arsenal 1 - boro nil

arsenal have moved into sole possession of second place after a hard fought win against tenacious middlesborough. man u's crappy performance against terrible norwich, losing two - nil, puts the red devils three points back of the gunners regardless of goal differential.


robert pires 

robert pires' late strike off a defender deflection was all the gunners needed to take their seventh straight win. it puts the arse eleven points back of chelsea, who dropped two points against birmingham. the gunners next league game is against chelski and it should be a great one.

but before we get to the blues we need to take out blackburn in the fa cup semi-finals, and that may not be so easy considering how much the rovers have been improving. but ugly or pretty i'm sure we'll advance to the final.

round one round up

so the first leg of the champion's league quarterfinals are complete and it was the usual mix of all over the map football:

liverpool 2 - juventus 1

this game had all the weight of the old heysel tragedy hanging over its head, and it had two storied teams playing to exorcise ghosts, while trying to take the advantage for what really matters: winning their leg and moving on to the semis. i figured juventus was going to take it, but an early liverpool onslaught caught the turin team off guard and before they knew what hit them liverpool were up 2 - nil off goals from hyppia and luis garcia. and they were both beauties.

but liverpool couldn't keep up the pace and juventus kept pressing and pressing until they got that all important away goal on a mistake from scott carson, liverpool's young keeper, in his first champion's league start. he'd been tested on a few earlier occasions and came away from them looking good, but the goal juventus stole should have been stopped. now all juventus have to do is beat liverpool 1 - nil next week and they move on.


liverpool's lad in net 

my prediction: juventus will move on

lyon 1 - psv eindhoven 1

the frenchmen dominated this game from beginning to end. they had more chances, they had better chances, but they couldn't finish more than one, which gave psv the ability to sneak a crappy goal back in the dying minutes to draw even.


psv luck out 

still, lyon is has the firepower to overcome psv's crappy away goal, and i think they will.

my prediction: lyon will move on

ac milan 2 - inter nil

no edgar davids and no adriano. need i say more? probably not, but i will anyway. inter played a great game, but so did milan and, in the end, it was the beautiful header by japp stam that made all the difference.


ac milan celebrate goal one 

no, it was more than that. japp stam was the man of the match. he shut down martens, who was inter's only real attacking threat. and that was enough. sheva's goal was just icing for milan. so can inter come back at the san siro? i doubt it. but i am an eternal optimist and an inter man so...

my prediction: inter will go through

chelsea 4 - bayern munich 2

so the big controversy in this game was ballack's apparent dive to win the penalty that gave munich their much needed second away goal. it's important because it is possible for bayern to pull out a 2 - nil victory at home. if they do that they move on. i never got a good look at the play, though, so i'm not sure if it was a dive or not. it looked like it from the angle espn was showing, but they never switched angles, so it's hard to say.

whatever the case with ballack, the most important factor in the game was frank lampard.


lampard scores 

i fucking hate chelski, but i love joe cole, john terry, makelele and lampard, so when frank is coring beautiful goals, two to be exact, and taking it to a team, even a team i love like bayern, it's hard not to smile and cheer him on. great goals frankie boy.

my prediction: chelski go through, as much as it pains me to say it.

bowyer v. dyer

okay, i don't know what was sadi, i don't know what led up to the fight, but it's pretty fucking hilarious. like graeme souness didn't have enough trouble already. the magpies (newcastle united for the uninitiated) should be a lot higher on the table than they are, but you'd never know it from their shabby form this season.

and then they have these two jokers kicking the snot out of each other after taylor had already been red carded for a handball in the box. three red cards in one game for newcastle. brutal.


st james park on april 2, 2005 in newcastle, england. lee bowyer and kieron dyer, magpies teammates, slug it out when they should be trouncing aston villa.(photo by laurence griffiths/getty images) 

and these are the idiots who are supposed to take on man u in the fa cup. good luck souness. fergie must have a grin from ear to ear right now.

p.s. you were pretty good when you came off the bench against north ireland and azerbaijan (not that that is saying much) kieron, but sven may just have to rethink your spot on the team and throw smithy back on the sub list.

arsenal 4 - norwich 1

so nice. arsenal claws there way back into second, ahead of man u on goal differential, on a rousing shit kicking of last place norwich. sure norwich is relegation bound, but the henry hat-trick and ljundberg capper made for a pretty satisfying recapturing of second best spot.


henry v. norwich 

and the fact that man u could only manage a nil - nil draw against lowly blackburn makes it an even happier happenstance.

the best news of the day is that gilberto was back and filled the gap nicely for patty. if we have our whole team together at stamford bridge chelsea better pray. it'll be the toughest game they've had this season apart from their first round tie against barca.