Zlatan saw red, but PSG will see the quarterfinals in Europe.
Editor’s Note: Guy Bailey writes columns for The Yanks Are Coming throughout the Barclay’s Premier League season. In those columns, he’ll discuss the happenings overseas in the world’s most popular sports league, as well as The Championship, where many Americans ply their trade. Guy offers a unique perspective on the league as a Brit who lived for a long while in the United States before moving back to Teeside a year ago. He can be reached at guyrbailey@gmail.com and you can follow him on Twitter all EPL season at @guyrbailey.
Serves You Right – 12.3.15
The EPL was taking a break for the most part because of the FA Cup but there was one match where QPR edged closer to the trapdoor losing 1-2 at home to the Kane Gang, formerly known as Tottenham Hotspur as handsome Harry continues his boyband like rise in One Direction – upwards – with another two goal haul. Ex-Spurs kung-fu expert Sandro kept them in distance but the result leaves the Superhoops in the bottom three, three points adrift of an improving Aston Villa.
The Clarets enjoyed a significant shot in the arm this week as they reprised their home win last weekend against West Brom with another, this time 2-0 in the FA Cup which caused scenes which brought a smile or a scowl to your lips depending on how old you are as thousands of Villa fans invaded the pitch at the end to celebrate reaching Wembley for the FA Cup Semi Final and seeing light at the end of the tunnel in their relegation battle too. The weekend started with giant killing heroes Bradford City welcoming Reading to their allotment at Valley Parade to play out as turgid and nervy a goalless draw as you are likely to see at any level from Sunday pub league upwards.
Liverpool and Blackburn repeated the feat 24 hours later albeit in a game with slightly more quality, although that’s like saying that Two Broke Girls is slightly funnier than Whitney was. A competition where winning is as pointless as taking part. The real feast is strangely anaemic sixth round was a battle between serial cup winners Man Utd and Arsenal although that strangely sounds like a punchline this season.
Surplus to requirements? Not so much.
Games between these two are rarely timid affairs, there’s too much mutual antipathy and animosity, which can reduce the football quality as well. Not the case here, however, with quality all around, particularly from the referee. United started brightly but it was Arsenal who got the breakthrough from Monreal after some sloppy defending although Wayne Rooney equalized soon after with a great header. United seemed to slacken off in the second half and there was an air of inevitability that Danny Welbeck would come back to haunt the club he was deemed surplus to requirements to earlier in the season. Some of those deemed fit enough to wear the red shirt gave curious reasons why with Angel De Maria firstly getting booked for a needless dive then shortly afterwards grabbing the refs shirt in a pushing match and actually looking surprised when the red came out. Adnan Januzaj was also booked for a needless dive and as a player, he has gone backwards so much it’s a wonder he doesn’t emit a beep-beep sound. So Arsenal march onto the semi finals to play the winner of Bradford and Reading, Villa meeting Liverpool or Blackburn and United go trophy-less for the second successive season with a tough fight ahead to land 4th place which would no doubt be treated as wildly as another European Cup if they were to achieve it.
Still waiting for his penalty.
In Europe, ghosts of seasons past returned to haunt Chelsea at Stamford Bridge who despite leading twice and seeing one of the world’s most overrated players (this is a prevalent view overseas, despite the view stateside), Zlatan Ibrahimovic, sent off after 20 minutes, bowed out to an away goal in injury time after returning David Luiz headed home an equaliser with four minutes of regular time to go, five minutes after Gary Cahill had put the Blues ahead. The ref here didn’t have such a good game, missing fouls all over the place and denying Diego Costa a clear penalty but Chelsea had some luck as well in avoiding equal decisions and bullying and berating the referee in equal measure. The consensus view being that Chelsea got what they deserved, facing ten men at home for over 100 minutes. At least Mourinho has one trophy in the bag already and the EPL itself will be a minimum requirement but you can bet he’ll be smarting about this.
The weekend sees three critical games at the bottom with Crystal Palace welcoming QPR, resurgent Aston Villa travel to worried Sunderland and Leicester simply have to get something at home to Hull. Man City can keep the pressure on at the top with a win at Burnley and Arsenal can do likewise to Man Utd with a win over West Ham. On Sunday Chelsea welcome Southampton and Man Utd need to keep some distance from Tottenham while hoping Swansea can perform as effectively against Liverpool on Monday night as they have against them this season.
As noted, Guy Bailey writes on the Barclay’s Premier League for The Yanks Are Coming. Want more Guy Bailey? We highly recommend his new book, Blessay From America, a collection of writings on football and life made while living in America, where he married a southern belle and saw his son born, which you can purchase here.