Liverpool win and Chelsea slip up as the weather hits the rest of football

My Saturday was totally ruined. As you may know we have had about four inches of snow in England and that means that the whole country comes to a total stand still. I really don’t know how Scandinavian countries and places like Canada and Russia survive! We get a snow shower and everything stops!

Survive

The Premier League games somehow managed to survive the weather but an awful lot of the games in the lower leagues were called off. In the non-league it was even worse. My Wilton Town game was called off and I really hate that!

Many of the games were not postponed because of the state of the pitches, but because the surrounding areas and roads were too dangerous for fans to travel. I understand why the Premier League pitches would be in better condition with under soil heating and covers, but how come the roads in the area are less dangerous?

Hit and miss

So with no game to go to I stayed in and watched Manchester City play Middlesbrough on the television. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it as Manchester City are a bit hit and miss and Middlesbrough are generally just miss! But faced with the alternative of going shopping with the wife, I decided that City and Boro was the far better bet.

The game itself wasn’t too bad really, if a bit predictable. City won with an excellent Craig Bellamy goal, but had new keeper Shay Given to thank for two or three decent saves. They all came from the less than impressive Alfonso Alves who continues to be a total waste of money.

If the wonderful Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson does decide to end the reign of Gareth Southgate, the purchase of Alves will be a massive contributary part. Gibson must look at the £12.7 million he forked out for Alves and then look at the £2.5 million and £3.5 million that Blackburn paid for Benni McCarthy and Roque Santa Cruz respectively, and wonder just what is going on.

At the top

At the top end of the table Chelsea fell to fourth place with a hugely disappointing 0-0 draw at home to Hull. The Chelsea fans expressed their feelings about manager Luiz Felipe Scolari with chants of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ ringing around the ground.

Aston Villa took advantage of Chelsea’s slip up by winning 2-0 at Blackburn with goals from James Milner and Gabby Agbonlahor. This was Villa’s seventh away win in a row and there is no danger of the Villa fans getting upset with their manager!

Everton kept the pressure on the teams above them by completing a great week for them with a 3-0 win against Bolton, who are a long way from being safe. Jo scored two goals on his debut which is a goal more than managed in total for Manchester City!

Liverpool went temporarily back to the top of the table with a 3-2 win at Portsmouth. With Gerrard injured, manager Rafa Benitez made the difficult to understand decision to leave Alonso, Kuyt, Riera and Torres on the bench.

If Liverpool had lost he would have been hung, drawn and quartered. As it happens they won and he might have just about got away with it. However, the equalising and winning goals came from Kuyt and Torres and two of their goals owed everything to absolute howlers from Portsmouth players Crouch and Distin.

At the other end

At the other end of the table the bottom four, West Brom, Blackburn, Middlesbrough and Stoke all lost. Newcastle did themselves a huge favour with a 3-2 win at West Brom with two goals coming from Damian Duff. It will have been a great boost for Joe Kinnear who was taken to hospital before the game. Everyone at SoccerNews wishes Kinnear well. Sunderland also rose up the table by beating Stoke 2-0 with goals from Kenwyne Jones and David Healey.

Wigan and Fulham drew 0-0. There is not much else to say about that game.

So now it is over to the two games I shall be watching on the television today. Tottenham against Arsenal and West Ham against Manchester United. The expectation level in these games is somewhat higher than I had for yesterday’s battle at the City of Manchester Stadium!

Can Arsenal and Manchester United keep up their challenges for a top four finish and the title respectively?

Can Tottenham increase the gap between them and the relegation places?

Will West Ham keep their good run going?

Bewilderment

I’m looking forward to it but it still won’t make up for another Saturday without a game. The rest of the world must look at us in England sometimes in total bewilderment wondering how a country that rates itself so highly can fall apart just because we get a little bit of snow.

Tomorrow I’ll be looking at who has performed well this weekend and who will wish their game had fallen foul of the weather as well in the regular Who’s Hot and Who’s Not feature.