Arsenal 1 Wigan 2
All I can about THIS one is that Wigan showed up for work today, and they were dressed for success. They came off the top rope and pile-drived Arsenal into submission and left the Emirates with all the belts. Not the Champions Belt…but the belts that the Gooners used to use to hold their pant(aloon)s up with. Van Persie and Rosický and Sczczsczesczny ((pun not intended)) and the rest of the laddies, along with Le Professeur Arsene Wegner waddled off the pitch with their pant(aloon)s around their ankle(t)s.
Now as for Wigan, their gaffer Roberto Martinez has had them singing out of the SAVE MY ASS DEAR JESUS Hymnal for the past few weeks now. They’ve taken down ManU(re) and Liverpool and Stoke…and nearly took my Blues to task ((but partially thanks to the refs, they di’n’t)). So they’ve hauled themselves out of the tomb of relegation and will most likely live to fight another year in the Prem. And to be honest, except for their goalie Ali Al-Habsi who I’ve considered at one point putting on my fantasy team as a backup, I couldn’t pick any of them out of a lineup and neither could you. No body on their team before today has scored more than 4 goals…..that would be Victor Moses, Franco Matias Di Santo, and Jordi Gómez for those of you keeping score at TOBY’S BAR in Blanchardville, Wisconsin. After today, Di Santo and Gómez are at 5 a piece.
It was a capper to a very mysterious weekend.
Manchester City 4 West Bromwich Albion 0
Norwich City 1 Manchester City 6
Really now. Really. West Brom at home is one thing. But Norwich City at Carrow Road? Are you fuckin’ with me, or what!? Really now?
I’ll be honest that did not expect my Canaries to win this Saturday. I really didn’t. I was, as always, hopeful of a win…but I was, as I bunkered down in my recliner with my coffee and bagel with creme cheese at 6:45AM CDT, fully prepared for a loss. A loss of say, 2-1 or 3-2 or maybe even 3-1…City being City after all. I had my Canaries 2011-12 replaica jersey on and I was very happy to see that my Canaries did not park the bus. They played a high line and went after City with everything they had. City took a 2-0 lead into halftime and was dominating us in the mid-field. Paul Lambert made the adjustments at halftime and sub in Wes Hoolihan and Andrew Surman for Anthony Pilkington and Bradley Johnson. Big difference in the middle….Norwich could hold the ball and pass and open things up….and the switch paid off as Surman smacked home a beauty at the 51 minute mark and you sense a bit of squeaky bum time from the visitors. Unfortunately, we couldn’t capitalize and get the equalizer. But we kept pressing, and that finally cost us.
My Canaries have not been defensive stalwarts this season….they don’t have enough talent on the back line yet, and what talent they’ve had has been riddled with knocks and injuries. Tierney, Ayala, and Whitbread were all missing in action due to injury. Let me amend that a bit…they don’t have enough talent on the backline when Sergio-kun, Silva, and The Prodigal Son Carlos Tevez are on their game like they were this Saturday. Then again, probably no one does. And once the floodgates were breached, it was only a matter of how many goals City would score.
Oh well…my team took a beating. But ya know?? At this time last year, I never would have figured they’d be where they are right now. Comfortably mid-table in the Premier League. I mean, 2 years ago they were in League 1 for fack sake!!
At least I can take comfort in the fac t that my Canaries share something with (the hated) ManU(re) this season. Both were beaten by City by a score of 6-1. Imagine that!!
Chelsea 5 Tottenham 1
Even without the phantom ghost goal that was (not actually) scored by Juan Mata, we still beat the piss out of Tottenham to get to the finals of the FA Cup against Liverpool later next month at Wembley Stadium. That would be May 4th to be exact for those of you keeping tabs on such details over at THE GRUMPY TROLL brewpub in wonderful downtown Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin. So if the score was 4-1, then…we’d still be going to Wembley, and the Lilywhites ((yes, the Tottenham Hotspurs are called the Lilywhites….which is also the last name of the dude who produced the Psychedelic Furs first album in case you were wondering)).
On the remarkable side is the mysterious resurgence of Chelsea’s offense…courtesy of the OLD guys….Drogba, Lamps, Malouda…as though they sense that it’s their last hurrah so they might as well go out in a blaze of glory instead of a blaze of dogshit. I don’t get it…can’t grasp it…in any other way. They’ve been playing like piss the last few matches, even when they won. The last few win were nice and all…but they didn’t show me anything that would give me confidence going into, say, the FA Cup tilt with Tottenham…or this Wednesday’s Champions League draw with Barcelona. It’s been as if the RDM anesthesia has begun to wear off…and the throbbing brilliant white pain of the AVB era has crept back between the cracks in the armour. Mind the gap, there. Mind the gap.
But mysterious or not, ghost-goal or not, I’ll take that 5-1 beat down of Spurs. I just hope they’ve saved a bit of that Mysterious Chelsea X for Barcelona when Lionel Messi and boys roll in to Stamford Bridge this Wednesday.