Where would we be without the heads of Norwegians? The popular music group A-Ha would be less popular I suspect, We’d be living life like cave men without the cheese slicer and the whites would be a point worse off after Hangeland’s last gasp headed equaliser against Villa.
By all rights Villa should have pottered back up the M1 will all the points, but their lack of strikers told as they failed to kill of the game. The game turned into a midfield battle for long periods until three minutes before the break when Albrighton latched onto a lovely ball from Bannan, cut inside the Mexican defender and dispatched his shot.
With Villa playing counter attacking football and getting men behind the ball for the second period it took till the dying moments of the match and a Danny Murphy Free kick for us to equalise.
Worryingly both our full backs hobbled off with injuries during the game. Salcido’s looks the more serious of the two with Sparky not happy with the tackle from Luke Young.
“I’ve seen the tackle on video and the lad’s gone over the top and I would imagine it’s ligament damage.
“I don’t want to say how long but it’ll be a number of weeks.”
Only Man Yoo and that lot down the road have lost fewer games than us this season, yet as the draws pile up rather than victories, and the newly promoted sides picking up wins it wont be long before we are widely touted as relegation candidates.
Thankfully for us though we have West Ham and Wigan in the division. After racing to a two goal lead at St Andrews West Ham managed to bottle it and allow Brum back to grab a draw. Piquionne and Valon Behrami scored for the Hammers before they crumbled come the second half. Perhaps the sponge like defence of Green and Upson were made extra spongy with the water sprinklers inexplicably coming into life mid way through the first half? Jerome and Ridgewell scored for the home side.
Goals from Roberts and Pedersen moved Big Sam’s Blackburn side out of the bottom three after taking three points from local rivals Wigan, with Athletic replacing them in 18th place.
Also in the leaving it late theme Man Yoo, after having late goals scored against them by ourselves and Everton, were on the other end of that stick this weekend. A Last gasp goal from Park helped United close the gap to just two points at the top of the table.
Arsenal became the first out of the Big Four© side to lose at home to two of the three newly promoted teams as they went down one nil to Newcastle, as they secured their first win at the Gooners since 2001. The Barcodes used the sensible tactic or aiming high balls at Flapihandski and he duly floundered around in mid air allowing the ball to hit Carols head and then the back of the net. Although playing a lot of tippy-tappy football and one-twos a plenty around the box, Arsenal were unable to find a way back into the game, though if it hadn’t been for hitting that pesky woodwork a couple or three times it may have all been very different.
After a brief break from being footballs version of Zippos circus, Spuds went up norf and came back after giving us all a good old laugh. A Zat Knight inspired Bolton beating the norf London outfit, which included bestest player in the world ever Gareth Bale, 4-2. Even with no-neck Huddlestone attempting to pound players into the turf using only his considerable bulk, they came home pointless. Redknapp claimed he hadn’t seen the stamp and with the Ref doing likewise the FA are investigating today. ‘Arry told the Daily Mail:
“I’ve not seen it…I will see it on the TV and if you call me up in the morning, I’ll tell you exactly what happened,
“Did he jump on him or something? I swear I followed the ball and never saw what happened. I don’t know what happened. That’s the God’s honest truth.
“But Tom’s tame. He’s a good footballer, isn’t he? He’s not aggressive.”Â
It remains to be seen if he’ll escape this time as he somehow escaped retrospective punishment for swinging an elbow into the face of Marc Janko during the Champions League tie against Twente earlier this season.
The win took Bolton up to fifth place, and above Spurs, in the table although they have only won three games so far.
Elsewhere, Sunderland’s record signing and world cup star Asamoah Gyan scored a brace on his first start for the club in their two nil win over Stoke, who probably were a little hard done by by the referee, but that serves them right in my opinion. The score could have been greater had not former Fulham midfielder Steeeeed Malbranque not missed a first half penalty.
Pulis bleated on as usual saying:
“The decision was a game-changing decision. That’s the sixth in 11 games that we have had given against us.
“It’s handball, everybody will agree it’s handball, Cattermole gets sent off, you hope you score the penalty and it’s then 11 Stoke City players against 10 Sunderland players with 20 minutes to go.
I’m sure he went on, but after hearing this week in week out from him I nodded off a little bit.
Uncle Roy is back in the good books up in Liverpool. As is Torres. To be honest, I’m fairly happy with them too. After lolloping around for a few weeks in the bottom half and looking like they needed putting out of their misery, suddenly they have a couple of league wins on the bounce and are level on points with Spuds. Torres burst back into life with a couple against that lot down the road, keeping up his impressive scoring record against the title holders of five in five. Uncle Roy chipped in:
“I’m pleased with the performance and I’m pleased Fernando will get the plaudits because he’s taken his fair share of criticism, some of which has been grossly exaggerated and certainly not fully deserved,”
You have to wonder how much the Blues’ll be looking to bounce back come Wednesday night though…
The Blue half of Liverpool picked up a draw away at Blackpool, while Man City traveled to the Hawthorns and returned with all three points and a red card. Balotelli looks like a cracking signing. He looks useful on the pitch and also appears a mad as a bag of lightbulbs. Just returned from injury and starting to play for the team, recently stopped by police late at night and asked why he had a big pile of cash in his pocket, he simply told them he was a footballer so why shouldn’t he? And then back in Italy he attempted to break into a woman’s prison ‘just to see inside’. I love him already and look forward to his next adventure.
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