Month: February 2015

Match Report #3 Barcelona 5-0 Levante

On Sunday afternoon Barcelona entertained Levante at the Camp Nou, and thrashed them 5-0, as a certain Lionel Messi bagged his 5th hat-trick of another great season.

It didn’t take long for Barca to open the scoring, when in the 17th minute, Lionel Messi’s in swinging cross found Neymar, who scuffed the finish high into the air, but, as they say, when your luck’s in, your luck’s in, and Neymar’s weird attempt looped over a helpless Diego Marino in the Levante goal.

Then, in the 39th minute, Barca proved that they are most dangerous in the ten minute spell before half time, when Marc Bartra pounced on a mistake before sliding a neat ball through to Lionel Messi who slotted his chance into the far corner with his right foot. This goal came just after Messi was denied what would have been a fabulous goal as he was ruled to have been offside, when later replays suggested that he was in fact well onside.

In the second half Barcelona began to turn up the heat, and some good work from Sergio Busquets and Pedro Rodriguez set up Messi for another goal with his right foot, tapping in a volley for Barca’s third.

And it didn’t take long for the sensational Messi to complete his 5th hat-trick of the season, as he calmly slotted home his penalty. This came after Messi had openly said he gets nervous over penalties. The last penalty he took was against Elche in an emphatic 0-6 win, and he did score, however he opted out of taking one against Villarreal, leaving Neymar on penalty duty. Unfortunately, Neymar couldn’t convert against the club he had scored from the spot against last season, which meant Messi had to take his chance against the team that he had missed against earlier in the season, in another 5-0 win, but this time he did score, putting the game beyond doubt and taking the scoreline to 4-0.

Later on, Luis Enrique chose to replace Neymar with what looked like a somewhat frustrated Luis Suarez, who had been put on the bench behind Pedro in the starting line up. Suarez then took his only real opportunity of his 20 minute cameo, and showed everyone why he should have been playing from the start, with an incredible bicycle kick. As Adriano’s great first touch took him to the by-line following a great diagonal pass from Javier Mascherano, he wipped in the cross towards the hungry striker, and just when it looked like it had been pulled back too far behind him, Suarez demonstrated his incredible athletic abilities to score a wonderful goal and complete the match.

 

Match Report #2 West Ham 4-0 West Brom

Another game to demonstrate the magic of the FA Cup, another shock 4-0 win in the world of football. Two goals from an in-form Brown Ideye and further strikes from James Morrison and Saido Berahino took a poor West Ham side apart. Ideye, who came within inches of leaving the Baggies in the final hours of deadline day, has now scored 4 goals in 6 games, and is looking like he could transform West Brom’s season.

The first goal started with a superb cross-field pass by Craig Gardner to pick out Craig Dawson, allowing him to beat Aaron Cresswell and get down the wing to feed Brown Ideye for a simple finish to make it 1-0 to West Brom.

And from there on, things only got worse for the Hammers as Craig Gardner’s excellent effort from 30-yards rattled the crossbar, and just three minutes later, a sublime long-range finish from James Morrison took the Baggies’ lead to 2-0.

Later in the second half on 57 minutes, Brown Ideye pounced after some poor defending by West Ham to head in his second and put the game beyond doubt.

After this, the frustration began to mount, and it finally told as Morgan Amalfitano, (who had only been on the pitch for 10 minutes) saw red as he kicked out at Chris Brunt before slapping him in the face.

Then, with 18 minutes left to play, Saido Berahino completed the rout as he smashed home a neat near post finish past West Ham ‘keeper Adrian.

West Ham will hope to put this game beyond them as they travel to North London to play Spurs on Sunday, whilst West Brom will carry their good form into their match at the Stadium of Light against Sunderland on Saturday.

Biggest Top Four Race in Years

After the recent midweek matches, the top end of the table makes for interesting reading. And I’m not talking about Chelsea and Manchester City. I’m talking about how there is a 5 point gap between 3rd place and 7th. This means that, in theory, in two weeks time, Liverpool, who haven’t been near the top four position-wise all season, could jump from 7th to 3rd. That is how tight things are in the race for the Champions League at the moment. 5 or 6 teams are all vying for a spot in the biggest competition in Europe, and every single team has a chance. No team ever seems to be safe when they have reached the top four this season though, with West Ham being a classic example. Not so long ago this season, the hammers were in the top four and things were looking very cosy, but, within just 2 or 3 defeats, they were down to 8th, 4 points away from 7th place. That shows how if you want to be a top team you’ve got to keep on winning, which is what teams like Arsenal and Manchester United are capable of doing. But that doesn’t mean we should rule out Southampton.

They have shown that when the team is fit and firing at all cylinders, they can beat anyone on their day, but injuries and key players not performing at times this season has lead to them sliding down the table very quickly. But one, credit to them for one getting this far, and two showing that they will only be satisfied with European football, and even 6th place will be a disappointment. But, their midweek draw once again proves that even  the tiniest of slip ups, like missing one good chance (in their midweek game against West Ham) can affect your season massively.

In terms of Manchester United, they are the favourites to come 3rd, and will be tough to beat, so a good run of games could put them in a great position and leave it to the rest of the teams to battle for 4th. But they need to be wary of the other sides, as one or two slip ups could cost them, and Arsenal, Southampton, Tottenham and Liverpool will be ready to pounce.

All 5 teams have their strengths and weaknesses,  and Harry Kane is definitely one of Tottenham Hotspur’s strengths. The 21 year-old is likely to be selected for England the next time the chance comes, and in 2015, has scored as many league goals as Lionel Messi (8), and double as many as Cristiano Ronaldo (4). He has also already in this year won the January player of the month, and won the North London derby with two goals to beat Arsenal.

So, with 13 games left this season, it is still all to play for. But, the question is, who do you think will make the top four?

Match Report #1 Atletico Madrid 4-0 Real Madrid

The headline says it all. Arguably the best team in the world with the Ballon D’or winner and a few world cup winners in their side, Real Madrid, the current European Champions, were incredibly thrashed 4-0 by local rivals Atletico on Saturday. On Cristiano Ronaldo’s return from suspension after his red card against Cordoba, Real were completely dominated by an Atletico side playing as if it was the World Cup final.

Atletico started the stronger, and it was goalkeeper Iker Casillas’s mistake that lead to the opening goal from Tiago. That did the ‘Rojiblancos’ the world of good, and they took that confidence into their stride, as Saul scored an audacious overhead kick to make the score 2-0. After Atletico’s blistering start, Real Madrid began to come into the game by around the half hour mark, but not to register any attemps of note. Down the other end however Atletico Madrid claimed that they should have had a penalty to make it 3-0 before half time as Diego Godin’s volley appeared to strike the arm of Sami Khedira, but the German World Cup winner conned the referee, by dropping down to the ground and pretending it had hit him in the face. In the second half, a rampant side did make it 3-0 after Antoine Greizmann’s goal. This was after two glaring chances were missed by the La Liga Champions to put the game beyond doubt, including a poor header from Tiago, but after all the pressure Real Madrid finally woke up with about ten minutes to go, as Asier Illaramendi’s fearsome strike was tipped over the bar by Moya. But when Cristiano Ronaldo dribbled the ball out of play under little pressure, that summed up Real’s day, and just a minute later, a diving header by Mario Mandzukic sealed an incredible result for Atletico Madrid.

Many people are now wondering how Real will recover from this hammer blow, as star man Ronaldo’s form had already shown signs of dipping, so, this could mean that we could be in for some title race at the end of the season!

Derby Day

On another dramatic and exciting Saturday of English football, two huge derbies took place, both significant in each teams season, and their pride. In the early kick-off, we saw Tottenham turn around a 1-0 deficit to go on and win the match 2-1, thanks largely to their 21 year-old wonderkid Harry Kane. In the later kick-off however, in a tight game at Goodison Park, the score finished at 0-0. Elsewhere at the 3o’clock kick-offs, a late winner from Sadio Mane secured a 1-0 win at QPR, a 1-1 draw between Hull and Manchester City, a 2-1 victory for Chelsea against Aston Villa, a 1-1 draw between Sunderland and Swansea and a win for Crystal Palace over struggling Leicester.

Looking at the North-London derby between Spurs and Arsenal, after Ozil had opened the scoring with a nice finish for his third goal in three games, 21 year-old Harry Kane kept up his fine record in front of goal this season with two great goals, further encouraging his possible selection for England. Roy Hodgson was of course in the crowd to see, and he would have been very impressed with Kane’s second goal in particular, a stunning header to beat David Ospina at the far post. His fighting spirit and technical ability to score goals, the English youngster is starting to become a Robin Van Persie style penalty box predator.

In yesterday’s other games, there was a bit of hope for Aston Villa, with there first goal in 10 hours and 59 minutes surprisingly came against the mighty Chelsea of all teams. Other moments of note would be Jermain Defoe’s second goal since returning to the Premier League, and Sadio Mane’s cool finish in the 93rd minute to seal a hard fought win for Southampton over QPR at Loftus Road.