Scott Murray's Blog, page 49
September 7, 2022
Napoli 4-1 Liverpool: Champions League – as it happened
… and Napoli missed a penalty, hit the post, and had a shot cleared off the line as well!
All jokes and smiles between captains Giovanni Di Lorenzo and James Milner, and the match officials, as everyone clasps hands in a very friendly fashion. Then the hosts get the party started. A huge roar from the home fans as their heroes kick off.
The teams are out! Napoli wear their famous azure blue, redolent of the water of the Gulf of Naples, while Liverpool sport their storied first-choice red. Shock breaking news: there’s one hell of an atmosphere at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, lending a little burst of extra heat to an already warm, clear night on the western coast of southern Italy. We’ll be off in a minute or two, after a quick blast of Zadok the Priest (Version).
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The Fiver | Why having a Potter at the wheel could be good for Boehly and Chelsea
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Should Graham Potter take the not-that-surprisingly-available Chelsea job in the next couple of hours/days, it’s going to become very fashionable to suggest that his critical faculties must have momentarily gone haywire. Brighton, you see, are about as optimal an example of a well-run club as you can get. Potter’s team play some extremely attractive football. Hell, they’ve even recently learned how to do goals. Given their modest status and limited resources, they’ve no right to be mixing it with the big boys. But mix it with the big boys they do. It’s a wonderful life on the south coast, and this particular Pottersville isn’t a dystopian nightmare; it’s a seagull-infused Shangri-La. Such a happy place to be.
Continue reading...September 6, 2022
The Fiver | A 100% home win rate against Madrid is a 100% home win rate against Madrid
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It only seems like three months and nine days since Real Madrid beat Liverpool in Paris, and yet here we are again. Big Cup returns on Tuesday evening, and another campaign of excitement and drama / mundanity barely enlivened by the occasional slightly surprising group defeat that has little or no consequence in the long run [delete according to how jaded and detached from society you’ve become as the years pass by] stretches out ahead of us. The Fiver’s plumping for the former option, since you ask, because if we don’t paint on our gameface and at least make a stab at embracing positivity as a way of life, it’s going to be an awfully long few months until the knockouts.
Continue reading...September 3, 2022
Aston Villa 1-1 Manchester City: Premier League – as it happened
Erling Haaland scored yet again, but it wasn’t enough to secure victory for the champions against dogged Villa, who earned their under-fire manager some respite
2 min: Watkins tries to send Bailey clear down the right. Ederson comes out to clear his lines, in a slightly unsure but ultimately successful fashion. Villa will be happy with their confident start.
29 sec: Digne crosses dangerously from the left. Dias gets a small flick to ensure the ball doesn’t drop anywhere near Watkins or Bailey. That would have been quite the eye-opening start.
Continue reading...Everton 0-0 Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened
Both teams rattled the woodwork. Both keepers had a great game. One of the best nil-nils you’ll see, according to Frank Lampard
2 min: A fairly high-octane start. No great surprise there. Liverpool are seeing more of the ball during these early exchanges.
Liverpool get the ball rolling. They’re kicking towards the Gwladys Street End in this first half.
Continue reading...September 1, 2022
Transfer deadline day 2022: Antony, Akanji, Aubameyang, Melo and more – as it happened
In unsurprising news, Antony is very pleased to join Manchester United on a deal running to 2027. I spoke to an Eredivisie full-back who said the Brazilian is the best he has come up against in the league. Now he just needs to prove it in England.
“This is an incredible moment in my career to be joining one of the most iconic clubs in the world,” Antony said. “I’m thankful to everyone who has believed in me, especially my family, and all my coaches and team-mates, because I could not have got here without them.
Continue reading...August 31, 2022
Liverpool 2-1 Newcastle United: Premier League – as it happened
Liverpool and Newcastle served up more drama under the Anfield lights as Fabio Carvalho netted the winner with the last kick of the game
3 min: Diaz cuts in from the left and tries a curler. Blocked. He comes again, curling into the centre for Salah, who is nudged away from the ball by Targett. Salah wants a penalty, but there’s no reason to give one. Goal kick.
2 min: I’m guessing Newcastle won the toss, because Liverpool are kicking towards the Kop in this first half. They much prefer doing so in the second. Both teams begin the game with some high-speed pressing. All a bit frantic right now.
Continue reading...The Fiver | History teaches us that Leicester always find a way to bounce back
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Back in the mists of time, Leicester City were famous for three things: bobbing up and down between the top two divisions; losing FA Cup finals; and those sand dunes Jock Wallace used to make his players sprint up and down until they were sick through their nose. But events of the last few years have proper jiggered all that. Now it’s all Premier League titles this, FA Cup success that, regular European qualification the other. Oh Claudio! Brendan! Jamie and Kasper! How could you? Whatever happened to the old certainties? Our unspoken agreement? The post-war consensus? The social contract? We had a deal!
Continue reading...August 30, 2022
Southampton 2-1 Chelsea, Fulham 2-1 Brighton, Leeds 1-1 Everton: football clockwatch – as it happened
Brighton failed in their bid to go top, while Saints downed Chelsea and Everton clambered out of the bottom three
PRE-MATCH POSTBAG courtesy of our stateside Evertonian contingent. “I’m not sure if it’s time to fire up the ‘Everton are in trouble’ alarm,” begins optimism’s Matt Burtz. “I’m under no illusions that two points after four games is a good total. However, though they don’t have any clean sheets yet, they’ve only allowed five goals; only six teams have conceded fewer. Three goals scored won’t cut it, obviously, and I can only hope that Neal Maupay’s arrival will help until Dominic Calvert-Lewin returns, as a 1-0 win is about all we can reasonably expect right now. I suppose this is a long way of saying that things could be worse, but a win today would certainly be nice.”
Mary Waltz adds, albeit not on the subject of her team: “Some say Scotty Parker was binned because of 9-0. Others say it was the disrespectful post-match comments. I say it was the posh boy sweater.” Today’s Fiver agrees with you, Mary. Sort of. In a roundabout way.
Continue reading...The Fiver | Scott Parker, Jack Ross and surviving without thriving
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The Fiver wasn’t particularly shocked when Dundee United announced they’d defenestrated Jack Ross and thrown all his stuff into the Tay. True, his time in charge at Tannadice had started, exactly one month ago, with promise, as his 10-man team came within a minute of securing an opening-day league win at 1965 champions Kilmarnock, then went on to beat AZ Alkmaar 1-0 in Tin Pot. But things quickly spiralled out of control after that, United losing their next five straight, to the cumulative score of 24-1. Having been gubbed at home 3-0 by St Mirren and then 9-0 by the Queen’s Celtic, a quick extrapolation of the trend suggested Hibs would rack up 81 goals when they visit a week Saturday. That’s positively Sierra Leonean, and the end was inevitable, Ross’s 72-day reign falling just short of Jim McLean’s club record by 21 years, three months and six days. Oh Jack! We hardly knew ye!
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