Apologies for being tardy with this week's post. Hopefully you haven't replaced me with some other "American discovers sport of which the entire rest of the world is already well aware" blog. I had a legitimate excuse, I swear!
This past weekend I drove back to my home state of Pennsylvania to join my friends in our annual Guy's Weekend. This is a tradition that started in 2008 with my bachelor party. Basically, my high school friends, plus some turkeys we picked up in college, rent a ski lodge in the Poconos each year and use it as a home base for grilling, golfing, and drinking.
For the most part everything this weekend was the same as it was in high school (i.e. fart jokes, no girls around, etc). One notable difference however was that thanks to NBC, we were able to watch two Premier League matches over the weekend. Any other year, I wouldn't have been too thrilled at this prospect. But I've taken a liking to soccer at this point and so apparently have a good number of my friends.
For a variety of reasons my friends have become fans of Stoke City, Liverpool, Chelsea, and Tottenham. It was great to talk to them about my experience becoming a Cardiff City fan. These are also the same jerks that got me addicted to Fantasy Premier League. So I took the opportunity to get some much needed tips on that subject.
Unfortunately, the Cardiff City-Newcastle United match was not televised so I had to wait until Monday evening when I got home to watch it On-Demand.
So which style of kung fu was stronger? Bluebird or Magpie?
Alas, Magpie...
Cardiff City 1 - Newcastle United 2
- Remy (NEW) 30'
- Remy (NEW) 38'
- Odemwingie (CAR) 58'
The pattern continues with another weak first half performance from Cardiff City followed by a frantic second half attempt to achieve parity. Newcastle were no rock stars this week either, but they did outshoot Cardiff City 20-8 in goal attempts. The picture below sums the match up nicely.
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| Kevin Theopile-Catherine clenches his butthole as Loic Remy launches a cruise missile (Image Credit: Action Images) |
Newcastle's Loic Remy is a goal scoring machine sent back in time to ruin goalkeepers' days. He's now scored 5 goals in his past 3 matches. During both of Remy's goals it seemed like Cardiff was caught with their short pants down. One of Remy's scoring kicks literally went through the legs of Bluebird Ben Turner (a continuously underperforming member of the Cardiff'rent Strokes I might add).
A bright note for Cardiff City was Peter Odemwingie. It would seem that Craig Bellamy's move to the bench last week was a decision for the best. This was Odemwingie's second start for the Bluebirds and this week he delivered.
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| How do you like me now, West Brom?! (Image Credit: WalesOnline) |
If you have ever seen a Jackie Chan movie, that's a pretty fair illustration of Odemwingie's footwork leading up to his goal. He's probably pretty happy to have that first goal monkey off his back and to stick it in the eye of his former club West Bromwich Albion.
Odemwingie's goal came off an assist from last week's man of the match, Jordon Mutch. It will be interesting to see if Mutch gets a starting berth next match. As it was, he was subbed in at the end of the atrocious first half.
After the match, Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay dropped some truth to the press. "We played against good players who punish you if you don't play for the whole game." "[Newcastle] are a good team, with an experienced manager with footballers with international experience."
And that cuts to the core of the issue, moreso than me bemoaning the lack of offense from the Bluebirds. This season, Cardiff City looks exactly like what they are...a team comprised of a few tier one players, but mostly tier two. Cardiff needs a star foward (ahem, Andreas Cornelius where are you). They also need pro-caliber attacking midfielders. They can't wait till the January transfer window to bring new guys in, there's a good chance that Cardiff will be too far behind in the points by then. Time to get some players on loan, Vincent Tan!
Following this result, the Bluebirds find themselves in 14th place with 2 wins, 2 draws, and 3 losses. The table below captures the full Premier League standings as of 10/08/13. The table columns are: Club Name, Matches Played (Pld), and Ranking Points (Pts).
Things aren't all doom and gloom though on Dragon and Bluebird. I've made progress on my beer quest! Thanks to Redstone Liquors in Stoneham, Massachusetts I was finally able to track down my first Welsh beers.
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| Celt Experience's Bronze and Bleddyn 1075 |
These were the "Bronze" and "Bleddyn 1075" beers brewed by The Celt Experience. Personally, I recommend the Bleddyn 1075 over the Bronze. But you can be the judge if you go to Redstone. Or check out the Beer Advocate reviews for each:
- Bronze (85/100 BA rating)
- Bleddyn 1075 (86/100 rating)
And even more good news, the Cardiff'rent Strokes continued their assent in the worldwide league this week. Here's the summary of my FPL status:
- Rank (Last Week): 1,475,331
- Rank (This Week): 1,444,677
- Total Players: 2,998,066
Unfortunately, there is no game next week and thus there will be no blog entry. Cardiff City's next match is away against Chelsea on October 19th.
Thank you as always for reading Dragon and Bluebird! You can find me on Twitter as well, @dragon_bluebird.
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