Me and my mates stayed away from the Manchester derby game at the weekend, as usual, preferring to watch it in the comfort of my TV room with some cold beers and no angry City fans shouting at us and throwing things around. Purely from a football point of view, it was a cracking game – 2-0 at half time, then 2-2 with just minutes to go and ending with an injury-time goal to make it 3-2 is going to be a good game of football whoever’s playing. The fact it was United v City, and United won, made it all the better – especially for us United fans.
That win (and City’s lack of points) takes us six points clear at the top of the Premier League, which is a great place to be mid-December. If we can take the winning run through for the next couple of games we’ll have really stamped our authority on the title and you’d have to say it would be ours to lose from there. Although, as we know from last year, anything can happen.
Sadly the talking point after Sunday’s derby game wasn’t the football but the injury Rio Ferdinand sustained from a coin thrown at him by a City fan. It hit him just above the eye, making him bleed quite a lot, but the most worrying thing for me was the fan who got on the pitch immediately after and had to be stopped by Joe Hart from confronting Ferdinand. How did security not stop him? Perhaps more to the point, what makes people act like this in the first place? I’ve said it before and will no doubt say it again, but it’s only football. It amazes me that people take it so seriously.
Anyway, on a more positive note our 3-2 win over City marks a landmark occasion – I actually got a prediction right! If I get the other two from my previous blog correct as well… well, I don’t know what. I guess I’ll just be kicking myself that I didn’t put any money on all three.
In the unlikely event that any of the Manchester United team read my blog, I could claim a little hand in our change in fortunes over the last week or so. Since my last post, when I was bemoaning our lack of form, we’ve had three convincing wins on the trot – all in the Premier League, against QPR, West Ham and Reading – which have taken us three points clear at the top of the table. Perhaps my words, coming from a true fan of the club and the team, might have inspired them to up their game? Okay, so that is highly unlikely (impossible) but I can dream, right?
December tends to be seen as quite a crucial month in the Premier League, as many teams see the end of the year as a good marker for who is likely to go on to take the title. Gambling on who will be top at Christmas is very popular, with bookmakers producing special odds for those who like that kind of thing – here’s a good comparison table of odds on who will be top of the Premier League at Xmas.
I’m not particularly a gambling man, as I’ve said before, but I think I might stick a few quid on Man United staying at the top of the table for Christmas. We’ve got a few tough matches in December – notably Man City on the 9 December – but I’m confident we can do it. City haven’t got too hard a time of it in comparison – they’re playing Reading and Newcastle this month, after us – but you never know what will happen. If we can come through this month and be top at Christmas I think we’d have to be favourites to go on and win the Premier League this season. So I’ll be watching Man United intently this month, as ever, and here are my predictions for the next few games:
Without wishing to jinx us, Man United seem to be on a pretty good run at the moment. Last week’s Champions League win meant we won our group and we also got a decent away win against Aston Villa on Saturday, even though it was a bit lacklustre in the second half. We play Norwich away this Saturday and I’m hoping for another win and three points on the board – this is a great time in the season to really take control and if the results for Chelsea and Man City go in our favour (i.e. they lose) it could be the start of us really pulling away from them and making our mark on the title.
That’s what I’d like to happen anyway but it’s unlikely it will. Chelsea aren’t having the best run but they are solid and I can’t see them losing to West Brom. Aston Villa are a good side though and if they can get organised there’s a good chance they can cause an upset at Man City – and of course it would be good to see them beat City after losing to us last week. Here are my predictions for this Saturday’s big games:
Norwich 1, Man United 3
West Brom 0, Chelsea 2
Man City 2, Aston Villa 3
The other football news this week was England’s friendly against Sweden last night – or rather England against Zlatan Ibrahimovic. I didn’t watch the game because I don’t really care for international friendlies – I spend enough of my time watching football without worrying about games that don’t mean anything – but of course I heard about Ibrahimovic’s four goals and especially the overhead kick. I read the reports this morning before watching it and I have to say I was expecting something truly amazing – the perfect goal, some said. I thought it was okay. The main thing I thought when watching it was ‘what is Joe Hart doing?’ Here it is – an amazing piece of skill against a defence and goalkeeper that look like a Sunday league team:
It’s no surprise that my predictions were wrong again but I don’t care about that today because we’ve won our Champions League group and actually managed to do it in a fairly convincing way, so I’m happy. Well, I say it was convincing but that’s largely ignoring the first half – I can’t believe we managed to concede first again. We really must sort that little habit out.
The win’s especially pleasing because Man City are having a nightmare at the moment and their 2-2 draw against Ajax on Tuesday puts them in a precarious position. They’re now relying on other results to see if they get through or not, which is always a bad place to be in. The big story from their game was Mancini’s criticism of the officials afterwards, having had a winning goal disallowed due to it being offside. Replays do seem to suggest that it wasn’t but, as I’ve said before, that’s football – swings and roundabouts. They can’t blame that on their defeat – they shouldn’t have conceded the two other goals if they wanted to win.
Talking of winning, Celtic managed to pull off the seemingly impossible by beating Barcelona 2-1 at home, with the winner being scored by an 18 year old substitute. A fantastic result for them and a real fairytale way to do it – I’ve always thought of Celtic as my ‘Scottish team’, so I’m pleased for them. Barcelona are still favourites to win that group but it gives Celtic a real chance of getting through to the last 16.
Anyway, enough about other teams, for now I’m going to enjoy the fact that we’re comfortably through to the last 16 – I’ll be keeping an eye on the Champions League fixtures table to see who we might be facing. Hopefully we can go all the way again this year – here’s the last time we did it:
It’s a pretty important week in the Champions League for British teams, with crucial games for Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Celtic and, of course, Man United. In previous years I’ve always been confident that we’ll progress fairly easily in the competition and at least make the quarter finals but after last year, when we got knocked out in the early stages, I struggle to be so certain.
We’re playing Braga tomorrow night in the return leg from the game last month, when we went 2-0 down and came back to win it 3-2. I’m hoping for no such drama this time and hope we finally start to assert ourselves in this competition and secure our place in the last 16. That’s what I’m hoping for – we’ll have to wait and see what actually happens.
The other big games this week are Man City v Ajax and Celtic v Barcelona. City haven’t been producing much form recently so it’ll be interesting to see how they come out for that fixture. Celtic are playing Barcelona, which needs little more saying about it really. They lost 2-1 away to them in October but it was a spirited performance so it will be interesting to see if they can cause a bit of an upset this time, playing at home. I hope so – Barcelona are obviously a fantastic football team, perhaps the best, but I do find them a bit boring sometimes, if they’re just playing their game of ‘keep the ball’. If Celtic get an early lead it could be a really interesting game and Barcelona’s big names will have to pull out all the stops, which is always good to watch. Like this…
I didn’t intend to write such a long blog about cycling before but, as I say, I do find it really fascinating. It’s funny too that many in the cycling world feel their sport is singled out and tarnished with the ‘doping brush’ when drug use and cheating is an issue in all sports. There’s a big difference though, I think. If Wayne Rooney, for example, was using EPO, it wouldn’t necessarily help him score goals. He may be able to run faster for longer but ultimately he still needs that innate football ability – no drugs can give him that. What it takes to win in cycling – the pure endurance – is so raw and so immediate that EPO use greatly improves your chances of winning. That’s the difference.
Anyway, I’m not going to write a whole other blog about cycling and drugs – I’ll leave that for when (if) Lance Armstrong decides to speak about it. For now I’m going to concentrate on football and Man United have an important Champions League game against Braga tonight. We got a good win at home to Stoke on Saturday, despite a bit of a dodgy start, and I’m hoping we’ll continue the winning streak tonight. As you know, I’m not entirely confident in our Champions League performances at the moment.
It’s a pretty big evening for a lot of British clubs tonight, with Chelsea playing away in Ukraine and Celtic playing Barcelona in the Camp Nou. That would be a great game to watch I think and I might just stick a few quid on Celtic causing a bit of an upset – I’ll definitely be watching the highlights to see how they get on. As I seem to be making a bit of a habit of it, here are my predictions for tonight’s three games:
Man United 3, Braga 0
Barcelona 2, Celtic 3
Shakhtar Donetsk 2, Chelsea 2
Now I’ve written it that Celtic result does look a bit optimistic – you’d probably get good odds on it though.
I often think what a fine balance things rest on, especially in sport. It’s normally when I’m ripping up another worthless betting slip, having got yet another prediction wrong, but events like those of Tuesday night really make me wish I had a bit of foresight sometimes. I bet you would have got really good odds on the game being cancelled due to a waterlogged pitch, especially as the stadium in Poland has a roof. I could be really rich now, if only I’d known.
I can’t sit around feeling sorry for myself for not being able to see into the future though, although I will say that Tuesday night must have been so embarrassing for the Polish football authorities. I’m just glad I didn’t choose to go out and watch that game, as a few mates were talking about doing a few weeks ago. I’m pretty sure I would have stayed on to watch it on Wednesday anyway, as I made sure I cleared the rest of this week of work – one of the benefits of being self employed.
I may not get results predictions right but I was right about one thing – England were unconvincing last night and lucky not to lose in the end. Even when we scored it felt like it was against the run of play and it wasn’t exactly one of Rooney’s best ever finishes – I think it went in off his arm in the end.
Still, we hold on to the hope that we can still qualify for the World Cup 2014 and I guess I should be more positive and look on the bright side. We are top of the group after all and there are still plenty of games to be played. You never know, we might win them all easily. Or we might not.
Here are all of the remaining World Cup 2014 England qualifiers, courtesy of www.goal.com.
You’d be a fool not to be happy with a 5-0 England win, especially considering our performances over the last few years. I was glad to see Rooney get on the score sheet twice as well and you could say we’ve started this World Cup campaign really positively. I’m afraid I’m a bit of a pessimist when it comes to England, however, and I came away from this game against San Marino thinking that we still had to prove ourselves. No disrespect to them but they are a pretty awful team and I would have been thoroughly disappointed if we had conceded a goal to them, or, worse, drawn or lost. Yes, we scored five and we did look more impressive than we have been, but it’s San Marino, you know? It doesn’t really mean anything.
Poland tonight will be a bit of a tougher game and I wouldn’t be surprised to see us revert to type, after all the hot air that follows a 5-0 win. In these situations we tend to get over-confident, relax too much and lose our focus. I hope it doesn’t happen – I am an England fan still – but I just won’t be surprised if it does. It’s not like we have a great record of maintaining form and coming through rough patches. I suspect we’ll struggle a little in the next few games and qualify by the skin of our teeth, as usual.
I don’t want to go into tonight with a negative attitude though so here’s a little reminder of what England can do when we’re playing well.
I’ll stick with my prediction for tonight – a 2-2 draw – but I will secretly be hoping for another 5-0 win.
I think my mate who I went to help look for cars is going to be as hard to please as me. We went out to look at Peugeots but he ended up in another garage nearly buying a Renault Laguna. He didn’t in the end – he’s decided to do what I’m doing and try out as many cars as possible before he makes a decision. I did warn him it might take a while but he doesn’t seem bothered – I think he likes the process of looking at cars as much as I do.
There are two international football games in a row over the next week. We’ve got San Marino at home this Friday night and Poland away next Tuesday. I’m hoping to see some decent football from England. There’s been a lot in the news recently, with Rooney’s return, Ashley Cole’s Twitter comments about the FA and all this stuff with John Terry. I think it’s time the players silenced all the gossipers and showed us all why they are heralded as some of the best players on the planet and played some decent international football for a change. I’m not too hopeful, if I’m honest, because we don’t exactly have a very good track record with this generation, but you never know.
For what it’s worth I will make a couple of predictions anyway. I’m hoping Rooney scores at least a goal in each game and Joe Hart plays as well for England as he did for Man City in the Champions League. Here are my predictions for the scores:
A cracking win at Newcastle on Sunday means Man United are now second in the Premier League, behind Chelsea. It is of course early days still but I think we’re going to hold a much stronger position this year, judging by the quality we’ve shown, and I predict we’ll go into Christmas top of the league and go on to win it with games to spare. There you go – I’ve said before I don’t like making football predictions because I’m not normally very good at them but I’ve got a feeling this season and I think we’re going to storm it. You heard it here first and I’m even going to put a bet on while I’m thinking about it, that’s how certain I am.
Last week ended on a bit of a high as the young band I was talking about in my last post were really chuffed to come back and finish their demo off properly. I’m not normally one for going over the top with good will and handing out unearned favours but as I said, they were really nice lads and it does feel good to help out an up and coming band once in a while. They’ve promised me a mention on the sleeve notes of their first album if (when) it gets released.
At the other end of the recording spectrum, I’ve got a guy in all week this week doing voice-overs for some radio and TV adverts. It’s good work because I don’t have to do much and I get a decent rate from the production companies, but it’s a bit boring after the youthful, enthusiastic rock and roll of last week. I’ve got Friday off though so I can go out with a mate and look at some cars. He’s been thinking about leasing a Peugeot 308 and asked me to go along with him. Should be fun – I like looking at new cars.
