The Draw Specialist : Everton

Premier Sketch: Lady Gaga, snoods and Pop Tarts

Rob Carey — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 11:01:00 GMT

RESULTS Sat 4 Dec Arsenal 2-1 Fulham, Birmingham City 1-1 Tottenham Hotspur, Blackburn Rovers 3-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers, Chelsea 1-1 Everton, Manchester City 1-0 Bolton Wanderers, Wigan Athletic 2-2 Stoke City, Blackpool P-P Manchester United Sun 5 Dec West Bromwich Albion 3-1 Newcastle United, Sunderland 1-0 West Ham United

The Premier League is having more changes at the top than Lady Gaga in a hat shop. With Manchester United’s game at Blackpool called off – who doesn't have undersoil heating these days?! – and Chelsea bottling it again at home to a fragile Everton side, things open for a nervy-looking Arsenal to leap frog both teams with a 2-1 win over fellow Londoners Fulham.

The Gunners’ most consistent performer (aside from the always dreadful Manuel Almunia) and shameless snood-wearer Samir Nasri scored both of his side’s goals in spectacular style. For the winner, he glided past the Fulham defence, rounded keeper Mark Schwarzer and guided the ball in the net.

Snood Watch
Forget El Clasico and England’s disastrous World Cup bid – the real football fan is still talking about those damn snoods. Manchester City can’t seem to get enough of them: they had more players wearing them on Saturday than England got World Cup votes. The guilty parties this week were Mario Baletti, Yaya Toure and goalscorer Carloz Tevez.

During the week, the Argentinian striker had complained about the childish behaviour of modern professional footballers. Then he threw his own toys out of the pram when substituted with only minutes remaining, showing his very own ugly side of his game.

Crap Kits
Ever since Owen Coyle took over the helm at Bolton, the Trotters have looked like a very tidy outfit… tactically. But club sponsors and kit makers Reebok have a lot to answer for: they introduced the world to The Step, and The Pump, and they continue to outdo themselves with awful Bolton kits.

This away one looks like they put as much effort into it as a Dimitar Berbatov penalty. Or maybe they were going for the Kevin Davies "spilled jam Pop Tart all down the front" look.

Guess That Goal
Let’s end this week with a new segment: Guess That Goal. We have a re-enactment of one of the goals in this week’s Premier League games and all you have to do is figure out who scored it and which game it was from. Answers on a postcard…

Prem Sketch: Dr Evil & Mr Dive

Rob Carey — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 10:01:00 GMT

After a dramatic week in the courts it looks like we’ve finally seen the last of former Liverpool owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. At least they gave us all a good chuckle as they left; Tom "Dr Evil" Hicks, with little finger in mouth, announced from his tropical island hideout that he is aiming to sue the whole of Britain for, wait for it, "ONE BILLION DOLLARS!"

However, Liverpool's on-field problems continued with a 2-0 loss to Everton in the Mersey derby. New owner John Henry, who also owns baseball’s Boston Red Sox, admitted it’s going to take some time for him to adjust to this new sport. That said, Lucas Leiva, Maxi Rodriguez & Co sure made their new boss felt right at home: Henry is used to watching his players standing around doing nothing but scratching their bums all game.

Further up England's exotic West Coast at Bloomfield Road, another tremendous display from Blackpool saw them just fall short of a deserved point against Manchester City. The Sea-Sea-Seasiders managed to give City a real run for their endless supply of money and should feel a little hard done by, as at least one of Carlos Tevez’s goals should have been ruled out.

Substitute David Silva notched his first and City’s third goal, and what a wonderful way to open his account with this week’s goal of the week. Receiving the ball just outside the Blackpool area, the Spaniard jinked his way through the Tangerines and finished with a plum, sorry aplomb, curling a banana shot past the fruitless efforts of keeper Matt Gilks whose effort was fruitless. A real peach of a goal.

If City can keep this run going and finish in the top four, there’s every chance that beer bellies worldwide will be bursting the seams of sky blue shirts instead of those of their red neighbours – who once again let a two-goal lead slip. The grateful recipients of this week’s generous Manchester United defending were West Brom, who look to be in real danger of staying up this season.

The culprit for United this time was the usually reliable Edwin van der Sar, dropping a cross in a manner that Roy Carroll would be proud of, and allowing Baggies’ Somen Tchoyi a tapped-in equaliser.

With Wayne Rooney and his boss not seeing eye to eye and Nani unable to replicate his former team-mate Cristiano Ronaldo every week United could struggle to keep up with the league leaders. Could the bragging rights in Manchester finally be switching from red to blue?

Talking of Ronaldo, it looks like the Premier League has finally found his replacement, but not in the step-over, sprint down the wing, step-over, cut inside, double step-over, hammer the ball into the net and invite team-mates over to join the celebration even though they don’t really want to kind of way.

He’s already pulled off the hairstyle, now Arsenal’s Marouane Chamakh is trying to emulate the Portugeezer’s ability to win a penalty with defenders 10 yards away, and he pulled it off to perfection this weekend during his side’s home win against Birmingham. But with referees forgetting to book players for cheating and the FA unwilling to enforce retroactive action through video evidence, what do players have to lose?

So let’s try to get our game back: it’s time to name and shame. This week the Draw Specialist Hall of Shame opens and Mr Chamakh has just picked up an enormous pair of scissors and cut the ribbons.

Rockets and roller-coasters

Rob Carey — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 08:58:00 GMT

We’re seven games into the season, so it’s about time people started asking if the title race is already over. After last week’s hiccup in Manchester, Chelsea continue their relentless march at the top of the table, Arsenal appear to be lightweight, and Manchester United, to put it politely, failed to leave their problems in the changing room.

The big clash at Stamford Bridge saw Chelsea’s Didier Drogba once again bully Arsenal into defeat, leaving Arsene Wenger's men seven points behind the league leaders. The Ivorian scored his usual goal against the Gunners to put his side one up but it was Blues defender Alex who stole the show with a second-half screamer. The ball was last spotted orbiting the Earth, trawling satellites with the goal net. As Alan Partridge once screamed, “He’s got a foot like a traction engine!!!!!”

Game of the weekend was at Anfield between the once mighty Blackpool and the once mighty Liverpool. Ian Holloway’s men took the game to the home side and get their just desserts coming away with all three points. Charlie Adam is looking very much a Premier League player and goalkeeper Michael Gilks is performing miracles.

The Tangerines, who played some fantastic football, are now proud owners of the best away record in the league, while the Reds find themselves in the bottom three with Fernando Torres looking at yet another lengthy spell on the sidelines. The Mersey derby is next and with both sides languishing in the bottom half it’s a real six-pointer.

Crap kits
Yikes! A double dose of awfulness in England’s second city this weekend; obviously Everton’s pink away strip tops the table of crimes against football fashion but Birmingham City’s home kit gives it a damn good run for its money. Last season’s effort, was rubbish but this year’s one has somehow managed to top it with a nod towards one of Roger Hargreaves’ characters, Mr. Bump.

Quote of the week
And finally a real beauty from Manchester City’s assistant manager Brian Kidd after Nigel De Jong’s shocking leg-breaker on Newcastle’s promising Hatem Ben Arfa: “Everybody knows Nigel and he is as honest as the day is long.” Xabi Alonso might disagree with you there, as he continues to pick out De Jong’s studs from his chest.

And Brian, please don’t add that he’s not that type of lad. “There was no malice in Nigel's challenge and Nigel is not that type of lad.” Aarghh!!! “He's the same in training and there's no malice in Nigel de Jong." He’s the same in training? No wonder City’s injury list is as long as Peter Crouch’s arm...

Premier Sketch: Coaches, pies and vomit

Rob Carey — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:07:00 GMT

The new season brought us a few shocks but reigning champions Chelsea picked up just where they had left off with a 6-0 drubbing of newly-promoted West Brom. Blues striker Didier Drogba scored the first hat-trick of the season, his third goal taking the kind of deflection that teammate Frank Lampard would have been proud of.

Earlier this month Drogba announced that he has been struggling with an injury for over half a decade; perhaps that’s why he feels the need to take a five-minute kip during every game. As for Albion, their fans should probably wait a while before buying Premier league patches for their replica shirts.

Meanwhile at White Hart Lane, all eyes were on big spenders Manchester City to see how they fared in their opener away to Tottenham. But it was Spurs who looked more like top four contenders, with only City keeper Joe Hart’s heroics keeping the scoreline at 0-0.

In fact the only Manchester City player who scored this weekend was James Milner in Villa’s easy win against West Ham. City manager Roberto Mancini quashed rumours of unrest in the camp before the match, but admitted he does have problems with his coaches – saying that he didn’t have enough of them to transport all of his midfielders down to London.

The performance of the weekend must surely go to everyone’s relegation favourites Blackpool, who astonishingly took Wigan apart 4-0 at the DW Stadium. After Blackpool’s Alex Baptiste slotted home the Seasiders' fourth in the 75th minute, the home fans were so disgusted by their team's showing that half of them headed for the exits, while the other two decided to stay and finish off their pies.

GOAL OF THE WEEK
During Wolves’ 2-1 win over Stoke, David Jones pulled this beauty out of his locker; receiving a short free-kick, Jones chipped up the ball then belted it past Stoke’s helpless keeper Thomas Sorenson and in off the bar. Apparently the strike was so impressive that even Wolves manager Mick McCarthy’s eyebrows cracked a smile.

After drowning out the vuvuzelas during the World Cup with their constant complaints about the dreaded Jabulani football, goalkeepers all over the country welcomed the new Premier League Match ball. We’re told that its brightly coloured markings make it much easier for keepers to see the ball and judge its flight. Pepe Reina, Tim Howard, Manuel Almunia and Chris Kirkland, just wondering how it worked out for you?

CRAP KITS: Everton away
The new season always throws up its fair share of classic shirts but it’s the truly awful ones that stick in the memory, and this “lightning pink” Everton away kit looks like it might literally have been “thrown up”.

"FUTURE OF FOOTBALL"-WATCH
And finally, this season we’re keeping an eye on the three saviours of the English game; the youngsters who according to the “newspapers” should be picked alongside David Beckham in Capello’s international set-up.

During his side’s 1-1 draw at Anfield, Arsenal’s Jack Wilshere played for just over 45 minutes and executed a tackle on Inter Milan's Javier Mascherano that, had the roles been reversed, would have had given Arsene Wenger something to complain about for six months. The teenage Zidane was lucky to escape at least a caution: as ex-Everton defender and TV’s co-commentator Matt Jackson so brilliantly admitted, “I’ve seen worse tackles get yellows.”

The other English supermen-in-waiting, Kieran Gibbs and Everton’s Jack Rodwell, warmed their respective benches. No doubt they were saving themselves for the Euro qualifiers next month.

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