Winners from London and in the Bundesliga, injuries in the Premier league, women fighting all figure in this week’s good, bad and ugly section.
Good
Two from two for Wolfsburg. The German champions continue their good start with a 3-1 away win over Cologne. Obafemi Martins, a recent transfer from ex-Premier League side newcastle, scored the clincher when he came on for his debut as substitute. Meanwhile in Japan, it was good for the rest as first and second place teams Kashima and Kawasaki both lost. Niigata and Osaka are now only three behind second place Kawasaki. With the two top teams meeting early next month, they’ll be hoping they can close the gap even further.
It wasA also good for Tottenham and the other 4 PL clubs from the capital as well. Chelsea, West Ham, Fulham and Arsenal have all started the season in winning form and I wonder will we see a shift in power away from the north west this season?
Bad
The Premier League is only one week into the season, but already there a a number of injuries that will sideline players for the next few weeks or more. Andy Johnson of Fulham is out after a nasty tackle in the Europa League – out for up to two months. Rio Ferdinand picked up an injury in training and will be sidelined for a month – bad news for Manchester United, whose defence is looking less than solid. Liverpool’s players seem to be being held together with stitches – Jamie Carragher had 15 stitches in a head wound after a clash of heads with his team mate Skyrtel – the Slovakian is out for two weeks with a jaw injury from that incident, and Torres had to have nine stitches in his eyebrow after another clash of heads in the game against Stoke.
This week saw a farcical situation from The Championship when Crystal Palace had a perfectly good goal disallowed against Bristol City. Manager Neil Warnock was furious and it is hard not to feel sorry for him as his team would have managed to take a point if there had been some form of goal line technology. Bad for Palace and for football.
Ugly
A story from a few weeks back now, but women’s football will not be happy it has made the news. A brawl broke out at the end of an Asian Under 19s Championship game that China won 2-1. The game had been a bad-tempered affair and it only got worse when the Australians were denied a penalty by the ref and then had a player sent off in the fnal minute. That proved too much for the Australians and both sets of players starting pushing, punching and kicking, while fans started throwing plastic bottles onto the pitch. Very ugly scenes indeed. The tournement, held in China, was eventually won by Japan who beat Korea 2-1 in the final.
