Sporting Madness

The English Premier League title race continues towards its exciting conclusion, and this second-to-last week features two matches that might just decide it all. First, Liverpool host league-leaders Chelsea at Anfield, and then Manchester United travel to the Stadium of Light to face Sunderland. Chelsea have 80 points from 36 matches, one more than United, and are also well ahead on goal difference. In the last week of the season, they'll host Wigan, which should be a relatively easy win; thus, their performance today will be crucial. United have a bit of an easier schedule, on the road against Sunderland today and then at home against Stoke next week, but they could win out and still lose if Chelsea take both of their games. I'm planning to live blog both of today's clashes, so stop by here for that. The first one, Liverpool and Chelsea, will kick off at 8:30 Eastern (5:30 Pacific) and will be live-blogged in this post; the second one, United and Sunderland, kicks off at 1...

Premier League Punditry is back! Plenty to talk about this week, including Liverpool's trampling of Aston Villa and Man U's loss to Fulham. Is the title race back in play? All that and much, much more from the world of soccer will be discussed. Join us in the live blog after the jump! Premier League Punditry 03-22-09

Plenty to talk about in this week's instalment of Premier League Punditry, including the Carling Cup and the slipups of Liverpool and Aston Villa. Join us in the live blog below! Premier League Punditry 03-01-09

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

A reminder to everyone that I'll be chatting with Amrit and Phil from There is No Original Name For This Sports Blog at 1:30 today. We'll have a lot to talk about this week, between various transfers and transfer speculation ( Kenwyne Jones to Spurs ? Didier Drogba to Olympique Marseille ? Arsene Wenger to Real Madrid !?), some surprises in FA Cup action (such as Cardiff holding Arsenal and Swansea dumping defending champions Portsmouth ) and a bunch of off-the-field news (Kuwaitis buying Liverpool ? Millwall fans acting up again ? Indian sponsors for United ?). [All above stories from ESPN Soccernet ). We'll try to get to all of that and more this afternoon, so join us here at 1:30 and submit your questions and comments!

Ben Knight has dug up a really interesting press release from the Montreal Impact on Montreal dropping its MLS bid, which I covered over at Out of Left Field a couple of days ago. Here's the release: "RECTIFICATION REGARDING MONTREAL'S BID FOR MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER Following MLS Commissioner Don Garber's statements regarding Montreal's bid, the Montreal partnership group would like to bring one important rectification: Montreal did not withdrew its bid from Major League Soccer but was informed that the league did not retain its bid. Out of respect for the Grey Cup festivities, the partnership group will not make any additional statements over the weekend. However, the President of the Montreal Impact [and] Saputo Stadium, Mr. Joey Saputo, who is spearheading Montreal's MLS bid, will meet the media: Monday, November 24, 2008, 10:30 am, Saputo Stadium, 4750 Sherbrooke Street, Montreal." That's fascinating. According to this release, it wasn't tha...

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...

Last weekend in the NFL was a case in point as to why we still bother to actually play out the games, even in this day and age of intensive statistics, research and computer analysis on sporting events. Against the odds and the collected wisdom of the pundits and prognosticators, two underdogs (the San Diego Chargers and New York Giants) knocked off heavily-favoured teams (the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys). The classic "any given Sunday" line became true again, which is a great thing for both the league and sport in general. Hopefully, this will continue: it will certainly make next week's games interesting if the Chargers and Giants can at least give the Patriots and Packers a run for their money. All sense, odds, and logical thought again favours the home teams, but as this past week showed, the league can't simply be turned over to the statisticians and computers. It should be a great round of games. Links of the day: - Stephen Brunt has a great piece in...