The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

First, a short report from the ESPN Premier League game -

Swansea City vs. Wolverhampton Wanderers – ESPN’s early Saturday morning Premier League fixture of Swansea vs. Wolverhampton, a game between two bottom half of the table teams, actually turned out to be quite decent. Swansea dominated the first half of the game, establishing a 2-0 lead at the half. That domination continued all the way until the 80^th minute. Just as some Wolves supporters were starting to leave to get to the car park early, Wolverhampton scored their first goal in the 84^th minute. That gave the team some hope and got the crowd back into it again. Then just two minutes later, Wolves got their second goal and went from losing to drawing in just two minutes time. Here, as well as in a later match, just goes to show how cruel and unpredictable the game of football can be.

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Now to Newcastle, Nurnberg, and Oxford (or “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”):

FC Nurnberg vs. Stuttgart – With all that action at the end of the ESPN match, I tuned into the Bundesliga radio for the Nurnberg / Stuttgart match after the opening kick but just in time for any important action. The stream finished loading in the 8^th minute and in the 9^th the commentator was yelling “Tor! Tor! FC Nurnberg!” Timmy Simons had scored a goal (or “tor” in German) and Nurnberg were up 1-0 early in a game against a good Stuttgart side. As I said last week, Nurnberg’s scoring has been problematic but the defense has been decent. With the early goal, Nurnberg now had a strong chance to win the match, just by holding on and holding off any Stuttgart offense. For a good while, it looked like that was exactly how it would play out.

Unfortunately a bad call in the second half changed the flow of the game. A blatant accidental handball in the box in the 59^th minute, has whistled as intentional and Stuttgart was given a penalty kick. Not that I could understand everything the commentators were saying in German, but they weren’t getting excited by the resulting call. It seemed like everyone knew it was a horrible decision by the referee. As much as I wanted Stephan to stop the resulting penalty kick, Stuttgart’s Kuzmanovic struck one hard and low into the right corner and there was nothing Nurnberg’s keeper could do (even if he would have guessed correctly and dove the right way).

Der Club would pull back ahead though in the 70^thminute. Nurnberg had a free kick that they set up for a set piece. It was a long free kick from defender Plattenhardt into the box, but it found his fellow defender Wollscheid perfectly for a header that just went past the Stuttgart keeper’s fingertips and into the goal.

Unfortunately though, Stuttgart would level. In the 83^rd minute, Stuttgart delivered a floating delivery in the box, it bounced around a bit (the second time this happened in the same amount of minutes) and Stuttgart’s Maza struck the cords with their second goal, their first legitimate one. Unfortunately, Nurnberg would not find the chances to get back ahead this time and the game ended as a 2-2 draw.

There was a slight scare towards the end though. In the 88^th minute, Stuttgart’s Harnik was chasing down a through ball into the box and slip spikes first into Nurnberg’s keeper Stephan. Stephan grabbed the ball but took the spikes in the knee and immediately through his hand up to signal for the medical staff. Luckily after he was treated he stayed in the game. Hopefully it wasn’t serious as he is actually Nurnberg’s second string keeper with their normal starter Schafer still out from a leg injury that happened earlier in the season.

Although it was a draw against a superior team, of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” that I titled this post with, this game is “The Bad.” Sure it was a decent result, but they should have won. Even taking the idiotic hand ball penalty goal out of the equation, Nurnberg should have held onto the lead and held off Stuttgart for the lead. Last week I remarked how the defense was good and their offense really struggles, so off course this week the team shows the exact opposite.

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Newcastle United vs. Wigan Athletic – Next up in line was Newcastle’s match against Wigan Athletic. I don’t really have a full report for this game as it really wasn’t that great. This was “The Good” of my three teams’ matches. It was that much at least. Newcastle just didn’t have that same spark that have had in their matches so far. They just weren’t doing as well as they should have been against a Wigan side that dwells in the bottom of the table. The defense was good as always but they just didn’t get that last good ball in the attacking third for a real goal threat. There were a few yellow cards shown during the match but the one highlight for me was the eventual lone goal of the match scored by Newcastle’s Cabaye. Scored in the 81^st minute, Cabaye drove a nice one-touch shot from the point of the 18 yard box. Not only was it a game winner, but it was also his first goal for Newcastle since joining this past summer.

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Oxford United vs. Gillingham – Now unfortunately for “The Ugly.” As much as I complain that I can only follow Oxford United matches on match trackers (or read match comments in club forums), I am actually glad that I wasn’t able to see or hear this live. Oxford United lined up against a Gillingham side that was most likely pretty even in form, but probably slight under. As far as the game action goes, I’ll just fast forward through most of the first half and tell you that Gillingham scored just before the whistle for half time. Their midfielder Montrose must have hit a scorcher too as the match tracker shows that it was a good distance from outside the 18 yard box.

The second half is where it got exciting…and depressing. Just four minutes into the half, one of Gillingham’s players picked up his second yellow card and was out of the game. The Yellows had an 11 to 10 player advantage now, so they had to draw even, or maybe even win, right? Oh football is a cruel, cruel game sometimes. Even with that advantage, Oxford just couldn’t find the goal. It wasn’t for a lack of shots – they would have 18 shots by the end – but it certainly was for a lack of aim. Gillingham even had a second man sent off with a red in the 88^th (ironically it was their scorer Montrose) but Oxford still couldn’t level. I guess a two man advantage doesn’t help when you can’t kick a ball at the goal.

The only good things to be taken from the match are that Oxford still holds the best defensive record for goals against this year. They also still are in the promotion zone in the table, just clinging on to 7^th place. With 24 teams in the league, it is a very tight race for promotion/relegation this year. Almost a third of the way into the season, the points spread from the bottom to the top of the standings is 8 – 31. The furthest any team is on points from the next closest position is 4 points – and that’s between the worst and second worst teams. Things will spread out as the season progresses, but Oxford cannot afford to have embarrassing losses like today’s on their record if they want to be promoted.