Top Level Mediocrity

1. At 2 minutes in: Who is this young Walcott fellow and can we sign him up for the first team?
2. At 10 minutes: Who is this Arsenal squad and can we see more of them?
3. By the 2nd half: oh, I do remember these guys.
4. Can we get someone to bring all the broadcasters together in one room and teach them to say Cazorla? Cuh-Zore-La. I do not want to hear it pronounced Cathorla again. I don't care if that turns out to be how it's pronounced. It does not sound good. It makes as much sense as Wayne Roaney or Scott Porter. Say it like its spelled.
5. As long as we're on the subject, what the hell happened to Bacary Sagna? He used to be a quality right back but he's been indifferent to poor this season. Prior to throwing the game in the crapper, I had thought he was having a decent little game. Then he goes and passes the ball straight to RVP, and compounds his error by trying a rash tackle in the box, sending RVP to the spot.His game went down from there. In the 2nd half, he was guilty of additional foolishness with a bad challenge on Evra. He probably should've been booked there and sent off, but was saved by Koscielny's foul at the end of the play. Sagna was approaching Emanuel Eboue levels of self-sabotage today. I don't believe it will hurt too badly when he finally leaves this summer.
6. Fitting summary of Arsenal's season, lots of promise and industry undone by their own rashness. Sagna compounded a bad back pass by putting RVP on the spot.
7. Despite the lively start and brilliant early goal, this was overall a tepid match. Man U never really looked on the boil. They badly needed Sagna's assistance to get the point. Once Arsenal had surrendered the lead, they looked customarily unlikely to score.
8. Which leads to my big question mark of the game: Podolski. If this was the match to back up his talk about playing time, he didn't seem to recognize it.
9. With this draw, Arsenal have failed to beat any if their top 4 rivals this season, a clear indication of the club's unique achievement of top level mediocrity. Three games left and the race for 4th (huzzah!) is on!
   

The (Oh) Man City Full 9

While Arsenal's title hopes were over sometime in August, the thrilling 1-0 defeat of (Oh) Man City at Emirates Sunday was especially sweet in oh, so many ways: extinguishing the English career of ridiculous human being Mario Balotelli, likely sticking a fork in the cooked potato that is Roberto Mancini's Manchester stint, and helping Manchester United prove that a club built on obscene debt is always superior to a club built on obscene wealth...er, wait a minute.

1. Who is the bigger fool? Mario "Why Me?" Balotelli, or the manager who signed him,  not once, but twice, and has given him a very long leash for nor obvious reason?
2. A: Mancini is old enough to know better.
3. Did I mention that Man City lost even though deploying former Arsenal stud buckets Samir "I just wanna trophy" Nasri, and Gael "Theo Walcott of the Defense" Clichy? Write when you get the trophy, guys!
4. So, Samir, how's that working for you? It would be churlish of me to mention that in 2011 you faded earlier than the team did, but you didn't exactly put your stamp on Sunday's match, did you? Or, the season.
5. The shine seems well and truly off the coaching legend of Mancini. the rumbles are starting to, well, rumble that he may be on his way out of Etihad. Commentators and former players are noting that he really wasn't all that at Inter, after all. It's hard not to question the ability of a manager whose squad has imploded as spectacularly as (Oh) Man City. 
6. Mancini claims he didn't see the leg-assault on Alex Song, but perhaps he didn't need to, in order to see that Balotelli was a liability to his team as long as he remained on the pitch. As the game went on, I kept hoping and praying that Mancini left the striker on the pitch. Though, while some (namely, me) are childishly focusing on Balotelli, it would be harsh to blame him entirely for what was a team effort to not win, assisted by a coach who got his tactics all wrong.
7. For those who insist that a deft man manager like Ferguson might be able to teach responsibility to Mario while coaxing the freakish talent he possesses, go on with yourselves. Ferguson would never waste his time on a basket case project like Balotelli.  
8. Perhaps Why Me? might want to issue and apology to Alex Song whose leg he very nearly broke? Or Bacary Sagna, whose legs, for some reason, he seemed to want to break. Fascinating, at halftime to see a parade of Manc players walk by the back-knacked Balotelli without acknowledging him. The only player to talk to him was Arsenal's Sagna who seemed to be encouraging, despite the mugging he'd endured from the Italian.
9. In non-Man City news, Tottenham lost today. Holy crap, Arsenal might actually finish third. What an odd game, this football is! Call it 9.5, but Mikel Arteta's game winner was sweet; not just for the finish, but the way he barged in to steal the pass near the center circle, after 87 minutes of hard work. Arteta was one of several Gunners with outstanding efforts. 

Late to the Houston Full 9

Due to a busy weekend and busier week, I'm slow to pitch up a post-Dynamo Full 9, but here goes:

1. Nice of the authorities to authorize work-release for the Houston 11 so they could play a game of...er, run around on the pitch while hitting anything in green. I kid. The new look Houston team plays a bit more football than the battering rams in orange of previous seasons, but they still like their cheap shots. Hard to believe they made it to the finals last season...
2. I know it's not a popular opinion in Section 119, but I continue to think that Brad Evans does not suck. 
3. Baldomero Toledo. Raises the question, is he the poor man's Ricardo Salazar, or is Salazar the poor man's Toledo? I hate to complain when he called the rare (and spot-on) penalty for the tough love on Ianni as he rose to head home a corner, but he suffers from much of the same ineptitude of Salazar: allows far too much violent play, while whistling the occasional light foul, doesn't allow a game to flow and buys so much bad acting you know he's a huge Adam Sandler fan. 
4. Did Fernandez really dive on the foul before he got booked? El Flaco has looked very good this season, but he has got to avoid becoming El Fake-o.
5. I'm liking Marc Burch. He's a much better defender and passer than Gonzalez.
6. Gspurning. A couple of good saves in the match, and continues to show good ability to distribute the ball from the back.
7. Montero a near perfect 9 of 10 on the Underwhelmo-meter.
8. Ianni has been strong. Kudos to the little giant for addressing the mental side of the game and being open about it. Perhaps he can make a referral for Fredy...or get some matches and some gas and light a fire under his ass. 
9. Not excited to see Zach Scott deputizing for the injured Johansson, but damn it, if the little train that could that is Scott didn't have a decent game. His dogged play is downright irrepressible, with a high workrate and a game that appears to have grown over the off-season. I'll need more evidence than a single game, but it appeared his weak passing abilities may have evolved a level, as well.

Full Points at Goodison

Arsenal hang on to survive 1-0 at Goodison Park and with Tottenham drawing against Stoke, go a point clear of the Spurs for third place. Amazing.

1. Ramsey. Just. Not. Good. Enough.
2. Early goals. They're much nicer when we're scoring them.
3. Everton was level at 31 minutes. AR made a shocking bad call with Trenthe easily onside. It was a  game changer as Everton was getting themselves back into the game, scrapping on defense, stringing together possession and building closer and closer to Arsenal's goal. The linesmen continued to have a shocker, not getting the offsides decisions  correct until mid-second half. Unlike Theo, they then got things going the right way in the latter period.
4. Decision-Making. Not just the linesman. Arsenal followed a very bright opening 15 minutes, abandoning incisive passing for silly give-ups in their own half, allowing Everton to stem and reverse the tide. Some silly passing from Song, and another dangerous pass from Song, but Everton failed to punish them.
5. The Disappearing Lad. Theo Walcott got off to a bright start and looked as if he might be ready to have a cracking game. It lasted 10 minutes or so. Didn't do dick afterwards. His best second half move? Walking off the pitch.
6. Tactics. After the initial Arsenal tide, David Moyes moved Fellaini up behind the lead striker and dropped Cahill, which paid immediate and lasting impact. Fellaini had a major impact on the game from this point on. Arsene never really countered. 
7. Tactics, Pt. II. I understand making a defensive substitution late in the match with a 1-0 lead, but the way he's played this season, can Djourou really be considered a defensive move? Just kidding DJ, you know we love you.
8. Koscielny seems to be getting a lot of props for his play this season. Mercy me, I think he deserves it.
9. Three points. Though Arsenal rarely got back out of 2nd gear after the opening minutes, this was an end-to-end game for large parts and quite entertaining. That and three points totals a fine evening.

Full 9 Season Opener

Fantastic season opening match Saturday night. The weather cut us some slack and although it was cold, it was comfortable and dry, as the Sounders pounded Toronto 3-1, courtesy a good team effort and the hat trick heroics of young David Estrada.

1. E is for Excellent. E is for Estrada. Finally, we have a forward who combines talent, speed and work rate with finishing. He was as lively throughout the match as Montero wasn't. His off-the-ball movement is excellent, and the reason he is getting so many good chances. In three games, Estrada has looked like a real gamer. So far in 2012, No. 16 has two-thirds of our goals. Kind of makes you wonder about some of the mugs who've played on our frontline while Sigi was trying Estrada out as a midfielder and defender.
2. Ricardo Salazar is an ass clown. Seriously, this guy has been hands down, stone cold incompetent in every match I've seen him ref. Saturday, he called the game like it was a WWF showdown. Sigi took Mauro off late in the game because he realized that TFC was gonna try and break him, and Salazar wasn't going to protect him. That he's considered one of the MLS' best referees, speaks volumes to the refereeing problems in the league. Plenty of examples of his incompetence throughout the match; the most egregious might be the leg battering of Mauro Rosales mid-shot in the box late in the 2nd half. Should've been a booking and a shot on the dot. Which leads to...
3. MLS' rugby play. Rosales out for a couple of weeks now due to the bad tackle and non-call against TFC. We saw it last year as teams targeted Rosales, recognizing they didn't have the players to acutally  counter his class. Sounders have seen their skill players hacked off the pitch far too many times. We are not the only club to have lost a star player to the whack-a-mole defensive tactics of the MLS. Referees have got to clamp down on the violent play targeting skill players. If not, it will hamper the entertainment value of the league and the long-term growth of the MLS. 
4. Diving. TFC resorted to some grievious simulations during the match, and Salazar showed there was no fake he wouldn't buy. When Ryan Johnson took a flyer near midfield, he should've been shown a yellow card. From where I was it did not look a foul, but when a player does the extreme starfish jump that's your clue that they're faking. Any human who is actually tripped and is falling, will use their arms to break their fall.
5. Captain Mauro. This guy is a class above everyone else. He shredded TFC all night long, and made the attack hum. He works hard on both sides of the pitch. Sounders fans are lucky to be able to watch a player of this caliber in the rave green.
6. El Flaco. Another player who worked hard on both sides of the ball and impressed himself on the game. He terrorized the fullback on his side and set up Estrada's goals nicely. My only complaint is that he is still a bit of a diver and pulled a mortal injury/miracle cure late in the second alf that was cynical.
7. Montero is gonna drive me nuts. I counted three positive involvements with the game. The rest of the time he was a bystander.
8. Seattle fans. Wow, 38,709 fans in attendance. That is amazing.
9. Gspurning. While we haven't had enough time to fairly judge his shot-stopping ability (and throw out the 6- loss as an aberration, and the 6 goals a team effort rather than resting on the shoulders of the keeper), see the Austrian adding an improved ability to distribute the ball from the back. He's good with the ball at his feet, and can throw or punt the ball about anywhere he wants to. 

Full Crackin' 9

1. Brilliant cracking game between Arsenal and Newcastle. Arsenal looked the fox in the henhouse for most of the game, and did well enough during the inevitable ebb tides. Plenty of shots taken and enough to think they should've been up several goals by the end. Vermaelen performs the smash and grab at the death (or thereabouts, minus the Dutch buffoonery). And now, we're just one thin point behind a wobbly Spurs. 
2. RVP. The legend continues. 44 goals in the last 45 Premiership matches. Amazing.
3. Neither Verm or Gibbs covered themselves in glory on the Newastle goal. Vermaelen with the giveaway in the center of their defensive area. Gibbs with his positioning to allow BArfa in, then diving past him to allow him to get the shot on his favored left foot. Nonetheless, both did much to atone for the early mistake.
4. Great response to equalize after 53 seconds
5. Whose a big bald clown? Howard. Webb.
6. The only thing saving Hatem Ben Arfa from being a useless idiot would be that left foot, I guess. Call him a useful idiot, then. 
7. Is it me, or does Laurent Koscielny lead the league in knocked heads?
8. Bacary Sagna had another very strong game. Man, did we miss this guy.
9. I never thought I'd utter these words: "No, don't sub Rosicky out!"

First Match Sounders Full Nine

I watched this one from the safety of my TV room, but found plenty to enjoy in the Sounders 2-1 opening leg Champions League quarterfinal victory over Santos Lagunas

1. The new look Sounders look pretty good. Even the Miami Vice Super Cyan jerseys looked better than I thought they would. The club played a very fluid, confident game. Great link-up play, movement off the ball, and a competent defense, aside from the narcolepsy on the Gomez goal
2. Naming Mauro Rosales team captain was second best decision after pulling out the checkbook to resign the Argentine.
3. Santos was not a light weight by any means. They were overrun in the first 20 minutes but progressively played their way into the game.  A couple of times they were able to string together
4. ...sadly, they too often resorted to diving and more bad acting than an Adam Sandler film festival
5. Fredy Montero looked Shagadelic in his new do. Fortunately, his play was much more attractive. I thought he looked lively and intelligent throughout the game. He showed more consistency and commitment than I've seen from him for an entire match.
6. Montero's ball for the first goal was a thing of beauty. Also, David Estrada acquitted himself nicely in the match. Aside from the opening goal, he was very active and caused the Santosian defense plenty of trouble.
7. Is it me, or does Brad Evans look a lot sharper?
8. It's too early to make pronouncements on Gspurning as he didn't have a tremendous amount to do, but he looked a capable replacement for Kasey Keller. Certainly, he seems to read the game well and is an avid distributor. Looking forward to seeing more of what he can do for us.
9. Sounds like some ex-Sounder is continuing his goodwill tour of the end of his career

On 6 September 2011, Ljungberg signed for Japanese club Shimizu S-Pulse.^[49] He left the club by mutual consent on 14 February 2012.^[50]