Weekend Recap
by Dent McSkimming Jr.
- Not the optimal start for Manchester United this past weekend. Not only do they only manage one point from Reading, but they lose Wayne Rooney for two months with a broken left foot. I wondered how Man U would respond to an injury to Rooney or Ronaldo, and I suppose we will find out. The Red Devils travel to Portsmouth Wednesday, and Carlos Tevez will have to start since Louis Saha and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer have only just started training with the club after recovering from injuries.
- Arsenal may have a new look this year, but they followed the same pattern they showed last season: give up an early goal at home and come back to get a victory. Jens Lehmann pulled off one of the strangest mistakes I’ve ever seen from an experienced international goalkeeper to give Fulham the lead only 52 seconds in, but Arsenal stormed back with a Robin Van Persie penalty and a late winner from Alexander Hleb.
- Premiership newcomers experienced success in their opening matches. Derby grabbed a point from Portsmouth with Andy Todd scoring a late goal only one minute after John Utaka thought he scored the game-winner for Portsmouth. Roy Keane and Sunderland pulled off a 1-0 win over Tottenham with Michael Chopra scoring the game-winner in stoppage time.
- Speaking of Tottenham, it wasn’t a good start to the season for Spurs. After the loss to Sunderland, they fell to Everton 3-1 Tuesday at White Hart Lane. It is still quite early to make any definitive statements about any club, but Tottenham’s start has to be disheartening for a club that spent so much money stockpiling offensive threats.
- In MLS, I have to wonder what has happened to Houston the past two weeks. This team was the hottest club in the league, but they have lost two straight games to two of the league’s worst teams: Real Salt Lake and Colorado. Perhaps they have been looking forward to their Superliga match against Pachuca, a rematch of the CONCACAF Champions Cup semi-final earlier this year.
- August is always a difficult time of year in MLS. Temperatures almost everywhere are oppressive and often affect the speed and quality of play. However, we saw some excitement in Dallas’ 3-2 win over Columbus. Initially, Dallas looked lost without their midfield engine Juan Toja, but they somehow came from behind in the last ten minutes to grab all three points after defender Clarence Goodson headed home a corner kick deep into stoppage time.
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