Catching up

A busy weekend of football just past; Saturday was the fantastic clash between Arsenal and Man United, which is by far the best "Big Four" clash I can remember in recent years, as both teams properly went at each other for 90 minutes as the match ebbed one way and another. In the end, the result was probably fair as Arsenal made the most of their chances, and United squandered most of theirs (both sides were woeful in front of goal for much part), in a match that shows why Chelsea are probably favourites for the league this season as they cruised to a victory over Blackburn on Sunday. If Arsenal were to play with this much fire week in, week out, they'd mount a serious challenge; one feels another Stoke or Hull is only round the corner for them.

Morecambe got through to a home tie in the next round of the FA Cup with a 2-1 win over Grimsby, in a match which they dominated from start to finish despite having plenty of players out injured. The cynic in me says Grimsby were as awful as Morecambe were good, but since our change in formation, we've lost against Port Vale with a last minute goal, drew with Accrington and then won against Aldershot and Grimsby (ignoring a defeat in the JPT), and things look rosier. Keep playing like this and we'll even begin to trouble mid-table, which is preferable to looking over our shoulder and watching the teams with points deductions catch us.

On Sunday, I watched Inter against Udinese whilst trying to not fall asleep. One of those matches that gives Serie A a bad name, but not for boring defensive play, just plain ineptitude as passes were misplaced and shots sailed over the bar. Each were as bad as each other, and Inter bundled on in at the end to steal the points and to stop Mourinho getting a pasting in the papers. Over to Germany for Schalke vs Bayern which started like Arsenal vs Man United, before petering out in the second half as Bayern held on to a 2-1 lead, inspired by Franck Ribery. The Bundesliga appears to be the place for goals this season, with high scoring matches abounding. I still haven't managed to catch Hoffenhiem yet as their matches don't seem to coincide with what gets shown live, but hoping to see them soon.

Coppa Italia live on SportsXchange

SportsXchange (Sky Digital Channel 456), will be showing live coverage of the Coppa Italia starting with the Udinese vs Reggina match on 12 November.

While it'd good to get some Italian football back on UK TV, it's a shame it's a competition played in front of empty stadiums with reserve teams. Still no word on Serie A joining it on any station.

Penalty?

No doubt many will have seen the "challenge" on "Stevie G" in the Liverpool match last night. I'm annoyed about the dive, but I accept that sometimes players cheat and sometimes the ref gets things wrong, that's life.

What I am struggling to accept about last night is the blatant bias of the commentary, who were up in arms about the marginal penalty Liverpool were denied, dismissed out of hand the claims for Atletico, and then called Gerrard's penalty "soft", whereas if it had been given the other way, they would have been apoplectic with rage.

I know it's a pro-English rather than pro-Liverpool thing, but it really winds me up. It doesn't help when ITV summarise the night with:

"Liverpool's famous fighting spirit shone through."

Just for the record, what does Stevie G think? (thanks to Football365 for these quotes)

"There's nothing worse than diving and trying to get other players booked...if a team-mate did it I would definitely have a word" - Steven Gerrard, April 1, Daily Mail.

"It's your own team-mates like Steven Gerrard who don't like you using those tricks" - Fernando Torres, October 11, Daily Mirror.

ART Sport 6 back on hotbird

After the recent return of Art Sport 5 to Hotbird, Art Sport 6 has now returned.

Subscribers to the sports bouquet are now in a better position than before, with access to the Prime Sports Channel, as well as the Showtime Maghreb channel, which broadcasts Premier League matches.

Normal footballwatcher service should resume next week, sorry for the lack of updates.

Champions League

Been watching the Champions League this week. On Tuesday I saw Man Utd’s whitewash of Celtic, which was almost as far removed from the competitive matches of a few seasons as you could get. Celtic have probably gone backwards in the time, while Man Utd have improved, and the result was a colossal mis-match. Celtic packed the midfield to try and stifle United, and while United got the benefit of two offside decisions in their favour for their first two goals, it was domination pretty much from start to finish. The best Celtic can hope for is a UEFA Cup spot, while United and Villareal have all but qualified from this group with three matches to spare.

Last night I watched Liverpool’s trip to Athletico Madrid, which was a fairly dull affair for the first half I watched. Liverpool took the lead against an unadenturous side who offered little. Apparently Athletico improved in the second period, which sounded much more exciting, as is often the way, and they picked up a late equaliser. By that time I’d switched over to Barcelona’s match in Basle, already 3-0 up at half-time, and picked up two goals at the start of the second half. Basle appeared to just sit back and let Barcelona do their stuff. The crowd seemed happy enough given the one sided score, perhaps content to watch a great footballing side up close, so much so that they started to whistle their displeasure in the second half when Barcelona started to play keep-ball in their own half.

Digitalb Premier League Schedule - 23-26 October

CET, deduct 1 hour for UK time

E ENJTE 23 TETOR
Schalke 04 vs Paris SG 18:15 SS1
Galatasary vs Olympiacos 20:15 SS2
Hertha vs Benfica 20:30 SS3
Heerenveen - Milan 20:45 SS1
Partizan vs Sampdoria 21:00 SS4
Aston Villa vs Ajax 21:15 SS5
E PREMTE 24 TETOR
Leverkusen-Koln 20:30 SS1
E SHTUNE 25 TETOR
Everton-Man Utd 13:00 SS1
Sunderland-Newcastle 13:45 SS2
Dinamo-Partizani 14:30 SS3
Bayern-Wolfsburg 15:30 SS1/SSHD1
Hannover 96-Werder 15:30 SS5
Siena vs Catania 18:00 SS2
Blackburn-M'brough 18:30 SS1
Rennes-Le Mans 19:00 SS3
Osasuna-Betis 20:00 SS2
Fluminense x Palmeiras 20:00 SS5
Juventus vs Torino 20:30 SS1/SSHD1
Toulouse-Monaco 21:00 SS3
Barcelona-Almeria 22:00 SS2
Porto - Leixões 22:00 SS4
E DIELE 26 TETOR
Chelsea-Liverpool 14:30 SS1/SSHD1
Besa-Vllaznia 14:30 SS2
Inter vs Genoa 15:00 SS3/SSHD2
Atalanta-Milan 15:00 SS4
Udinese-Roma 15:00 SS5
West Ham-Arsenal 17:00 SS1/SSHD1
Sevilla-Malaga 17:00 SS2
Hoffenheim-Hamburg 17:00 SS3
Nancy-Sochaux 17:00 SS4
Villareal-At Madrid 19:00 SS2
Benfica - Naval 20:00 SS4

Also, Eurosport appear to have won the rights to show Bundesliga in Northern and Eastern Europe, starting from next season, meaning next season Digitalb won't carry this league. Their Saturday afternoons could quickly become sparse if the English League doesn't return!
Palermo vs Fiorentina 20:30 SS1
Marseille-Paris SG 21:00 SS3
Real Madrid-Bilbao 21:00 SS2

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.