A Bit of Everything

I was a more dedicated football fan this weekend, basically following every single match, mostly from each first kick to each final whistle. On Saturday, only Oxford played so starting at 10, I followed the match tracker as well as an Oxford United forum just to get other fan’s reaction. On Sunday, I began five hours of football right at 7 am. I first followed the Celtic-Rangers Glasgow Scottish Premier League, then Nurnberg’s match against Stuttgart, and finished with Newcastle’s fixture against West Bromwich Albion. I found live streams of all of these and spent a nice Sunday morning on the couch in front of my laptop. I watched the Celtic-Rangers match through the end, joined the Nurnberg match roughly 20 minutes in, watched that through to the end, and lastly joined Newcastle’s match around the 35^th minute, following that until the final whistle.

I should’ve expected that on a weekend that Celtic and Rangers battled it out in the Scottish Premier League – a game that is always full of drama – that the matches of my three teams would be all over the board results wise. More on the Glasgow derby in a “bonus feature” separate post, but here’s the review of how Oxford, Nurnberg, and Newcastle did in their matches:

Oxford United vs. Cheltenham Town – As I mentioned, I followed the match tracker and the Oxford United forum to follow this match, but sadly there wasn’t much to follow. This match would go down with only a few decent shots taken, but none finding their way past the goalkeepers of either side. Both Oxford and Cheltenham were looking to come out of this match with a win, but they instead would each both settle with the second best result, a draw. I very much would’ve liked to see the Yellows get the win and move up in the promotion playoff standings. However, a loss would’ve been worse. I give full credit to Oxford goalkeeper Ryan Clarke for keeping Cheltenham out of net and keeping the result at worst as the draw.

The draw of course keeps Oxford yet again in 7^th place. While, didn’t lose any ground to Cheltenham in 6^th place (still three points behind), they did lose a bit of a buffer in points to Crewe in 8^th place who are now just a single point behind. Oxford however have one more match to play compared to both of those teams however. That match comes which comes tomorrow against Accrington Stanley, will hopefully end up as a win for Oxford, putting them in better points standing.

FC Nurnberg vs. Stuttgart – Nurnberg looked much better in this match compared to their last two losses against Mainz and Wolfsburg. They were getting most of the ball and were taking shots. Unfortunately, most of those shots were wayward and off the mark. They took a good deal of shots with seventeen, but only three of those were on target. Stuttgart took fewer shots than Der Club, but took enough with Nurnberg’s poor shooting. Stuttgart’s leading striker Cacau scored in the 78^th, which would be all they needed to take the win over Nurnberg.

With the narrow loss, Nurnberg slid down another spot to 11^th. They are now just four positions and just four points away from the relegation playoff position in 16^th. Things unfortunately won’t be getting any easier anytime soon either as high scoring Bayern Munich come into town this weekend.

Newcastle vs. West Bromwich Albion – As I mentioned earlier, I came into the game at about the 35^th minute, but I know it was actually a bit before that as I watched Cisse score for Newcastle in the 34^th. That goal put the Toon up 3-0 after a 6^th minute Cisse goal to begin the scoring, followed by a Ben Arfa goal in the 12^th. West Brom would get one goal back just after the second half began to make it 3-1, but that’s as close as things got. Newcastle would hold things at that and the comfortable 3-1 victory.

Even with the win Newcastle still sit in 6^th. (Apparently my English teams don’t move much in their respective league tables.) The Toon have caught up quite well in points to 5^th place Chelsea however. They are now even with them in points, but sit behind them in standing as they are 13 goals behind in goal differential.