Some quick Larry King-like thoughts ("You know what I like a lot... rutabagas.... and egg creams.") on the first week of the Premier League.


Richard Scudamore - A bit of sleaze, a lot of smarts.

ESPN/EPL link seems like a very good thing
Since this is what everyone is talking about, I'll join in on ESPN's last-second buzzer-beater of an acquisition of Premiership rights. I caught maybe the last 2 minutes of the match and in standard definition, so the extent of my opinions is this: did they have to flee from the broadcast quite so quickly? From EPL Talk's nearly Zapruder-like breakdown of the broadcast, I see that they did have some decent pre-game and halftime analysis. I guess I was just surprised to see none of it postgame. Eh, not a big deal. It's the Premiership, in HD, on ESPN2. I'm not complaining.

It's an amazing world I live in where the EPL is on an ESPN network and the NHL and Indycar racing are on Versus. See what happens when your sport is run by morons?

Say what you will for Richard Scudamore and the rest of the EPL barons, they might be a touch greedy, but they're extremely smart. I have overarching thoughts on how this move by ESPN potentially puts MLS under pressure to improve its product, but I need to see the EPL ratings, then sit down and try get the thoughts in order.

Everton and Aston Villa fans better stop dreaming Champions League and start dreaming of a defense first.
Now, I am not going to get up here as an Arsenal fan and start pounding my chest screaming, "Here comes to the title challenge!" Uhh no. What I will say is that Everton's defense looked absolutely relegation-worthy last night. Everton won't go down of course but now if they do let Lescott go, they better be prepared to sign two or three guys to fill the gap. It wasn't like Arsenal were running anything too complex yesterday in terms of set pieces. It mostly involved getting in a straight line, staying onside, flighting the ball in and seeig which of the numerous unmarked players would bang it home. It wasn't brain surgery. How Everton wasn't in the Oguchi Oneywu sweepstakes, I'll never know. He was free, had a Belgian passport and probably would've been thrilled to play in front of Howard.

And now on to Villa, who had that look of, "Hey, wait a minute. You're just supposed to roll over and die at the sight of shirts. Why are you scoring here? Don't you know your role?" I've seen that from Arsenal before... a lot. Now, I like Martin O'Neill a lot so I suspect he won't let that happen again. But ouch, that was a very despiriting performance from Villa.

As for Arsenal, the test as usual comes later on in the driving rain against some relegation-battler who tries to kick them back down the tunnel. As soon as they begin handling that like pros rather than preening about petulantly, they'll present a real title challenge. Until then, we shall see.

The Award for Quickest Anticipatory Killjoy goes to Ollie Irish!
He wins the compltetely unprestigeious medal for his "Liverpool won't win the Premier League in 09/10" declaration on the first weekend of the season. Now, there are many, many good reasons why his headline could very well prove true. But, they are really only two players away (a real replacement for Alonso, and a forward to use when Torres gets hurt). They're not that far off. I still see Chelsea beating out the other less moneied big four but I think it's a bit early to go "LIVERPOOL: DOOMED."

Highlight of the Weekend
Nope it's not Rodilega's screaming for Wigan or Drogba's accidental goal. It's Mark Hughes falling all over himself after the City win and then, and you have to watch closely to see this, his giving Sam Allardyce a bit of a ass-grab on the way up.