Week Review

Well, the Premier League seems to be had to the defending champs, Manchester United, but my boys in West London are now in second. The current league standings are:

Manchester United - 62 pts
Chelsea FC - 55 pts (own tiebreaker due to goal differential)
Liverpool - 55 pts
Aston Villa - 52 pts
Arsenal - 46 pts

We will see what comes of this.

Meanwhile the first knock out round (after group stage) kicked off this week for the Champions League. The Champions is a Europe-wide tournament that Manchester United won last year. The results for the first leg (you play the same opponent twice, whichever has more goals over the two games moves on) are as follows:

Chelsea FC (England) 1 - 0 Juventus (Italy)
Villarreal (Spain) 1 - 1 Panathinaikos (Greece)
Sporting CP (Portugal) 0 - 5 Bayern Munich (Germany)
Atletico Madrid (Spain) 2 - 2 Porto (Portugal)
Lyon (France) 1 - 1 Barcalona (Spain)
Real Madrid (Spain) 0 - 1 Liverpool (England)
Arsenal (England) 1 - 0 Roma (Italy)
Internazionale (Italy) 0 - 0 Manchester United (England)

As you can see England and Spain make up 1/2 of the remaining 16 teams. It seems likely that one of those countries will win the League.

Here's hoping to Chelsea! But if not Barca or Inter are my other hopefuls!

Adam

Weekend heartache and Beckham-watch

It looks as if Chelsea is going to be out of the chase. It will just be Manchester United followed by Liverpool as hopefuls for the league title. It will be a big battle. I don't know if I can root for either team. Also, Aston Villa (my number 2 team) pulled into third place leapfrogging Chelsea.

This weekend AC Milan offered $10 million for Becks, a cool number just for a transfer. The Galaxy countered asking for $22 million according to the Daily Mirror. If the report is accurate, it looks as if LA is atleast in a bidding mood and will allow to see if AC Milan will jump $12 million to their asking price. There may be another reason for them letting him go, I will look into the rumors and see if I can pull any news stories.

Tonight I will do my third hybrid posting.

Adam

Updated top 5 in the Prem

I focus on the Premier League of England because that is where my team is, and what I follow most. After the midweek matches here is an updated top 5:

Manchester United - 50 pts
Chelsea FC - 48 pts
Liverpool - 48 pts
Aston Villa - 47 pts
Arsenal - 42 pts

Man United won the league last year, while Chelsea won the previous two years. It looks like it may be a tight race, but Chelsea or Liverpool can take sole possesion of second place with a win. They are playing each other this Sunday. If the Red Devils (Man United lose) the winner of the Chelsea/Liverpool match will jump into first place.

The reason all of this is close is because ever since Liverpool's manager ranted about Man United's manager in early January, the Anfield team has tied every game, while Man and Chelsea have caught up in points. Here is part of the news conference:



In other news, Beckham scored for AC Milan yesterday, and said some interesting quotes about returning to the MLS. I am continuing to follow that story and will post this weekend after the team has another match.

Adam