September Updates:
The big news of September that shocked the footballing world, both came from the EPL in a matter of weeks. Both Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson have called it a career. This came as a great shock from both sets of supporters. Maybe Sir Alex wasn't much of a surprise seeing how he was getting older and didn't much to win anymore. For the Arsenal fans, the news of Arsene's retirement was a bombshell. Many wonder if his legacy and youth system will stay seeing how so many young talent emerged from the academy and how good he was at signing very young talent to raise through the ranks of the team.
Sir Alex Ferguson had one of the most amazing careers both as a player and a manager, more so as a manager. As a player, he made total of 317 appearances and scoring 171 goals. Not many might know this, but Sir Alex won the Scottish Championship on 3 different occasions as a player with 2 different teams, St. Johnston, Falkirk. Where he will be remembered though is his managerial success both at Aberdeen and Manchester United. After 35 years of hard work, Ferguson's Trophy Cabinet has been filled with 52 Titles. Not to forget the countless amount of times he came close to winning more. He will be missed as a manager and a personality in football.
Arsene Wenger had a rather harder time, yet was as much of an icon for Arsenal in the time he was their manager during his 17 year spell. He brought that beautiful fluent football to the EPL that not many had seen before. Yet he was criticized for his lack of strength of his players in some instances. But no one could argue that he was a **** of a manager and many believe if he was part of a club where transfer policies weren't as strict, he would have built better teams.
In 17 years with Arsenal, he has won 11 trophies and came runner up on as many occasions. If he had won them instead of coming runner up, he would have been regarded one of the best of all time. No one can say he wasn't one of the best though, well respected for his influence to play the beautiful game in a beautiful way. I for one think that Arsenal playing at its best, is even more beautiful than Barcelona's taki-taka. Its a matter of taste though, and Mr. Arsene Wenger and I share a common taste.
The EPL will most both these characters and their head-to-head matches and trash talking. It will be time for both to sit together now and talk about their history over a glass of wine...red wine is what Sit Alex would prefer. So who takes their place now? Arsenal have signed Sinisa Mihajlovic to run the team while Manchester United have signed Marcelo Biesla.
Bottomtoucher in September had played two games that saw different results. The first one was in the CONCACAF Champions League versus Vancouver when they won the game by a thunderous scoreline of 5-0 in Vancouver where Reginald was seen as the Player of the Match. Chivas Manager, Real, said Bottomtoucher was a class above the rest during that match, who had also scored 2 goals in the game for Chivas. Now in the next Champions League match, Chivas took on Philadelphia. This time, Bottomtoucher showed his lack of maturity by getting sent off with a straight red card that cost them the game, losing 2-1 at home. The team manager did say that the indiscipline wont hurt Bottomtoucher's chances of coming back into the starting line-up by saying that Reginal is an important member of the team and will come back into the line-up ASAP.
Leicester City...the team without a Manager. Yes, they have started the season without a manager and it seems that the board is happy to stay that way until they find the right choice...though many of the fans are starting to revolt at the idea of going into a season without a captain to stir the ship. Leicester haven't done a bad job though. Moving up to 14th place by the end of September with 1 win and 2 draws and 1 loss during the month. James Beadle hasn't added any goals to his tally though, but he had played 2 of the past 4 games.
Sporting Kansas City haven't fared well last month. Winning 1 game, drawing 1 and losing 2 more. This hasn't effected there position in the standings, but has placed them in a bad spot. 4th place Toronto FC have now 1 game in had and are only 2 points behind. While 5th place DC United are also 2 points behind, but have 2 games in hand. Their next 4 matches, the last 4 of the season, will be very crucial. 1 home game, versus DC United and 3 away games, with the last game against Toronto FC, which could be the deciding game to see who goes into the Play-offs. What a finish to this season this is becoming. Jose Gainza still hasn't become a regular started, making only 4 starts and coming on as a sub on 20 other occasions. The Standings for the MLS will be at the bottom of the page for you all to see.
Tottenham haven't started the season well. Placed in 9th position with 2 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses. They are still in the Europa League where they were placed in a fairly easy group with their only real test coming against Fiorentina, drawing their first match 1-1 away from home. In the Carling Cup, they have made it to the 4th round and will take on Sunderland on the final day of October. Andrew Page still hasn't made an appearance.
Manchester City's Benji and Joe Williams have, this far into the season, made 2 appearances each. Joe Williams had a hard match where he did play good, but overall was decent enough. While Benji has been very good. As for the team, they are now in 11th position in the EPL with 2 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss. They played 1 less game than the rest of the league and 1 win will see them propel up the league table to 4th or 5th spot. So nothing major here, just a hitch to their start of the season. They lost their first match of the Champions League 2-0 away at Malaga, but then came back to beat Dortmund 2-0 at home.
After losing their 2nd week fixture, Racing Manger has decided to play young Molist Mora into the action and since than have drawn 3 games and lost 1. Even though its still early in the season, Racing will need extra power in offence to help the rock solid defense where both games that were lost were 0-1 results.
Braga again have started the season with force as they now sit in 2nd place with 5 wins and 1 loss. Scoring 9 goals and conceding 1. Morten Jonsson has be inspirational to the team both in Liga ZON Sagreb and in Europa League. Making 7 appearances already, he has 1 assist and 2 MotM awards. None more important than the match vs Tel Aviv away from home in Israel when Jonsson was the architecht for the game tying goal. Bringing much awarness to the media by saying he was the best player on the pitch for Braga and impress all the footballing pundits. 'The Boss' would be proud of him.
Benfica might be 4th in the table, but they are only 2 points away from Braga and 3 away from Porto who are 1st in the league after 6 matches played. That 1 loss in their record coming from Braga. They are also drawn into an easy group in the Europa League with their toughest oppenents being Everton. Jarl Horak has made 1 subsitute appearance this season, and in that appearance, he might not have scored, but did get an assist.
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I dont know if you guys think the Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger is such big news, but oh well. Each one for his own. lol. It didn't affect any of the players in the story cause no one is in any of the teams, but surely it will effect the EPL whether in the short or long term. For now, Manchester United are still dominating the league, but what the new manager will do is still in the air. As for Arsenal, they are still in 4th place for now with 1 loss.
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Here is the MLS Standings with just 4 games to play for Sporting KC.
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