More News From The World Cup And Transfer Talk In London!

Posted: June 23, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur, Transfers
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(Pedro Aquino on realising that Peru’s World Cup is almost over and, as yet, they have neither a goal nor a point)

Australia and Denmark played out an entertaining 1-1 draw whereby an excellent Christian Eriksen strike was cancelled out by yet another penalty, awarded by the referee via VAR and scored by Mile Jedinak.

The draw was, in the end, a fair outcome as Denmark were the better team in the first half whereas Australia were superior in the second.

The point moves Denmark to four in total and means they will probably only need a draw from their game against France to qualify. The point for Australia keeps alive their faint hopes of progression but means that they will have to beat Peru to have any chance whatsoever. Read the rest of this entry »

More From Russia As Teams Progress And A Manager Gets Injured, Plus A Little Premier League News

Posted: June 22, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur, Transfers
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So to the day’s games and first up was Portugal against Morocco or, more realistically, Cristiano Ronaldo against Morocco. Fresh from his 3-3 draw with the entire Spanish team he set out to prove it was no fluke and, indeed, that he could take things a stage further by actually beating a team.

He managed it but it was a close-run thing. With just the one goal, a bullet header in the first half, he had to rely on his team mates at times to defend his lead. They did this heroically, albeit with a few of the stutters they showed against Spain.

So for a few short hours Cristiano was top of the group. He is, of course, far too modest to accept all the plaudits and was gracious enough to allow the team name to be used when the tables were shown. Read the rest of this entry »

More From The World Cup And Some Transfer News

Posted: June 21, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur, Transfers
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The day’s first game was a feisty affair between Colombia and Japan. Colombia started without James Rodriguez who was only deemed fit enough to be on the bench and to be used only in the case of emergency.

Well, a penalty and a sending-off after 2 minutes and 56 seconds certainly qualified as an emergency but it was to be a while still before he was risked.

The penalty was awarded for deliberate handball which prevented a goal and was, therefore, a red card offence. The offending player, Carlos Sánchez, became the second earliest victim of a sending off in the competition’s history, following that of JosĂ© Alberto Batista for Uruguay against Scotland in 1986. He lasted a mere 54 seconds and stands to hold the record for a very long time, probably even in perpetuity. Read the rest of this entry »

More World Cup Games But No More Surprises, (Other Than England Winning Of Course)

Posted: June 19, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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The first game of the day pitted the wits of Sweden and South Korea against each other.

In what was a fairly mundane 90 minutes of football, Sweden deserved to win purely because they appeared to try and win much harder than the Koreans did.

The goal which did the trick was yet another penalty this time scored by Andreas Granqvist, the Swedish captain. The award of the spot-kick was made after VAR had been consulted and, even then, it still wasn’t totally conclusive. Still, it was given and the match ended 1-0 to Sweden. Read the rest of this entry »

More World Cup Moments: Serbia And Mexico Win, There’s A Draw For Brazil And We Take A Brief Trip Back To The Premier League For Some Transfer News

Posted: June 19, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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Nothing very surprising about that headline you may think. Three good teams not losing their opening World Cup games, so what? What’s so unusual about that?

Well, in the case of Serbia, who managed to scrape past Costa Rica 1-0 courtesy of an excellent Aleksandr Kolarov free-kick nothing really, other than they would have been expected to win by a greater margin.

In the case of Brazil there was also nothing spectacular about the fact that they managed to draw with Switzerland. It was, in fact, not such an unexpected result. Read the rest of this entry »

More From The World Cup Including: Wins For France, Denmark And Croatia, While Argentina Draw And Ronaldo Is Way Ahead Of Messi!

Posted: June 18, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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Well that wasn’t too bad a game. France weren’t very good which should really have given Australia a chance to collect three points. The problem was that The Socceroos, whilst being full of huff and puff for around 70 minutes, also weren’t very good.

First goal went to budding documentary-maker Antoine Griezmann courtesy of VAR, which helped to decide that a foul had been committed in the penalty area and he scored with ease from the spot.

The Aussies then equalised with another penalty confirmed by the VAR team which seemed determined to make up for not being involved even once in the opening game. Read the rest of this entry »

More World Cup Bits & Pieces Including: Ronaldo Finally Starts To Score, Iran Get A Slice Of Luck And So Do Uruguay!

Posted: June 17, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, The World Cup
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Wouldn’t you just know it? Cristiano Ronaldo, at the ripe old age of 33 has suddenly announced himself on the World Cup stage.

Many “experts” are predicting that this will be the Portuguese’s last appearance in this tournament as he will be 37 by the time the next one comes around.

We don’t agree with the experts. Now, there’s a surprise! Our guess is that Ronaldo also doesn’t agree with them assuming that he listens to them at all!

The shape he is in and his single-mindedness in wanting to be the best means that another four years will have little or no effect on him. He may slow down slightly although, on the evidence of some of the counter-attacking runs he made against Spain, this is unlikely to happen. Read the rest of this entry »

More Bits Of Football Including; The New Season Moving Ever Nearer, The World Cup Beginning And Griezmann Makes A Big Deal About Going Nowhere!

Posted: June 16, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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The new Premier League season moved a small step nearer yesterday as the fixtures were announced. This always feels like a hurdle has been…..well…..hurdled, because it is a milestone during the close season which is designed to satisfy two longings.

The first is the millions of fans around the world who are all only a tablet/phone/laptop away from a conversation, friendly or otherwise, with each other. The fixture list will give them something positive to talk about so that they can, temporarily at least, refrain from threatening their club’s management, board, players and each other for a day or two. Read the rest of this entry »

More Football Snippets: Including The World Cup Begins, London Bias From The FA Is Now Beyond A Joke And Anthony Martial Is Not For Sale!

Posted: June 15, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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After all the pomp and circumstance, 2018’s ethics World Cup finally got underway when the hosts met Saudi Arabia in the opening game.

The enigma that is Russia, not only as a football team, but as a country, continues to confound the logic of most sane people. How can a land boasting a population of around 145 million and with such a long history of playing football, a country whose population loves the game, unlike the early days in America, be so poor at actually playing it?

They are currently ranked 70th in the world, only three places above Saudi Arabia! On that basis the result of the opening game was really quite a surprise, particularly when taking into account the fact that the hosts had lost their previous seven. So a 5-0 win was a most welcome start for them. Read the rest of this entry »

More Transfer Bits & Pieces: Including Hearsay, Guesswork And Some Facts!

Posted: June 14, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur, Transfers
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Having already signed Stephan Lichtsteiner on a free transfer Arsenal are now close to finalising deals for both Sokratis Papastathopoulos and, as we mentioned yesterday, Lucas Torreira.

Next up will probably be a goalkeeper to replace Petr Cech who will be 36 next month.

The favourite is the German, Bernd Leno, of Bayer Leverkusen. He will cost around ÂŁ20 million and would be available as soon as required as he has been left out of the Germany World Cup squad, an indicator of the market in which Arsenal are now forced to conduct business. Read the rest of this entry »

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