Sporting Madness

The English Premier League title race has seen a couple of outstanding games lately, including Chelsea's victory over Manchester United and United's last-second escape against City in the Manchester derby. The title is still very much up for grabs, though, with United trailing Chelsea by two points heading into this weekend. Their game against Tottenham could go a long way towards deciding the race, particularly if they lose, so it looks like the clash of the weekend. I'll be live-blogging it both here and at Epic Footy , starting at 4:45 a.m. Pacific today (7:45 a.m. Eastern). You might want to watch this one, even if there might not be any kraken released . One of the interesting elements heading into this one is that Tottenham have done more than anyone else to aid United's title quest so far; they knocked off Chelsea last week and beat Arsenal before that . They won't be in a mood to help the Red Devils out this weekend, as they need every point they can m...

Welcome to today's edition of Premier League Punditry! The EPL got back into full swing this week, so there's lots to talk about. Manchester United pulled off a 2-1 win over a very impressive Blackburn Rovers side Saturday to go eight points clear at the top of the league, and Liverpool could only close the gap by one point today with a draw against Manchester City . The classic line from that story is "United will have relished this performance by their neighbours, which could have given the crown to the Old Trafford club." I bet a lot of City fans are happy about that one;). Andrei Arshavin made his Arsenal debut Saturday, but couldn't help his team past Sunderland, and they only came away with one point from a 0-0 draw . Meanwhile, Chelsea recorded their first win under Guus Hiddink with a 1-0 victory over Aston Villa. For plenty of other EPL news and commentary, as well as perhaps some stuff on MLS expansion and my 24th Minute piece on Vancouver's bi...

Welcome to today's edition of Premier League Punditry, as usual featuring myself and Amrit and Phil from There Is No Original Name For This Sports Blog . Plenty to talk about this week, including Manchester United's 3-month streak of clean sheets in the league, Arsenal's draw with Tottenham , Jo 's amazing success in his first match for Everton, Chelsea's draw with Hull and Liverpool's 3-2 win over Portsmouth [all links from the excellent ESPN Soccernet ]. Join us in the live blog below! Premier League Punditry 02-08-09

Well, Barnsley finally met their match. After seeing off both Arsenal and Liverpool, their magical FA Cup run came to an end at the hands of fellow Championship strugglers Cardiff City. A ninth-minute goal from midfielder Joe Ledley, playing for his hometown side, proved to be the difference between the two sides: Cardiff created many more chances, but couldn't tack on an insurance marker. Barnsley had their own chances, though, particularly when Kayode Odejayi broke in alone but could only find the side of the net in what Soccernet described as "quite possibly the worst miss seen at the new Wembley". In the end, Cardiff was deserving of the win and a berth in next month's final against Portsmouth. What's interesting is how Barnsley cranked it up to beat top-flight sides like Arsenal and Liverpool, but couldn't seem to do the same against a club from their own league. Perhaps it's the downside of an upset: all of a sudden, the expectations are weighing on...