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Chelsea got off to a rough start this season, but they seem to be progressing along and finding their stride now. Things should only get better, at least in theory, with stellar young forward Callum Hudson-Odoi now being fully re-integrated into the mix.
He returned from the serious knee injury he suffered in April just before the international break, and he scored twice for the England U21s this week. He’s in line for a start on Saturday when the Blues host Newcastle United.
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Saturday’s Premier League clash between Newcastle United and Chelsea FC is a match up of two sides fighting hard for two very different qualifications. The Blues, level on points with fourth place Leicester City but behind on goal differential, are knocking on the door of the top four.
They’ll host the Magpies who are looking to keep their heads above the relegation waters. Fresh off a victory over Manchester United, they should have a fair amount of confidence when they head to west London. Let’s run through the team news for both sides.
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Ernest Hemingway once famously said: “the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” Sounds like the state of Manchester United football club right now, and something their supporters need to hear, in order to try and keep their spirits up in these tough times.
United host their most hated of rivals, Liverpool, on Sunday and they’ll do so looking up 11 places in the Premier League table. LFC is perfect on the season and eight points clear of Manchester City at the top of the table, so 12th place United was going to have their work cut out for them, even if they had a fully fit squad, which they definitely do not.
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Manchester City striker supreme Sergio Aguero was involved in a minor car crash prior to Wednesday’s training session. The good news is that nobody was hurt. Aguero reported for practice and trained with the rest of the team ahead of their trip to Crystal Palace on Saturday for a Premier League fixture.
The bad news is that the Argentine totally wrecked his £150,000 Range Rover. He seems to be in decent spirits about it though as he posted photos of the damage in a story on his Instagram account.
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Early on in his Chelsea career, one could possibly say “you can take Christian Pulisic out of the United States Men’s National Team, but you can’t take the USMNT out of Pulisic.” Now the extremely talented young winger is struggling massively all around.
For both club and country, one could easily describe Pulisic (and the USMNT program at large) by invoking this quote from Ernest Hemingway: “the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
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Boxers, like ordinary people, have lives outside their work. Sure, they spend a big chunk of their time training for matches, but these athletes also have things they’re busy with that may or may not be at all related to boxing.
These professional boxers are, in their own ways, celebrities. To some extent, they have the capacity to influence and they know it. Let’s dive right into the lives of some world-famous boxers outside the ring.
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What a shame for Manchester United. Just when they were starting to get healthier, at the time they needed it most, with the biggest game on the calendar approaching, a new concentric circle of hell opened up. David de Gea, starting goalkeeper for both Manchester United and the Spanish national team, went down with injury during the Spain-Sweden Euro qualifier.
Spain manager Robert Moreno said in postgame that De Gea tried to play through the pain of an abductor injury (it looks like he seemingly hurt himself on a goal kick) before having to come off.
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As Nathaniel Hawthorne famously said: “time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.” It was just three years ago that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series and in doing so provided one of the most iconic moments in sports history.
Now their championship window is in danger of closing shut, and that closure could be here before you know it, unless they have a a lot of major victories this offseason. The Cubs are coming off a year in which they didn’t even make the postseason, and that’s on the heels of a season in which they couldn’t do any better than the one-off Wild Card play-in.
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Italian media outlet Tuttosport hand out the Golden Boy Award every season, and today brought the release of the nominee short list. To qualify for the award, a footballer must be U21 and play in one of Europe’s top tier leagues.
One fifth of the list, which is 20 names long, is comprised by English Premier Leaguers, with Arsenal, Everton and Manchester City and Chelsea represented. The Blues representative is one of the most intriguing, because it’s a player who was with a Championship level side last season- Mason Mount. Frank Lampard brought the budding superstar with the Vanilla Ice style hairdo up to Stamford Bridge with him, and he’s been in a revelation in west London.
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Things just keep getting worse for Manchester United transfer flop Alexis Sanchez. Ever since his ill-fated move from Arsenal, as part of a swap deal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan in January of 2018, it’s been a rough go for the Chilean. He was sent out on loan to Inter Milan in the summer, in a deal so awful for United that they actually paid him not to play for them.
It likely won’t be getting much better for the biggest transfer flop in MUFC history either, as he’s now suffered a serious ankle injury while on international duty. The latest injury setback could require surgery, which would of course keep him out of commission for awhile.
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Ah the January transfer window, typically it’s only for teams that have major holes to fill, and it’s done usually only with options that can seem a bit desperate. Sounds like the situation Manchester United currently find themselves in at mid-season. Sir Alex Ferguson was famous for speaking lowly of the January window, so it’s ironic that the club synonymous with him now finds themselves in this situation.
According to an ESPN report, United are looking to spend this January, and as you would expect, forward and midfield will be the targeted positions. Historically, especially so for recent history, United have not been very active in the winter transfer window.
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Rumors have been circulating for some time that Mark Dantonio will step down at the end of this season, and more fuel was added to that fire this past weekend.
When Dantonio addresses the media tomorrow, at his weekly news conference, the very first thing he should do is apologize for his classless outburst in Madison on Saturday. After his team was blown out 38-0 at Wisconsin, he was asked a very fair and honest question, by a reporter with no previous history of exceedingly harsh coverage.
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