EPL: Gameweek 4 analysis

Been a little late on this post, but as the saying goes better late than never, and to start with, the picture of the weekend which is going round the web like mad, and you must have guessed by now:

Arsene Wenger's "Titanic" pose among United fans

Yes you are not dreaming if you haven’t seen the match or this pic before, it is indeed Arsene Wenger standing in the stands after being sent off by the referee for kicking a bottle after a goal was disallowed for his side (report following). You must however admire his guts to do something like this, and that too on Old Trafford between the United fans, faut vraiment etre courageux Monsieur Arsene, et aussi avoir beaucoup d’humour

Man Utd win first ‘crunch’ match

rooney celebrates after scoring penalty

Wayne Rooney was on top of his form yet again as he helped United see off Arsenal in a hotly disputed match at Old Trafford today, though the Gunners as well did not deserve to lose but United were more hungry for the win in the end as it finished 2-1.

Champions League groups announced

Yesterday UEFA proceeded to the announcement of the Champions League Group stages matches, and by the looks of things, all four English clubs, which cannot play against each other in these stages, neither teams from any country involved, have got fair oppositions and can easily proceed to the next stages if things go well.

Big 4 Champs League fixtures

United though will have 2 tough travels, against CSKA Moscow and Besiktas, matches which will come during the intervals United will face Man City, Tottenham, then Liverpool after the Moscow match.

Chelsea will have to be wary of FC Porto and Ath. Madrid, while Liverpool and Arsenal have relativley easy games.

The groups in full:

EPL: Gameweek 3 analysis

gameweek 3 pics

Another terrific gameweek came to an end yesterday night with the match opposing Liverpool to Aston Villa at Anfield Road.

Coming to yesterday’s match first, it was quite a surprise to see the Reds fall on their home ground against a ‘Villains’ team which had a very slow start this season. Added to this defeat a crushing scoreline, 1-3 in Villa’s favor, and Liverpool’s first home defeat since 2007 when United beat them from a Tevez goal. Liverpool looked rather shaky, even though Aston Villa were not scintillating as well, but they did the job and got the 3 points. First goal came on 34 minutes, a Lucas own-goal to give the Villains the lead. Davis then made it 0-2 on 45 minutes. In the second half, Torres managed to grab one for Liverpool on 72nd minute, but 3 minutes later, Reo-Coker was brought down by Captain Stevie, and Young converted calmly, 1-3 full time, Villa’s first 3 points, and a nightmare for Rafa Benitez.

Wayne Rooney goes past century

rooney celebrates

Wayne Rooney has scored his 100th and 101th goal today against Wigan in a match which ended 5-0 in the Red Devils favor.

Rooney was the catalyst in the second half as he scored the opener and gave United more confidence moving forward after a rather dull first half, where Fletcher and Scholes both failed to convert wonderful chances in the opening minutes of the game.

His first goal for United came in 2004 in the Champions League against Fenerbahce and his stats so far are as follows:

Year                  Goals      Appearances
2o04-2005        17            43

2005-2006       19             48

2006-2007      23             55

2007-2008      18              43

2008-2009      20             49

2009-2010      4                 4 (incl community shield)

More goals will surely be added to these 101 and hope he turns on the style as well in the coming matches to grab the “golden boots” at the end of the season, long way though to reach there

More on WDKF (my post) and Katie’s post.

Gameweek 3 analysis will be on Tuesday (after Liverpool-Aston Villa match on Monday night).

EPL: gameweek 2 analysis

gameweek2 pics

Games for the second gameweek of the EPL took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, with 6 games played, with the exception of teams like Arsenal who were involved in the Champions League qualifiers, and Man City who were in a friendly against Barcelona.

Chelsea, Liverpool and Man Utd were all in action from the Big 4.

Chelsea were in action on Tuesday night against Sunderland. Although it was an away game for them, the Blues were not intimidated even though Bent opened the scoring for the hosts on 18th minute. Chelsea kept pecking away and were rewarded in the second half with a 52nd minute goal from Ballack. Lampard then gave them the lead on 61 minutes from a penalty, and eventually Deco scored the 3rd 9 minutes later.

The same day another match took place, where newly promoted Wolves defeated Wigan once again in an away match, the only scorer being Keogh on 6 minutes.

English Premier League 2009-2010: Week 1 analysis

EPL Week 1 pics

The EPL resumed its rights since yesterday, with Chelsea giving the kickoff of this new 2009-2010 season against Hull, and the first gameweek ended today with the game opposing Tottenham to Liverpool. This season seems to be a more interesting one as things liven up as from the first day of the league.

United lose Community Shield

Kalou's winning penalty

Alas it seems United are not lucky in the penalty shootouts. After losing to Everton in last season’s FA Cup Semi Final, two weeks ago to Bayern Munich in the Audi Cup friendly tournament, today they could do nothing against a determined Chelsea side.

United started brightly though, with Nani opening the scoring on 10 minutes with a 25-yard drive, but then Cech made some saves to keep Chelsea in the game, and eventually Chelsea gained the upper hand, and as the first half lasted, they were looking more dangerous. 1-0 half time, at the restart United created one chance, but drifted away yet again, and this time they were punished by Carvalho on 52 minutes, when Foster only flapped a Malouda cross to the Chelsea defender who headed home. Lampard then gave Chelsea the lead on 70 minutes when his shot was once again parried timidly by Foster on the post, and behind the goal line, though this goal is surrounded by controversy, since Ballack had elbowed Evra before the build up, and the latter remained on the ground injured, with referee Foy not stopping play for a foul, while United players just switched off. Rooney managed to equalize in injury time, though he seemed offside, but the goal stood, sending the game to penalties. Lampard, Ballack, Drogba and Kalou scored for Chelsea, while only Carrick managed to score for United. 4-1 the game ended after penalties, with Chelsea deserving the win, as they were superior to United throughout the game.

May be some bad news for United, as Nani got injured in the shoulder, and may be out for some days if the injury is serious. Foster however has not convinced in goal, he looked nervous, failed to clear some back passes cleanly, and shows more work is needed if he wants to replace Van Der Sar as number 1.

Beware of Koobface worm

This post is a reminder for those who use Facebook regularly and other social networking sites like Hi5, Twitter etc, about the dangerous worm Koobface.

Koobface is an anagram for Facebook (face and book change order, koob being the reverse of book). Koobface spreads by delivering Facebook messages to people that are friends of someone whose computer has already been infected. Most messages generated by Koobface contain some texts followed by a link, which when clicked upon directs the user to contaminated websites.

Koobface ultimately upon successful infection to a pc, tries to gather information about the user, like credit card numbers, passwords etc.

Currently only Windows OS are being affected by this worm.

Some useful info on how to  to avoid Koobface can be found on About.com

Man Utd beat Valencia in friendly

Valencia-Fletcher-Rooney

Wayne Rooney and Tom Cleverley were on target in the second half as United won the last friendly game, opposing them to Valencia, at Old Trafford last night. It was also the first time Rooney and Owen were paired together in United colors, but the latter failed to convert the opportunities he had, which would have given him 4 goals in the match.

However United had an impressive run, and winger Antonio Valencia (not to confuse with team Valencia ) impressed as well as he was involved in both goals for United.

A more difficult test is now awaiting United on Sunday, where they will face Chelsea for the Community Shield. One note here is that Van Der Sar is out for 8 weeks after having a hand operation, and it will be either Foster (played last night) or Kuszczak in goal till the end of September.