When I was shopping for a Premier League club, one of the first pieces of advice that I read was an article written by ESPN columnist Bill Simmons. Following the 2006 World Cup, and just prior to the 2006/07 Premier League season, Simmons decided to pick a Premier League Club for himself. You can read the article he wrote here (safe for work), it's pretty entertaining.
From the beginning, I knew that I was only going to consider one of the newly-promoted clubs. Simmons, on the other hand, weighed all twenty clubs against a series of criteria that ranged from the reasonable (i.e. title contenders) to the ridiculous (i.e. celebrity fanbase).
Simmons and I did however share two criteria in common. First, we didn't want to have anybody accuse us of being bandwagon jumpers. And second, we wanted to pick a club whose jersey wasn't awful.
I think I speak for most Americans when I say that the first impression of Premier League jerseys is that the prominent advertising is off-putting. Aside from that, only a few of the jerseys are truly hideous (I'm looking at you Crystal Palace, Norwich City, and Newcastle); the majority are just boring. Cardiff City's jersey falls into the latter category.
In my opinion, the two best looking jersey's in the Premier League belong to Manchester City...
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| Manchester City's Away Jersey |
...and to Tottenham Hotspur
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| Tottenham Hotspur's Home Jersey |
I will admit some bias towards the Tottenham Hotspur jersey. Every single article of gym clothing I own has the Under Armour logo on it. I'm sure there's some marketing psychology at work here because damned if I don't feel like a superhero when I think to myself "I'm wearing armor right now".
Alas, underdog trumped Under Armour and thus you will find me on Saturday mornings in my fire engine red Puma jersey.
In case you haven't read his article yet, Simmons ended up adopting Tottenham Hotspur as his club, while I went with my heart and chose Cardiff City. Which one of us was patting themselves on the back at the end of Sunday's match?
Tottenham Hotspur 1 - Cardiff City 0
- Soldado (TOT) 28'
Damn you, Bill Simmons.
Following last week's ass-kicking by Hull City, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer opted for an extremely defensive formation against the Spurs. I don't like that decision, but I do understand it. The Bluebirds have been outscored 0-7 in their past three games and the defensive issues needed to be addressed.
While Tottenham basically lived in Cardiff City's half of the field for the first quarter of the match, I never felt like there was any serious danger. That was until Roberto Soldado did this...
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| (Image Credit: Getty Images) |
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| (Image Credit: Sportal) |
There was a moment of hope about two minutes later. Steven Caulker nearly scored a header against his former club...
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| (Image Credit: Mitchell Gunn) |
Unfortunately, his attempt hit the bar and the first half ended at 1-0.
I found myself thinking, "I suppose this could have gone much worse, but for the love of God can we just get a draw out of this match?!"
No such luck.
The second half was a good defensive performance by Cardiff City, but goals once again proved elusive. I was happy to see Jordon Mutch back from a recent hamstring injury; OGS brought him on in the 63rd minute.
The match ended at 1-0 with Spurs having twice as many shot attempts and 2/3 of the possession.
In his post-match interview, OGS said, "If you want to win a game you need to score goals. We practice every day, it's about that dedication, that need, that urge to get on the end of crosses, on the end of things. You can't blame luck, but I think we're due some soon. I was very pleased with the performance and with the team effort. We looked like a team again, a proper team that played for each other. But we need to score goals."
No shit.
With this loss, the Bluebirds are in 19th place with 5 wins, 7 draws, and 16 losses. The table below captures the full Premier League standings as of 03/05/14. The table columns are: Current Position (POS), Last Position (LP), Club Name (CLUB), Matches Played (P), Wins (W), Draws (D), Losses (L), Goals Fielded (GF), Goals Allowed (GA), Goal Differential (GD), and Rankings Points (PTS).
With ten matches still left to play, there's no point just yet in breaking down specific relegation/survival scenarios. Especially because some clubs have played one or two fewer matches than Cardiff City at this point. Here are Cardiff City's remaining ten opponents (note an "*" means opponent is in bottom ten of the table and "W", "D", or "L" is the Bluebirds previous result against them):
- Fulham W
- Everton D
- Liverpool L
- *West Bromwich Albion W
- *Crystal Palace L
- Southampton L
- *Stoke City D
- *Sunderland D
- Newcastle W
- Chelsea L
If Cardiff City win all of their matches against bottom ten clubs, that puts them up 15 points. If they repeat their previous performances against these opponents, they'll only gain 12 points. The Bluebirds probably need 17 or more points to survive.
Bottom line the Bluebirds are underperforming, and now more than ever they are under pressure.
Bill Simmons immediately eliminated the three newly-promoted sides and six worst clubs from the preceding season because, "you don't want to be stuck with a team that gets relegated." I found this funny at the time. Hopefully that won't come back to bite me in the ass.
Ok, it's that time again. Let's commence with this week's "Meet a US Bluebird"!
Meet Travis Hefner (@SonOfCrunch, 02/26/14)
Where do you live and where are you from originally?: I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and still live there.
How long have you been following the Bluebirds and how did you become a fan?: I've been following Cardiff City for a few years now. When I was young, 15-20 years ago, the only clubs that were on were big boys like Arsenal or Manchester United. It wasn't until the Internet really opened up viewing sports (through legal methods and sometimes "alternate" ones) worldwide that I became a hardcore fan of the game and Cardiff City. I am of Welsh heritage so I was immediately drawn to the team as they represented something my mother had always made important to me. Cardiff represented the best of Wales for me, so it was an easy choice.
What is your most favorite Cardiff City memory and why?: It's interesting that I was asked to do this on February 26th because it is the anniversary of my favorite moment. It's a bittersweet memory obviously, but the 2012 League Cup Final has to be the most special moment for me. It cemented my devotion to Cardiff City. I'd been following them as best I could even though the Championship gets next to no coverage in the United States even now, but this let out a tidal wave of emotion. Ben Turner's equalizer was the highest of highs, quickly replaced by devastation of the PK shootout. I can't wait to feel something like that again, minus the devastation, of course. Hopefully surviving relegation will provide such a moment.
Who is your most favorite current Cardiff City player?: Declan John flat out has been my favorite player this season. He's been one of the biggest bright spots this year for us playing on the backline fearlessly whether it's taking players on when he's got the ball or tracking back as hard as he can. Only 18 with an international cap for Wales, I think he has an incredibly bright future if he keeps going this way. Hopefully it's with the Bluebirds, but we all know how business goes in this sport.
What makes Cardiff City important to you?: Cardiff City is important to me because it feels like a connection to my past. My education is in History, so being tied to my own history is very cool I think. Every time I put on something Cardiff City related, or watch the boys play, I think about where I come from, my history, and my family.
What is your favorite US sport and team? Do you follow any MLS clubs?: I'm a diehard hockey and Pittsburgh Penguins fan. I'm pretty dedicated to the other major sports teams in Pittsburgh, as well. In the MLS I'm a big supporter of the Portland Timbers. I'm a member of their supporter's trust, 107st, and travel to every close by away day I can get to for them such as Columbus, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia.
Do you think Premier League is growing in popularity in the US? What can NBC or the League itself do to grow its popularity in the US?: NBC has done an absolutely incredible job with their Premier League rollout this year and it goes beyond just showing the games. It is amazing that you can watch all of the games with just a cable subscription (as opposed to FOX's Soccer 2Go,) but I think the best part of their programming has been in the studio. You watch FOX for Champion's League and Europa League and their studio shows have a quick pre-game, halftime show, and post game before shoving you out to something that they're more committed to. Even when they had the Premier League, only a handful of games were shown. NBC is committed to showing the leagues they have rights to. They produce Match of the Day 1 and 2 and have long pre-game and post-game shows that bring a lot of in depth analysis. I think NBC could not have done better in their first year.
There's very little I'd like NBC to do that I believe would help grow the game. I think in their first year they've done almost everything they can. I'd like to see NBC have full match replays On Demand or online that you could go back to anytime and I'd like to see more games on their main NBC station. That's pretty much it, they really have been incredible. Though, maybe they should pick up the Championship, we might need that next year, eh?
Thank you for the interview, Travis. One thing I did not expect this Premier League experience to do is to connect me with fellow Pennsylvanians!
A continuing bright spot in my otherwise gloomy Premier League weeks is the performance of my fantasy team, the Cardiff'rent Strokes...
- Rank (Last Week): 1,146,326
- Rank (This Week): 1,089,255
- Total Players: 3,190,167
I really do think we're on pace to meet my goal of cracking the top 1,000,000. It will be interesting to see how players change their performance depending upon where their club is in the table.
Well that's it for this week, readers. Cardiff City's next Premier League match is on March 8th at home against Fulham.
Thank you as always for reading. You can follow me on Twitter @dragon_bluebird. And feel free to leave some comments on my posts via Blogger or Twitter. Would love to hear your thoughts on the season so far and I'm always open to suggestions for features or topics you'd like to see on this blog.
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