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The Full English: Hey Chelsea! Playing Stoke on the road is no joke
Things get silly on this most foolish of Fridays.
Apr 1, 2011 4:37:00 PM
By Shane Evans
Getty
It’s the return of the return of The Full English. Yes, it seems that with the season drawing painfully near its close, TFE has taken a number of breaks due to wackiness of the schedule. On again, off again kinda stuff.
We are officially in the midst of the title run-in and teams have precious little time to get themselves in the position they hoped they’d end up when the season started. Less than 10 matches to meet expectations, save your respective job and earn that big chunky bonus.
It is also April Fool’s Day. A day that is usually right up there on my list of favorite days of the year, after my birthday, the first day of the season and National Pancake Day. Priorities, people. With that in mind, I’ll try and keep today’s column in the believable and the serious as I know that some of my beloved readers don’t mess around when reading Goal.com’s most popular weekly feature. Frowny face.
We also have to consider that for some of the big teams playing this weekend (aka all of them), their matches are no laughing matter. Tricky opponents are waiting for Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City. We’ll cover two of those matches and sprinkle in one of my favorite fixtures for good measure.
Let us begin before I force myself into a cheesy unfunny joke.
The Bacon (as in Bringing It Home)
Stoke City vs. Chelsea (Britannia Stadium, April 2nd, 10:00 a.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel)
Earlier in the week, Goal.com ran a little piece about the toughest road trips teams take during the season. You know, those teams that no one wants to play against, even if their respective position in the table isn’t particularly impressive.
Stoke are one of these teams.
Always organized and physical, the Potters rarely give you much. According to Andy Gray, they’d give Barcelona a run for their money if the Blaugrana ever had a reason to travel to the Midlands (besides to play Leicester in my FIFA 11 manager mode fantasies).
Up this weekend for Tony Pulis and company is a resurgent Chelsea side who apparently want to be back in the title race. They’ve been dominant of late and really haven’t given many teams much of a chance. One could argue that the moves made during the January transfer window energized them. Well, one of them. We know who that was by now…
So what do Stoke have to do to take the grin off of the Blues’ faces on Saturday? Pretty simple really: frustrate them. Coincidentally, that’s what they’re good at. Swarming around the ball, being physical and interrupting the sometimes fluid movement of the visitors will be the name of the game.
Luckily for them, Chelsea currently boast the most frustrated man in the whole sport right now in Fernando Torres. The expensive Spaniard has failed to live up to his £50 million price that saw him come from Liverpool to the Bridge. With Didier Drogba making way, Torres simply has to start produce, especially when you consider the impact Drogba has when he has come in lately. Been lethal. Wait, he’s always pretty lethal. Would be a shame if he leaves in the summer as the English game suits him perfectly.
You can expect to see Chelsea on the ball about 65% of the time in this match with constant pressure on the Stoke end. They’ll have to break down a very organized Stoke team that has been very tidy at home this season, picking up 27 points from 15 matches at the Britannia this year. Certainly worthy of another mid-table finish.
Chelsea, who are still technically alive in the title race simple cannot drop points in matches like this and will be pressing from the get in an effort to get goals on the board. It won’t be easy though, as I just discussed, but you really have to favor the Blues. They’ve been sound defensively and their movement up front has been much improved.
It’ll be chippy and tightly-contested but in the end, Mr. Carlo’s men prevail.
TFE Prediction: 1-0 could be a real possibility in this one. Maybe a fat Frank PK to win it.
Manchester City vs. Sunderland (Eastlands, April 3rd, 11:00 a.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel)
Sunderland’s ugly run of matches continues. It actually comes to an end this weekend with a trip to Manchester City. If you’ve been following along over the last two months or so, you’d have seen that they’ve had Chelsea, Stoke, Spurs, Everton, Arsenal and Liverpool all in a row. Now City. No easy task for any club.
Still surviving in 9th place, The Black Cats should expect a finish in or around that position by the time May comes around. Not a bad season for them considering this run and then losing their top goalscorer on very short notice. More on the team they lost him to laters…
Manchester City on the other hand are fresh off an ugly defeat at the hands of Chelsea and will want to get back on the wagon to keep up the pressure on the top four rivals with a win against Sunderland. They’ll also be out for a bit of revenge as the last time these two met back in August (wow, August was AGES ago), Sunderland came away 1-0 winners at the Stadium of Light.
Suffering through a relative poor run, City have more questions than I do about an episode of Planet Earth. The main one at the moment being whether Roberto Mancini is in charge next season. Pretty simple answer though...if they make it to the Champions League, which it looks like they will, Mancini will most likely be kept/stay. If not...well, ciao signore.
This one should be a little more open than the last match as both sides have a number of skillful players going forward. I’d like to see Sunderland make waves and shock us all by grabbing a win. Unfortunately, I don’t see it.
TFE Prediction: More misery for the Black Cats as City knock them off in an exciting 2-1 match.
Everton vs. Aston Villa (Goodison Park, April 2nd, 10:00 a.m. ET)
Such a sad tale. Aston Villa were once one of those teams on the cusp of European glory. A deepish squad with plenty to offer the Premier League as well as continental competition.
Now? They are a team toiling a point above the drop zone and they seriously haven’t played an inspired footy match since they beat Man City 1-0 back in January. Just a shame to see.
In a complete reverse of this situation is Everton who have dragged themselves up after a horrendous start to the season and now find themselves in a reasonable 8th place with the possibility of further upward movement. David Moyes is a hell of a coach and we could see some BIG time movement with him, SAF, Redknapp and the Special One maybe a year from this summer. Hypothesizing, of course.
Staying current, I think Everton will take it in front of a very boisterous bunch of Merseysiders. Yuppers.
TFE Prediction: Fun game to watch as these usually are. Everton prevail 3-1.
The Toast (as in Of The EPL): The League’s Top Jokers
Andrey Arshavin, Arsenal: Easily the best quote in all of the Premier League, the little Russian as he’ll forever be known came back from the international break full of wisdom to bestow upon the world regarding the title race. Basically, he firmly believes Arsenal are still in the race, which is true, he just has such a sneaky way of saying it. Sneaky sneaky sneaky. Anyway, for some reason it reminded me of this Sportscenter commercial. Enjoy.
Fabio Capello, England: It seems with every day that goes by, Don Fabio seems to gain more gray hair and lose more brain cells. He just went as far as comparing the current generation of England youths to those of Germany who tore up the World Cup last summer. Sure, Fabio. Jack Wilshere is great. Andy Carroll, too. Not quite there yet. At this point, EVERYONE in involved is just counting down the minutes until he isn’t the boss anymore. Absolutely the wrong way to do things and it kinda pisses me off.
Emmanuel Adebayor, Real Madrid: Couldn’t get a look with Manchester City so he got shipped off to Madrid because they had a striker ‘crisis.’ Turns out he still sucks. Should have never left Arsenal because right now, they both need each other.
Leicester Update
We’ve got Middlesbrough this weekend and every game is a must-win. With another piece added to the puzzle in Fulham’s Diomansy Kamara, we’ve got plenty of firepower to make things happen but have fallen short in recent weeks. I refuse to count us out though and am quite hopeful of a fruitful late-season run. Fingers crossed.
Philadelphia Union Update
Two games in to their second season and they have two shutouts and two wins. They had two shut outs all of last season. The reason for the turnaround? A true leader and proven winner at the goalkeeper position. I wrote about Faryd Mondragon and what he’s done for the Union in this piece. Check check it, y’all.
And Finally...The Black Pudding of the Week
Mario Balotelli, Manchester City: The ultimate joker. The biggest waste of space in the whole League, the disgruntled youngster was up to his old tricks recently as it was confirmed by the club that he was fined for throwing darts at youth team players from a second-story window...because he was bored. Darts. These are professional athletes, right? Isn’t Patrick Vieira on his team? If I was him, I’d give little Mario a talking to of a lifetime. Or just let him implode on his own. Probably less work that way…
Shane Evans is Deputy Editor of Goal.com. His feature, "The Full English" appears every Friday morning. Contact Shane at shane.evans@goal.com with questions, comments and concerns, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/shanEvans or join the TFE/FCS Facebook fan page!
For more news on England, visit Goal.com's England section!
We are officially in the midst of the title run-in and teams have precious little time to get themselves in the position they hoped they’d end up when the season started. Less than 10 matches to meet expectations, save your respective job and earn that big chunky bonus.
It is also April Fool’s Day. A day that is usually right up there on my list of favorite days of the year, after my birthday, the first day of the season and National Pancake Day. Priorities, people. With that in mind, I’ll try and keep today’s column in the believable and the serious as I know that some of my beloved readers don’t mess around when reading Goal.com’s most popular weekly feature. Frowny face.
We also have to consider that for some of the big teams playing this weekend (aka all of them), their matches are no laughing matter. Tricky opponents are waiting for Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City. We’ll cover two of those matches and sprinkle in one of my favorite fixtures for good measure.
Let us begin before I force myself into a cheesy unfunny joke.
The Bacon (as in Bringing It Home)
Stoke City vs. Chelsea (Britannia Stadium, April 2nd, 10:00 a.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel)
Earlier in the week, Goal.com ran a little piece about the toughest road trips teams take during the season. You know, those teams that no one wants to play against, even if their respective position in the table isn’t particularly impressive.
Stoke are one of these teams.
Always organized and physical, the Potters rarely give you much. According to Andy Gray, they’d give Barcelona a run for their money if the Blaugrana ever had a reason to travel to the Midlands (besides to play Leicester in my FIFA 11 manager mode fantasies).
Up this weekend for Tony Pulis and company is a resurgent Chelsea side who apparently want to be back in the title race. They’ve been dominant of late and really haven’t given many teams much of a chance. One could argue that the moves made during the January transfer window energized them. Well, one of them. We know who that was by now…
So what do Stoke have to do to take the grin off of the Blues’ faces on Saturday? Pretty simple really: frustrate them. Coincidentally, that’s what they’re good at. Swarming around the ball, being physical and interrupting the sometimes fluid movement of the visitors will be the name of the game.
Luckily for them, Chelsea currently boast the most frustrated man in the whole sport right now in Fernando Torres. The expensive Spaniard has failed to live up to his £50 million price that saw him come from Liverpool to the Bridge. With Didier Drogba making way, Torres simply has to start produce, especially when you consider the impact Drogba has when he has come in lately. Been lethal. Wait, he’s always pretty lethal. Would be a shame if he leaves in the summer as the English game suits him perfectly.
You can expect to see Chelsea on the ball about 65% of the time in this match with constant pressure on the Stoke end. They’ll have to break down a very organized Stoke team that has been very tidy at home this season, picking up 27 points from 15 matches at the Britannia this year. Certainly worthy of another mid-table finish.
Chelsea, who are still technically alive in the title race simple cannot drop points in matches like this and will be pressing from the get in an effort to get goals on the board. It won’t be easy though, as I just discussed, but you really have to favor the Blues. They’ve been sound defensively and their movement up front has been much improved.
It’ll be chippy and tightly-contested but in the end, Mr. Carlo’s men prevail.
TFE Prediction: 1-0 could be a real possibility in this one. Maybe a fat Frank PK to win it.
Manchester City vs. Sunderland (Eastlands, April 3rd, 11:00 a.m. ET, Fox Soccer Channel)
Sunderland’s ugly run of matches continues. It actually comes to an end this weekend with a trip to Manchester City. If you’ve been following along over the last two months or so, you’d have seen that they’ve had Chelsea, Stoke, Spurs, Everton, Arsenal and Liverpool all in a row. Now City. No easy task for any club.
Still surviving in 9th place, The Black Cats should expect a finish in or around that position by the time May comes around. Not a bad season for them considering this run and then losing their top goalscorer on very short notice. More on the team they lost him to laters…
Manchester City on the other hand are fresh off an ugly defeat at the hands of Chelsea and will want to get back on the wagon to keep up the pressure on the top four rivals with a win against Sunderland. They’ll also be out for a bit of revenge as the last time these two met back in August (wow, August was AGES ago), Sunderland came away 1-0 winners at the Stadium of Light.
Suffering through a relative poor run, City have more questions than I do about an episode of Planet Earth. The main one at the moment being whether Roberto Mancini is in charge next season. Pretty simple answer though...if they make it to the Champions League, which it looks like they will, Mancini will most likely be kept/stay. If not...well, ciao signore.
This one should be a little more open than the last match as both sides have a number of skillful players going forward. I’d like to see Sunderland make waves and shock us all by grabbing a win. Unfortunately, I don’t see it.
TFE Prediction: More misery for the Black Cats as City knock them off in an exciting 2-1 match.
Everton vs. Aston Villa (Goodison Park, April 2nd, 10:00 a.m. ET)
Such a sad tale. Aston Villa were once one of those teams on the cusp of European glory. A deepish squad with plenty to offer the Premier League as well as continental competition.
Now? They are a team toiling a point above the drop zone and they seriously haven’t played an inspired footy match since they beat Man City 1-0 back in January. Just a shame to see.
In a complete reverse of this situation is Everton who have dragged themselves up after a horrendous start to the season and now find themselves in a reasonable 8th place with the possibility of further upward movement. David Moyes is a hell of a coach and we could see some BIG time movement with him, SAF, Redknapp and the Special One maybe a year from this summer. Hypothesizing, of course.
Staying current, I think Everton will take it in front of a very boisterous bunch of Merseysiders. Yuppers.
TFE Prediction: Fun game to watch as these usually are. Everton prevail 3-1.
The Toast (as in Of The EPL): The League’s Top Jokers
Andrey Arshavin, Arsenal: Easily the best quote in all of the Premier League, the little Russian as he’ll forever be known came back from the international break full of wisdom to bestow upon the world regarding the title race. Basically, he firmly believes Arsenal are still in the race, which is true, he just has such a sneaky way of saying it. Sneaky sneaky sneaky. Anyway, for some reason it reminded me of this Sportscenter commercial. Enjoy.
Fabio Capello, England: It seems with every day that goes by, Don Fabio seems to gain more gray hair and lose more brain cells. He just went as far as comparing the current generation of England youths to those of Germany who tore up the World Cup last summer. Sure, Fabio. Jack Wilshere is great. Andy Carroll, too. Not quite there yet. At this point, EVERYONE in involved is just counting down the minutes until he isn’t the boss anymore. Absolutely the wrong way to do things and it kinda pisses me off.
Emmanuel Adebayor, Real Madrid: Couldn’t get a look with Manchester City so he got shipped off to Madrid because they had a striker ‘crisis.’ Turns out he still sucks. Should have never left Arsenal because right now, they both need each other.
Leicester Update
We’ve got Middlesbrough this weekend and every game is a must-win. With another piece added to the puzzle in Fulham’s Diomansy Kamara, we’ve got plenty of firepower to make things happen but have fallen short in recent weeks. I refuse to count us out though and am quite hopeful of a fruitful late-season run. Fingers crossed.
Philadelphia Union Update
Two games in to their second season and they have two shutouts and two wins. They had two shut outs all of last season. The reason for the turnaround? A true leader and proven winner at the goalkeeper position. I wrote about Faryd Mondragon and what he’s done for the Union in this piece. Check check it, y’all.
And Finally...The Black Pudding of the Week
Mario Balotelli, Manchester City: The ultimate joker. The biggest waste of space in the whole League, the disgruntled youngster was up to his old tricks recently as it was confirmed by the club that he was fined for throwing darts at youth team players from a second-story window...because he was bored. Darts. These are professional athletes, right? Isn’t Patrick Vieira on his team? If I was him, I’d give little Mario a talking to of a lifetime. Or just let him implode on his own. Probably less work that way…
Shane Evans is Deputy Editor of Goal.com. His feature, "The Full English" appears every Friday morning. Contact Shane at shane.evans@goal.com with questions, comments and concerns, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/shanEvans or join the TFE/FCS Facebook fan page!
For more news on England, visit Goal.com's England section!
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