English Premiership For Naija Fans

Torres Off To Chelsea? Good Or Bad News.

2011-01-31T21:24:00.001+01:00

This comes as a welcome news in a relatively quiet transfer window. My reasons being (a) the money involved (b) the player involved (c) the clubs involved

Taking (a) the money is a whole lot and for the fact that it’s being spent on a player whose form in recent years has been far from best. The kind of players who have commanded that kind of transfer fee in the past have been the ones who could take on the opposition single handedly and/or in blistering form before their transfer. Torres, in my opinion, is not any of those. For a club like Chelsea who have just paid £20m for Ramires, pouring £50m on another player should require a little more caution. There are better ways to spend £50m.

(i) Outbid Liverpool for Suarez. £25m

(ii) Man City would gladly accept this for an unwanted Adebayor. £15m

So that means two hardworking strikers plus £10m to pay their wages for the next five years. David Villa cost Barcelona £35m.

For (b) Fernando Torres has not lived up to the hype that preceded his entry into the Premiership and except Abramovich has placed a bet on signing Torres, the Chelsea backroom staff have a lot of explaining to do. Every striker in the Chelsea squad is very mobile and as fit. Strikers who came in lacking that quality were thrown through the transfer window as soon as it opened (Shevchenko, Pizarro). Torres as at the World Cup in South Africa and would have had the same stats if he hadn’t been there at all. Ego might be another thing as Torres has been more celebrated and decorated during his time at Liverpool than Drogba who, by my standards, has been a better player in every department. He would definitely not rise above Drogba in Chelsea but if his work rate and goal rate becomes any less than the likes of Kalou, Anelka (if he’s lucky not to be part of the deal) and Sturridge then questions will be asked because Torres will always be played to justify his £50m and if Chelsea don’t make it through to the next round of the FA Cup every match will be as important as the next; starving the like of Kalou the much needed playing time. People remind me of his brace against Chelsea and that it should justify his price tag. If for that reason, I think Robin ‘I love my physio’ van Persie and Louis ‘I only score against big teams’ Saha might as well earn that kind of money for their clubs.

For (c) both Chelsea and Liverpool have had something in common recently and that’s their poor form. Liverpool, before their win against Wolves, had not won an away game since last October against Bolton and we all know the Chelsea story. Liverpool are out of both domestic cups and they are closer to relegation than they are to the title, so this might justify the sale of their best forward and half of their ‘two man’ team. They simply have nothing to fight for anymore this season and if they bring in Suarez or Andy Carroll, they have a good enough squad to stay in the top flight. Chelsea, on the other hand, have signaled their intent to defend the title. With the chance of taking six points off their biggest threat, Manchester United, a desperate move might be welcome. They still have some really big games against the likes of other direct rivals like Man City and Tottenham so a big buy should ease off some pressure. The problem is, I think Chelsea need to strengthen other areas than the attack. The midfield and defence should have been given more priority as they’ve had more injuries in these positions recently. Lampard and Essien still look like they’re gaining match fitness while Ramires plays like he’s allergic to a blue shirt and has to take pills to suppress it. The defence is no better recent injuries to the likes of Terry and Alex has caused a redeployment of positions in the whole defence line and Terry doesn’t look to be back at his best yet

The fair play rule by Uefa for financial reasons might mean Chelsea would not be too active in the transfer market in coming seasons and Torres wages would not do Chelsea, who already boast of the highest wage bill in the Premiership, any good. The good news is, for the first time this January, we are seeing an actual transfer (save me the Dzeko, Adebayor speech). A preview of tomorrow’s matches comes in the morning. See you at the comments. Keep keeping it Naija!!!

FA Cup Fifth Round Fixtures

2011-01-30T21:53:00.001+01:00

West Ham v Burnley

Notts County/Manchester City v Aston Villa

Stoke City v Brighton

Birmingham City v Sheffield Wednesday

Leyton Orient v Arsenal

Everton/Chelsea v Reading

Manchester United v Crawley Town

Fulham v Bolton/Wigan

Wolves 0-3 Liverpool Highlights

2011-01-25T06:31:00.001+01:00

วูล์ฟ 0-3 ลิเวอร์พูล 22-01-11
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Arsenal 3-0 Wigan Highlights

2011-01-25T06:28:00.001+01:00

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Manchester United 5-0 Birmingham City Hightlights

2011-01-25T06:24:00.001+01:00

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A Tale Of Two Hatricks From A Weekend Full Of Goals

2011-01-25T06:10:00.001+01:00

Well I might want to start with the case of comments against a female assistant referee which has caused two Sky Sports analysts at least a week’s pay but on this side of the map, we ain’t cut out for those kinds of stories so I’ll skip but if you still wanna read; help yourself here.

If you missed the premiership this weekend, you definitely missed a lot (except you are a fan of any of the City’s namely Stoke, Manchester, Birmingham). It’s been a long time I saw two hatricks in one day (specifically 90 minutes) and adding Liverpool’s first away win in decades and Chelsea’s first premiership away trouncing in the new millennium there might be more records to be broken most notably an unbeaten season from ever impressive Manchester United.

Man Utd 5-0 Birmingham

Now truth be told, this is the best team so far this season and no matter what happens (except Arsenal sign Messi and win all four trophies) it will remain come the end of the season. What scares you is that they are not even at their best yet. Save me the crap of them playing easier fixtures than their rivals. They’ve beaten Arsenal and Liverpool already and played Tottenham home and away so what could be tougher. It would be too unfair to blame their success on whoever made the timetable ( sorry, fixtures). “Berbatov is too lazy”, some United fans say but I’d rather have a laid back, hatrick scoring Berbatov than a high work rate, blanks firing Sturridge. Berbatov is class and though he isn’t that close to Ronaldo the only thing I see missing is the exaggerated ‘leg overs’, dives and the Usain Bolt wannabe athletism.

Berbatov gets you goals without trying which arguably no other striker in the league can do so hats off to the current highest goal scorer. He is beginning to justify his expensive transfer fee from Spurs. Rooney might just need to read that part in the bible which says,’It’s not by might …’, but in all fairness he (Rooney) has been a wonderful lad. He’s done everything else but score. High work rate, great vision, pace, name it; he has all and we might not have to wait long before we start to see his name on the score sheet which might start tonight against Blackpool. Birmingham on the other hand were …

Arsenal 3-0 Wigan Athletic

Now when you see a scoreline like this, you imagine how many chances Arsenal threw away by trying to pass, sorry I mean walk ,the ball into the net but this wasn’t the case. Wigan had only one man on the field, unfortunately he was wearing gloves. I’ve never really known Al Habsi from his days as deputy to Jussi Jaaskelainen at Bolton but his performances showed exactly how only a goalkeeper of Jaaskelainen’s quality could keep him on the bench. Some of his saves bordered on ‘spiritual’. Wigan was appalling and when the stats showed that only 9% of football was played on Arsenal third you just can’t help but praise the goalkeeper from Oman. I give him this tribute by spelling his name in Arabic:علي بن عبد الله بن حارب الحبسي . Arsenal gave a good account of themselves keeping pressure on Manchester United with a fabulous display. Robin van Persie’s hatrick suggests his never ending injuries might be the reason the Emirates has never felt a trophy save the Emirates cup (who cares?). He was almost unplayable and could even afford to lose a penalty. Everybody else played very well: Nasri did his usual magic, Fabregas orchestrating as usual, Walcott running off the field at times, Song threatening anyone who dared touch the ball. The Arsenal defence was untested throughout. Szchezsny wouldn’t have played any better or worse were he on the stands. The good thing the Gunners bring is that we still have another team challenging the Red Devils which otherwise would have made the league boring at this stage. Well, van Persie can’t stay fit till the end of the season which means Arsenal can’t stay winning too (except by a miracle) so I still expect Man Utd to take home the title.

In other matches Liverpool beat Wolves away from home 3-0 which doesn’t come often in this post-Benitez era. The Chelsea match ended a few hours ago with Chelsea hammering Bolton 4-0 at the Reebok Stadium. Didier Drogba’s strike for the first reminded us of what Chelsea used to be. If they keep up with this form, Manchester United would wish they had played that earlier postponed game.

Manchester City show once again that they are pretenders and I ‘m tempted to say over-pretenders, having played more games than all those around them they find themselves in 3rd place after losing 1-0 to Darren Bent (I meant to say Aston Villa). The man who has justified his £20m price by scoring a debut goal (very funny). Tottenham could only draw and that’s all for the weekend.

Up next Blackpool take on Manchester in the premiership and Arsenal welcome Ipswich to the Emirates in the Carling Cup. I guess that might force me to write something which I otherwise would not have done.

Latest Transfer News And Gossips

2011-01-17T23:29:00.001+01:00

Everton have also accepted a fee for Steven Pienaar from Tottenham after accepting a previous one from Chelsea; it’s said to be in the region of £2.5m and £3m from both clubs respectively. This shows they have lost any ambition of Europe this season after chasing Aiyegbeni down to the lower league earlier (heard he just got to Leicester an hour ago). I think Everton are the only team about to sell their best player to two ‘direct’ rivals. Pienaar on the other seems to have only seen London on paper except inside the stadia where his team is always being spanked. Good luck to the African brother on whichever side of London he finds himself.

The question now is,”Will he choose Chelsea over Tottenham?”, the truth is that I don’t think so. If he preferred Chelsea, the deal would have been long done before the new offer from Tottenham came and I also don’t he would want to wear another blue jersey especially for a team that has been on the way down recently.

Well Arsenal is about to make a £4.5m bid for Philippe Mexes. Now we both know that is a rumour or gossip or whatever you might want to call it. If it’s a name you know then Arsenal would only buy if they’ve sacked Wenger (except for Arshavin though) but I checked Goal.com and they always have that kind of news five years before it happens so I’ll chalk that off, they are still in search of a defender; one whose name we never knew. The story putting Arsenal on the headlines is about a 17 year old Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from Southampton who has a £10m price tag. The ‘17 year old’ part, I believe; but the ‘£10m’ price tag, that happens to be a lot of money from a very rich club (probably the biggest irony of the century).

Still more news from London as Sampdoria targets Fulham’s Diomansy Kamara. Chelsea are also making a bid for Udinese’s Sanchez as Fiorentina eyes West Ham’s Behrami. Now I didn’t want to write this but rumour has it that Aston Villa want Darren Bent for £24m. Well, let me warn you, this transfer window could get worse. Have a lovely day and keep keeping it Naija.

Technorati Tags: Transfers,Premiership,Everton,Chelsea,Pienaar,Chamberlain,Bent,Tottenham,Arsenal,Southampton,Nigeria,Naija

Tottenham 0-0 Manchester United Highlights

2011-01-17T08:17:00.001+01:00

Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester United
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Chelsea Vs Blackburn Highlights

2011-01-17T07:57:00.001+01:00

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Chelsea 2-0 Blackburn

West Ham Vs Arsenal Highlights

2011-01-17T07:23:00.001+01:00

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Carling Cup Returns

2011-01-11T21:25:00.001+01:00

Follow the livescores of the Carling Cup. West Ham Vs Birmingham Tonight. Like last season, I thought this season’s semi final would be an all premiership affair but a club that just lost its manager and 7-0 to premiership champions Chelsea are still in the race. Though they have the toughest opposition in Arsenal over a two legged encounter it would be wrong to write Ipswich off just yet especially when they still have 24 hours to improve their strategy. Arsenal on the other hand have a lot to prove as they are just fresh from the disappointing 1-1 draw with Leeds in the FA cup . The Gunners have always been a team to blow hot and cold every season so Ipswich might just be praying for the latter as that would be their only hope for an appearance in Wembley this season.

On to tonight’s game, West Ham take on Birmingham at the Craven Cottage in the first Carling Cup semi final of the season. West Ham will be playing a match that would be their only hope for a trophy this season and would also be praying to exhibit the trophy on their cabinet next season in the premiership and not the championship. West Ham’s season has been one not to be envied (except by a team like Wolves) and when an angry show by our own Obinna Nsofor for being substituted after a good performance at the FA Cup during the encouraging 2-0 win over Barnsley, things might not be looking too good for the Hammers who host a relatively better Birmingham City tonight. Anything less than a home win would not be enough and would only increase the pressure on Avram Grant who is so close to a sack he can almost taste it.

Both teams have a chance to win it and, if they go through, will only have Arsenal to contend with except Ipswich performs a miracle. They are both still in the FA Cup too with their next round of fixtures against teams of lower divisions with Birmingham taking on Coventry City at home and also a home fixture for West Ham against Nottingham Forest but having in mind that the likes of Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City and even Arsenal are still in the competition the Carling Cup will be their best bet. Highlights would be available after the match.

That would be all for the Carling Cup now, Yans From The Paper Stands comes tomorrow and of course their will be a round up of the transfer window which has been boring by my standards. Till then, keep keeping it Naija. See you at the comments.

Technorati Tags: naija,premiership,West ham,Birmingham,carling cup,Ipswich,paper stands,nigeria

Yans From The Paper Stands

2011-01-10T08:46:00.001+01:00

Where Nigerian Fan Make Their News

“Howard Webb wore a Man Utd jersey, they showed it on the news yesterday”, he said in yoruba.

Well, before I continue, this is the maiden article from this column. For those of us who have to go to work every morning and see a group of bystanders at the paper stands (guess that’s where it got it’s name from). You may wonder some people could be so jobless on a morning but the football part of you would definitely want to join them but you have to pay bills so you can’t and you wonder how they pay their own bills. Also for those of us who are tired of listening to experts talk about football; I believe the game is already played by experts so we don’t experts telling us what happened because we are not blind and we watch through the same screens. Well, I guess that’s enough of an introduction, let’s go straight to the stands.

“Howard Webb wore a Man Utd jersey, they showed it on the news yesterday”, he said in yoruba. Now I know he wore a Man Utd jersey but only on an edited picture on Ryan Babel’s twitter account but with the way everybody looked shocked at this revelation shows this news might spread a long way in some parts of the country. You want to wonder how people who spend their mornings with news are so uninformed. Ryan Babel might need all these people in the witness box when (or if) he stands before the FA explaining how he got the picture. I couldn’t help the people there because I was only there to listen and that’s exactly what I did though it won’t help the already ‘PDPed’ Man Utd image, it causes more excitement and that’s what the game is about.

“Ha!!! Na Spanish league players full for this awards”, said someone else in reaction to the awards scheduled for later today. I don’t think there were any premiership fans there to defend the league or the ones present simply conceded to his statement; the quietness that followed suggested they were present but just plain quiet. “Ronaldo score three goals yesterday, the way him turn for the third goal show sey him no dey chop akpu”, said another. I haven’t seen the goal so I guess those you who have might judge him correctly because those of you (or us) who do eat akpu would never be able to turn that way.

Well, that’s all I could get this morning from your people because I had to catch the bus and of course pay my bills too. Yans From The Stands will keep you posted with the news from fans like you. Have a great start to the week. See you at the comments.

FA Cup Fourth Round Draw

2011-01-09T23:38:00.001+01:00

Torquay United v Crawley Town/Derby County
Watford v Brighton & Hove Albion
Bolton Wanderers v Wigan Athletic
Arsenal/Leeds United v Huddersfield Town
Fulham v Tottenham Hotspur
Everton v Chelsea
Southampton v Manchester United
Swansea City v Leyton Orient
Burnley v Burton Albion
Birmingham City v Coventry City
Doncaster Rovers/Wolverhampton Wanderers v Stoke City/Cardiff City
Notts County v Leicester/Manchester City
Stevenage Borough v Reading
Aston Villa v Blackburn Rovers
West Ham United v Nottingham Forest
Sheffield Wednesday v Wycombe Wanderers/Hereford United

Chelsea Vs Ipswich Match Highlights

2011-01-09T23:09:00.001+01:00

Chelsea 7-0 Ipswich

Man Utd Vs Liverpool Highlights

2011-01-09T22:53:00.001+01:00

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Arsenal Vs Leeds Highlights

2011-01-09T01:31:00.001+01:00

Arsenal 1-1 Leeds

FA Cup Round Up

2011-01-09T01:24:00.001+01:00

Hull, Everton, Newcastle, West Brom, out while Arsenal hang on

Well the joy of the FA Cup like every other knockout competition is the ‘rare’ occurrence of the smaller teams beating the supposed bigger ones. I called the rest of the fixtures ‘just fixtures’ yesterday and they proved me wrong. All I know about Stevenage is on Wikipedia yet they beat Newcastle. It seems Chris Hughton wasn’t their only problem after all. Reading beating West Brom didn’t come as much of a surprise cos it could have gone either way.

Stevenage beating Newcastle wouldn’t have been news had Leeds overcome Arsenal at the Emirates. What I thought would be a walkover for the Gunners became a hill which they are yet to overcome. A replay at Elland Road against former giants and current giant killers Leeds United would be the deciding factor. I definitely would not be putting my money on who would go through eventually. Theo Walcott has apologized on his earlier claims for a penalty, it (the penalty) wasn’t given so I wonder what he is trying to prove. If he is doing this so penalty decisions could go his way in the future then good luck to him. If he is trying to become a role model figure for younger footballers I wish him more luck. In the end he got a legitimate penalty which if allowed I think his effort would still

have been saved by Kasper Schmeichel.

Well, that’s all for now, today we expect the big match Manchester United vs Liverpool. Steven Gerrard would be breathing a sigh of relief because the clueless Roy Hodgson would not be in the stadium. He lost his job to Kenny Dalglish who would be in charge of the team till the end of the season. Of course the last sentence is full of clauses which were not public but we wish Mr Dalglish all the luck he’ll need pulling a rolling car uphill. The highlights for yesterday’s matches come in straight away.

The FA Cup returns today

2011-01-08T02:31:00.002+01:00

Chelsea might not go through and Manchester United have the easiest fixture.

Exactly a year ago Chelsea were favourites to win the FA Cup and funny enough they did. Well after a year the story isn’t the same any more.

With just 3 wins in their last 13 games in all competitions you definitely would not be putting your bet on them even if they will be playing a championship side at home. Ipswich manager Roy Keane before his (not too surprising) sack decided to watch the Arsenal match even though his team would be playing Chelsea a lot earlier. His choice didn’t matter at the end as he would not be on the bench when both teams play tomorrow. His opposite number (if he had kept his job) though is very lucky to still be on the Chelsea payroll. Now you might want to wonder what Ray Wilkins did wrong; it couldn’t have been worse than what Carlo Ancelotti is doing now. Well, I don’t think they’ll win Ipswich if they couldn’t beat 20th position Wolverhampton Wanderers a few days ago and of course cup duties would make any manger in this league rotate his team leaving the likes of Bruma, van Aanholt and Kakuta at the mercy of Ipswich. Fortunately, it gives the likes of Drogba and Lampard a break from the consecutive poor outings of late. The best Chelsea could take from this game is a replay at Ipswich which they would likely lose and coupled with the fact that it only adds more matches and fatigue for the players it might mean less harm than good for them to lose and give their best to what’s left of their title hopes.

Away from the champions and the championship strugglers, the big match tomorrow is at the Theatre Of Dreams. Roy Hodgson has called on his team to up their game and knock out Manchester United, the spot on favourites for this year’s Premiership; you can’t blame them for dreaming, blame those who named the stadium.

Liverpool would only win if it was a head butting match but it isn’t so they’ll need more than Gerrard’s head, dreams and Roy Hodgson (I bet they don’t need him) to win at Old Trafford but upsets do happen. Liverpool have not won away from home in all competitions since the 31st of October, 2010 against Bolton and that was about their only away victory apart from Europa League Qualifiers so a change of luck would be very unlikely against an in form Manchester United.
Away from a team that can pull a win under any circumstances playing against a team who would find the slightest opportunity to lose a match the other fixtures are just what they are – fixtures. Leeds travel to Arsenal to repeat what they did last season knocking out Manchester United in the 3rd round. I guess that can only happen in the theatre of dreams. Leeds good run in their league went the other way after their famous victory over the Red Devils and it took a miracle to get promoted. They find themselves in the same position now and they would prefer a promotion to beating Arsenal later today. They should learn from Ipswich who are in the Carling Cup Semi Final and still sacked their manager. For the other fixtures, Tottenham host Charlton, Manchester City travel to Leicester City, Bolton plays York, Hull welcomes Wigan blah blah blah.
I dreamt that after Man City signed Edin Dzeko, he scored 15 goals on his debut against Leicester City. Forgive my obsession on the lad but he scares the s**t out of me and the only reason my dreams would not come true is because he can’t play against Leicester City due to unfinished paperwork, 66 goals in 111 matches is a lot worse than you can ever imagine and don’t give the excuse that it was in the Bundesliga. This guy will make Balotelli regret why he left Inter Milan.
That’s all for the day, Quotes From The Stands has been renamed to be Yans From The Paper Stands before its maiden post. This is supposed to be blog for Nigerians so we must feel the Naija flavour. You will get to see that later today. You shouldn’t miss the matches today and if you do, I will be bringing you all the highlights right on this blog. Have a great day and keep being NAIJA.

Premiership Highlights

2011-01-07T06:21:00.001+01:00

On a night when Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Tottenham play, you don’t expect the only winners to be Wolves,

Everton, Blackburn, Newcastle and Sunderland. Well, that was exactly how the night played out. PremiershipNaija brings you all the action in high definition.

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Wolves 1-0 Chelsea

Arsenal 0-0 Manchester City

Blackburn Rovers v Liverpool
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Blackburn 3-1 Liverpool

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Newcastle 5-0 Westham

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Everton 2-1 Tottenham

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Aston Villa 0-1 Sunderland

I’ll be posting Quotes From The Stands later today. See you all at the comments.

PremiershipNaija.blogspot.com Launches

2011-01-07T04:49:00.001+01:00

Well for those who might be wondering where to get a site that covers the premiership like an average Nigerian would want, you don't have to wait much longer.

PremiershipNaija.blogspot.com which would soon evolve into PremiershipNaija.com (sorry for the delay, no thanks to the pain of waiting for my domiciliary account) will bring you the latest of premiership news as it happens plus a lot of extras you won't get to have on many other footballing sites. I can promise you that if you are a Nigerian, this is the site to be. There will be videos of match highlights after they are played, fixtures and results will also be available, chat between fans will be enabled and you can pledge your support to whichever team you support. There will also be newsfeed by the minute to keep you in touch with the premiership. With all said, let’s start the business of bringing you football from where it’s best played. The big one from the site will definitely be Quotes from the Stands which brings whatever is being said at the paper stands on Nigerian streets to you.

Blackburn Rovers v Liverpool
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Blackburn 3-1 Liverpool

It’s no news that the quartet of Avram Grant, Gerard Houllier, Roy Hodgson and Carlo Ancelotti might be heading for the exit if they don’t change their results over the previous matches in the forthcoming ones as the video above suggests. No premiership this weekend as the FA Cup takes centre stage and the match worth watching will of course be Manchester United Vs Liverpool.

On the injury front, the latest men to go down that road are two Man Utd loanees Cleverly and Welbeck. We hope they recover as we expect Edin Dzeko’s arrival into the premiership. Thanks for being part of the first post of a truly Nigerian weblog. See you at the comments and tomorrow.