I got to listen to the Saints game yesterday morning. Unfortunately I didn't listen closely since I was dealing with work stuff (I was on-call) and then dozed off at some point in the 2nd half. I was happy that they had won 2-0. But they were at home and Leicester had only won 1 of their previous 10 games.
In seeing what the media had to write about the match I ran across this at the Sporting Life :
Southampton goalkeeper Kelvin Davis did not have a save to make and the new-look Leicester strike force of Steve Howard and Barry Hayles failed to trouble the Southampton defence.
Howard almost put Leicester ahead in the 13th minute with a shot cleared from near the line but that was as good as it got for Ian Holloway's disappointing side.
So the writer first claims that Hayles and Howard failed to trouble the Southampton defense only to then IN ThE VERY NEXT LINE point out how in the 13th minute Howard had a shot cleared off the line. Could it be that this soccer writer doesn't see having a ball cleared off the line as a big deal? Maybe they don't think so but I suspect that they were just having one of those days. I can't blame them, I had a great moment of stupidity not too long ago [here].
Speaking of Kirovski, how would one rank him in terms of dollar for dollar performance in the MLS last year? Carlos Ruiz made $325k/$435k (depending on how his bonuses were met). His 7 goals and 2 assists were respectable. But for a guy who was supposed to step up and lead the team, did he really do that? I'd love to be a fly on the wall after Steve Morrow, Oscar Pereja, and Marco Ferruzzi (who had a stint with the Minnesota Thunder among other Div.2/USL-2/A-League clubs in the US) had a few pints and started really being honest about what they thought of players.
But in looking over player salaries (old Washington Post article here), I couldn't bring myself to even consider a player more over paid than Shaka Hislop. In 2007 he made $220,800 to appear in 4 games. If that wasn't enough, the US is known as a breading ground for goalkeepers. Surely they could've found another just as good for less? After all the next highest paid GK in the MLS was Joe Cannon at $192,000. At least Cannon was out there playing. Shaka wasn't even good enough to be a starter.
To jump back a few posts, I noted that Hull and Plymouth are both contending for a play-off spot and a chance to get into England's premiership. They just met in the 3rd round of the FA Cup with Luggy's Plymouth team coming out on top 3-2. A sign of things to come? Maybe but with 16-18 games left in the season for Championship (div.2) teams, there is still plenty of soccer left to be played. It's likely that a couple teams in the running will drop out with a few others making a run.
