International friendlies review 15 November 2013

England lost two nil to Chile and at home. At first I was surprised that the convincing way in which Chile beat England.

But after seeing the England line up and I was no longer surprised. The some of players that Roy Hodgson chose for this friendly.  Where mainly players who would struggle to get into their premiership team. 

 

This meant that it would have been unrealistic for England to beat Chile who had brought a much better team. 

England would have needed all their first team players to have any chance of winning this match.

Please check out the highlights to this match below. (commentating is in Russian)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPbIjD8nhVI
 

Scotland drew nil nil with the USA and this result was a surprise. I thought there was going to be lots of goals and I also thought that USA where going to win. 

The USA brought a strong team to Scotland and Scotland after previously losing to the USA where determined that they would not be humiliated at home.

So I think the draw must have felt like win for Scotland and for the USA it must have felt like a loss,

 

International Friendlies

So the international friendlies are taking place today and England will take on Chile. Roy Hodgson has decided drop goalkeeper Joe Hart to the bench.

I  have never rated Joe Hart but the reality is, he is the only decent goalkeeper England have got. I think the result will be two goals one in England's  favour.

Scotland are playing the USA tonight and I think it will be a close win for the USA like England, USA  have already qualified for Brazil 2014. 

It should be a good game as Scotland will have nothing to prove and USA will want to be seen as potential champions in Brazil 2014.

Arsenal's season so far

As we are now on an international break, I thought it would be a good time to look at Arsenal's season so far.

The stats do not lie and Arsenal are in a better league position now than this time last year.

Arsene Wenger may have added a few new players, but the existing players have all started to play well especially Laurent Koscielny  and Aaron Ramsey.

Aaron Ramsey is scoring goals that has surprised fans far and wide. 

The end of summer signing Mesut Ozil has been a bit of relevation and his link up play has been second to none. 

So the area of the field that Arsenal still have a problem is upfront. We are still trying to walk the ball into the back of the net. It has been particularly hard for Oliver Giroud this season. 

I cannot see Arsene Wenger buying a striker in the January window so our bet is to hope Lucas Polodski returns from injury to partner Oliver Giroud. 

We are currently top of the league and how long we stay largely depends on when our injured players are coming back to help the squad to deliver our first trophy in eight years.

 

ATP Men's Finals London - Review

There were few surprises at this years ATP men's tour finals.

I was surprised by the notable improvement of Stanislas Wawrinka. I am not his great fan of his style of tennis but he did well to make the semi-finals. 

I was disappointed with Rafa Nadal's performance in the final. After playing well to reach the final, his below par performance was certainly a surprise and disappointment. 

I personally can't see Roger Federer winning anymore major titles. I think he has had his time and for him to beat either Rafa or Novak at any of the majors in 2014 sounds a tad unrealistic. 

Novak Djokovic performed better than I expected. But then I think losing the the world number one ranking motivated him to play even better. 

Overall it was a good tournament and it was good to see both the number one and number two players in the final. I was only disappointed that Rafa couldn't win it.

 

ATP Men's Finals London- Final

The men's ATP men's final took place yesterday and Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in straight sets. 

I was suprised with the ease in which Novak beat Rafa. However Novak seemed hungrier for the win and he was blasting winners from all over the court. 

Rafa did not come across as his usual focused self and was making a lot of unnecessary errors.

 It was only really towards the end of the second set that we started to see Rafa's brilliance.

 By that time it was too late and Novak was able to close out the set and the match. From Novak's perspective it was a great match and he was able to retain his title. 

From Rafa's perspective he played a poor match and may rue the chance to have picked up this trophy after such a great year. 

It wasn't really a great final and as Rafa fan I would have loved for him to win it but I guess it was not meant to be. 

Both players will be firm favourites for the Australian Open and for Rafa,  2014 could be the year he makes history. As he is only three grand slams behind Roger Federer. 

Premiership review - Sunday's games Podcast

VR Online Service: Premiership review - Sunday's games

ATP Men's finals - Preview of the men's final

Today's ATP men's final will be between to great competitors in Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. 

This should be a great match and could become classic match. It is difficult to predict who will win this encounter. 

Novak will want to win as he has not won has many grand slam titles as he would have liked this year. 

He also would like his world number one status back so I think he will be hungrier for the win. 

Rafa has had a great year and his wins year have included two grand slam titles. 

As the current world number one he does not want to lose this status anytime soon, so he will be fighting to hold on to it. 

So I think Rafa will probably win this final but in three close sets.