Continue reading this post »

Emile Heskey came to Aston Villa during the January 2009 transfer window. He scored twice the rest of the season. In three and a half seasons, he scored nine league goals in 92 appearances. It's pretty easy to understand why big Emile was never the most popular Villa player; on a team that was so often in need of a bit more firepower, he became a symbol of the fans' collective frustrations. That he did so while pulling down somewhere in the neighborhood of £65,000 per week made him all the more popular of a target for derision, especially over the past few years, when it's become apparent that Villa's wage bill was monumentally out of control.

To be sure, Ivanhoe didn't deserve all of the criticism of which he was on the receiving end. The pace and quickness that had once made him a genuinely dangerous scoring threat had long since left him but he was still an imposing physical presence blessed with touch and vision that were quite incongruous with his size (not to mention his tendency to get things horribly wrong in front of goal.) Despite what some of his critics might have to say, he was far from worthless. It wasn't much of an accident that Villa often looked a great deal more dangerous after he entered games; he was a true target forward in a way that John Carew and Darren Bent never were, winning balls, holding up play, finding outlets and clearing out the penalty area. None of these things are especially sexy, but there were a lot of times that the same could be said for the most effective method of play Aston Villa could employ.

Still, it's clearly time to move on. Heskey's durability has followed quickly on the heels of his athleticism over the past couple of seasons in particular, and there are plenty of younger, healthier players that can bring similar things to the table at a far lower cost; for similar wages, you might even be able to find a few that can finish or get past a defender. I've been as staunch a supporter of Emile's as one is likely to find, but I will happily admit that the club is better off with him gone. £65,000 is just far, far too much to pay for a 34-year-old striker that scores once every ten appearances and misses nearly as many games due to injury a he starts. That's money that could be used to upgrade the central midfield and replace the big man's utility-striker role, making the team significantly better in the process.

Continue reading this post »

Chivas USA continued an impressive run of form in holding the Seattle Sounders to a scrappy 1-1 draw at the Home Depot Center. The Goats looked the better team for long stretches of the first half, and it took a goal from Juan Agudelo to bring the Sounders to life; just four minutes later, David Estrada put the game back on level terms after getting onto the end of a dangerous low cross from Alex Caskey. Seattle continued to apply steady pressure the rest of the way but Chivas would have none of it, and it was the Goats threatening to take three points at the end with a few desperate moments of defending from the Sounders preserving the draw.

Chivas' high-pressure, possession-based game threw the Sounders for a loop in the first half, and though Chivas didn't offer much in the way of a threat at goal Seattle wasn't able to test Dan Kennedy until the dying moments of the first half. Things opened up right from the start in the second half, and it was Chivas USA that grabbed the opener; former Sounder James Riley found himself in acres of space coming down the right flank on the counter, and Juan Agudelo got to the end of the fullback's inch-perfect cross to head past keeper Bryan Meredith.

That caused the Sounders to kick things up a notch, and they stayed in a higher gear well after Estrada's equalizer. But the Chivas defense (as well as Kennedy) showed why they're leading the team's revival, and with several key Sounders attacking players tiring Chivas bossed the final few minutes of the game. While a draw may not seem like the greatest of results against a team three spots and nine points lower than the Sounders, the Goats have shown flashes of brilliance at times this season and have begun to show significant signs of improvement and cohesiveness as of late. Given the players Seattle was missing due to injury and suspension, as well as an altogether strong performance from the home side, a point is a pretty decent haul from this game.

The focus of the next three weeks now shifts to the US Open Cup. The Atlanta Silverbacks come to town on Wednesday and a potential date with the Portland Timbers is on the docket the following week. The Sounders won't see league action until June 16th when they travel to Montreal, giving them an opportunity to do a bit of recuperating after a brutal month of May. While the Sounders form at the moment is far from red-hot, they remain well within striking distance of Real Salt Lake in the Western Conference and are clearly in a much better place than they were at this time last season. It's been a frustrating run of late, but considering that this may be the most difficult stretch of games the Sounders will face all season, things could very easily be a whole lot worse.

Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »

The odds that Rafa Benitez will become the next manager of Aston Villa have tumbled, and the former Liverpool manager is now just a hair's breadth behind Norwich City boss Paul Lambert in the eyes of the bookies. At least in terms of what the bookies' believe will make them the most money, because (and I hate to have to keep saying this) the odds have very little to do with the actual situation and far more to do with the way the bets are moving. One would think people would have figured that out by now, but apparently not.

We don't have any actual idea what (if any) conversations the board has had with Benitez or whether they've even had internal conversations about the possibility of Benitez being hired. Based on the information we do have, the possibility seems incredibly remote. Benitez is not a young manager, and it's difficult to think that he's especially hungry. (No, I will not make that joke. He's a man, a person, with feelings, dammit!) Benitez is going to expect not only a fairly hefty wage but, one would expect, a fairly hefty transfer budget as well; let's not forget, Rafa was interviewed for the Villa job once before, and based on the information that was leaked things never got especially far along because he had little interest in working without some pretty extensive financial commitments from the board.

Continue reading this post »

It seems as though QPR is interested in veteran Aston Villa goalkeeper Shay Given. I'm not going to link to any of them, because they're all a part of the same recursive loop of transfer gossip, but you can find them in all the predictable places. I don't suppose there's any reason to believe that QPR wouldn't want Shay Given; Shay Given is really good! Paddy Kenny is only a little bit good, and he's probably leaving anyways. Given is pretty much exactly the kind of signing QPR seems to love making, too, so on most counts this rumor passes the sniff test.

But while it makes enough sense to gain steam as a transfer rumor, I'm still not buying it. Villa are going to want a pretty hefty chunk of change for Given, and QPR is in need of more than a new keeper if they'd like to take a big step forward. Additionally, he's on pretty hefty wages and isn't getting any younger; is that really the kind of asset you want on your books if you end up going down? There are players worth taking risks on; Shay Given, despite being totally awesome, isn't really one of them. Now, just because something is stupid doesn't mean QPR wouldn't be interested in doing it. But it doesn't make much sense for Villa either, with large portions of the fanbase still skeptical of Randy Lerner's intentions and Given being one of the only players on the squad liked by pretty much everyone. That's not really the kind of player a team trying to regain public trust up and sells for a decent offer.

So yeah, I'm not buying it. But even if Given isn't heading to London, QPR needn't venture away from Villa Park in order to fulfill their goalkeeping needs. Mr. Hughes, could we interest you in a Brad Guzan?

The Seattle Sounders were lucky to escape BC Place with a point on Saturday, as a shockingly poor first-half performance was not punished as it arguably should have been and the Vancouver Whitecaps allowed them back into a game they easily could have put away before the break. Alain Rochat opened the scoring for Vancouver in the 12th minute, streaking down the left flank un-marked and beating Bryan Meredith at the far post.Vancouver continued to create pressure while the Sounders created nothing, with Eddie Johnson's half-chance right before the whistle Seattle's only shot on goal of the first half.

It was a different team that emerged from the locker room to start the second however, and it took less than two minutes for the Sounders to level terms; Eddie Johnson headed past Joe Cannon to finish a tremendous sequence that began with Fredy Montero finding Mauro Rosales in acres of space on the right flank, the captain then finding Johnson in the center of the box with an inch-perfect cross. The Whitecaps were clearly rattled, and if not for several highlight-reel saves from Joe Cannon Seattle may well have had a lead and this game may have looked quite a bit different. Thanks to Cannon's efforts, the Whitecaps were able to steady themselves and work their way back into the game, with the second half settling into a back-and-forth rhythym that saw each team create their fair share of pressure.

Vancouver's second came on a wickedly-curled free kick from Camilo that bent its way past no fewer than six players in the box before sneaking inside Meredith's far post. With the Whitecaps holding a 2-1 lead in the 82nd minute the Sounders looked in grave danger of losing a Cascadia match for the first time since all three clubs moved to MLS. It didn't turn out that way, however, as Fredy Montero would come to the rescue for Seattle yet again. Meredith's long kick forward was flicked on by Johnson to Montero at the edge of the box, and after jinking his way into space the Sounders' talisman chipped a ball into the far corner past a hopeless Joe Cannon. Seattle came very close to finding a winner with what amounted to the last kick of the game when an unmarked Zach Scott met Montero's free kick with a strong header, but the effort went wide, sealing the draw.

It was not the best Sounders performance of the season, but given how poorly the game began Sigi Schmid and his players will likely take it. Seattle is now even with the San Jose Earthquakes on points (though they remain in third place in the Western Conference based on the 'Quakes superior goal difference) and will now turn their attention to the struggling Columbus Crew, who will pay a visit to CenturyLink Field on Wednesday night.

Continue reading this post »

By most traditional measures, Bayern Munich was a better team than Chelsea. Shots: 43-9. Corners: 20-1. Possession: 56%-44%. The game was well and truly there for the taking for Bayern; despite a strong defensive effort from Chelsea the chances were there, but poor finish after poor finish from the Reds gave the Blues little incentive to open up the play. Had Bayern managed a goal earlier in the going this likely would have been a very different game, and perhaps the superiority they showed in most facets would have carried them to a more comfortable win. Unfortunately for the Reds, it's not about the chances you create but the chances you finish, and Chelsea finished the same number as Bayern.

The first 80 minutes were a bit like a broken record; Bayern Munich dominated possession and patiently broke down a heavily bunkered Chelsea defense, only to have attack after attack either thwarted or wasted. Chelsea periodically broke out on the counter-attack, but any pressure they created ebbed quickly thanks to a quick to react Bayern defense. It was beginning to feel as though the game going to extra time at 0-0 was an inevitability, until the 82nd minute; Bastian Schweinsteiger sent in a looping cross from the left and Thomas Müller slipped behind Ashley Cole, heading down into the turf, back up over the outstretched arms of Petr Cech and into the net. With Chelsea having managed just one shot on goal to that point a change in approach was mandatory, and it didn't take long for it to pay off; in the 88th minute with their first corner of the night Chelsea equalized, Didier Drogba heading emphatically past Manuel Neuer.

The game was different from the moment Müller's shot crossed the line, and if regular time was a bit of a bore (though such judgments are in the eye of the beholder) the rest of the game was anything but; in the early stages of the first period of extra time, Didier Drogba fouled Franck Ribery in the area, handing Bayern a penalty. Arjen Robben stepped up to the spot, but his effort was a very poor one and Cech saved comfortably. The miss was clearly the worst thing to come out of the situation for Bayern, but it wasn't the only bit of bad news; though there didn't appear to be much contact on the foul, Ribery was unable to continue and his club clearly missed him the rest of the way. From there on out it was alternating spells of pressure, each side hanging onto the ball while the opposition extinguished their every attacking move.

Though the road taken to penalties had a few unexpected twists and turns, the expectation that the game would end in that way turned out to be correct. Things looked grim for Chelsea early on; after Philipp Lahm converted Bayern's first attempt, Juan Mata's weak effort was saved easily by Neuer. Mario Gomez, David Luiz, Neuer and Frank Lampard all converted, giving Bayern a 3-2 advantage with two takers remaining. Ivica Olic stepped up for Bayern and Cech, who to that point had guessed right on the first three attempts but was unable to make a stop, smothered the attempt. Ashley Cole brought Chelsea level on his turn, and in a somewhat shocking turn of events Bastian Schweinsteiger's effort clanged off the post. From there it was up to Didier Drogba, and the legendary striker did not disappoint, blasting his shot past Neuer and giving Chelsea a long-elusive Champions League win.

With the victory, Chelsea become the fifth English club to win the European Cup/Champions League title behind Manchester United, Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa, as well as the first team from London to claim European football's highest honor. The win also throws a bit of a wrench into the off-season plans of Tottenham Hotspur, as Chelsea qualify for next season's Champions League, knocking the 4th-place club in the Premier League out of the qualifying round. Bayern's recent Champions League woes continue, as this loss comes just two years after a loss to Inter Milan and marks their third defeat overall. It will be interesting to see what Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich decides to do about the still-vacant (in an official sense) managerial position; though Roberto di Matteo is not likely the kind of name he had in mind as Andre Villas-Boas' replacement, his ability to accomplish a goal that has long eluded the Blues may well change his mind.

Just when it looked as though Bayern Munich had the Champions League trophy all wrapped up, Didier Drogba headed home the first Chelsea corner of the evening in the 88th minute. The equalizer game just five minutes after the opener from Thomas Müller, the Bayern striker taking advantage of the first real defensive lapse of the evening from Chelsea to find Bastian Schweinsteiger's cross that he headed past Petr Cech.

The game will now head to extra time, composed of two fifteen minute halves. There is no "golden goal" rule in the Champions League; both periods will be played in full. If the score is still level at the end of extra time, the winner will be decided by a penalty shoot out. Given the way the game opened up following the Bayern goal, however, such a scenario seems unlikely; after nearly and hour and a half of very stifling football from Chelsea, this game looks like it has more goals to come.

Bayern Munich has dominated possession and had the better of the chances, but a determined effort from the Chelsea defense-as well as some awful finishing from Mario Gomez-has kept seen the game half time without a goal. The Blues have gone with a less extreme version of their counter-attacking approach used to great success against Barcelona in the semi-final, and it's been tactically quite interesting; Chelsea's players seem far more concerned with exploiting open space in possession than with their typical roles, which has led to some unorthodox looking attacks.

Still, despite the excellent effort from Chelsea in the defensive phase it's difficult to picture them keeping a clean sheet for another half. The pressure has been immense, with Bayern managing 16 shots in the first half. Only 2 have been on goal, which is indicative of the struggles they've had in finishing the chances they've managed to create. With the attacking quality the side brings to the table, assuming those struggles will continue would be a dangerous bet for Chelsea to make.

The Blues are clearly not going to match the Reds where chances are concerned, but they will need to be less wasteful with the opportunities that do come their way. The openings have been there for Chelsea, but they've done far less than would be expected. This is a team that is quite capable of inflicting serious damage on the break, but the flow through midfield has been spotty and numerous touches from Chelsea's attacking players have gone awry. Roberto di Matteo seems to have gone with the right approach, but the quality in the final third will have to improve if Chelsea hope to lift the trophy.

As you've likely noticed, the Ole Gunnar Solskjaer saga has taken a bit of a turn. Or several turns, to be more precise. When I went to be last night at around 2:00 AM my time, OGS was still the favorite for the Aston Villa job. Sometime shortly after I entered the REM phase, Solskjaer had unequivocally ruled himself out of contention and pledged his allegiance to Molde. Around the time my alarm went off, the manager was planning to stay with the defending Tippeligaen champions, but would still be willing to discuss the position and perhaps listen to offers. And around the time my wife was violently shaking me awake and reminding me that her being fired for being late to work would have a drastic impact on my craft beer and football watching budgets, Solskjaer was once again minutes away from signing on the dotted line.

Not to write the one-millionth "in the modern, Twitter-fueled era the actual speed of negotiation doesn't move nearly as fast as we'd like to think" post, but...in the modern, Twitter-fueled era the actual speed of negotiation doesn't move nearly as fast as we'd like to think. As others have pointed out, much of the information being used to make definitive statements is far from actual, definitive proof of said statements; in many cases, it's based on shoddy translation and a lack of understanding of the situation from Molde and Solskjaer's perspective.

There's a tendency to get ahead of the game with things like this, and I'm far from innocent where this kind of thing is concerned. There was a time on Thursday afternoon where events were moving so rapidly that it seemed as though an announcement could be forthcoming at any moment. But that didn't end up happening, and it's beginning to look as though it won't be happening for a bit. I still think it's fair to consider Solskjaer the front-runner, but that doesn't mean he's a sure thing. The number of people that actually know what's happening is infinitesimally small, possibly as small as to include only Solskjaer, Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner. Until one of those three says something definitive on the matter, it's advisable to be skeptical of anyone else that does so.

With each side having to make some adjustments thanks to suspensions, the lineups for this game have been the subject of much speculation. Now, the waiting is over; the lineups have been announced and can be found below.

Chelsea Starting XI, Champions League Final 2012:

Petr Cech; Ashley Cole, David Luiz, Gary Cahill, Jose Bosingwa; John-Obi Mikel, Ryan Bertrand, Frank Lampard, Juan Mata, Salomon Kalou; Didier Drogba

Chelsea Bench: Ross Turnbull, Michael Essien, Paulo Ferreira, Oriol Romeu, Florent Malouda, Daniel Sturridge, Fernando Torres

Bayern Munich XI, Champions League Final 2012:

Manuel Neuer; Jerome Boateng, Philipp Lahm, Diego Contento, Anatoliy Tymoschuck; Toni Kroos, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Thomas Muller, Franck Ribery, Arjen Robben; Mario Gomez

Bayern Munich Bench: Hans-Jorg Butt, Daniel van Buyten, Rafinha, Takashi Usami, Danijel Pranjic, Nils Petersen, Ivica Olic

Both sides will presumably line up in a 4-2-3-1 shape; the most interesting development is the inclusion of 22-year-old Ryan Bertrand in the Chelsea lineup. A fullback by trade, Bertrand will be asked to help reign in whichever of Bayern's dangerous wingers ends up on the left hand side. Did we mention it's also Bertrand's first ever Champions League appearance? Not exactly a soft landing.

Chelsea vs. Bayern Munich Saturday, May 20th Location: Allianz Arena

Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »

Continue reading this post »

If you were making predictions as to who would make it to Munich as little as six weeks ago, these would likely not have been the sides you saw going through. It seemed as though yet another Classico between Barcelona and Real Madrid was all but preordained, to be played on the grandest possible stage for the first time in history. But it quickly became apparent that this year's Champions League was less historical epic in the making than cinéma vérité; Real Madrid was the first to exit, an historically bad performance in the decisive penalty shootout proving to be their downfall. At this point Chelsea's victory over Barcelona needs little recapping; it was the game that made the world once again appreciate the value of defense, a performance derided as hopelessly cynical by those that idealize tika-taka as the one true religion, celebrated by those that have grown weary of the belief that there is but one way to play the game and met with a semi-bewildered chuckle and shrug by the vast majority that fall somewhere in between.

This is indeed a less glamorous Champions League final than might have once been envisioned, but in many ways it is far more intriguing. There's little doubt that Barcelona and Real Madrid play some of the most beautiful football the world has ever seen and each match between the sides is something akin to a tent revival, but in any given season the odds are quite favorable that the two will face off on five separate occasions. What's more, it's become something of a given that the higher the stakes the less attractive the game; if the trend were to continue down its most recent path, the entire world would be in for a full 120 minutes of Sergios Busquets and Ramos taking turns hacking down skillful players and crying to the heavens for relief from their various maladies. That's not to say that a Barca-Real final would not have been quite the occasion; it's just unlikely that the idealized version some segments of the populace lament not taking place would have ever come to fruition.

Instead, we have a match between the perennial powerhouse of Germany that has failed to win the title two years running and the nouveau-riche posterchild of yesteryear that have finished outside of England's top four for the first time in a decade. On the face of it that sounds like a bit of a letdown, but to dismiss this final out of hand as a disappointment would be akin to wearing a t-shirt that says "I'm No Fun" in big, black letters. There are all kinds of fun and interesting angles to this game, and if nothing else it hammers home the fact that Europe's elite sides are far, far closer in terms of ability than is generally assumed. Few people would take much umbrage with the opinion that Barca and Real are the two best teams on the continent, but Chelsea and Bayern beat them fair and square and the clubs that ended up finishing on top of each side's domestic league bowed out in the Champions League group stage. Despite the inevitability that sometimes surrounds the games, there's more than a whiff of a crapshoot about the proceedings at times, and that's really all we're looking for as sports fans.

So far as the teams themselves are concerned, they couldn't really go about things in more disparate ways. Chelsea is something of a harbinger of what has become of modern football, a team built through the inexhaustible financial might of their oligarchic owner that has still been unable to claim European football's ultimate prize. By contrast, Bayern Munich is a model of fiscal discipline, preferring instead to invest heavily in youth and development. Chelsea's approach is indicative of that of the English Premier League while Bayern's is the model of the Bundesliga, but despite popular opinion neither is inherently superior to the other. In top-level football winning is the only goal, and so long as the letter of the law is adhered to the path to victory is irrelevant. The Blues have gotten to where they are by snapping up the world's brightest talents, from Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba to Juan Matan and David Luiz, while FCB have been a fixture on this stage since the mid-1960s thanks to a prudent and youth-based approach. No matter who triumphs, the trophy will still shine just as bright.

Where Chelsea is concerned, a win would almost certainly deliver the currently vacated manager's job to caretaker Roberto di Matteo and is as well the only path to a return trip to the Champions League. It's been a tumultuous season for the Blues to say the least, with a rebuilding project undertaken by Andre Villas-Boas going quickly off the rails and resulting in the well-ahead-of-schedule sacking of the young Portuguese wunderkind; if Roman Abramovich is at last able to lift the European Cup, it would more than justify his itchy trigger finger. For Bayern, it would replace the foul taste left in many Bavarian mouths by back-to-back titles won by arch-rivals Borussia Dortmund with that of champagne (or, perhaps more likely, a lightly-chilled eisbock.) From a neutral perspective, observers will be in for what is certain to be a fascinating tactical matchup, with two sides that thrive on solid wing play and impenetrable central midfields attempting to unlock one another in a game that is unlikely to devolve into an exhibition of anti-football. Will Bayern stake a claim for the Bundesliga as the standard against which all others should be judged? Will Chelsea's long and to this point fruitless quest for the greatest honor in club football finally come to an end? If you're not intrigued by this match, you've likely passed the cynical point of no return.

The match will kick off on Saturday at 11:45 a.m. PT and will be televised coast to coast on FOX. Make sure you check back here with our live coverage at SB Nation Seattle's UEFA Champions League StoryStream.

Continue reading this post »

A new name has emerged in the Aston Villa managerial rumor mill; former Manchester United winger and current Molde FK manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær. The 39-year-old Solskjær is of course best known for his 11 seasons and 235 appearances for the Red Devils, but his brief managerial career has been an impressive one; three successful seasons coaching the United reserves (during which time he was offered the Norway national team job) and one season at Molde, during which he led the club to its first-ever Tippeligaen title. That's not exactly an extensive track record, but it as least one of success.

Continue reading this post »

According the the Guardian's Stuart James, Wigan's Roberto Martinez is once again at the top of Randy Lerner and Paul Faulkner's managerial shortlist despite turning down an approach for his services last season. In a bit of a surprise, James seems to feel as though Swansea City manager Brendan Rodgers is a close second to Martinez and that presumed favorite Paul Lambert a bit more of a long shot than many assume. All three names are in keeping with the stated desire of the club to pursue a "young and hungry" manager that can make significant changes to the culture of the club, but all are currently employed by Premier League teams that finished the season higher up the table than Aston Villa; in order to land any of the three, the board will likely need to make a compelling case that they will have greater means to pursue success (by which I mean money, in case that wasn't clear) than they currently enjoy.

Martinez was my preferred candidate last season and little has changed in the interim. I love the style of football that his teams play, but it goes beyond that; plenty of managers have a strong tactical understanding and a commitment to playing free-flowing, attacking football. It's Martinez's widely praised man management, commitment to scouting and proclivity for finding tremendous value in the transfer market that set him apart. Of course, those are also the things that make him something of an up-and-coming superstar in the managerial world, and if Aston Villa seemed an unattractive proposition at this time last year I cannot imagine what would make him reconsider this time around; Martinez is clearly more well respected now than he was the last time Villa made the approach, while the state of Aston Villa looks significantly worse. Unless Lerner is ready to give the new manager a hefty transfer budget and will sanction an almost complete rebuild, I can't see why he'd reconsider-especially if the interest from clubs of Liverpool's stature is legitimate.

Continue reading this post »