The Story So Far - Nov 8 Man United vs Arsenal, Erik Lamela vs FC Sheriff

What football is on this weekend?

On Saturday, let’s begin with the Premier League. No early game, and not much going on in the 10:00 AM EST slot save for maybe Chelsea vs West Brom (possible weird post-Champions League upset factor) andSouthampton vs Hull City (battle of the newbie aspirants). I wish I could tell you the late game was interesting, but I can’t (sorry James Bigg).

In the Bundesliga, the big game is probably Wolfsburg vs Dortmund 9:30 AM EST, even separated as they are in the league by ten points. And in La Liga we have Real Madrid vs Real Sociedad at 10:00 AM. Most of the interesting stuff is happening in the morning, save for Houston Dynamo vs Kansas City at 2:30 PM EST in the Eastern Conference MLS playoffs.

Sunday is a little different. In the Premier League, Spurs vs Newcastle at 7:00 AM EST should be a nice open game (in theory), and I wouldn’t bet against the Toon taking something out of this. Then we get the Super Sunday match-up of Manchester United hosting Arsenal at the slightly demented kick off time of 11:10 AM EST. The game could either see United dent Arsenal’s ascent, or Arsenal wipe out United’s title race (I mean Iguess?). Also, could be a draw.

In Serie A we get Juve vs Napoli at 2:45 PM EST, the Eredivisie gives us Feyenoord vs AZ at 10:30 AM, and La Liga has Villareal vs Atletico Madrid at 1:00 PM EST.

What’s the big story today?

A giant dollop of pre-Man United/Arsenal hype mostly. Wayne Rooney commented on his knack for scoring goals against Arsene Wenger’s team:

“Arsenal do crop up quite often,” the 28-year-old said. “It is a bit weird. I am sure they must be sick of the sight of me at times.

“That first goal for Everton does seem like a long time ago. It was obviously a special goal for me, plus they were 32 games unbeaten.

Meanwhile Wenger is waxing nostalgic over the days when Alex Ferguson was still manager and Robin van Persie was a Gunner. All of this means of course the game will end 1-1 on headers from Mertesacker and Evra or something.

What else is going on?

The MLS playoffs is what, Johnny. Two incredible games last night saw Portland (haha other expansion sides!) and Real Salt Lake (who haven’t been able to move on at the Rio Tinto in seven thousand games or something) progress to the Western Conference final. Which really is great for the sport. Watching the LAG beat the Sounders again would not have been fun. This is fun.

Mauricio Pochettino and Sergio Aguero bag the manager/player of the month awards in the Premier League.

And Stevie G could say bye to England after they crash out of the group stage in Brazil.

Oh and Aaron Ramsey was this close to becoming a Manchester United player (kinda sorta).

Any good stuff?

This is the Erik Lamela dribble which won Tottenham a spot kick against FC Sheriff Tiraspol last night in their 2-1 Europa League win: