Okay Soccer Fans…..lets get caught up on the week of soccer in the English Premier League. Week 18 was just completed so we are almost at the half way point of the season. Things at the top are not changing much as the current Top 4 are:
League Standings
Manchester City 17-1-0 52 Points. 18 games without a loss and only 1 draw. 52 of 54 points. On pace to set a record for points.
Manchester United 13-2-3 41 Points.
Chelsea 12-2-4 38 Points.
Liverpool 9-7-2 34 Points.
Top 4 is a big deal. If you don’t win but finish in the Top 4 you qualify for the UEFA Champions League. Champions League is big money. Teams stuff their pockets with cash when they play in Champions League. Top players want to play and win Champions League to fill out their resumes and earn big money contracts.
The bottom 3 is a title race all unto itself. You DO NOT want to finish in the bottom 3 and get relegated down to the Championship Division. Lost revenue, lost sponsor money, lost TV money, Club revenues drop significantly and players tend to jump ship. Teams really fight much harder to stay out of the relegation zone than they do to win the League. Coaches get fired, regularly, if a team is in the relegation zone. Its happened a few times this year already!
Here is the race for the bottom 4.
Stoke City 4-4-10 16 Points.
Newcastle United 4-3-11 15 Points.
West Bromich Albion 2-8-8 14 Points.
Swansea City 3-3-12 12 Points.
So you can see…the race to stay out of the bottom 3 is much tighter than the race to win the league. I am telling you…these games for these 4 teams are much more tense than you can imagine. The pressure to win, to earn just a tie and 1 point is epic. When they play each other, it is like a serious playoff game.
Here is the full table of results for all 20 teams.
Week 18 Results
Chelsea 1 Southampton 0
Crystal Palace 3 Leicester City 0
Huddersfield Township 4 Watford 1
Brighton 0 Burnley 0
Arsenal 1 Newcastle United 0
West Ham United 3 Stoke City 0
Manchester City 4 Tottenham Hotspur 1
Manchester United 2 West Bromich Albion 1
Liverpool 4 Bournemouth 0
Everton 3 Swansea City 1
Lets get to some Highlights
Game of the Week: Manchester City vs. Tottenham Hotspur. This should have been a great game. #1 vs. #7. Big players for both teams. Could Tottenham put some pressure on Man City and record their first loss of the season. Well….a big No to that one. Manchester City continued their unbeaten romp thru the Premier League and destroyed Tottenham. It could have been much worse than 4-1…they left a few goals out there…although I am not sure how the first Raheem Sterling goal was not offsides.
Goal of the Week: Marcos Alonso from Chelsea vs. Southampton. Of course I picked a Chelsea player….but hey…its my blog! So for the novice soccer fan, take a close look here. See how Chelsea sets up two players to potentially take the kick. A right footed player and a left footed player. Southampton sets up their wall and once Chelsea sees the wall is more set up to defend a right footed kick from Willian, they switch off and have Marcos Alonso take the kick. He actually bends the kick around the wall…not over the wall. The keeper is set up further right to defend Willian and he gets surprised by the Alonso kick. Still…what a free kick. Amazing.
Ted Lasso Strikes Again. If you follow the blog you will remember a video I posted featuring Ted Lasso, an American football coach taking over Tottenham Hotspur. Here is the second video in the series. More fun stuff that I think you will enjoy.
Working on some Indoor League ideas..Stay Tuned.