Premiership Recap

The title can mean only one thing: Anderson has finally scored. It took him two-plus years of his Manchester United career to find the net and the lad came up golden in a pivotal win over then-unbeaten Spurs at White Hart Lane. Meanwhile, back in Manchester, the club from Stockport, erm, that other club from Manchester hosted Arsenal in a heated affair where Emmanuel Adebayor's nagging obsession with all things Arsenal reared its ugly head.

While some of you are highly awaiting the Transformers sequel, there's a Summer blockbuster that makes yours truly, to quote another box office success, throw up in his mouth a bit. Of course, we're talking about an extravagant sale of Kaka from Milan to Real Madrid for a "tepid" 59 million pounds (that's $97 million US) and then today (in fact, late Wednesday evening here in the States), a year's worth of transfer drama culminated in rather anticlimactic fashion with Manchester United finally sending away Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid for a whopping 80 million pounds, which

All Northeast relegation combatants can rest assured Manchester United fielded a team that indeed had the strength of beating Hull with nothing more than a mixture of kids and reserves. What will keep Newcastle and Middlesbrough supporters up at night is a dreadful campaign, resulting in all four relegation contenders losing on the season's final day in rather drab fashion. Oh wait, there's more!

Well, did you expect a more creative title for this recap than that? For this Manchester United fan, celebrating the club's 18th league title overshadowed a weekend that put an interesting wrinkle on the relegation race. I reflect on the significance of United's 18th league title, what it means to tie Liverpool for their league record, and of course, a final salvo on facts as well as a few chuckles over Rafa Benitez's latest comments.

El Clasico in Madrid dwarfed the weekend's Premier League action (at least in this humble fan's perspective) but nonetheless the impact remains rather significant. Manchester United keep holding on to a three point lead at the top over Liverpool and in so doing, both teams put two Northeast sides closer to the brink of relegation. We'll shortly talk about Chelsea and Arsenal tuning up for their respective Champions League semis while I get carried away talking about next season's football shirts.

There isn't much that needs to be said other than Manchester United flirting with near-disaster but come up with the best second-half of the season against Spurs, one that rates five stars, most certainly. (There's a BBC Match of the Day clip of United/Spurs embedded in this write-up.) Despite Saturday's topsy-turvy drama, it's as-you-were at the top of the table, but would it be the same at the tail end of the table?

Yes, that kid did it again and like a posting your little kid's A+ arithmetic test to your refrigerator for all the world to see, well, it's that kid's picture that adorns this column again. Yes, folks, Macheda-mania is still running wild like little Hulkamaniacs in the late 80's taking their vitamins and saying their prayers.

It's not everyday I post a BBC Match of the Day Recap, but with a special day for Kiko Macheda, why not. The best thing about Myspace Video is they're slower to take down copyrighted videos than Youtube are, now that Youtube has better filters that will remove copyrighted video within hours. But enjoy it while you can. Some interesting things I'll point out:

Words are failing me right now. What I just witnessed a few hours ago as I write this was surreal. This was one of those once-in-a-generation scream-your-lungs-out moments like Robert Horry's game-winning shot in Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals against the then-hated Sacramento Kings, Derek Fisher's 0.4 buzzer-beater, or in a football context, 16 year-old Wayne Rooney scoring in his Everton debut to beat an unbeaten Arsenal. Guess what, what I had seen could be 100 times greater than all three of those euphoric events combined. Today, we've just witnessed the making of a demi-god who Travis Ishikawa will prostrate himself to 100 times over, and his name is Federico Macheda, the greatest thing to ever come out of Italy since Nutella. When the world needed a hero, up stepped Federico Macheda. Last time I checked, the North Koreans launched an ICBM with a nuclear warhead, but Federico Macheda rose in the air, made a full 90 degree pivot, composed himself and kicked the warhead into the far corner of the Andromeda galaxy. All hail Macheda, the god from... the Macheda.

Yuck. To be perfectly honest with you, I haven't been looking forward to writing this recap column ever since United laid an egg to Liverpool, to the extent that I didn't watch the remainder of Premiership football matches or highlights this weekend. At any rate, Chelsea picking up three points against Manchester City puts an interesting twist on the title race, as both Chelsea and Liverpool are four points back of United, though United have a game in hand against Portsmouth.