Monday, 20 October 2008

Weekend Review - Part 2

Onto the Saturday tea-time fixture, via Morecambe drawing (surprise of surprises) against Rochdale at Christie Park. Again, we started slowly, again we conceded a sloppy goal and then decided we would make a fist of it after half-time.

Back home, to watch Manchester United take on West Brom at Old Trafford. West Brom put plenty in midfield to try and stifle Man Utd, and for a period it worked, although Halsey penalised Rooney for a “push” in the area after he put one in the next after about 25 minutes, then failed to penalise a West Brom defender for a similar light touch in the penalty area. So 0-0 at the break, as it does so often, turned into 4-0 at full time as Rooney managed to top his disallowed goal with an even better opener, before Ronaldo, Berbatov and Nani also got on the score sheet, taking the number of goals scored by the “Big Four” on Saturday to 15. One sided league?

On Sunday, I watched my first Serie A match of the season, as Lazio travelled to newly-promoted to Bologna. I chose this mainly because anytime Serie A is mentioned on the Guardian Podcast, their attractive play this season is always commented upon. However, this time it was Bolgona who impressed with two earlier goals as a result of non-existant marking at set pieces, before a well taken solo goal by the much travelled Marco di Viao made it 3-0 at the break. Lazio got one back in the second half, but never looked like getting anything like a draw. Perhaps it’s just me, but a number of continental sides seem to accept defeat and not try to recover once they go a couple of goals down, to try and conserve energy for matches when they might have a chance. The match finished to the sound of helicopters, perhaps braced for potential trouble from the notorious Lazio fans after the defeat, and the ban placed on them travelling to away matches by their own club.

In fairly unrelated news, it would appear Digitalb endeared themselves further to subscribers by not showing Hull City’s match against West Ham on Sunday afternoon, which had been advertised and on their EPG, preferring to show adverts and then the Milan channel in it’s place. If they do target UK subscriptions (personally I think they don’t), from comments on the Alsat forum, they will be missing quite a few next season.

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