My day to day life has been consuming my time a good bit, but did want to stick my head in for a few moments and address some recent events in the world’s most popular sport.
I’ve been putting this post together in my head for weeks and one of the points I was about to make was that being an Arsenal fan was going to be tough this year. Now I’m not so sure. Clearly, RobinVan Persie is going to have to be healthy; he’s scored half of their goals in league play this year.
I was also wondering if Arsene Wenger’s skill at picking players and nurturing their talent was waning. Thierry Henry’s career took off under Wenger. Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri were inspired signings, Aaron Ramsey is progressing wonderfully and Jack Wilshire will be a terrific asset when he returns from injury. Yet Marouane Chamakh has been a major disappointment, Nicklas Bendtner is out on loan to Sunderland and I doubt if he will be on the team next year, I last saw Sébastien Squalacci on a milk carton and Andrei Arshavin, is to be charitable, very inconsistent.
The English game is a lot different, isn’t it Andre Villas-Boas? You might want to bolster that midfield a bit and get some help on the back line.
This has got to be one of the strangest Champions League Group stages I can remember: Manchester City may not move on, while a Cypriot team is leading a group with FC Porto and Shakhtar Donetsk, both of which may be eliminated.
I have a good friend originally from Turin who pulls for Inter Milan. He’s had a tough year. How tough? He’s more optimistic about the Italian National Team in Euro 2012 than he is about Inter. Hang in there, Massimo.
Wayne Rooney’s temper got the best of him in a Euro 2012 qualifier against Montenegro and he received a red card and three game suspension. This has given Fabio Capello, the England coach a tough decision to make: put Rooney on the squad even if he won’t be available for the group stage or find someone else.
Manchester United may have beaten Everton on Saturday, but what I saw failed to impress me, at least defensively. I do not see what Alex Ferguson sees in Jonny Evans. I really don’t.
A bit of fixture congestion is building up for FC Barcelona. The current schedule has them facing Real Madrid on December 10 and appearing in the semifinals of the FIFA Club World Cup on December 15 (the CONMEBOL and UEFA Champions enter the competition at that stage) in Japan. I’m not sure if that schedule will hold, but there’s not a lot of room to maneuver: their next team is currently scheduled for December 17, the day before the Club World Cup championship and third place games and then the Christmas break starts.