Review of the Week #9

Can’t be great being a Liverpool fan at the moment. With the bookies, Liverpool are 12/1 to be relegated and 200/1 to win the league. Their embarrassing home defeat to Blackpool followed a League cup loss to Northampton and a lucky 2-2 draw against Sunderland. Bet Roy is wishing he never left London!

Clinical Chelsea beat Arsenal who were probably the better team at Stamford Bridge with Alex nearly breaking the net with his sweet free kick. Nigel De Jong had to pull out all the stops to beat Karl Henry to worst tackle of the week so followed his World Cup final ‘kung fu kick’ with a ‘double leg breaker’ on Ben Arfa. The Dutch manager has said he will leave De Jong out of his squad for the next match. Well done that man!

Rafael Van der Vaart made an instant impact on his Spurs career as he scored twice to help Spurs come from behind against Villa. Heskey did brilliantly to help give Villa the lead (I know, I can’t believe it either!) before Van the Man headed home to equalise before making Stuart Dunne look a bit of a mug to take all 3 points.

Man United were overtaken by City as they couldn’t beat Sunderland (lucky to get a 0-0 IMO) and Rob Green’s nemesis Clint Dempsey but another goal past him in a 1-1 draw (although this time Dempsey kicked it slightly harder!)

Having lost 4-3 from 3-1 up with 10 minutes to go against Burnley a few weeks ago, Preston have already had a rollercoaster start to the season. However, it got even weirder, as they triumphed 6-4 from 4-1 down to beat Leeds at Elland Road. Parkin scored a hattrick as four goals in the second half secured an emphatic win. I bet those fans who left with half an hour to go or turned the TV off feel a bit stupid.

Also in midweek, Burnley put 4 past Hull with Chris Eagles scoring twice (gonna be big player one day) and Norwich moved into 3rd place with a 4-3 win over Leicester. The Foxes have since sacked Sousa and hired Sven (who of course hasn’t come for the money). Can’t really see Sven taking to rough championship football particularly well but you never know.

So to Saturday and QPR remained 6 points clear at the top of the table with a 2-1 at Selhurst Park. Queer Park Rangers have obviously got a quality player in Taarabt but the Moroccan was quiet for most parts. Palace went close as Garvan hit the post before Davids’s poor back pass was seized upon by Mackie to tee up Tarrabt. Wilfred Zaha (one for the future- you heard it here first) skinned his marker to set up Keiron Cadogan to equalize in the 89th minute but a mistake from the usually superb Julian Speronia gifted Helguson the winner.

Craig Bellamy scored on his return from injury to help Cardiff win 2-1 away at Barnsley while John Bostock was once again an unused sub for Hull in their 0-0 draw Coventry (so you’re too good for Palace John but can’t get in Hull’s starting X1? Prick).

In League 1, bottom and top of the country are first and second as Brighton and Carlisle (367 miles between) have both started well. There’s been a change of fortunes on the south coast as Brighton and Bournemouth have started well while Southampton and Portsmouth are struggling in their respective divisions.

In Cricket, India have beaten Australia in the first of 2 tests with a nail-biting finale to the match. VVS Laxman hit an unbeaten 73 as he and last man Pragyan Ojha held their nerve to get India across the line. Come on India! Win 2-0 and get the Aussie’s ready for us when we go over for the Ashes.

Story of the week was at the Racecourse Ground where Wrexham were at home to Histon. Histon lost 4-0 however post match headlines were about the fact that Histon took 0 fans! The Welsh side started singing ‘is that all you take away’ and ‘its all gone quiet over there’.

Check back next week