Sheikhen, not stirred : A Man City preview

Today's match is a big game, like an oversized boar. As the King in the North (London) goes warring beyond the wall, he faces many a hold and many a battle conspiring to plot his fall. Allow me to ignore the rigour of painstaking research and dish out some facile analysis of what could decide the battle today at the Etihad stadium:

1. Koscielny vs Aguero: Aguero vs Kos would be an interesting battle to watch for they are evenly matched, with each of Aguero's strengths finding a counterpart in Koscielny's defensive capabilities. I am confident that Aguero's movement, pace and agility will find a just and able opposing force in Koscielny's astute positioning, game-reading and quick interceptive powers.The pint sized Aguero doesn't pose much of a threat in the air and the air has never been Kos's dominant area anyway , so that's one less thing to worry about. In Man City vs Chelsea it was Aguero who dropped deeper to collect the ball, turn and dribble away from two defenders on the left flank to cut in and pass the ball to why-always-me Balotelli. Then it was Cole and Terry's lax positioning that was at fault, with Terry in no man's land  after being drawn out so far outside his area. I feel Kos would do a better job of tracking the ever mobile Aguero and be at home even when dragged slightly deeper into midfield. Whether Per Mertesacker provides good cover whilst his defensive partner tracks Aguero, keeping Balotelli at bay and preventing the final balls from the Man City midfield remains to be seen. I am inclined to think Kos wiill win this battle.

2. Ramsey vs Yaya: On the departure of Cesc it was Ramsey who took up the mantle as it were to be the chief creative guy in our midfield. While he lacks Arteta's defensive solidity and Cesc's vision, he is what we have and he seems to be enough. He is comfortable on the ball and adept at finding his team mates in tight angles when pressed quickly, but is prone to look for the hollywood pass thereby cheaply conceding possession. He faces a experienced player in Yaya, a lumbering donkey with some Barca blood still in him, aided by Gareth Barry, quintessential no nonsense English midfielder. Once again, the creative duties will need to be spread out and Songinho might be required to save the day. I feel Ramsey might not quite match up to the task today, but with good performances from Arteta and Song, the battle in midfield can be won.

3. Walcott vs. Zabaletta: Clichy did us a disservice by getting himself banned for this game. His absolute defensive wasteness and moments of brainfreeze are worth a goal or two. Clichy's unavailability would mean that Mancini would probably play Zabaletta in his stead. This season whenever Arsenal have struggled to find any penetration through the centre with all their cute passing resulting in no end product it has been Walcott's 100m dashes that have proved to the difference. He had a spectacular game against Chelsea, ripping a certain Ashley Cole apart. If we get stuck in midfield I feel the game might shift to the flanks with us trying to expolot the pace of Walcott and tricks of Gervinho. Gervinho vs Richards I expect boy-giant Richards to dominate the wiry ivory coaster, with Gervinho winning us a few corners perhaps (which we duly waste by hitting it straight to their their first man). It has to be Walcott vs Zabaletta which looks to me like the more winnable battle. Ramsey's keen eye for the floating ball over defence onto the path of beep beep roadrunning walcott should pay us a few dividends. Ramsey to Walcott to assist RVP to put it in. Going all Narzidamus there, but I am more Tazijinx so probably expect Ramsey to score an own goal while RVP and Walcott collide on pitch suffering multiple concussions.

Hope the big game doesn't turn out to be a massive bore though. 

Why Chickens and Eggs crossed the EPL

The Chelsea-Valencia game was fascinating on many levels, a team as English as they come, against a team as Spanish as they come, and a result as expected as they come especially since I'd already used "as they come" phrasing twice and am as slavish to the dictates of symmetry in composition as they come. More fascinating to see this as-comely Spanish team resort to a disproportional number of speculative lobs into the box from Tino and Feghouli (who made it all too easy to reference the Ghoul part of his name, by only ever showing up when the ball was dead) in response to the English blockade (no I don't mean they stopped import export relations, fiscal aid, and pegging the exchan....not that I would know) perfected over so many years of getting mauled by the Luftwaffe (inappropriate Nazi salute FTW). Fascinating (as opposed to wide eyed horrorating) because it suddenly threw up the possibility that I've been doggedly haranguing the crossing play of the English as the single plasmodium responsible for the rampant malaria plaguing world football today, unjustly, given it might just be the natural response to the initial stimulus of big burly Stokish defenders and MFs populating the box and refusing to budge.

Obviously there is a gulf in quality between the Banega-Canales partnership and the Tino-Ghoul that eventually played, enough to claim the former would have unlocked the phalanx without resorting to aerial combat, but Tino is no slouch and to see even him have to thump a few upstairs invited a thought about the evolution of crossing play in England. Whether it is how 4-3-3's evolved against fullbacks, or how 3-4-3's evolved around the classic Drogba heading it on to partner kind of nonsense forward strategy, we've been lucky enough to see indelible changes in Football strategy clearly evolve over the last 7-8 years (or as I'd maintain "devolve", I still cant believe they just extincted MF diamonds and trequartistas so coldly!!!). But unfortunately, like the big amorphous slime bug from "Evolution" proved the ultimate species of survival depends solely on simplicity of purpose and function, it might just be probable that the English Crossing Chicken and Egg with English defensive manoeuvres become irrelevant with eventual reality of twin efficacy of said duo. Especially since not every team can have a Banega to overcome padlocks without hammers rather than dainty hairpins and hence would rather buy a hammer everyone can use. Usefulness aside (on this blog?? what am i saying!!!), I'm quite curious to see the origins of crossing play, they don't seem to have played this way 20-30 years back, my bet is on the year the goals/game ratio suddenly dwindled to its nadir betraying a shift to some serious Spartan defending.

Shall I draw you a fixture?

Of all the clubs in all the draws of the CL pot, AC Milan walks into ours. If there was a team that I had wanted to avoid drawing it would have been them, but as soon I thought that I knew we would get them so there was no point in me wanting to avoid them in the first place which means I wouldn't have thought that I had wanted to avoid them, hence not getting them. But I thought. And we did. (Or as they say in Latin, Cogito ergo did.) We will just have to deal with it now.

Yes, we do have an excellent history against Italian teams but I guess so would Manu against unknown teams from Switzerland. History counts for nought in football, although in the run of form that Arsenal is in now one can feel courageous enough to feel a bit confident about our chances. That run of form will heavily depend on what we do in the December festive fixture season mentalness with close to 63 games in 2 weeks or something insane like that. If we can continue this good run into February, then maybe, just maybe we can nick it and then go ahead and lose to Barcelona in the next round. We could have done with an easier tie but more on that in February when we have lost half our squad to injuries and the other half to the Bubonic plague (just to balance out the heavy jinxing I have done previously - commending our good form...what was I thinking!)

The Champions League's bastard brother Europa Snow (Mandatory song of ice...) conducted its draw today as well. We might not get the opportunity to test Andy Gray's now famous assertion that Barcelona would struggle against Stoke on a cold Wednesday night at the Brittania but we have something close enough. Stoke have drawn Valencia.

One of the few good things about being in London is that I get to watch La Liga now without having to be awake at ungodly hours and watching broken streams that make football look like bitmaps in motion rather the much touted poetry. Not that I have ever done this, but I would have to do in case I had wanted to watch these oh-we-play-such-beautiful-passing-football buggers play. But sitting in UK I can watch them at more convenient times. This has allowed me to confirm things I had known earlier (La Liga defenders cannot defend, Valencia crossapalooza too) and learn things I hadn't hitherto known (Valencia do play well, Barcelona are better than Arsenal). Watching one game of Valencia, albeit a game in which their one and a half team played (not the first team, but not quite their second team I gathered), has convinced me that there is some credence to the constant drum beating from this blog's la liga man. One word: steroids. They play like Arsenal on steroids. Get the Ramseys, Wilsheres and Songs of this world, pump steroids into their bloodstream and send them out onto the field to run like febrile hares in heat - lo, you have something that looks like Valencia. In the continuum (a staggering concept that I came up with about the trade-off between possession and penetration - requires a post of its own) between Barca and Arsenal, Valencia lie in between. They like having the ball (and eat it too) but not as much as Barca that they would pass it all the way back to the goalkeeper, stewards, the crowd and start all over again. But they aren't like Arsenal either and don't want to go forward with direct pace and are patient enough to pass and move without attempting too many of the risky (risky in the sense of conceding possession) attacking passes that Arsenal try. But one thing that stands out is the movement which is 10 times more than that of Arsenal. Arsenal for me have the most mobile midfield/strikers (next to Man City's maybe what with Silva Yaya and Aguero pirouetting all over the pitch) in EPL, but it was nothing compared to what I saw of Valencia. Their game seems faster, pacier, hurrieder, pressingier. The urgency with which they play is as if they are missing their favourite show on TV and want to be done with this stupid football business asap and get back to their homes. 

It will indeed be curious to see what happens when they face Stoke. That's Stoke with a style of playing that is football's answer to the all blacks and defenders who think the back to belly supleix is an allowed form of tackle in football. Stats I just made up show that Stoke's ball has spent more time in the air than the International Space Station. Passing is only something they have heard in passing, and it means nothing to them unless used in conjunction with the passing away of the opponent team's striker. Their rough-house, no holds barred, wrestlemaniasque, royal rumbly hell in a cell style versus Valencia's float like a butterfly sting like a bee on steroids approach should make for interesting viewing. Bring on the cold nights.

All this is probably nonsense given that I have watched only 1.5 games of Valencia, but hey it's my post ya.

Endangered Dave Villa

An innate problem in the Cosmic inter-dimensional web of destiny mechanism theory is its innocence and thereby vulnerability to abuse by malicious intent for evil causes. Case in point : Wretched fortune of erstwhile Dangerous Dave Villa... After eliciting a chorus of Hallelujah's as the magical missing piece in the Barca puzzle after Ibra's unceremonious fvckoffing, and regaling viewers with a season of visual perfection and clockwork grana (as close to orange as I can get with Barcelonic pun...), a stunning world cup, and even a really cute new hairstyle (which I'll forgive despite blatant copying from me...except for the part that his looks nice...and cost 500$, exactly 499.5$ more than mine, at current dollar rates of course...I'm not that cheap)- suddenly some malevolent force has just about pricked every possible pin into his voodoo doll. His regular absence in the team this season has been my constantly bleated opinion of what's wrong with Barca and why they will probably end up losing the league, the fact that it's because of a lopsided formation designed to absorb Cesc is just more salt and Ajinomoto on oozing pus and gangrene. Just when I thought he was being saved up to come and rescue Barca when they really needed it, he gets sent to Japan and breaks his leg.

Barca deserve it, they've really tempted fate by flirting with this doomed Cesc force fittation for too long, but Spain don't deserve it. Euro up next year, and that most definitely means a race Villa can't possibly win what with the T.B.A on his Tibia diagnosis. Torres must be smiling away, with his equally disastrous bunch of years (could it just be... ever since he left Atletico hmmmmm???? Asshole.), and stat-whores will immediately start asking why top scoring Spaniard Soldado isn't in the squad, which no amount of Valencia-fanaticism will make me endorse. He's a good player, but not Furia Roja first XI by any stretch. Although given Valencia gameplay, he would be so much more at home starting for Spain than Torres, Llorente or Negredo. Although I do wonder if Villa's absence gives an opening for an extra Midfielder instead, with attacking MFs like Silva, Mata, and Cazorla desperately trying to crack into the XI. Since I'd play Silva anyway, regardless of this contingency, my bet is on Pedro - his goal threat of the last two seasons has been spit on this year by Pep and his consistent overlooking, but he is pretty much Villa's direct replacement in the new avatar Villa played for Barca as left wing rather than Center FW. Not just because it sounds cool and is in vogue, but for genuine lack of options I'd like to see Pedro right, Mata left, Silva false 9 in front of Xavi-Iniesta on a Busquets anchor. Peace.

Frontline : Journalism at its hardest hittingest

Now before there is a chorus of tut-tuting and assorted sophisticated venting of implied disapproval (i.e calling me a real asshole) at any perceived distastefulness, let me first say in my defence...... that i don't care (said non-careness helped by fact that there's only so much "chorus" that our one reader can muster even on his more blustery days which are as few and far between as grand Somalian brunches....)

How friggin biggg is Ramires' head?? If I didn't know better from my very productive (not literally) years of studying biology, I'd have bet Ramires' head's mom dropped it on Ramires when it was a child. He's just 24, this is no age to be playing football! He should be waving AK-47s maniacally and cleansing Hutu cockroaches...and ruthless white devil Chelsea taking him away from all that and making him sweat it out in front of bloodthirsty fans and femur-thirsty defenders. So typical. Instead of a healthy dose of worrying about his next meal, or the lives and honor of his family and village, he's thrust out there in these life threatening situations and having to score goals against Valencia... (yes genius there was obviously a personal vendetta behind this , apart from the fact of course that I hated him right from his debut during the WC Qualifiers and Confederations Cup. The last thing Valencia needed, with its Banega-less impotent midfield, brickwalled Chelsea opposition, and coked up Victor Ruiz, was a humiliating goal by Ramires and that alien ass head of his.)

It baffles me why this guy is so successful, after first snickering away gleefully that Brazil had thrown away the likes of Edu, Juninho, Kaka and effectively replaced them with this quite apparently talentless but tireless (duh..what with all that running from vultures he must've done as a child) Midfielder, I eventually had to sink into the depressing fact that his lack of talent not only fit in majestically with the cesspit of overrated talentlessness that is Brazil, but also converted quite a few people against the relevance or efficacy of specimens like Juninho or Edu in today's Midfield. Of course, by this time, the criminal under rating or ill treatment of Juninho was no longer shocking (and coming from a Brazil hater, this is just....geez) given that no European club ever went and poached him away from Lyon, but the principle replacement of the tidy passing midfielder with 4-lunged maniacs who burst into the box now and then to score is becoming too alarmingly prevalent. Again, I blame Mourinho for this... things were fine before that jackass Deco came along and screwed life up for the Xavi's and David Pizarro's of the world.

WTGD S01E03: Van beats bus

Watching the El Classico taught me two things: one, that the Arsenal curse is still going strong, ruining the careers of players who dare to leave the club without the consent of Ser Wenger, much like the fate of brothers of the black who dare to leave the night's watch after taking the oath (Mandatory song of ice and fire reference). Two, that I can write this edition of Why this goalaveri di with a conscience clearer than last time, for RVP's volley remains the goal of the week (unlike Song's dribble and cross effort which appeared quite unimpressive after I saw Messi's throughball through the pupil of the retina of the eye of the tiniest needle in the haystack that was made while the sun was shining) despite the four goals in el classico; a game where Valdez's fail, Sanchez's cannot get boringer goal, Xavi's Lampardesque deflection and the accursed Fabregas's header (yes, airborne porcine is a possibility now) provided the goals.

Watching Arsenal-Everton at the stadium taught me two things as well. I seem to be learning things about the world two at a time. One, when teams come and park their fleet of newly purchased buses, lorries, trailers and assorted long vehicles Arsenal suffer. All their passing comes to nought, the midfield without a certain Cesc Fabregas quickly becomes bereft of ideas especially so when Walcott's pace is nullified by a equally pacy/experienced fullback and they struggle to find any penetration. Only two things (that number again) can rescue the team at this stage. One point one, some luck, a fluke, a favour from lady luck (not that kind of favour). Or one point two, a get me out of jail free card. Two, that card is Robin Van Persie. <end of serial number tree>

Barcelona had Messi last night to do that for them. We had RVP. Everton forgot to leave the coach they took from Merseyside to London outside the Emirates and brought it onto the field parallel parking it in front of the goal. Arsenal's early forays came from the pace of Walcott who once or twice caught Baines a bit slow footed and delivered good final balls into the danger area. But poor finishing meant Arsenal were 0-0 at halftime despite many decent chances. This gave Everton a chance to consolidate and park their buses even  harder and they brought on a coach sized centreback to replace their striker. Arsenal huffed and puffed but there was no end product. And that's when RVP decided to make it to this edition of WTGD.

Clickage.

The goal was simple and just class. Song collected the ball, looked up, saw RVP's run and lobbed the ball over Everton's defence onto the magic left foot of RVP who slotted it past Tim Howard effortlessly. Watching the replays you realise how incredibly wonderful the volley was! It was just brilliant. RVP's shot so perfectly meeting the ball in mid-air, sweetly propelling it onto a physics defying trajectory curving away from the goalkeeper till the very last before nestling in the far corner of the goal. That left foot of his needs to be embalmed with spices, covered in white strips of cloth and placed in a left foot shaped pyramid and preserved for eternity. With a dead cat too perhaps. 

Song has become some sort of a poor man's poorer cousin's impecunious child's leper friend's penniless Xavi. With the ball at this feet, Song is constantly looking for space, often trying to slide the ball in neat straight lines between rows of defenders with the right weight to beat the defender but not so much as to take it away from a red and white shirt. Needless to say, this throughball putting meets with utter failure 7 times out of 10 (hence the long poverty chain) but when it works it works very well. Before yesterday's perfectly floated ball he did put a perfect pass beating three defenders onto the path of a rushing Walcott a couple of games back. This attempt to pass more penetratingly is a good addition to his game. With Ramsey and Arteta not having the natural talent to match the now cursed Cesc, any help in the creative department from Song is a welcome bonus and he seems to be doing that rather well without compromising his defensive duties. As a person who was recently shown how to spot dark clouds when silver linings shine strongly, I can only mutter to myself that Song along with RVP is one of the players who hasn't signed a contract extension and has only one year to go at the end of next season. Mutter mutter.

Narzidamus - Lord of Destiny

Does anyone else think zonalmarking.net has improved miiiiiiles this season? Sure they were always above average, hence the occasional glance in the first place, but they had articles 10 days after the game, fuzzy logic circuit diagrams which looked damn pretty and admittedly awesome to have churned out but ultimately said a "they won because they scored.....ish...." kinda nonsense, and always had a keen tactical analysis of formation strategy ending with "battle was won in Midfield"... (which of course said fuzzy logic diagram did not support, unless of course Xavi took out his IronMan suit, flew over the final 3rd and bazooka'ed the ball into goal, unfortunately we'll never know since SHIELD deleted those specific fuzzy logic diagrams... I'm not in the habit of painting absurd pictures but I'm still not convinced Xavi isn't secretly Robert Downing Jr....minus heels). Now they put out an article hardly 5-6 hours after the game, talk more formation less fuzzy diagrams, and (here's the clincher, and obviously the only real reason I brought this up..) say stuff I agree with!

They have last night's game cinched, right down to Cesc being a clueless freshman teenager who just had his period (yes you read that correct...) and ruining the entire Barca midfield. Anyone who saw Iniesta suddenly play like an unholy Titan from Gaia's own uterus right after Cesc got plugged deeper inside his own half covering Busquets should send a million hate mails to Pep and get him to trash this miserably failing cescperiment (and shift to the kind that involves untested cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and the odd nerve gas or so). To be honest, it was for all money still looking to be a 2-0 RM win for most of the 1st half, and then maybe 1-3 RM win after Alexis' first goal. Too many sites, blogs, newspapers, and even Carlton Palmer!!, saying RM surprisingly changed tactics to actively press rather than sit back and wait for the counter, nobody seems to know why though... A tactic working perfectly well, demolishing all opposition, one the team was comfortable with and good at....what coach in his right mind would throw a spanner in it and ruin the whole thing?

....No I wasn't talking about Madrid there ....#$$^%&*$%#$$^Cesc#%&*$^#)$##%*$&@#

Attention-Inspired Defeat Syndrome

Can we "preview" games we haven't decided to "view" yet... Although I take solace in the fact that EPL Fans review games they watched youtube highlights of, and generally wax eloquent about teams they've only read about in The Sun... (not the celestial furnace, the London Deccan Chronicle), I'm still going to cautiously call this post the El-Clasico pre-perhapsview. But why Narzi you ask! Why would I not watch possibly the most evenly matched game of the season? OK its possible you were not asking that, being too busy trying to figure out where perhaps ends and view begins in that word (there I've given it away now...), but unfortunately irrespective of how exciting this game might be, I can't help feeling that old familiar feeling of responsibility for the result based on my perhapsview.

I've never seen Sampras lose a game in a grandslam. I've seen him lose his serve, lose his set, lose his nerve, and even lose his hair, but never a match. But he obviously did and has lost, all games I somehow wasn't able to catch, which drove me to the conclusion that his fate was intrinsically tied in with my perhapsviewship... Neither is that a word, nor is that a condition worthy of studying, apart from the phenomenon that I'm quite aware almost everyone has some similar viewship belief. Unfortunately, Valencia seem to be anti-Sampras this year, I've seen ALL 8 of their draws/losses, and the only 3 games this season I Haven't seen were victories. Which brings me to tonight's pre-Clasico conundrum.

I've seen 12 Barca games this season, their 1 loss, their 3 draws, and 8 of their 11 wins. Conditional Probability of me having seen the game, given that they don't win = 1. On the other hand, I've seen 9 RM Games and they've won 8 and drawn 1. Conditional Probability of them not winning given I watch the game is 1/9 by 9/14 = .17. The same number for Barca is .41. So P(Barca not winning tonight) = .41*P(me watching), so to at least match RM's possible loss of .17, my P(Watching) needs to be .17/.41 = .41, and since 1 Dolo has a 50% chance of knocking you out for the night and my conditional probability of watching the game given I am awake = 1, I've healthily dosed myself with 1.22 Dolos. Oh wait...that wasn't for Dolo 650, Dolo 650's chances are 79% so then that means by my calcu...... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

P.S RM to win 2-0 if Cesc starts. Barca to win 3-1 if Villa plays. Barometer bazonka needle spinning mayhem heisenberg turning in grave if both Villa and Cesc play...

SchadenFriday

Nothing like a nice Friday afternoon to sit back, crack open a freshly procured Bailey's and write a blogpost that gives away just how much this joblessness has been missed over the last 2 jobful weeks. By "nothing like" I mean there's a whole lot of better things to do, but doing them during work hours would be callous and irresponsible. Like if Victor Ruiz were to snort cocaine before the Chelsea game, oh wait that's probably what happened... In retrospect, it shouldn't have been too disappointing for a team without Ever Banega, Canales, Pablo, and Bruno to miss out on qualification, but Ruiz and Rami have been too good this season for us to suspect the horrendous nature of the goals conceded.

Chelsea hasn't changed one bit. For all the talk surrounding Vilas-Boas revolutionizing their style and daring to attack in the face of media/fan discontent and play free flowing football, they never had less than 9 players sitting deep. Tino Costa is a great passer, but unlike Banega, he can neither dribble into space, turn away from pressure, nor pass into feet and exchange 1-2's, instead finds his strength in through-balls and penetrative balls into space (even WE are way past the TWSS on this one by now...). No space, No Tino. Feghouli sucks and probably couldn't even get on the Chelsea squad!! (ironic laughter in coughing bursts..) Meanwhile, Soldado basked in the incredible over-rating that is being showered on him this season like a God's overfull bladder, Barragan (a Liverpool mole) used his opportunity to show Chelsea that with his brainless incessant crossing, he would be a great winter signing for them, and Jonas did what he usually does - nothing. For someone of his passing ability, and by virtue of supposedly playing "in the hole", it was shocking to see that the first time he dropped back to link up with a shut-out MF was on 36 minutes, after which he promptly disappeared again for the rest of the game.

While Albelda and Alba toiled away at their usual high levels, and Tino stoically continued to try through balls between the few hair-width gaps Chelsea could manage despite having a final third player density of 3 per cm square, the rest of the team just sat down and waited for the whistle. It isn't often I review a defeat to an EPL side without the prime villain being painted as stupid refereeing, ruffian behavior, ugly direct football, and negative tactics (although the latter 2 were true...), but this was a ridiculously bad performance by Valencia. I knew something sinister was in the air right from the buildup when a bigot like Carlton Palmer said "Valencia are playing great football" and predicted a 2-1 victory for them! Even the first Drogba goal wasn't enough to make me lose hope, until of course they impotently prodded away at Chelsea's vagina-dentata for 30minutes and then Ruiz invited Ramires for a friendly buttrape.

You know it wasn't the run-of-the-mill loss to an EPL side when even the twin Manchester knockouts weren't celebrated in nearly enough pomp and splendor as they deserve. To be honest, with Valencia gone, Barca are the only interest left in the UCL - and I'd much rather ManU made it through so there might be a chance to watch Barca maul them again. Then again, there's always Chelsea, Arsenal, and Inter for them to maul, and now Valencia joining Atletico, Bilbao (and ugh..Sevilla) to challenge ManU,C in Europa! Nothing like a nice Friday afternoon to sit and draw disturbingly violent images of Barca and Valencia players dressed in red underwear and golden shields and spears dismembering Chelsea/Arsenal and ManU/ManC players respectively dressed in Persian whatever it is Persians used to wear back then...

Why this Goalaveri di? S01E02: Song of praise

This week's Goal Maal Why this Goalaveri di? (Vernacular puns FTW) features a goal which was basic in finish, had little by way of number of players or passes involved in build up and was even almost saved by the goalkeeper before it went it. Bbbbut. But it came as the result of some glorious individual skill and excellent feet and deserves to be the goal maal of the mid-week. Also, it was the only goal of three goals that I saw that was worth writing about. Arsenal 2, Dortmund 1.

Click here before you come to the conclusion that what follows is one hell of a discontinuity.

Song collected the ball in midfield and pondered his options. He could either run into a maze of Dortmund defenders dressed up as bananas waiting to be peeled or pass the ball to Ramse... nah, he decided to go peel 'em. He beat the first defender with pace, taking the ball past him with remarkable ease. Showed the ball to the second and waltzed his way around him with some exceptionally quick feet. By then the first slow coach banana had teamed up with another fruit of the same order and had blocked his path. Here is where Song went all Songinho on us. With  a dribble that looked a bit like he had prematurely begun his samba dance routine Song controlled the ball past the flummoxed Dortmund duo, went into open space and placed a peach of a cross onto the head of Robin Van Perise who dutifully nodded it in ensuring it fell wider off Weidenfeller, their goalkeeper. I mean if you have a name like that..

Song was excellent throughout the game and was very effective in breaking up play in the midfield. Sitting in front of the back four, he struggled a bit initially when the quick 1-2s of Mario Gotze and the other chappie caught him a bit off his pace, but he gradually improved and asserted himself. Of course, the removal of Gotze due to injury helped Song dominate the midfield more comfortable but this does not take away anything from his overall performance against an opposition who were constantly hassling and pressing in midfield. With the absence of Wilshere and the not quite the finished productness of Frimpong, it is indeed a relief that Cameroon didn't qualify for the ACN in January.

Goal Mall S01E01

Prescript : This isn't really a series, I just wanted to be the first one to parody our sudden overuse of the SxEx format before someone else does (thus also giving me full reign to overuse and abuse its usage on pretext of said parody...)

Liga Desk returns... back from holiday and back on the job...lessness... good to see the prolific blog output churned out in the meantime...the kind of productivity that makes Enid Blyton look like Harper Lee (the kind of analogy that makes me look like I'm literate...unless of course it actually turns out Harper wrote more than just Mockingbird....). No this isn't because that Goal Maal article didn't include a Valencia goal that featured a blinding pass by our currently Fourth choice Central Midfielder.. a selection that is going to show eventually, despite another dominant (yet unsuccessful) performance against horribly defensive Madrid who at one point played with 4 defensive anchors across midfield to stem rampant Valencia possession play... neither is it because I think Bollywood puns are a slippery slope to intellectual decay, which I don't...unless you replace slippery slope with vertical water slide of death. But more because I'm sitting with an awesome Grand Snacks Adrisham which I can't eat since then I won't have it any more..... I've considered extremely high pixel photos, organic cloning, and regurgitation, ultimately dismissing them as stupid ideas (or as Villas-Boas might say... good ideas but "stupid approach to ideas").

The story is quite amusing, but the only "stupid approach to opinions" I can see is Boas' approach to giving a bucktoothed f*** about Neville's opinions of all people! Retired footballers come in 3 sizes...the good ones can join academies and coaching, the bad ones write autobiographies, and the ugly ones become pundits. They should really have an annual Mister-Pundit ugliness contest so I can finally rest with the resolved suspense of whether Neville's patent grotesqueness beats John Burridge's up and coming "I'm trying to excrete a porcupine" expression. Although it is unfair to pick on the ugly ones for becoming pundits more than the bad ones who write books, just because the former are more exposed, I find it more unfair that these morons are picked on only when they deride somebody and not when they spend hours spewing more bullshit than 10 generations of IIMA GDs (except the one I was in of course...). Neville sits on air and says stuff like "He scored, since he was in the right place at the right time" (as opposed to all the other inferior strikers who sat sipping Latte at the Eiffel tower but extended a humongous elastic foot to tap in at Wembley) but instead gets criticized for calling Luiz a child. I'd be a lot more inclined to support coaches' rants if they said in the press conference "Why does that ugly twat get paid so much to say teams need to score more than they concede if they want to win...even the 6 month old brother of the 12 year old controlling David Luiz knows that".

That being said, its even scarier that assholes like Ibra can take a word processor and infiltrate the world of literature (like this blog..). Beckham is up for retirement, and being neither good nor ugly, I cringe at the prospekt of he releecing a ottobiografi.... especially since I can't see an editor allowing an entire chapter to be "all the cows in the meadow go moo....all the cows in the meadow go moo...", which would be hugely more thought provoking than anything he would mutilate the English language with. How incredible it would be to go to "Beckham's Autobiography book reading" and watch the audience instead prompt for Beckham as he struggles to get past any word with more than 2 syllables. Assuming of course that a section of society that actually attends a "book reading" rather than just reading the friggin book is literate enough in the first place to prompt him, I keep waiting for the news story that says the author berated his audience for coming to a book reading and then told them the ending to teach them a lesson. How's that for the "Author's insights" - the butler did it now f*** off you jobless hobos.

But Adrisham beckons...and we all know Adrisham na milegi dubara....

Goal Maal S01E01

The unexamined goal is not worth scoring, said Socrates - the footballer, not the namesake philosopher who has said something similar about some far more unimportant thing called 'life'. Meh, life. I agree with Socrates theerfore this post (or as Descartes said, cogito ergo blogposto) which will hopefully be the first post in a series which has been titled Goal Maal sticking to the tradition of coming up with bonkers bad titles on this blog. Each post will look at one goal every week (too ambitious I know, make it every 50 days) and pretend to analyse the socks off it by using pseud words and giving section headings such as "A critique of the false nine". The goal will hopefully be the best one that week, and will mostly be from La Liga given that they score the world's most beautifullest bestest amazingest goals NOT. It will be anything I choose to write about, it might even be my mid-term goals from my company's 360 degree feedback process.

This week we take a look at Arteta's goal against West Brom last week. I have to admit Valencia's goal was cough...better..cough.. but I didn't watch the entire game and it could be that Valencia belted crosses all day before that random flukey one touch move clicked. I would be praising the goal falsely then, much like  modern football's number 9 and that is one thing I avoid. Commenting without watching the entire game, the pre game punditry, the post game punditry, the half time ads, the kasabian faaaair riiff - unthinkable to me!

You can watch the goal here so that you know what is it that I am talking about.

Verm to RVP: This is what we missed. A centre back who is not merely a huge chunk of flesh resembling a small bus made of flesh but also someone who can get forward and put intelligent passes. Vermaelen gets the ball, sees that  RVP has dropped back into midfield and makes a quick pass past a bewildered West Brom guy.

RVP's touch: Fack. This, for me, is the moment that brought about the goal. With one brilliant first touch RVP renders the West Brom defender pointless, who sulks for a while and leaves for the Himalayas to ponder the point of it all. Not only has RVP freed himself from his marker but now also has acres of space on the right . The clueless defender jogs back half-heartedly letting Arteta make a run forward.

RVP to Ros to RVP: RVP takes it on his left and slides it Rosicky who has asked for it on the right wing. Immediately RVP darts into the box and asks for the return pass. Pass. And move. Rosicky, graceful at his best, slides it back to RVP who has now turned his back to the goal and is ready to lay it off to any onrushing midfielders who might a fancy a goal or two. Note Theo's run taking two defenders away from the right of the goalmouth creating space for RVP to run into.

RVP to Arteta to Goal: RVP lays it up for Arteta who has jogged his way from midfield (spotting a disillusioned-with-life defender on the way) and places it perfectly into the goal. Arteta then celebrates by pinching some imaginary nipples. Perfect finishing to a flowing move. A bit like the Arsenal of the old. Could improve on the celebrations though.

The Offside Trap S01E03 : Serie A Episode 03

Phantasmagoric Serie A Saturday with Juve-Inter and AC-Roma. Strictly going by the sides involved, a Juve win and Roma loss should technically tilt my evening towards the "disappointing" end of the see-saw but throw in The Usual Reject Ranieri staring down the barrel of his fastest ever firing and giving his bang-on-cue insipidly mediocre interview of "I'm happy with the way we played"... and suddenly the evening was blissfully unaware of the painful Giallorossi Lossi.. Plus Valencia punked Getafe, and Messi did the business thrice again on the Nou Camp lawns.

Meanwhile RM squeezed out yet another bitterly ascorbic victory at the San Sebastian. A really nice effect of the ManU thrashing is people can finally rethink the whole "perfectly sub-standard unknown gits end up being more effective than footballers with actual talent", although Diarra's continued presence mystifies this supposed effect. Of course his unknown sub-standardness is loads more tolerable than over rated sub-standardness of Khedira, but this season was supposed to be Alonso + Sahin in MF. Now I'm a little suspicious if actually playing was ever part of the transfer deal - he's been fit for a few weeks reportedly but still not even in the squad... Not sure how you fall foul of Mourinho without even playing or practicing, but I'm hoping Nuri Sahin is not "New Resign" soon, coz he's really pretty...

Arsenal beat Chelsea and are apparently title contenders again. Good for them. After all, delusion isn't too bad, once you sit down and get to know it... Though anyone making positive comments about their defence midweek must be feeling pretty stupid now, wait let me rephrase, anyone making positive comments about their defence must be feeling stupid 0.2 seconds after making said comment. Granted, 0.2 is quite a flattering assumption given the average brain of people who make positive Arsenal comments.

Liga-Desk (aka "The Blog") of the blog signing off now for a whole month of sinnage.

The Offside Trap S01E02 : Cups and Cones

Lot of heated journalism out there about the callous treatment of yet another African Coach, yet another Nigerian underachievement. I don't get it...He's alive... Since when did the primary worry stop being bloodlusty warlords, ethnic cleansing, football maniac assassins, Aids, and just about a million other clouds of shit the least of which are particularly bellicose wildebeest...., and instead become whether you can manage to get a good letter of recommendation for your next gig???? "mmm..chopped off my hands and burnt my village, but at least this looks good on my resume".

Meanwhile Nagatomo hints at something the whole world has been wondering for 3 years now... Will Del Piero's career EVER end... Parallels with Totti are quite laughable, Del Piero is more the Raul of Juve, would be fitting to send him to Wolfsburg and ask him to purposely play like crap after they sent the Trojan Diego to us. On the topic of Juve Trojans, Ranieri (who's seen more job-layoffs than the entire Lehmann Bros) is fiiinally coaching a team that I won't feel sad about after he completely ruins and obliterates its dignity.

I haven't ruled out the possibility that Moratti looks at Juve's spectacular bounce back from Serie B, and wants the same kind of fairytale storyline for Inter - but losing constantly and getting demoted while teams like Cesena and Lecce continue to exist in Serie A is a lot harder to accomplish than Stankovic and Ranocchia make it seem... You need real talent for that - enter Ranieri. Inter in 16th place, Juve in 1st. Narzi in heaven.

Of Valencia Bonds and Hybrid Orbitals

Valencia fans used to be those white elephant fans (the sleek sexy kind) who wouldn't blow hot and cold with each toggle of the switch. For all the resentment behind even that disastrous Ronald Koeman era, I still remember the matches themselves had the fans quite unequivocal in their adoration of a series of performances that were in all fairness quite stunning in their intricacy and corresponding ineffectiveness. Especially ironic since at the same time neighboring fans at the Madrigal were berating their team for slipping to 7th in the table... yes the same team that was playing in the 3rd division just a few years prior... We were a hybrid cosmic body that orbited Valencia neither with the frothy-mouthed ruthlessness of Madrid fans, nor the stony silent monocled opera watchers of Barcelona, nor of course the happy go lucky "woohoo we're 17th..." low standard penurious optimism of Racing, Betis, Levante etc (more on Levante later...I mean WATHEFFFF are they shooting up this season???) - instead the strange resonance of a club that was big, successful, and talented enough to have the highest of expectations, and a fan base that was curiously forgiving of players who eventually realized mid-leap about the impossibility of the expectation-ledge and then air-cycled, blow-jet-propelled, and furiously grappled their way to a ledge only 2km away from the original.

This season should for all counts be the same, in fact a few dollops more leniency wouldn't be completely out of place considering the departures, formation changes, and debt (not to mention the mental trauma of having to watch hordes of Indians swarm out of airports like locusts from the book of Revelations, holding notes taken from that gay Hrithik movie). But ever since they socked it to Barca (which frankly they do every year...only this time they took a point), there suddenly seems to be an unrest in the Mestalla - like Grimm and his fisherman's wife I unwittingly associated with Barca... The Bilbao game at Mestalla had jeers in the first half, not monkey chants at Miguel hopelessly panicking on the ball...but jeers!!! You know the locusts aren't the only portents of apocalypse when fans would rather jeer central midfielders for a backpass than talentless Rightbacks who take my "Hybrid-Orbital" a little too literally. Granted they should have won the game 4-0 by halftime, and instead were facing a 0-1 defeat till Banega released Soldado at the death with a pass that should get physically manifested and cryogenically preserved for future generations (but instead will get pipped by Silva's last pass...because he plays in the EPL...).

Also granted it comes on the back of losing to Sevilla after threatening to win 5-0, a 1-1 draw with Mallorca, and a narrow 1-0 against Granada that should have been won by a basketball score.... Did I mention we're pretty much out of the Champions League, and still without a stable Midfield formation while our pennyless beggar city rivals sit atop thhe league....but still we remain loyal and HOLY SHIT WTF are Che upto, Booooooooo!! ... Maybe we isn't so hybrid after all...best get used to it, it feels like yet another one of "those seasons"... where we contemplatively swirl the dust at our feet, yearning for golden days past and building castles of possession-directed pass-completion-derived intricacy-ratio-functional metrics of League-victory in the clouds of power-slam clothesline eye-poking last minute goal driven Madrid championships... yes you heard it here first... Madrid to win Liga. {{shoots self}}

First set Man City..6-1. New balls please.....

Unfortunately this isn't the Manchester Derby post my racy seductive title promised. Partly because my soul is still cleansing from the EPL-defilement of having to write about the ManU-Arsenal game (in case you were counting, testament no.24 to the UTTER USELESSNESS of the 2-man EPL Desk this blog was supposed to have), but mainly because no glee can possibly stay glee for us glee-ers if the glee-ees get to just stand up and walk away from decimation that caused said glee. How can I possibly be happy about a game which was supposed to have an extended aftermath of ManU fan suicides, rampant turncoatism, and effigy burning, but instead ended up being a chorus of "Oh yea??oh yea???? We'll see who's laughing at the end of the season!!"... What dark twisted regressive times we live in, where valiant fighters decapitate their opponents, and then have to watch headless bodies walk away (and bodyless heads roll away) while recovering strewn limbs, muttering curses and promising vengeance!! That cud chewing clown should be in some sarcophagus carefully embalmed and organs harvested, not giving a smug press conference!!! How much heart would Maximus have put into his performances if he thought "win or lose.. I'll just go and have fun. If I do lose, I'll just take responsibility for my actions and hope for a better tomorrow"

How are 40,000 crazed fans supposed to work up the bloodlust to return for next week's games knowing there exists no bone chilling finality to any slaughter?? Sepp Blatter needs to seriously rethink this whole "tomorrow is another day" bullshit Football is in danger of being mired in. With his tenure soon ending, I'm sure he wouldn't want to live with the infamous legacy of being in charge of the complete emasculation of football, ushering in an era of sport totally devoid of blood soaked grass, externally distributed entrails, and well fed lions. ManU and Liverpool have the most number of "followers" because its most fun to see their players die, a phenomenon that has been denied us for more than 20 years now... We grow impatient.. The few deaths that have been accorded us recently have all been bloodless, goreless and quite dishonorably bereft of blades, clubs, or sharp teeth... How are we supposed to cheer a heart attack???? At least rip it out their chest and hold it up for all to see the actual attack in progress... Now I'm not a violent savage, I'm not saying every game has to end in a blood shower, nor even the obvious rejoinder of "every EPL game", but at least massive scorelines or underdog upsets...or if not the entire team maybe a "dead man of the match" award for the worst player. Something...Anything... otherwise I'm shifting my allegiance over to Motorsport. What's that you say? I'm an asshole?? well excccuuuusse me for being the onllly person to react to the newspaper Simoncelli article by rushing to youtube for the crash video.....

The Offside Trap : Reading between the Lines

In this section of the blog, we bring you news stories that are hot in the footballing world, and expose the truth behind the stories that the writers were too blind to see, too yellow to reveal, or too well paid off to confess. By "this section", I of course mean something that promises of future entries but fizzles out and dies before people even know what it is (kinda like Antonio Puerta.......too soon? yea too soon....) In the rich history of reading between the lines, the 3 main vices that propagate said between-reading are :

The Understatement : Modesty and Political correctness usually cause dialled down versions.
Pep Guardiola : We expect a tight competition tomorrow against ManU, between two evenly matched teams, but I hope our quality will shine through in a closely fought encounter.
He meant : We are going to bumrape ManU, and their families, and anyone remotely connected to them. Even their Facebook friends are going to wake up in the morning with a sore rectum.

The Brutal Truth : Everyone knows the truth, but its best for everyone if we kept up appearances..
Pep Guardiola : We would love to have Cesc in our team
He meant : We don't want him, we don't need him, we don't like him. But we don't want those English bastards to have him either.

The BillClinton : Bare faced lies, named after our example
Bill Clinton : I did not have sex with Monica Lewinsky
He meant : I did not have sex with Hillary Clinton. No one has.

In this edition of the Offside Trap, we focus on three people who cared enough to keep up appearances, but were laughable enough personalities for us to heartlessly expose.. the Brutal Truth.

Sunday Breakfasts and David Baconham

Every now and then, there is born a man destined for greatness. A man whose force of personality binds a nation, a race, a species, despite all their differences and petty squabbles. A man who unites a diverse set of people who previously hated each other and assorted guts by forming a common ground for them to meet. A man whom everyone can unanimously and amicably agree upon to hate till their islets of langerhans hurt (I'm insinuating that is the gland responsible for chemical secretions that we recognize as hate, and you don't know enough to dispute it so piss off). Humanity is so embroiled in hate that is so insignificant and quite frankly, unrewarding, that it needs a sufficiently horrible and despicable public figure who makes for a wholly satisfying bout of hate and vitriol. That's why we had the Genghiz's, Atilla's, Jesus's, Hitlers, and John Lennons of this world - to unite us and teach us that despite our vast differences in taste, intellect, and penis size (by that I mean vastly inferior to me in all), we can find common ground and hate a common person after all. Enter David Beckham.

Why is this guy still alive?? The cruelty of whoever dreamt up this planet is no more evident than in the fact that Chris Benoit killed his family and himself, but Beckham still hasn't.... Can you imagine the collective Karma points we would gladly sacrifice if it meant the Beckhams' timely demise? (of course it was "timely" 10 years back... now it's just way f****ng overdue). Imagine my dismay when I wake up on a lazy Sunday morning to find that not only has England sealed their qualification for Euro2012, but also that Capello still hasn't closed the doors on a certain David Bakehead. Having played for ManU, Real, and a US team, I can safely say he's done all that he can do to ensure I will always pray for his death and eternal damnation (with a particularly relishing prospect of the circle with Cerebrus tearing through the sinners), although theoretically he could still further better his hate record by singing in his wife's albums, clubbing baby seals, and joining Arsenal. With Tottenham, Milan and Capello still flirting with him, I will now go on record to say he'd sooner become California Governor than rejoin actual football. If US doesn't release a Kill-on-sight order on Dave and Posh soon, they're going to become Land of the Fruit and Home of the Bolemic

Los Che draw Che-Lsea, lob an explosive Granada, but "Kanoute" get past Sevilla

Taking a leaf of Practical Henry's record book was easier than I thought (I even got a well desiccated cockroach in the process, did you know they are a good source of Amino Acids..Park Ji Sung told me). 3 Matches, 3 Goals, 3 outcomes. and nothing really to say... except that I was watching the Spain Czech game last night cheering Silva and Mata shamelessly ignoring the fact that they were no longer from Valencia... It isn't often (read : Never) the two best players on show in a match play in the EPL. But back to the post subject, which unfortunately has been comprehensively covered by the title and anything further would just be needless literary masturbation covering themes mainly of nihilism, racial fascism, and social Darwinism, not necessarily mutually exclusive either (eg: That black Miguel asshole and his next 2 generations must be gassed...sigh but what's the point?).

Valencia played the better football against Chelsea and still could/should have lost by 3-4 goals, they absolutely pummeled Sevilla (do refrain from the 10-man hypothesis, Sevilla always play better with 10-men... I'm quite sure their training sessions involve some healthy bull-running) and ended up losing, and blew Granada to smithereens...1-0..... (as you can imagine, them smithereens were quite large and wholesome, and still breathing...). Meanwhile Madrid played like shit against Rayo who overran them in the 1st half, but still ended up winning 6-2 on a stupendous Ronaldo performance (2 penalties and a tap-in. Did I say stupendous, I meant stupidous or other similarly obvious plays around the word "stupid"). So unless the Liga changes its victory system to possession, chances, number of passes, or gameplay, I'm quite confident this season will end in another Barca 1, RM 2, ......................Valencia 3 and............................... rest. Those portuguese scum must be shot and genetically experimented upon..but sigh..what's the point?

Adventures of Jose Moronho

This isn't an angst post, although I AM kind of peeved I'm no longer legally old enough to display angst (which has been true for the past 6 years, but seeing as how I started angsting a little late in life, I had some leeway till my 25th..). Neither is this a post about Jose's eye-poking angst, nor about why Steve Jobs didn't invent an iCancerpill before they pulled the plug (what....I don't have Facebook, I need to get on the bandwagon somehow!). Rather about the increasing concentration of Jose Mourinho articles across footballing media (to which, ironically enough, I have just added....) as the only representative of Real Madrid. From ex-players, coaches, and society for ethical treatment of translators, comments about how Mourinho is the man to end Barca's dominance are asphyxiating the already pencil-necked football sites. What's worse, RM players have been reduced to puppets/zombies (depending on whether you found Chucky or NOLD scarier... although now I'm thinking undead re-animated brain-eating Chucky is the idea that'll finally kick off my Hollywood writer career...did I mention he got bitten by a radioactive spider too?) mindlessly chiming the glories of their coach and attributing anything from injury recovery, brilliant solo goals, tireless play in the middle, white shiny teeth, or nobel peace prize all to Jose Mourinho. From Ramos, to Khedira, to Angel, Ronaldo and Kaka - any article vaguely resembling a RealMadrid player seems solely focused on their coach.

Only Casillas (strangely enough, I was convinced he had suddenly changed from a nice guy to a Real asshole after Mourinho came in, with his anti-Barca comments and fight-stirring.. maybe not), Alonso and recently a brilliantly refreshing tirade by Pedro Leon, keep any kind of non sycophantic dignity intact in this team. I don't buy any of this "Galacticos need some humility" and the jazz about coaches needing to be big personalities who can keep egos in check bullshit. If their point is that no one man is bigger than the team so egoistic players harm the dressing room, why are coaches bigger than the team and why don't egoistic coaches harm the dressing room!! Coaches are intrinsically in a position of power, egoistic players like Zlatan can be booted at any moment regardless of the hardness of a coach! Obviously you are going to now name all the hard coaches who consistently did way better than the soft ones, but I only have 2 names - Del Bosque and Pep, no reason for me to look for more.. For those saying 2000s Madrid is a team which revolves around highly paid egomaniac players requiring iron-whip coaches - Schuster, Capello, Camacho, Juande Ramos were all hard coaches, all failures.

But for what it's worth, I do wonder if maybe ex-players, coaches and the SETT are right about him being the coach to topple Barca. After an irritatingly defensive 6-7yrs, Pellegrini finally turned Madrid into a semblance of the attack minded side they used to be, with Granero and Alonso in more creative roles ahead of Diarra, and Kaka playing in the hole behind 2 forwards (Ronaldo, Higuain). Enter Mourinho - back to double pivot and single forward. Means their transitions are much smoother, even easy on the eye when Ozil is playing well, but always counter-attacking rather than really attacking. That being said, can't deny it's worked. Madrid's biggest problem was dropping points away from home, strange for Pellegrini since back at Villarreal he used to be one of the few coaches in Liga with a comparatively better away record. Much less adventurous play away from home was one of the biggest reasons they ran away with second place ahead of all the rest of Liga. The table gives % win-draw-loss on total games, Home stats and Away wins are almost identical for Pellegrini-Madrid and Mourinho-Madrid, the only difference being Away losses and draws.














So why might ex-players, coaches and SETT be right about Jose this year? Because teams playing away at Barca are exactly what's going wrong with Barca in recent years - teams who set up shop in the Nou Camp and lay eggs for 90 minutes (metaphorical eggs of course, although I have my doubts about Pepe...). While Barca's away stats have improved from 2009 to 10, their home stats have suffered from teams who come to the Nou Camp with a draw in mind. Obviously a 95% home win record was not going to be sustained, and last season was only 3 points less than 2009, so it isn't enough to start calling the CIA in (or SHIELD, considering Messi and Iniesta aren't really made of anything human), but less teams are going to look at the Valencias, Atleticos, and Sociedads attacking Barca and taking points, and more teams are going to look at the Madrids and Sevillas trying to shut Barca out and maybe strike on the counter. In hindsight, I guess this explains all the bizarre formations Pep has been trying out, teams aren't going to let Barca be Barca for too much longer.

Arsenal get their fingers Blackburnt, tame the Shrewsbury, screw the Bolton and run (five) rings around Olympiakos

Haha I think I will deliberately start delaying my game reviews just to get an opportunity to come up with post titles like the one above and cram as many bad puns as possible into one. That was a four in one! (Is that too dirty to be a STWSS?) 

Now, if you want to read a blog post about the above games replete with sentences that inform the reader how a structured diamond became a fluid allotrope 4-4-2 graphite, or how a false nine is actually a made-up 11 and a slightly duplicitous 10 playing in front of a fictitious 8, or how the treqeuesteras requested to be sequestered after equestrian or how good the Vasquez and Rodrigues combination used to be in the glory days of Franco, Salvador and <insert Spanish name here>... then sorry you have come to the blog at the wrong time of the week when it is the turn of the other reader author to post about Arsenal. If you are into  knee-jerk reactions than the rude knights who say nee oru jerk, welcome.

1. Blackburn-Arsenal: Zonal Marking might be a good website but clearly it is not a good system of defence for the clueless bunch at Arsenal. Anything more than a see-man-follow-man instruction goes well over their heads, just like all those incoming balls from set-pieces. That we contrived to lose a game 4-3 in which the opposition had only two shots on goal smacks of carelessness. All that Blackburn had to do to score was send the ball somewhere vaguely in the direction of our six yard box and wait for one of our defenders to score for them. ZM without any clear leadership and individual responsibility seems to me to be a very bad idea only headed for doom. Per has just joined this back four. Kos is cutting his teeth at the top level and Gibbs is inexperienced. Sagna is the only dependable guy in the lineup but ZM is a system that calls for complete coordination and that cannot be achieved with just one person learning how to. It is encouraging that we are trying to work on our defensive frailties but at the same time is is disappointing that we are mending the car by setting fire to it. As the Blackburn result showed, ZM doesn't seem to be the way ahead, at least with these defenders.

2. Arsenal-Shrewsbury: Our squad depth is a bit of illusion. On paper we have about 89 players. About 76 of them are also made of it. At any given time they are in the hospital getting glued. That we struggled to beat Shrewsbury (who?) is a reflection of the lack of quality of our second string players. Ju Young Park seemed overwhelmed by the occasion and kept running away from the ball as if it were a Korean military service personnel trying to draft him into the army. Fabianski is back to his usual form that earned him the moniker of Flappyhandski from the clearly very witty British press. Djourou, the rock-solid defender of the second half of last season who deputised for the original defensive rock Vermaelen has been reduced to a pebble-solid defender, a pebble made of clay. On the positive side, Benayoun was good. Oxladen is an immense talent and it was his cracker of a goal that saved us the blushes that night. He will provide good and much needed competition to Walcott. Coquelin was also excellent. His positional discipline in midfield and clever distribution made his performance a stark contrast to the performance of Frimpong, whose gameplay is usually built around robust play and strong tackles. The youth do inspire confidence but they have been doing so for the past six years.

3. Arsenal-Bolton: I did not see the match as I was cycling around an island with breathtaking views like most of us are wont to on weekends (what is that...you don't?), but having seen the highlights I can speak with impunity about how glorious the goals were. Very glorious. 

4. Arsenal-Olympiakos: Zonal Marking might be a good website but it CLEARLY isn't a good system of defence as far as this bunch is considered. Arsenal started off with a 4-3-3 with Arteta Frimp Rosicky in the centre and Arshavin RVP Ox playing top. It comes as a surprise to me that over the past few games Wenger has been experimenting with his formation and changing it almost every other game, something he has never done at this frequency in the past. Anyway, Oxladen scored his debut CL goal after chesting down a brilliant over the top ball from Song and drilling into the right corner. Santosh also scored his debut CL goal that night. A flurry of give-and-go's on the left flank ended up in Rosicky releasing Santosh who crossed the ball on the ground for Chamakh, collected the clearance and shot past a goalkeeper who should have done much better. Arsenal then being Arsenal decided to let their Greek guests score one. Surprise surprise it came from a corner. Olympiakos took a short corner and floated it into the box. There was so much space and time in the danger area that the Olympiakos scorer could have driven inside in a tank, parallel parked it and then  scored.  He comfortably took a 50 yard run up, jumped up and thumped the ball into the net with a forceful header. It was almost like a handball goal (the sport not the illegal action). The problem was there was no communication between our defenders. No one knew what their roles were and they ended up marking whichever zone they felt like defending leaving loads of space free. Second half there were some improvements when it came to defending and I felt it was largely due to the imposing presence of Mertesacker and his long leg. It just kept cropping up in places you never thought it would. You would think there is no way his foot can reach such a great distance and he would lazily dangle a foot at the right place and time to deftly rob the player of the ball even before they realised what was it that hit them. As a result we were much tighter and calm in our defending in the second half and did not let any more goals.Quite a feet. But ZM continues to bother me a bit and I cannot help but feel that it was one of the main reasons why we were pushed to the wall by an outfit whose attack is not by any means as potent as, say, even Wolves. This could be a potential pitfall when trying to zone mark the thugs of EPL. There were some signs that it could be made to work, as Szczesny and Merte have said in their interviews but it would require that slightly daft players like Santosh and Djourou learn quickly.

These wins give us much needed momentum in the build up to the first North London Derby of the season which has always been a fixture of great drama and excitement even before kick off leading to nervous breakdowns, despondency and suicidal depression post final whistle. 2-0 to 2-3 last minute losses, 4-2 to 4-4 draws, 2-0 to 2-2 draws where anonymous twits score once in a lifetime volleys. Tomorrow there is the added bonus of Adebayor too. Ugh.

All set for a pleasant Sunday evening then.  

Francesco Thaatha

Totti turned 35 yesterday, a birthday which is all too alarmingly close to corpopimp Dhruv's (I know you're secretly reading this while you wrap up work and get ready to head home...but don't. 1:30am is no time to be reading blogs). This year at Roma started with a hotly publicized cold-war between Luis Enrique and Totti, and it wasn't without any latent relief that I wondered if finally Pupone could take the back seat with a tactical shuffle that reduced the total and utter dependence on him. 4 games into the season and Enrique's already changed his formation to funnel solely around Totti pulling strings from behind the forwards. Funnily enough, the same happened in the first few Spalletti years, with Totti getting relegated more often, and the parallels with Del Piero's simultaneous decline from Juve godheadness being all too obvious. But the last 2 seasons had regressed back to the Tottiphilia that has plagued (in a way that is too enjoyable to really treat...like a sweet smelling rash that also looks kinda badass..like the red dragon on my..never mind) Roma for too long to possibly get over easily. Totti is the greatest Trequartista I have ever seen, but he played as a striker (sometimes lone!!!) for the past 3 seasons - Enrique's acquisitions and more pondering possession play meant a Totti-ic striker was theoretically out. But they played Parma last Saturday as 3-4-3 with a Trequartista...a formation that couldn't be more made for Totti if it dressed in a swimsuit and hosted TV Shows.

The game itself was quite beautiful, Enrique shamelessly showed Roma the notes he's been stealing from Pep's locker, and it even worked..sorta... (in the twisted way I once said Barca's play worked in their UCL loss to Inter 2 yrs back). De Rossi was incredible again (finally), Osvaldo and Rosi were both excellent, rest were safe but not toe-curling (Self TWSS). Formation strategy yadayada Heinze piece of shit yadayada huh-who-what-keeper yadayada. So anyway, point is Totti is back and seems to be here to stay for this season..AGAIN... and I just cant get myself to enjoy yet another season watching him play, with the creepy gong in my head accentuating the impending withdrawal at Roma once he hangs up his dentures and leaves (although its a lot less creepy if I play the Streetfighter game soundtrack in my head while the gong sounds). They went into rehab with Spalletti early on, the way Juve said no to Del. But while Juve have forgotten him completely, Roma have relapsed again. but then it just feels so good....

Almost time for Che against Chelsea, and I'm going to go out on a limb and put myself out there, not sit on the fence, but bravely predict...that Valencia will play the better football and pummel blue monkeys for 90mins...as for the result itself, lets see........could go either way, can't really say, both teams are great and YEA RITE. Chelsea to win 2-1 :(

Mata to score, and commentator to say "well wouldn't you know it...it just had to happen didn't it..."

Player Ratings' Rating

Goal.com player ratings are usually so contemptible that it becomes the only reason to even read them, to bask in the sanctimonious afterglow of an aura that such contemptibility emanates. The degree of lack of ocular and brainular cells used in these articles was revealed when I added the ratings of 3 matches each of low draws and low victories and found the exaact same sigma for all (66.5 for former, 74.5 for latter). This leads me to a startling yet not entirely alarming conclusion - these articles are computer generated and completely untouched by human hand. Startling because of Matrix, AI, yadayadayada, but not entirely alarming because they are cleaarly not bright enough to enslave us and take over the galaxy (although there is a school of thought that claims though AI could not process things beyond the purview of our creation i.e be smarter than us, they could enslave us by being just as dumb but sincerely and consistently...so you'll see Goal.com's human articles striving to be just as consistent in dumbness).

So here are the human-initiated player ratings of the oh-so-awesome Val-Bar match. Special mention for the sportsmanship in the match, it was such a fast-paced aggressively contested game w.r.t possession that there were so many extended legs and late challenges and follow-throughs, without a single reaction by either team. Apart from Cesc crying about Rami's innocuous follow-through and Cesc/Messi each appealing for penalties on 2 different occasions (both challenges by who else but Unmagnificent Miguel), every single player young old, brave yellow, strong weak, just got up and continued playing without so much as a grimace. Incredibly rare to have witnessed in Liga, and testament to the professionalism of these players IF there is clear lack of malice or directed purpose in toughness of play - Madrid and EPL please note...

Player	Goal.Com Rating	Literate Rating	Expert Comments
Guaita	6.5	5	Great saves on Messi, Villa 1 on 1 but....Pedro at near post, and too slow to come out w/ Cesc who has now scored the SAAAMEE GOAL IN LAST 4 GAMES!!!! WATCH THE TAPES GUAITA!
Rami	7	8	Brilliant! Had to continually cover for Miguel who was always out of position. Prevented a sure Messi 1 on 1 goal
Ruiz	6.5	7.5	Not as comfortable in possession as his partner, but the left /central part of Valencia was completely shut down to Barca
Miguel	6	ZERO DUCK	What..an..asshole! Every single attack, including both goals came from through balls behind him. Made Pedro look brilliant
Alba	6.5	7.5	Ingenious left flank fluidity with Mathieu, more impressed with their rampant tactical switching-over than any individual play
Mathieu	8	6.5	Lets not get carried away with just the assists....Made to look much better by Alba's dynamism, excellent pressing though.
Banega	7.5	9.5	I'll say it again with no fear of ridicule, hands down the best Midfielder in football today. Disgraceful that he is still passed over for Argentina's MF with geriatrics like Veron, Lucho getting the nod - Lucho used to be one of my favs, but reallly sucks now!!
Albelda	7	8.5	Has been reborn after a useless end to last season. Totally pwned Cesc, and even Messi. Top anticipation to intercept through-balls
Canales	6.5	7	After a less than impressive 2 debuts partnering Albelda, pushing him into the hole was wondrous yesterday! I'm now convinced!
Pablo	7	7.5	Extremely hard working evening, along with Canales gave Barca a taste of their own medicine with their pressing very high up
Soldado	6	5	It isn't that he missed a goal gaping wider than Holocaust victims, I'm not shallow..It's just that he's a forward....Not involved at all
Costa	6	7.5	Totally wasted if used purely as an Albelda, he is great on the ball but 2nd Half was hardly about keeping the ball..Still good
Jonas	5.5	5.5	I take back what I said last time, his through ball to Soldado against Racing isn't enough to like him any more...
Piatti	5.5	7.5	I love this guy! He even looks like Messi!! Drew a foul EVERY time he was on the ball - Our new Vicente!!! Needs to start..
Valdes	6	6	Wyell...he IS the surest keeper when it comes to catching shots and not beating them away, but didn't have much to do
Abidal	6	5	Sucks at Left back. Needs to play Central... Not Left back...and definitely not Left Wing!! Pablo skinned him too many times. Not entirely sure why Pep persists at RB
Masch	7	5.5	Huh? 7 because he hit the post... Overrun and positionally dreadful! Can't possibly deal with pacy 1 touch passing of Che
Puyol	4.5	7	Another blindness! I usually think Puyol is slow and too old-school, but he was solid and alone in his confidence at defence
Alves	4.5	6	Unfair to blame him for the system's failings.. But too many short passes were intercepted, although credit for that goes to Valencia
Xavi	6	9	Banega showed 10 times more skill, but Xavi gets a 9 since he was the only barca player who passed flawlessly under pressure
Keita	6	5	I thought on the evidence of the Villarreal game, 3-4-3 might suit Keita... Turns out only a body bag would suit him better...
Busquets	5.5	5.5	Haha yea he was pretty bad. But Pep is solely to blame, this guy is majestic as defensive MF why keep shuffling him!
Cesc	7	4	There are vendettas, and there are vendettas..and then there are jackasses who thoroughly deserve them...0% Barca DNA - Scores from the very failing of being positionally clueless that ruins the team through the game.. Couldn't control passes and really helped Che regain possession rapidly. As a MF he doesn't make himself available for passes from a team mate - POOR off the ball
Pedro	6.5	6.5	Technically deserves a higher rating, but that's only because zero duck Miguel made it possible...Was released many times in 1st 45
Messi	7.5	6.5	Oozed obvious class on the ball, but gave away too many passes.. But the 2 out of 50 passes that weren't intercepted made 2 goals
Adriano	5.5	5.5	Leftback to Right Forward... Like duh, complete sequitor. Next game he might set up Valdes and Pinto for a virtuoso goal
Villa	5.5	5	One of my favorite players, Valencia's fav son..didn’t start...then came on and gave the ball away, before missing a 1 on 1 with keeper...sigh
Thiago	5.5	7	Iniesta Beta (not hindi-beta, software Beta...although he WAS born around the time...ok no) needs to replace Cesc NOW!!!