Category: Round ups

The first match of the FA Cup quarter final was Middlesbrough versus Manchester City where City managed to win the tie via goals from David Silva and Sergio Aguero, who continued his good goalscoring form. Middlesbrough’s goalkeeper Brad Guzan made a string of good saves to keep the scoreline down for Boro. City will face Arsenal in the semi final, while Middlesbrough will go back to their relegation battle wondering what could have been.

Also, Lincoln’s FA Cup dream ended with a thumping from the rampant Arsenal who scored five on the day. Lincoln went into half time on pretty good terms, but in the second half Arsenal improved and played some sustained attacking football with many little tricks and one-twos in the box which Lincoln, being a non-league team struggled with. Carrying disappointment in their heart Lincoln players will have to resume their fairly difficult task of getting promoted to the Football League after five seasons out of it.

On Sunday, Tottenham managed to beat Millwall 6-0. In the game, Son Heung-min – Spurs’s Korean winger – played absolutely brilliantly, scoring a hat trick and setting up Janssen’s first goal from open play for Spurs. Spurs were a bit lucky that their attacking players played well on Sunday because their main striker Harry Kane limped off on the ten minute mark to be replaced by Christian Eriksen. Spurs have been drawn to play Chelsea in the next stage of the FA Cup which is a big London derby and famously heated up a bit last year in a very big game.

Lastly, Chelsea beat Manchester United on Monday with Kante scoring the sole goal of the match. Kante’s brilliant performance and masterclass over Paul Pogba has brought him many praises and comparisons to top midfielders and his career looks like it’s going nothing less than uphill. A controversial moment of the match was Herrera’s second booking and subsequent sending off, and brought United a fine for not being able to control their players from surrounding the ref.

The first game of the weekend was Bournemouth’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United. United went ahead in the game, but Bournemouth won a penalty, which Josh King smashed in the top corner to level the scoreline. A big talking point of the game was the stamp that Tyrone Mings gave to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, which followed on from another moment in the game where Zlatan elbowed Mings. Both players could face retrospective bans.

Also on Saturday was Leicester’s 3-1 win over Hull where Leicester fought back from going 1-0 down with three goals. After that win Leicester are now 15th in the league, five points off the relegation zone and their interim manager, Craig Shakespeare will almost certainly be appointed permanent boss if his two wins out of two games form continues.

The last game of Saturday was Liverpool’s 3-1 victory against Arsenal. Liverpool were by far the better team in the first half scoring two goals, but in the second half, Arsenal scored on the 57th minute through a chip from Danny Welbeck. Arsenal couldn’t get the winner they needed and Liverpool scored on the counter in the last few minutes.

A game from Sunday was Tottenham versus Everton where Tottenham went ahead 2-0 through goals from the very much in-form Harry Kane. Later in the game Lukaku scored to give Everton hope, but Alli replied with a goal to give Tottenham the win.

On Saturday, Crystal Palace won 1-0 against Middlesbrough, with Dutch full back van Aanholt bagging a goal in the 34th minute of the game on his fourth start for the Eagles. The win is a very important one for Palace because it climbs them out of the relegation zone and it gives a confidence boost to their players whose past results have been disappointing.

Another game which happened on Saturday was Everton’s 2-0 win over Sunderland where Idrissa Gueye, a summer signing from Aston Villa scored his first goal for Everton and it was a wonderful goal too as he absolutely hammered the ball into the top corner with the returning Jordan Pickford having no chance. The other goal was from Lukaku who scored his seventeenth Premier League goal of 2016/2017. Sunderland and Moyes’s loss puts them bottom of the league and piles the pressure on David Moyes after a few tactical wrongdoings in the past few game.

Also, Chelsea beat Swansea 3-1 with Chelsea’s goals coming from their main striker Diego Costa, out of favour central midfielder Cesc Fabregas and the Spanish winger Pedro. Swansea managed to get themselves back into the game through a header from Swansea striker Fernando Llorente who was linked with a possible move to Chelsea in January – but after that success, Chelsea replied in the second half with two goals.

Moving on to Sunday, Spurs got themselves back to winning ways with a 4-0 victory over Stoke. And Harry Kane starred in the game scoring a hatrick, which is something he has done already three times in 2017, and setting up Dele Alli too who redeemed himself with that goal after his red card in the week. Spurs are now second in the table and Tottenham are starting to creep up on Chelsea.

This is almost definitely going to be the most remembered FA Cup fifth round, and that’s just because of one game, Non League Lincoln’s incredible victory over Burnley where Sean Raggett scored the winner in the 89th minute. The reason that this victory was so special is that it’s the first time a non league team has reached the quarter finals of the FA Cup since 1914, and also another reason is because Burnley are eighty-one places above Lincoln.

Sutton would’ve loved to join Lincoln in the quarter finals of the FA Cup, but Arsenal were just the bit more dominant and the game ended 2-0 to them. Arsenal’s second goal came from captain Theo Walcott and that goal was his 100th Arsenal netting, so congratulations to him.

Another fixture from the weekend was Millwall versus Leicester. The game finished 1-0 with the sole goal coming from Millwall defender Shaun Cummings. Millwall will face Spurs in the next round, which will be a hard game for them.

On Sunday Blackburn nearly managed to beat Manchester United after going ahead, but United fought back to win and book a tie with Chelsea in the next round. Blackburn have to be disappointed about the result, but they have done exceptionally well considering their league position and United’s league position.

PSG shocked the world by beating Barcelona 4-0 at the Parc des Princes. The defeat is one of many heavy ones for Barca in the Champions League, and some people are saying that there’s a new era coming at the club. In the game, Di Maria hit a free kick from the edge of the area and he also curled a shot into the top corner to kill the game for the Catalans. I don’t know why United ever let him go.

On Wednesday, Bayern Munich crushed Arsenal in an all round wonderful performance. Arsenal had some hope that they could get themselves at a good standing point for the next leg when Alexis Sanchez finished low into the corner after missing his penalty, but Bayern replied maliciously with four goals after half time.

Thursday evening was when the Europa League fixtures were played and one of them was Gent’s surprise victory over Tottenham. Gent’s single goal came from their top scorer Jeremy Perbet. With Spurs getting knocked out of the Champions League, they went directly to the Europa League and they could get knocked out of that with such a loss.

The other English team participating in the Europa League is Manchester United, who played Saint-Etienne last night with Zlatan bagging a hat rick to almost definitely seal the tie between the two clubs.

On Saturday at 3pm, Manchester United beat Watford 2-0 with Martial impressing by setting up Juan Mata for the first goal of the game and then neatly slotting the ball to the left side of Heurelho Gomes to seal the win for United. United had many chances in the game but poor finishing and strong Watford defending held the scoreline at just two goals.

Also at 3pm, Southampton beat Sunderland 4-0 with Manolo Gabbiadini scoring twice which means that he’s got three goals in his first two starts for the club. The Southampton striker is the Saints’ most expensive signing and he’s repaying his £14m fee already.

The last Premier League game of Saturday was Liverpool’s 2-0 win over Spurs. Mane scored both goals for the Reds and he had a short spell of time where he could’ve got lots more goals. With injuries to Rose and Vertonghen, Spurs had to make do with Dier playing in an unnatural position at centre-back and Davies- an inexperienced player – was left to operate as a left back. Those changes of the team was a major reason of why Spurs lost.

Sunday’s first game saw Burnley shock Chelsea with a 1-1 draw. New clarets signing Robbie Brady scored a fabulous free kick from a long way out to level the scoreline and keep Burnley’s impressive home form going. Chelsea missed out on a chance to go twelve points ahead at the top of the table but are still a decade of points higher than Spurs and Arsenal who are in second and third.

Saturday was a great day for Chelsea as they absolutely played Arsenal off the park winning 3-1. Hazard once again showed his quality, scoring a wonder goal where he ran all the way from the halfway line and in the process shrugged of Francis Coquelin with his strength then got past Laurent Koscielny by going on the inside then outside of him, and lastly slotted the ball past Petr Cech to make it 2-0 to Chelsea. The last Chelsea goal just summed up how bad Arsenal were and how good Chelsea were with Cech playing an awful pass straight to Cesc Fabregas, who lobbed it wonderfully over the stranded and embarrassed Cech to score his second Premier League goal this season.

Sunderland surprised me and the whole football world as they beat Crystal Palace 4-0, with the goals coming from Lamine Kone, Didier Ndong and a brace from Jermain Defoe. Crystal Palace must have found the result unexpected after their win against Bournemouth in mid week and Sunderland’s poor form in the league, but as I said in the podcast with Kit- Sunderland just always perform in big games under pressure.

Another surprise result was Hull’s win over Liverpool, which leaves Liverpool with an extremely low chance of being in top spot when it comes to May. Liverpool are also now without a Premier League win in 2017 and they have only got one victory in all competitions, and the win was against League Two team Plymouth. Although, times right now are not great for Jurgen Klopp, things are looking up for Hull’s manager Marcos Silva as his team are now 18th- one point off getting out of the relegation zone, and also they have bought well in the transfer window and the goals yesterday both came from new signings, Niasse and N’Diaye.

Leicester City are finding it very hard to reignite their form from last season and they lost again this weekend, this time to Manchester United. If Leicester have a chance of staying up then they’ve got to be winning their home games like this game was – as they’re still winless away from the King Power stadium. However, United just ran riot against the leaky Leicester defence, scoring three goals in the game with Ibrahimovic scoring one of them to net his 20th goal in all competitions this season.

Many managers find it hard to get off to a good start after getting a new job, but Paul Clement is definitely not finding it hard to adapt to a new job as his Swansea team defeated Southampton to secure back to back wins on Tuesday.

Liverpool needed a win against Chelsea, but David Luiz’s free kick denied Liverpool the victory. The goal was a controversial one as Mignolet wasn’t actually focusing on the ball when Luiz struck it; he was telling his defence what to do. However, Mignolet said in an interview that he didn’t hear the whistle, but we’ll never know the truth about that incident. Liverpool equalised through a close range header from Georginio Wijnaldum. Liverpool now sit 4th in the table, which is disappointing as they started the season so well.

Manchester City played extremely well at the London Stadium against West Ham with Gabriel Jesus impressing on his first start in the Premier League setting Kevin De Bruyne up for his goal then scoring for himself. Pep Guardiola signed Jesus from Palmeiras and he’ll be hoping he can take Sergio Aguero’s place in the team more often.

The Premier League has lots of big upsets with underdogs winning, and there was another one Tuesday as Watford beat Arsenal 2-1. The goals for Watford came from centre back Younes Kaboul and striker Troy Deeney. Despite Arsenal’s loss manager Arsene Wenger has given his team two days off meaning Arsenal will only have one training session to get ready for their important clash on Saturday, when they take on Chelsea.

So, Arsenal fans, is your title race over after your defeat to Watford and the excellent form of your title rivals Chelsea? Please leave a comment.

Sam Allardyce got his long awaited first win in the Premier League as Crystal Palace boss, seeing off Bournemouth at the Vitality stadium. The win was important for Palace after slipping into the bottom three and with their fellow relegation fighters having good results.

The importance of the FA Cup for Premier League teams is getting increasingly lower, but lower league sides are showing how much they take the FA Cup seriously: Sutton- a National League team beat Leeds via a penalty taken by Jamie Collins. Lincoln- also a national league side came back from being one goal down to beat Brighton 3-1.

So if you’re a Lincoln or Sutton fan comment about what the FA Cup means to you and what stage you think your club will finish in the competition.

Another big upset in the cup was Wolves’s 2-1 win over Liverpool where Wolves defender Richard Stearman scored in only the 53rd second from some awful set piece defending by Liverpool. Andreas Weimann also got on scoresheet, but it wasn’t just any goal; it was his first for the club since he signed on loan from Derby. There was hope for Liverpool that they could get a draw out of the game when Divock Origi’s shot hit the back of the net in the 86th minute, but Wolves managed to hang on to their slender lead.

Probably the most exciting game of the weekend happened when Tottenham played Wycombe. It was looking like Wycombe where heading for the next round as they went 3-2 up in the 83rd minute. However, Alli and Son popped up with goals to break Wycombe hearts.

Arsenal showed their attacking quality as they beat Southampton 5-0 with Welbeck scoring twice and Walcott scoring a hat-rick. Welbeck’s goals must have given him a confidence boost as he has struggled at Arsenal since he joined, due to some major injuries. It showed largely in the game that Wenger not being on the touchline is not that much of a big loss as his side performed wonderfully at St Mary’s.

Moving on, Oxford caused an upset as they beat Newcastle 3-0. The goals came from Kane Hemmings, Curtis Nelson and Toni Martinez. Newcastle may have a small sense of relief as now they can fully focus on getting promotion to the Premier League.

The first game of the weekend was an excellent one for Swansea as they beat Liverpool 3-2, the game was a very exciting one with Liverpool coming back from two goals down- when that happened it looked like Liverpool could hang on or get a winner. However, it was Swansea who got the winner from Gylfi Sigurdsson.

Also on Saturday Manchester City drew to Spurs, Lloris had an awful game as he spilled Sterling’s cross to allow De Bruyne to tap the ball into an open goal. He also was hesitant to come out for De Bruyne’s pass, his decision resulted in Sane scoring City’s first goal in the game.

With Swansea winning in the weekend the relegation fighters had to win their games, but none of them could, as Hull lost to Chelsea, Sunderland lost to West Brom and Crystal Palace lost to Everton.

On Sunday Burnley played Arsenal, the game was a one with lots of contentious decisions for referee Jon Moss as he gave two penalties. The end result in the game was 2-1 to Arsenal.

I apologize that there’s no podcast this Sunday something went wrong uploading it onto the website.