The last article I wrote was on Tuesday morning, then I said I was going for my lunch and now it's Wednesday evening. I had a very long lunch, I'll be honest with you. It was in a posh-French restaurant style, where I had about 500 courses and chatted round the table, or got up and danced a bit between each of them.
I swear I'm gonna stop going to Greggs if they keep throwing me out.
By the way, before I started writing this I also had a quick look at my audience stats. It's actually quite a fun way of seeing who reads this. Apparently, I've got a decent following in Germany (hallo), Spain (hola) and Russia (hi, just whatever hi is in Russian, basically). Also two people, or probably the same person twice, has read my blog from the FYR of Macedonia! A big thank you to my Macedonian fanbase.
A bit of a whimsical start there. So lets have a look at the other games over the weekend. Annoyingly there's not a big Super Sunday thing on, Villa are playing West Brom which'll probably be a bit dull and that's the only one on Sunday. Not much compared with last week when it was Liverpool-United and Man City-Arsenal plus two other games. Shame.
Everton v Southampton
Everton will want to bounce back from the disappointment losing at Leeds in the cup midweek with a win on Saturday, seems strange that they could be top of the league by the end of the weekend.
Southampton probably needed the win against Villa last week to avoid the potential for 'doing a Derby' and spending the entire season bottom of the league. They now look in amongst the goals and Ricky Lambert is at the centre of everything, a great player.
You'd think Everton should win this, they're such a hardworking team and they always look so potent down the left hand side with Baines and Pienaar, plus Moyes won't let them get complacent. I'd expect Saints to make a good fist of this and reckon Lambert might score, but reckon the Toffees will edge them out in this. 2-1.
Fulham v Man City
There's to be no prizes for guessing who the happier manager will be with 9pts from their opening 5 games this season. Fulham, the West Ham game aside, have played well in all their matches and Berbatov has been a revelation for them- his Bergkamp-esc deftness of touch combined with attacking runs from midfield have seen them score a few goals.
The fact that Man City are without a win in 4 matches in all competitions and are yet to keep a clean sheet this season suggests there's a kind of 'sloppiness' in their camp, maybe linked to complacency and the pay packet their players get. Their new defensive system Mancini has incorporated is maybe taking some time to be adjusted to.
All things considered, I fancy Fulham to get one past Hart but this is really a must-win game for City. 3-1 to the Citizens, possibly with at least one goal for Aguero.
Norwich v Liverpool
It was probably important for the Canaries that they were able to stabilise a bit after their opening day humiliation at Fulham. Yes, they won't be happy to have drawn at home to QPR and West Ham but good performances against Tottenham and Newcastle suggest that Chris Hughton's side can compete at this level.
Liverpool badly need to secure first win under Brendan Rodgers and climb away from the relegation zone. If they don't win this, the pressure will really begin to mount on him because this is nearly October, typically the stage most teams find their position for the season. My own opinion is he's tried to change too much, too quickly. Spending £9 million on Borini was a mistake however much he liked him at Swansea and whenever a manager takes over at a big club, getting the first team winning is crucial- you can have all the long-term plans in the world but you can't put them into place if you're not winning matches.
I don't know why but I think Norwich can win this. Chris Hughton is an absolute genius motivator and at home they might nick a goal against an Aggerless Liverpool defence. With so much pressure on them the Reds might get a little frustrated, there's potential for another red card so I'll plump for a 1-0 Norwich win.
Reading v Newcastle
The Royals are in a similar position to Southampton a week ago, now- they need that first win soon sitting bottom of the table. Having said that, you might want to give them the benefit of the doubt for the time being. To draw with Stoke on the opening day will have been an encouraging result, they put up a fight against Chelsea, losing to Tottenham and in-form West Brom is no disgrace and they've played a game less than everyone else. They just need a win from somewhere and their confidence from the back-end of last season in the Championship could re-emerge.
Newcastle have made a steady start, the draw at home to Villa their only real disappointment. As good a goalscorer as he is, I'm not convinced Demba Ba is worthy of the new £100K a week contract he's apparently been demanding but no-one will mention it if he scores the goals.
For this game, Reading need the win most and they do have home advantage which can be key, but the quality in the Newcastle team makes me think they'll have to settle for a point.
2 apiece.
Stoke v Swansea
The successes of these teams in recent years suggest that, in football, you don't necessarily need to have a particular philosophy to achieve success. More that you play to your squad's strengths. If Swansea tried to play the direct, route one football that Stoke play against by lumping the ball up for Michu to try and win the headers, he probably wouldn't be tall enough and the defence would head the ball away easily.
If Stoke City tried to play some of the pretty tiki-taka football that Swansea play by feeding little through balls in for Crouch to run onto, he wouldn't be quick enough and the ball would just roll into the goalkeepers hands. In my opinion, the best teams use their best players by putting them in roles where they can do what they do best, best. That probably sounds really smart-arse of me, but too many managers like Rodgers and AVB try to come in and drastically change things with this big new paradime of how you should play football. It takes too much time for players to get used to they are better off, in my opinion, being more pragmatic.
Just a thought. Oh, what? The game? Oh yeah. I'll go for a draw, 1-1, or whatever.
Sunderland v Wigan
Fletcher is banging in the goals now and he's quickly become a favourite on Wearside. Whilst they'll want to record a first win of the season sooner rather than later, the four draws they've had this season, none of them have been particularly bad results. Not a bad tip for a top 10 spot this season Sunderland, if they can keep Fletcher and Adam Johnson fit. With tough trips to Man City and Stoke sandwiching the Tyne-Wear derby coming up, this could be the best chance for the Black Cats to get that win.
Wigan will have been disappointed to lose against Fulham last week, mainly because it was a home game- it may take them a while to recover from losing Moses. I still think Wigan will be okay this season, they only tend to really get going in March time, Martinez will probably do it again but I reckon Sunderland will win this. 2-1 the Black Cats.
Aston Villa v West Brom
There will have been something disgruntling about the four second-half goals Southampton scored for Villa fans. They had beaten Swansea the week before and when Bent's goal gave Villa a half-time lead I fancied them to climb the table from that point onwards. A combination of their inexperienced defence though and Southampton's spirit meant it all went to pot for them. No-ones sadder than me.
West Brom managed to sweep away fears of the 3-0 defeat at Fulham being a sign of things to come for them by beating Reading last week; they are sitting pretty in 4th place and Clarke can celebrate a great start having played some tough games. He'll just need to make sure that their inevitable slide down the table is a gradual one so that they're not facing a relegation battle come April.
In this game, all of these factors seem to negotiate themselves into a draw. Villa will need to come out fighting after the defensive display against Southampton and West Brom are the form team, but playing away from home they are the more likely to settle for a point- which I think they'll get. 0-0.
QPR v West Ham
Another side with first-win ambitions this weekend, QPR have got some tough games coming up and will want to get 3pts in the bank. They've invested quite gaudily in the summer and the number of signings they've made will take time to fit together and gel- interestingly the one position they clearly needed topping up in was at centre-back and the free transfer signing of Ryan Nelson doesn't really cut it for me. Instead they've spent tens of millions on exotic, big name midfielders and strikers.
If the sole aim for Allardyce this season was to keep the Hammers in the Premier League, they've had a great start. If you win two of your first three games, you can afford to draw a couple and that was the case when they played Norwich and Sunderland. Once they've got Andy Carroll back to full fitness, West Ham should be a real handful.
It's quite close to call so I'm afraid, folks, I'm gonna sit on the fence and go for another goalless.
And that's your lot for this week. Thanks again to my foreign fanbase, as a tribute to you I'll try and do an update on the Macedonian league at some point- I probably won't. But thank you anyway. Just a reminder to leave a comment if you want to say your predictions for some of the weekends' games- am always glad of some feedback. If you like you can follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/_thescore and I'll follow you back.
Cheers,
Gabriel
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