Werder Bremen 2-2 Spurs – The new kids on the block had easily the hardest task in their first ever, cherry popping appearance in the Champions League group stages, but for 40 minutes you wouldn’t have guessed it. One of the admirable things about Tottenham Hotspur is that you can never be quite sure which Tottenham Hotspurs are liable to turn up for any given occasion. After Gareth Bale and Peter Crouch had combined to force a Bremen own goal after only 12 minutes, it looked like it was going to be the good one. Then, after a rare and wondrous occurrence – a good headed goal from Crouch (who, as we all know, can’t usually head the ball for toffee lest his neck snaps under the stress of such a heavy connection) it looked like Super Spurs were going to run away with it and all that nonsense with those young boys down in Switzerland was just a cunning ruse by ‘Arry to lengthen their odds on the Tote.. or something. In fact for almost the entirety of the first half it looked like this Tottenham side were born to play at this level with Bale, Crouch and whichever one it is that’s currently sleeping with Danielle Lloyd looking like Champions League veterans alongside the already well-settled Dutchman Rafael Van der Vaart. But alas, the excitement got slightly the better of some of them and Assou-Ekotto attempted an almost hallucinogenic clearance from near the center circle that inexplicably managed to go backwards and out for a throw in a dangerous position on the far touchline. From said throw both he an Ledley King promptly fell fast asleep and Hugo Almeida snuggled in between them to nod a goal back, providing the spring board for the inevitable comeback, which was complete a mere 2 minutes into the second half. Crouch could and maybe should’ve won the game, but Spurs should be proud of themselves for weathering the second hardest storm they’re likely to face in this group. They will of course now lose their next home game with FC Twente, because that’s what happens with Tottenham.
Mad about the boy – If Gareth Bale keeps performing this well in both England and Europe, people beyond the usual Sky mob are going to start noticing. Brazilian kids are going to start transferring him into their FIFA 11 teams whilst street traders in Marrakesh haggle over the price of his Panini sticker. I’d sell him to Manchester United as soon as you can ‘Arry. Whereupon he’ll immediately become rubbish, blamed for their shortcomings by impatient fans or disappear from the spotlight all together. What has happened to Michael Carrick by the way?
Man Utd 0 – 0 Rangers – In what nobody except tabloid hacks and possibly about four people in Scotland were calling ‘The Battle of Britain’, Sir Alex Ferguson displayed the appropriate level of scorn for the domestic champions of his homeland nation by fielding United’s Womens Under 11s to face Rangers at Old Trafford. If this game could be described as any battle, it would be a very slow war of attrition which nobody won. You could argue Fergie underestimated his opponents, but the fact that he was never under any danger of any kind at any point would belie that slightly, even if it’s clear he fielded a weaker team than he should have. If we were again to try and liken this to some kind of historical battle, it would undoubtedly have to be to a battle where one side hadn’t brought enough sharp swords with them, under the mistaken assumption that their enemies were made of cheese. This, they found, made them only capable of some light, rather tame non penetrative prodding, which, despite not being reciprocated – as their opponents hadn’t brought any swords of their own at all – eventually proved useless and after one of them had fallen over and hurt themselves, they all went home and had some biscuits instead. The fact I’ve spent so long on that metaphor should give you some idea of how insipid this game was. Rooney still hasn’t regained his pre-injury form and Darron Gibson can shoot, but basically nothing else.
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The revolution will not be televised – Antonio Valencia became the latest victim of the too bad for TV tackle and my best wishes and sympathy go out to him. However I can’t help but feel I wasn’t the only person to regress back into a morbidly curious little boy and log straight onto the Internet to try and find footage of the incident as soon as Andy Gray told us they couldn’t broadcast it “with kids watching”. Believe me Andy, kids have seen worse. It was certainly no more horrific, depressing and soul destroying than everything that’s broadcast daily and uncensored on iTV2.
Arsenal 6-0 Braga – Not wanting to be outdone by their attention grabbing neighborly rivals, Arsenal put on a vintage display to dispose of yet another middle of the road side at the Emirates. With the Braga manager looking like an exasperated dance teacher from Penge, their keeper a fat look-a-like of Carlton from Fresh Prince and Marouane Chamakh looking like someone had poured four buckets of laminating fluid on his head just before kick-off, the match itself played out like a game of PES on the PS3 between the world champion console player and a paraplegic dwarf with tunnel syndrome. Chamakh won a penalty inside 8 minutes which Captain Cesc duly converted before setting up Arshavin to make it two shortly after. Wilshere darted around getting in great positions but missing his chances as always, and I began pondering whether it’d be fair to abandon the offside rule specifically for passes that are really really good, like back heels and such. Chamakh got a third before Sexy Cescy and the Velaboy added three more to add a touch of embarrassment to the proceedings. It won’t get much easier for Arsenal, but it’s unlikely to get too much harder in this group either
Chakah can’t – I seem to be one of the only people in existence yet to be convinced that Marouane Chamakh is any good. I watched him in the Emirates Cup and thought he looked slow. I watched him miss a hat full of chances in his second game and thought he looked wasteful. I’ve, up until this game, only ever seen him score easy headers from three yards out from teed up crosses, yet apparently he’s the next best thing. I’m not quite sure what he’s the next best thing since though. Nicklas Bendtner? All right, I’ll give you that. But he’s still not as good as Bendtner thinks he is, that’s for sure.
Zilina 1-4 Chelsea – Whilst playing a team that sounded more like a Russian call girl than a Slovak football team, Chelsea’s Michael Essien managed the almost astounding of feat of scoring three goals in his last two games thus insuring his teammates late night visit to Zilina ended up on the back pages rather than the front. This was an incredibly easy romp for the Blues who livened it up a bit for the neutral by contributing a comically wonderful own goal when Branislav Ivanovic cushioned a lob off his face and back into his own net after Petr Cech had been blinded by the floodlights.
Young, dumb and living of Rom – Danny Sturridge. Talented youngster and promising prospect for a few years now. Leaves Manchester City – wisely – because he doesn’t think he’ll get his fair share of opportunities with the recent influx of new signings and money. So, sensibly, he goes to Chelsea. Yes, Chelsea. Makes sense you’d think ,no? It worked for ….erm…Sean Wrigh…oh, no, wait…Scott Par…No…erm…Sorry why’s he done that again?
Other Things I Noticed:
Jose went about defending the trophy he hasn’t got as his Decepticons ground out their first victory as unimpressively as you’d hope whilst Rafa went about defending the trophy he didn’t win by drawing away at Shteve MacClaren’s old stomping ground. Barcalona beautified Panathinaikos to death at the Camp Nou whilst Kevin Prince Boateng went from not being paid and relegated at Pompey to playing in Europe with Ronaldinho and Zlatan Ibra-him-a-witch at Milan, all courtesy of not being good enough to play for his actual home nation at the World Cup. It’s a funny ol’ life ey?
You can follow Oscar on Twitter here; http://twitter.com/oscarpyejeary, where you can ask him why that looks suspiciously like 9 things.