Fearing the likely...

Yesterday was one of those days when I got a clear sense of the worst that is to come for barca. They were playing bottom feeders Almeria whom they had beaten 8-0, a record in la liga, I think. Inspite of handing such an earlier drubbing and inspite of playing at the intimidating Nou Camp and inspite of playing an almost full strength squad, the show was almost unbelievable. Barca could not come to grips till about the 30 minute mark and even then were far from convincing. Remember this is the side which is ranked 20th and yet they didnt look like they were the lowest ranked team in La Liga. Almost every department was weak in the barca game. Xavi was not able to find space like he usually does, Messi was strangely running into defenders, Bojan was too twitchy after getting a rare start and hobbled off in the first half, mascherano picks up an yellow to miss the classico next week (may not be a bad thing though. :-) ), thiago tricks a lot of players and sometimes himself, iniesta could not get the ball even if he paid his weekly wages to someone, militos lack of play time showed and pinto, well he remained the joker tottering with every ball.

The scoreline at the end may read 3-1, but every barca fan knows that it was too hard earned a win to be proud of the scoreline. This result and this game has been in the works for a while. Look at the last few games of barca starting with their draw against Sporting Gijon, the scores read 1-1, 2-1, 3-0, 1-0, 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 1-0. See the trend? Barca have been labouring and it shows. Barca does not have a big squad like the cash rich Man C or Real Madrid or doesnt have an experienced bench like Man U or Spurs. Pep has been blooding some young guns, but it is not working quite to plan. Bojan is there or thereabouts. Pedros injury has had a real effect on his effectiveness. Thiago is promising, but makes mistakes which could cost in the big games. Afellay is a jack of many trades, but masters none. He has not shown me any reason to believe he can be a first team player, not yet. Keita is an also ran and cannot be the game changer.

So, in short, Barca is tiring and they dont have enough reinforcements to spruce them up. The League is theirs, Copa del ray... well, I dont care. But the CL, the big one, that is very much in doubt. The mind games that mourinho will play with 4 matches coming up with Real Madrid will tire Pep too. And even if they get past Real Madrid, Man U and the never say die (pun intended) Fergie will get to Barca.

Life is getting very interesting and very difficult for barca... and very soon. :-)

 

CL Quarters - Round 1 is done

We are done with the 4 matches last week that comprise the first leg of the CL quarters. To be fair, it was pretty boring. Look at the scores!! If that doesnt tell you a story nothing will. 4-0, 5-2, 1-0 and 5-1. Except for the ManU vs Chelsea match, every other scoreline has killed the interest in the second leg. And even in the Man U one, I cant see them losing to chelsea at home. Man U are nothing if not resilient this season and Chelsea are nothing if not pathetic this season. So, in short, just not gonna happen. While stupid crouch killed spurs chances of coming away with anything from madrid, it was harakiri at san siro! While Shakhtar can boast of a great home record, if they play the way they did against barca, in the  CL world, no home record can save you.

All in all, pretty uninteresting fare and the only thing that we can really look up to is some intersting matchups in the semis. Looks like we gonna have 4 el classicos now. With Real Madrid hosting Barca next week in La Liga, followed by the Copa del ray match and now the CL semi finals(home and away). Man U, who I think will upstage chelsea (again!) will face schalke which is really a no contest. But a final of the best team in EPL playing the best or second best in La Liga is mouth watering to say the least.

Lets wait for the intriguing minutes that await us... :-)

Another whiner!

As you all must have realized by now, no matter how much I appreciate the vision of wenger to play beautiful football, the constant whining of arsenal and their boss irritates me to no end. And here is the newest rant boy, Van Persie taking a shot at chelsea and barcelona for trying to "bully" referees into giving decisions in their favour. I can see this working, if at all, for fouls committed on them and not for fouls committed by them. And stats never lie and tells a clear story with chelsea on top of the fair play table in EPL and Barcelona on top of La liga fair play stats.

The season has been specially hard on arsenal and its players because of them being in contention in every competition and losing out in the last leg of each one. I have always believed that this Arsenal team will not win anything worthwhile. Beautiful football is one thing, but to win the silverware you need winners in your team. People who have been there and done that are really important when get towards the end games. That is the reason most analysts have Man U as favourite and Chelsea as second favourites for this years EPL title rather than Arsenal which are the nearest to Man U in terms of points.

I hope Wenger goes somewhere other than the barca academy and buys some balls for his team, the current team definitely cannot muster any!

Yawn..,

A weekend like no other in a while... no football in any of the leagues that I follow. I am close to having withdrawal symtoms. :-D :-D

 

Men vs Boys

Man U are going to win their 19th premier league title. Yes, I have said it with 9 or so games yet to be played. The reasoning is solidified with todays superb performance from them. They played some very bad football for the better part of 90 minutes, they go down to 10 men for about 20+ minutes or so and yet score a late time winner against a bolton team that played like a top 7 team. The drive and belief when they went down to 10 men was just amazing to watch. There is a lot of strength in this squad and it is for everyone to see.

On the other hand, the skilled boys from Arsenal come back losing 2 points to West Brom! If this doesnt tell a story I dont know what does. Everytime Arsenal have a chance to put their foot into the title race they take a step back. Its almost as if they are happier to play second fiddle and keep crying on how the world is unfair to them rather than going out there all guns blazing! I am see a sixth season of silverware drought for them...

A whiplash and tears!

So, the much awaited second leg of the CL clash between Barcelona and Arsenal was set to happen at Nou Camp. Last season, it was a resouding 4-0 loss at Nou Camp for Arsenal which was preceded by a relatively decent 2-2 draw at the Emirates. This year at the Emirates they had gone one better and actually beaten the Catalans 2-1 and there were hopes that they may maybe manage a draw if not a win at Nou Camp.

With these high hopes the gunners reached Nou Camp only to be gunned down mercilessly in typical barca fashion. 67% possession, 10+ shots at goal, 5 corners and numerous close shaves at the goal drowned the gunners. They could not muster a single shot at goal, the one goal they did manage also needed to be scored by a barca player! What fabregas, what nasri, what wilshere... the midfield didnt belong to anyone but Xavi and Iniesta. Arsenal was dominated from the start and they never recovered. With this being the truth, the match still was marred by the controversial sending off of Robbie Van Persie. You would of course feel bad for RVP as it was a very very strict call. But that being said, he feigned ignorance to the whistle. Most have agreed to this being a possible reason, but I have a different take on it and its very circumstantial and hear me out.

RVP is one of those players who can do magic with his left leg and do very little with his right. Like Messi, like Mesut Ozil, like Ryan Giggs, like Van der vaart, RVPs left foot is just an awesome weapon, while his right foot is just a pale poor cousin in terms of skill and accuracy. This being the case, at every given chance all of the above players try to get the ball to their left foot to shoot at goal. In the particular attack that led to the sending off of RVP, he has sprung the off side trap. He was under no pressure to shoot as defenders were no where near him and he was possibly outside the D or very close to being outside the D, which meant he had enough space to change his orientation on the ball. He had already controlled the ball beautifully and he had all the time to get the ball to his left foot and then put the ball where he wanted to. But instead he chose to go for goal with his right foot, with no clear vision of the goal or where valdes was. Does that make sense to you? Is that logical having seen RVP all these years? I think he heard the whistle, he was frustrated coz that was possible the first chance he had got of any nature in the entire match and to know he was offside, was frustrated and lashed at the ball.

There you go... my take on the whole episode. :-) And please wenger, please... stop crying, stop depleting the rainforests. In many ways, this could be the best thing that could have happened to the brittle arsenal team. They dont have the Carling Cup to worry about, they dont have the Champions League to worry about, and they possibly wont have the FA cup to worry about. So all they need to do is concentrate on the league. While at the same time Man U has to still worry about many a silverware and mounting injuries.

Believe it or not wenger, you could actually win the league this year! Go for it!!

Too little too late?

It has been quite a week or two in the world of football. To start with we have the Man U vs Chelsea match followed by the Man U vs Liverpool one. Both were much awaited matches as this would signify the way EPL would go in a big way. For all practical purposes the EPL season was Man U's to lose. And Arsenal just following them as they always do to no avail. After the Arsenal draw to Sunderland, these two match wins could have put Man U out of the arsenal range even for the most ardent of arsenal supporters. But as we could see, Man U lost both the matches and I think in quite convincing fashion.

Chelsea defeat of Man U was of special interest to me because I think of the current top 4 or top 5, I think only Chelsea have the heart and legs to take on Man U as the season winds up. But I also do think this has come a little late in the season for chelsea and they still need to win every match they play and also get a couple of matches going their way and they then get to a fighting position this season. I still think Man U will take the season, but they have had a bad spell off late with a draw in CL, 3 losses and a win in EPL and riddled with injuries.

C'mon Arsenal, what if the Carling Cup is gone, what if the CL is gone, what if the FA cup is about to go... there is still the league to be won! Go for it, for once... please! ;-)