Manchester City hosting Tottenham. Arsenal hosting Manchester United. We have two really big games that will have major implications for Chelsea this morning. Here in the US the Arsenal game will actually be live on network tv. Needless to say it will be big for soccer coverage in the US. We also have Hamburg taking on Borussia Dortmund and Vitesse kicking off the second half of their campaign this morning as well as several other continental fixtures. Enjoy the games and feel free to leave any discussion here.

The club has just released a statement stating that they will not in fact be appealing the decision of the FA to suspend Luis Suarez for 8 games due to his racial abuse of Patrice Evra. Suarez will now miss both of the Carling Cup semi-final legs, the FA cup third round tie, and Liverpool's next five Premier League contests beginning with Manchester City in about 15 minutes. The statement is a pretty far cry from the one the club released upon the initial release of the decision, this one seems to be far more thought ought and composed. From a non-Liverpool fans point of view I think this is probably the correct decision, so kudos to LFC for simply accepting the ban and moving on.

Suarez has also released a statement of his own, and this one should probably have been a few sentences shorter. He clearly still feels he did nothing wrong, and regardless of those feelings he should probably just apologize and move on:

In my country, 'negro' is a word we use commonly, a word which doesn't show any lack of respect and is even less so a form of racist abuse. Based on this, everything which has been said so far is totally false. I will carry out the suspension with the resignation of someone who hasn't done anything wrong and who feels extremely upset by the events.

Obviously he feels he's being portrayed in a far too negative light, and while that may be the case he should probably just take a little vacation and shut his mouth. The guy has been living in Europe since 2006, it's not like he just dropped into England last week. Regardless of how he feels his comments should have been taken this, suspension set's a precedence for what just will not be tolerated on the pitch in England. Frankly speaking, it's probably far too late in happening anyway.

John Terry will be next up to be tried and judged, and if found guilty I certainly hope the club and player handle the situation far better than their rivals to the north. Between the actions of Suarez, LFC, and the respective fans of that club we have had a perfect example of how not to handle the Terry situation. Regardless of how Terry and the club handle the situation, let's make sure that as fans we wait until we have all of the facts and findings before either vilifying the player or jumping to his defense.

Chelsea's valiant army of born-again AVB-ites are not in action until Monday, which reduces us to innocent bystanders of the carnage that is sure to unfold this weekend (El Clasico).

But fear not, my pedigree chums! For here we have this pristine open thread, ready and willing to accept your comments (It wouldn't surprise if all of this weekend's Prem games were won by the home team), thoughts (O Torres, my Torres, rise up and hear the bells), concerns (My iron blew up this evening; HOW WILL MY CLOTHES GET UNWRINKLY!!!?), conundrums (Why are the Chelsea fans in FM12 more pleased with a 2-0 win v. QPR at home than with a 1-0 win away at Man U??)

Tell me of your homeworld, Usul.

Here's what's on tap for Saturday & Sunday:

Continue reading this post »

With the season kicking off tomorrow, I'd have thought today would be full of preview type news and very little in the way of transfer talk.  I guess that couldn't be further off, as the longest running story in the Premier League appears to finally be coming to an end.  According to multiple reports, Arsenal have agreed to sell Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona for the ridiculously low price of £31 million.  There also appear to be a few add-ons in the deal, and Cesc will reportedly contribute about £5 million out of his own paychecks to seal the deal.  This is awful news for Arsenal fans ahead of the season opener and Champions League play-off.  It seems likely that Samir Nasri will likely be following Cesc out the door as well with Manchester City the rumored destination.

If things weren't bad enough for Arsenal fans today, rumor has it that Spurs have found a cheap way to fix their striker situation.  ESPN is reporting that Emanuel Adebayor will likely be joining the club on a season long loan.  I'm confused as to why City would loan him to a direct rival, but the editors at ESPN usually do a better job than most of sourcing their information.  My personal hope is that this helps to convince Luka Modric to stay, as I really feel he's not a good fit at the price range we've been approaching.

Continue reading this post »

Former Chelsea manager Avram Grant managed to guide Portsmouth to a last place finish and relegation last year leading some to question what could have been in 2008 with someone else at the helm.  When Gianfranco Zola was unceremoniously dumped by West Ham even after successfully guiding the Hammers clear of relegation last year, Avram again found himself managing in London.  After squandering a two goal lead today against Wigan, Grant managed the unthinkable feat of guiding a second successive team to a last place finish and relegation.  

Unfortunately, we've been hearing rumors (none with an actual credible source) of the lumpy one being a possible candidate for a job somewhere within the hierarchy at Stamford Bridge.  Let's all hope that his second straight awful showing will assure that Roman doesn't go anywhere near Grant again.  It also makes you start to realize that Zola may have actually been doing a pretty decent job in keeping that club up.  Zola's stock has seemed to be on the rise of late, and there have been plenty of rumors of a return to the Bridge in an assistants capacity for next season.  While Zola seems destined to be employed in the Premier League again in the near future. one really has to wonder if Grant will be given the opportunity to guide a third consecutive team to the bottom of the table.  I for one would love to see him get the opportunity for the entertainment value alone.  

With just 13 Premier League games left to be played for Chelsea, there appear to be 7 teams with their sights set on the 4 Champions League places.  Manchester United sit 10 points clear of the fourth spot, and with the goal differential they possess it seems unlikely that they will miss out.  Clubs will still be harboring thoughts of taking the title from them however, so we'll look at their schedule as well.  Sunderland and Liverpool sit 7 and 6 points out respectively, and both have played 1 more game than the teams on 44 points.  At this point for either of them to reach fourth, it would take a major collapse by more than 1 of the top 5 teams.  For the purposes of this discussion I'm going to ignore them, as it would take awful runs of form from more than 1 team to give either a realistic chance of getting in.  We may revisit this discussion in a month or so, and at that point we'll see if they have forced their way into the picture.

Realistically speaking, that leaves 4 teams fighting for 3 places in Europe's premier competition, all probably harboring hopes of a title run as well.  Three of those teams (Arsenal, Chelsea, and Tottenham) are still alive in the competition this season.  Winning the competition would ensure that team has a return to the Champions League next season, leaving one less spot up for grabs.  If the winning team finished out of the top 4 of the Premier League, the top 3 in the league would receive the qualifying spots plus the CL winner.  After the jump we'll break down the remaining schedules of the 4 teams in the heart of the chase and try to get a look at who is in the best position to earn those spots going forward, as well as peeking at the remaining schedule for United.

Continue reading this post »

Manchester City's loss to Arsenal means that their stay in second place is shorter lived than a cabbage on a neutron star, and there's also major shakeups in mid-table, with the #6-#13 teams all doing some sort of weird shuffle.

Figure 1: Premier League Power Rankings, Week Nine

The above table is based on a Bayesian combination of my preseason projections and the current table with a strength of schedule adjustment. More detail after the jump. 'SS' denotes strength of schedule.

Continue reading this post »

Carlos Tevez takes over the top spot from Dimitar Berbatov with a nearly three-point performance against Blackpool in week eight, scoring go-ahead goals in minutes 67 and 79 to eclipse the Bulgarian's total with Manchester United. There no other big moves at the top of the table, but the bottom sees some tumblers - Kevin Foley joins the ranks by conceding a penalty in the second half against West Ham United, and Birmingham City's Scott Dann helped his team throw away a 1-0 lead at Arsenal by kicking out at Marouane Chamahk in the box on more or less the stroke of halftime. His -0.79 points on the week brings him to -1.70 overall, just shy of Pepe Reina's monumental mark of -1.97.

There's lots to play with in here, so click around!

Continue reading this post »