EPL Monday: Manchester United vs. Liverpool Was All Sorts of Crazy ... Just How the EPL Likes It

Buffalo Wild Wings — America’s apparent favorite place to watch sports and games and stuff according to March Madness commercials — doesn’t exist in England. How do I know this? I spent 27 seconds of my life on the Buffalo Wild Wings location finder website, which also revealed the franchise likes to refer to itself as “B-Dubs.” Who knew?

For a while, anyway, B-Dubs used to run those commercials where someone inside the bar would press a button and something zany would happen to extend the televised sporting event hundreds of miles away, giving all the patrons more time to eat chicken wings with their closest friends. Huzzah! At times the English Premier League plays out like one of those dumb ads, with a healthy dose of WWE scripting for good measure. Case and point: Manchester United’s 2-1 win over Liverpool.

The long-and-short of the game is United are now five points clear of Liverpool for the final Champions League spot — and only two behind Manchester City for second place — with eight matches to go. In a practical sense, that’s all that matters. But good golly did that match give everyone who followed the Premier League weeks of material to parse through as the games grind to a halt in order to accommodate the first FIFA international break of 2015.

• Juan Mata, remember him, scored twice including a sizzling scissor kick that made it 2-0 in the second half.
• Mario Balotelli avoided a second yellow card, thanks in small part to fans in the front row holding him back from getting up in Chris Smalling’s face.
• Raheem Sterling’s first noticeably ineffective match for Liverpool, which was ill-timed since he’s in contract extension talks with the team, looking for upwards of $150,000 per week. (Why-oh-why can’t European soccer report player wages a) accurately and b) in years as opposed to per week?)
• A Wayne Rooney penalty kick saved in stoppage time. (Albeit with United still up 2-1.)
• Martin Skrtel stomping on David De Gea’s ankle right as the full time whistle sounded, something which could see the Slovakian suspended retroactively.
• Oh right, some dude named Steven Gerrard earned a straight red card for a challenge for stepping directly on Ander Herrera’s ankle 40-odd seconds after entering the game as a second half substitute.

By most standards this wasn’t the best game of soccer ever played. The moment of insanity and flash points overshadowed everything else, which is nothing new. Often it’s hard to tell what the people running the Premier League want more: its clubs making deep runs in the Champions League or millions of people on social media retweeting the same Steven Gerrard heat map meme? Theoretically both could still happen and truthfully all the Premier League wants is people to keep watching so it can collect more-and-more money through global television deals.

The EPL, as we saw on Sunday, is much like the Velvet Kramer — a loathsome, offensive brute … yet we cannot look away.

Finally United?:

So … it took a solid eight months, but maybe just maybe Louis van Gaal found a Manchester United lineup that works. Either that or Michael Carrick’s importance to United is re-manifesting itself. Carrick is by no means a star player, in the weird way we define star. He was never able to unseat the Frank Lampard/Steven Gerrard midfield axis of mediocrity in the England National Team over the 2006-2014 World Cups. People rarely buy a ticket to watch Michael Carrick spray short, diagonal passes to teammates, either.

That said, in order to build a winning club team you need unheralded guys like Carrick. It’s not really much of a surprise United have won five Premier League titles in nine years at Old Trafford. Sure the Rooney and Ronaldos take most of the credit, but without the Carricks of the world who function within in a system and do their job, there is often much dysfunction.

This season United are 12-3-4 (W/L/D) in games played by Carrick. Teaming Carrick with Ander Herrera in the midfield gives United much more balance that what we’ve seen most of the season. Granted, van Gaal winds up with a bit of a luxury that Robin van Persie goes down injured, Falcao is out of form and he’s still got Rooney available to play lone striker.

Talking about Carrick and his role in United is nice, but he’s also 33 years old.

I’d guess some observers might make a big deal that United “looked” great in the first half vs. Liverpool with Angel Di Maria on the bench, but that’s a little simplistic. Di Maria is an adaptable, useful player who makes his teammates better. What he really needs is a break, after a long season last year with Real Madrid and Argentina. He probably won’t get much of one with the Copa America beginning in June. Fatigue, coupled with acclimating yourself to a new country and league isn’t a recipe for success. Fortunately, again, a club with the resources of United have Juan Mata — the team’s previous record signing before Di Maria — to deputize.

Call it a coincidence, but the Gareth Bale-United rumors will likely kick into overdrive this week. Bale is taking a beating in the Spanish press following Real Madrid’s loss to Barcelona on Sunday. United are one of the few clubs that could afford the Welshman should the situation deteriorate. So it would be fitting that United finally seem to have the basic idea of what they want to do under van Gaal, accommodating most of the players — Falcao is all but surely a goner in the summer when his loan ends — and then to end up linked to Bale and then going through the entire process again.

Goodbye Steven

There isn’t a great way for Steven Gerrard and Liverpool to part company before the club icon moves to the Los Angeles Galaxy this summer — the perfect way would have been winning the Premier League last season, but that slip up vs. Chelsea happened and I don’t want to say anything else about it for fear or pissing off still-angry Liverpool fans. As it stands, everybody looks to be saying and doing the right things, but right now there really isn’t a reason Gerrard needs to be on the field for the Reds. If not for Adam Lallana’s injury on Sunday, it’s doubtful Gerrard comes on when he did, but he did and this happened:

It’s such a dumb incident it’s not worth discussing, outside of Lego form. Call it the perfect confluence of insanity.

As it stands, Gerrard will miss three games: April 4 vs. Arsenal, an FA Cup replay vs Blackburn on April 8 and April 13 vs. Newcastle. That leaves six Premier League games and maybe a couple in the FA Cup. We’ll see Gerrard again for Liverpool, but not very much. It’ll all depend on if fourth place is still attainable (and injuries). He’ll certainly get a run-out at Anfield in the final home game of his career on May 16 vs. Crystal Palace, but beyond that?

Suppose Liverpool make the FA Cup final. Does Brendan Rodgers allow sentimentality to make his starting XI? And since we’re playing what-ifs, should Liverpool win the FA Cup is that a happy enough final image for Gerrard and the club? Or will the bitterness of the 2014 title slip-up still cloud the day?

Goal of the Week:

Juan Mata’s goal is great. A jumping, scissors kick is always going to win out. But. Eden Hazard pulled a Messi here, scoring with four Hull players around him for a nice goal in Chelsea’s hard-fought 3-2 win at the KC Stadium.

Hilarious Goal of the Week:

Olivier Giroud knew what he was doing here, guiding it into the net with his knee — his first of two goals for Arsenal vs. Newcastle on Saturday. The Giroud experience is a lot of fun right now, especially since he’s so divisive on social media. He’s also in the form of his life (at least at Arsenal, Monaco first leg notwithstanding), helping pick up the slack for Alexis Sanchez who’s cooled off a bit.

Arsenal remain perpetually in search of that classic, go-to striker, yet the Gunners seem to have one right now in the Frenchman. A strong, tall center forward who can finish in the air and link up with teams with quick-hit passes in-and-around the box isn’t someone who should easily be dismissed.

Stat of the Week:

As I touched on last week, Chelsea will likely limp to the finish line and still win this year’s title by five or six points. It’s just going to look less impressive compared to the team’s start in August and the sour taste after losing to PSG in the Champions League is going to take a long time to shake. Still, the Blues haven’t looked great lately. Allowing two goals to Hull City in 70+ seconds — including a gift from Thibaut Courtois — isn’t the look of a league winner. And yet, Loïc Remy got the game winner eventually and the “crisis” was averted as quickly as it started.

Look no further than Courtois to sum up Chelsea on Sunday. Yeah he botched a pass and gave Abel Hernandez the easiest goal he’ll ever score, but he also made a bunch of great saves in the second half with the score 2-2.

The only cause for concern if you’re a Chelsea supporter is if Eden Hazard falls victim to the same malaise that’s swept over most of the club.

Odds and Ends:

Referee Neil Swarbick sent off Garth MacAuley instead of Craig Dawson in West Brom’s loss to Manchester City, creating another black eye of the EPL’s officiating. Allowing the fourth official to look at a monitor and override the match referee when stupid stuff like this happens — and it happens frequently in the EPL — seems to be a no-brainer. … Thanks to whomever decided to schedule West Ham’s 1-0 win over Sunderland at the same time as the NCAA Tournament on Saturday. Good thinking. … Everton beat QPR, which ought to quiet any relegation talk for the Toffees. It is interesting to see the difference of opinions on both Roberto Martinez and Tim Howard in America compared to England. …

Scoring Leaders:

Figured since Harry Kane scored a hat trick vs. Leicester City and Diego Costa tweaked his hamstring vs. Hull City it would be worth looking at the race for the Gold Boot with eight games to go.

T1. Harry Kane 19
T1. Diego Costa 19
3. Sergio Agüero 17

I wouldn’t count out Agüero simply because City still play Aston Villa and QPR. City remain the top-scoring team in the PL with 62, one better than Chelsea.

The Table:

1. Chelsea: 67 points (29 games played)
2. Manchester City: 61 (30)
3. Arsenal: 60 (30)
4. Manchester United: 59 (30)
5. Liverpool: 54 (30)
6. Southampton: 53 (30)
7. Tottenham: 53 (30)

Bottom Four:

17. Sunderland: 26 (30)
18. Burnley: 25 (30)
19. QPR: 22 (30)
20. Leicester City: 19 (29)

Looking Ahead:

The final international break of the season takes place next weekend. When play resumes on April 4, we get Arsenal vs. Liverpool.