Wigan vs. Liverpool: Welcome to Third Place

My wife is an Aston Villa fan. It has nothing to do with soccer; if you ask her why, you'll get vague answers (anything from "I like their colors" to "Gareth Barry's kinda cute"). So in spite of my love for Liverpool, I also have to endure some Villa games from time to time.

This isn't really that bad; Villa's a fun team to watch most of the time. They're scrappy. They're occasionally chaotic, but usually pull themselves together when it matters. They can salvage games out of bad play. Really, they're everything that I want Liverpool to be.

Of course, technically, this post is about the abhorrent 1-1 draw at the JJB last night. Really, though, it's about more than that; it's also about the two 1-1 draws against Everton and the scoreless draw against Stoke. It's about dropping four points that'd let them stay at the top of the table to teams that should've been beaten. It's about flat-out bizarre manager decisions, and it's about the fact that when we play Everton next Wednesday it's completely possible one of the biggest football clubs in the world will have gone an entire month without a win.

Really, the Wigan game highlighted the worst parts of this season. It was a relatively weakened side in a game where still managed to manufacture a goal in spite of making things much harder for themselves than they needed to be. The inexperience of that side manages a goal, Torres is taken off in favor of defense with twenty minutes left, Wigan senses blood in the water and frees themselves up to attack, and a late penalty kick nullifies a 1-0 lead. This is the same story as Everton last Monday, really, and it shouldn't be surprising...but it is. It surprises you every single time it happens. I forget why I watch this team play, because I know it isn't entertaining anymore.

It's really the same way with every team I support. I'm a Browns fan, and this is essentially the story of their 2007-08 season; pacing the favorites for the conference most of the season only to collapse at the end in a loss to a hated rival. In a way, I wish I were a Villa fan, too; they thought they'd be contending for a UEFA cup slot, only to get surprised with a possible Champions League slot. This is the best season they've had in maybe ten years (maybe sooner, maybe longer, I don't really know); Liverpool, meanwhile, is ahead of them by a point and is in free-fall. Both perceptions are accurate; Liverpool should be better, Aston Villa maybe should be worse.

Of course, in theory Liverpool isn't out of the title race yet. Manchester United could lose to Everton, draw with Fulham, and let Liverpool back into it. But for that to happen, Liverpool needs to start winning, and they need to start on Sunday against Chelsea. I'm guessing that's a 1-1 draw, with an early Gerrard goal equalized late off of a stupidly given set piece.

But at least Villa's on FSC Saturday.

Kellen Winslow: Cleveland's BFF

It's been a long, strange season for Kellen Winslow. Between getting into fights with upper management and, er, mystery ailments, one might suspect that Winslow might regret not having been traded to Philadelphia earlier in the season.

Nevermind all that, though, says Winslow. Per the AP, here's what he has to say on the situation:

"I love being a Cleveland Brown. The guys here, we don't know who's going to be here next year. You just have to focus on this year. That's all you can do. ... I do want to be back here. I love being here. I love playing here. The fans have stuck by me."

Now, I'll be the first to admit: I'm a huge Winslow fan. I think the team's better when he's in the game, and I think he's still being tainted by his infamous "I'm a soldier" rant (really, if there were YouTube videos of every stupid rant you went on when you were 20, wouldn't it be irritating for people to still think of you as "that guy who flipped out over the lack of egg sandwiches for breakfast at the cafeteria by comparing it to the Somalian hunger crisis"? Thought so.).

However, as much as I like Winslow, and as much as I'd hoped otherwise, I had basically written him off of next year's roster. So to hear him express a desire to stay here is nice, and gives me a little hope that with some luck and some better coaching, the Browns can have a good season next year (a good season in this instance meaning "7-9 and not completely embarrassing").

It's also interesting that he mentions his "good relationship" with Randy Lerner; in an offseason that's likely to see Crennel's firing and Savage's neutering, players feeling close to the city and the owner might cause them to stick around for another year.

Of course, this could also be a ploy for Winslow to get that contract extension he was begging for earlier in the season. Smart money's probably on that option.

Welcome Aboard!

So this is the inaugural post of what may or may not be a continued effort to write about two of the teams I follow most closely, the Cleveland Browns and Liverpool Reds. After all, at the end of the day, it's all football, right?

Unfortunately I'm starting the blog on a day when I don't have anything particularly interesting to say. The Browns season has been effectively over since they lost to the Ravens back in November; the team was simply too far behind the rest of the AFC to realistically earn a Wild Card berth. This is par for the course here in Cleveland, where meaningful football in December is more likely to be played by a kid on his X-Box than by the professionals paid to do it.

Fortunately, across the pond (as they say), Liverpool is enjoying a relatively good season, sitting one point clear of Chelsea at the top of the table. This is in spite of the fact that their wunderkind striker from sunny Spain, Fernando Torres, has been chronically injured all season. Their placement on the table would imply that they've been playing well of late, but the truth is a little less clear cut; their form's been poor-to-average, and they've really had some ugly wins. None of their games this season have been particularly exciting, outside of those two fantastic come-from-behind wins against competition that should've been easily dealt with in the first place earlier in the season. So one may hold out a little hope that their form will improve and they'll stay locked into their current spot on the table.

So that's really all I've got for today; I'd imagine there'll be more sometime this weekend (Game reviews! Random thoughts! Yay!). Welcome, stay, enjoy the furniture, all of that.