Monday Morning Manager

What the hell, Neal? Not only did you steal the Manager's gig... you stole his format for the week. Not to mention some of his points. Sports is prone to copycats (see cover-2 or the 4-5-1 formation, to be more relevant to the blog) but this is just ridiculous.

But the Manager is nothing if not stubborn. So here goes his random musings after Round 4/Week 3 of the EPL/fantasy season:

• Ruud finally broke his 100% shots to goals ratio, firing two on net against Newcastle but only scoring one. The new "Pires Award" leader is Geoff Horsfield with his own 100% record - 4 shots, 4 goal. Very impressive. Let's hope he can keep it up. WBA are going to need all the help they can get.


• Was Del Horno the fantasy no-brainer of the season, or what? Not only have Chelsea kept a clean sheet in each of their games for a cheap 12pts, but he has attacking statistics that would make most midfielders happy. All for an initial $5 investment. And yet not even 40% of fantasy owners have him on their squads. How is this possible? Anti-Russian billionaire sentiment? Basque nationalism?


• Is Dennis Rommedahl at all distinguishable from Jesper Gronkjaer? When they show up for national team duty do they have to wear name tags? To be fair, Rommedahl sends his crosses over everyone's heads while Gronkjaer had this weird stutter-step... it was almost a nervous tic... but it always allowed his defender to step in and block the attempted cross. Either way it isn't very productive. It will be very interesting to see what Curbishley decides to do when Ambrose comes back from suspension.
  


• Meanwhile Boro, Charlton's opponents (to be kind) on Sunday looked TERRIBLE. They we a step slow across the pitch. And Yakubu has yet to click with his new teamates. But for all their possession and territorial dominance, Charlton owed their first goal to a tackle on George Boateng. He had to be taken off the pitch for medical attention and on the replay you can see him running at Danny Murphy as he gets waved back on to the field by the referee. But he doesn't get there in time to prevent the pass that led to Rommey's goal. You can be sure that that move doesn't happen with him in position


• Kevin Phillips and Milan Baros kicked off their new partnership in fine style, beating Rovers and combining well through-out the game, but mostly on Baros' 13th minute goal. It will be interesting to watch these two play together as they both made their names playing off a larger target forward. Niall Quinn for Phillips at Sunderland, and Jan Koller for Baros on the Czech Republic national team. My guess is that Phillips becomes more of the set-up man as he seems to have a better sense of the game. He plays with his head up and looks for the right pass whereas Baros puts his head down and runs at the defense. Baros will drop deep and wide into the midfield looking for the ball, but will usually end the play himself, either with a shot or more likely winning a throw-in, a corner kick, or drawing a foul. Look for Solano and/or Berger (should they be healthy and available to play) to get some good looks at goal from dead ball situations with Baros around.

International week this week, which mean no EPL games. But we have the "hot stove" coming to a boil (ugh!) on Wednesday. Who will be the transfer market winners and losers? Check back later and the Manager will tell you. Unless Neal gets to it first.