The Wannabe Pundit

CYMRU AM BYTH!!

- Wales are back on the World Stage
- My take on tonight’s game
- England are there as well
- How far can both go

So 64 years have passed and finally Wales have once again played a match in the World Cup!! It’s a fantastic achievement for the Welsh team to even qualify and great to see the likes of Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and co do what previous Welsh legends like Ryan Giggs, Ian Rush and Mark Pembridge never could and play on the biggest stage of the sport we all love!!

So to the game and I can’t remember a game in recent history that sums up the saying ‘A game of two halves’ more. The first half was really disappointing from a Welsh point of view, the team looked nervous, overawed by the occasion and in some cases; out of place. In fairness to the USA though, they started very well with Musa, Pulisic and Weah looking particularly good. The goal was well worked and I think most Welsh fans will have been relieved to go in just the one goal down. A change was needed!!

A change came in the form of Kiefer Moore who came on for the very disappointing Dan James, who was the epitome of my earlier assessment of Wales first half performance. Moore was always going to provide a much better physical presence but it was his first action in the game which represented an important change of direction in the Welsh performance. He made a simple run down the side of the USA defence providing an out ball for the defence, the exact run that Dan James should have been making all the way through the first half. From that moment, Wales got an important foothold in the game.

It would be wrong of me not to give a mention to Neco Williams and Ethan Ampadu who were Wales’ best players tonight but the introduction of Moore of course provided that physical presence and his hold up play allowed the likes of Bale and Ramsey start to play. Both are clearly past their best but are still the brightest hopes for Wales if we are going to go beyond the group stages - Bale especially, as proven once again when the question was asked he had the answer!! A great conversion of the penalty he won, after some great work by the Robin to his Batman - Ramsey!!

All in all 1-1 was probably a fair result but I can’t help but think that Wales have missed an opportunity tonight. It leaves the group well poised going forwards and a potential barnstormer next Tuesday against the English!!

Speaking of England they themselves started their campaign tonight in impressive fashion from an attacking point of view. Six goals, two from a Gooner no less, and the likes of Grealish, Rashford and Foden impressing from bench left a decent statement in their opening game.

Jude Bellingham was superb in the middle of the park and Rice looks solid alongside him. In Kane they have a proven goalscorer and plenty of attacking talent to back that up!!

So how far can both go? As said, England have some outstanding attacking talent and can beat anyone on their day. In addition, the pragmatic Southgate style is effective in tournament football; see every successful German team in the past for an example! My feeling is however that England can be too easily got at at the back. Any team that has Harry Maguire as a mainstay in the back line has reason to worry. Don’t get me wrong, not so long ago I had Maguire down as a top defender but for one reason or another the man’s confidence is shot!! Put him under a little pressure and there is reason to worry. Conceding two against a terrible Iran team cannot be overlooked - the likes of Brazil and Argentina would be relishing the chance to face England based on that.

As for Wales? For me the next game against Iran is crucial. I would expect England to beat USA and USA to beat Iran on match day three. Wales play England last and would be expected to lose that game. That’s not me being pessimistic by any means but looking at the squads, England are far superior. Goal difference is going to be big in this group so goals will be the key on Friday morning. Getting out of the group would be a great result for Wales and one to be proud of. That said though - my prediction is that Wales are going to win the whole thing!!

A man can dream!!

That’s all from me tonight, I hope you enjoyed. I’ll be back soon with more World Cup talk including my opinion on the GOAT - Messi or Ronaldo??

Thanks for reading!!

We’re all pundits and we all know best!!

Sport - Oh how I love thee!!

- Arsenal flying high and looking awesome!!
- England the white ball kings of cricket
- Russell’s first win in Formula 1’s new era

So the Premier League is taking a break to make way for the World Cup and as an Arsenal fan I can’t help but think it couldn’t come at a worse time!! It has been an exceptional start to the season for the Gunners, dropping only 5 points so far and sitting pretty 5 points clear at the top of the Premiership. Like most Gooners, I’m not getting carried away and by no means consider ourselves favourites for the league but based on the way we have started I don’t think it’s too arrogant to say that we are definitely title contenders.

Yes - there are times in games where we have been lucky to come away with all the points, the win at Leeds springs to mind for example but by the same token we could easily have taken all the points at Old Trafford and threw away two points at Southampton. Judging by the performances in general there is no doubt that Arsenal are currently showing signs of championship winning material.

Top performers who get a special mention for Arsenal in the early part of the season.

William Saliba - an absolute revelation this season, he’s fitted into the back line and become absolutely indispensable since day one. With great positional sense, outstanding pace and composure he looks like an absolute world be**er.

Thomas Partey - as good a holding midfielder there is in Europe at the moment. Provides protection for the back line, is great in the tackle and keeps possession ticking over beautifully.

Gabriel Jesus - An absolute animal. I was excited at the prospect of him joining but what he has done to this team is unbelievable. He sets the tone with his hunger, desire and sheer quality and has been fantastic. He should score more goals but with the likes of Odegaard, Saka and Martinelli chipping in and Jesus’ all round play being as it is. We are not suffering too much.

Lord knows where we’d be without these three and keeping them fit will be crucial to our success this season. All in all it’s good to be a Gooner at the moment and who knows what can happen? It’s great to be in the conversation again, that’s for sure!!

Cricket now and a sport that i by no means claim to be an expert on but what an unbelievable achievement by the England T20 team this week. To be World champions in anything is incredibly impressive and the nations cricketers have just become the first to be World Champions in both 20 over and 50 over formats. Brilliant!!

As I said, I’m no expert but know enough about sport to recognise a true legend when I see one and this accolade surely can be given to Ben Stokes. He got England over the line in this final just like he did in 2019. Add that to his fantastic test performances and I don’t think it’s exaggerating to say that we are in the presence of greatness!!

It was great to see George Russell win his first F1 race at the weekend at the Brazilian GP. It’s been a tough old year for Mercedes who got it very wrong with their car with the new regulations but it was good to see two Brits on the top two steps of the podium and it looks like next season could well see them take the fight to Max Verstappen and Red Bull next year. Credit where credit is due - Verstappen has been in a different league this year - yes the car is the best on the grid but his ruthless consistency and outright brilliance has been that good that he would have been difficult to beat in any season.

It’s been great to see Ferrari back in the hunt and Charles Leclerc is one of my favourite drivers on the grid, I hope Ferrari can get their act together further and give him a championship challenging car next year. I’m also excited to see if Fernando Alonso has finally made the right call in his move next year. He’s one of the best of all time in my opinion and could still compete at the very top if given the right car!!

That’s it from me this time - comments and thoughts welcome!!

Next time I will revisit the Premier League and name my team of the year so far, talk a little bit about the World Cup and whether it is exciting or just an unwelcome distraction or not and maybe throw in some amateur opinions on the other sports we all know and love.

We’re all pundits and we all know best!!

FA Cup 4th round preview

It's round 4 of the FA Cup and a few juicy fixtures in store for us. I won't start with the obvious one but rather the first one of the weekend.

Chorley .v. Wolves - This could be a bit of a cup shock this evening, Wolves are in poor form in the Premiership and Chorley will be relishing the opportunity to upset a top flight team at home. Wolves have already prepared an excuse by mentioning the pitch. Very interesting! I personally feel that they will simply be too strong and will run out comfortable winners.

Southampton .v. Arsenal - I just had to mention the current holders in the previews as the mighty Gunners make the trip to St Mary's. This won't be easy for Arsenal at all as Southampton have been the better of the two teams so far this season. The Saints have not been up to scratch lately however and I quite fancy Arsenal to turn them over.

I can't see any slip ups from the Premier League teams in the 3 o'clock kick offs tomorrow so am expecting to see Brighton, Sheff United and West Ham to progress to round 5 at the expense of Blackpool, Plymouth and Doncaster respectively. Milwall .v. Bristol City will be a close one and I can see that going into extra time and perhaps even penalties. Norwich go to Barnsley and the Championship leaders shouldn't have any problems there. The final 3pm kick off sees Swansea host Notts Forest - Swansea are going well again this season so I'm going for a home win.

The final game tomorrow sees Cheltenham welcome the might of Manchester City. I'm not going to brave enough to stick my neck out on a shock here either. City should cruise through this one!

I fancy Chelsea and Everton to come through without any problems. Chelsea host Luton whilst Everton play Sheffield Wednesday. The FA Cup may be the best chance for Everton to get that first trophy since 1995.

I'm going to predict an upset on Monday night as where the Championships bottom club Wycombe take on Spurs. It may be more wishful thinking on my part but name me a pundit that is impartial!! Bournemouth shouldn't have any trouble on Tuesday against Crawley Town.

Finally, the big one. Manchester United .v. Liverpool. I see this as a perfect time for Liverpool to play their biggest rivals. They were woeful last night in defeat to Burnley, that following a boring stalemate against Sunday's opponents from which they have drawn a fair amount of criticism and doubt. It just seems typical that they will pull a performance out of the bag on Sunday and put United to the sword. I expect to see both teams putting out a strong side - hopefully it will be a better game than last week (it couldn't be any worse)

Hope you all have a good weekend!

We're all pundits and we all know best!!

A disappointing Premier League main event, a new Masters champion in the snooker and the ongoing back trouble for Tiger Woods - plenty to talk about.

It's been a few days since the weekend now and I was originally intending on posting on Monday about the weekends football. The idea was that the main headline would be the big match at Anfield between Liverpool and Manchester United. I decided against posting it as all I could come up with is the following :

Liverpool had a lot of possession. Paul Pogba had a shot.

That's it ...... In all seriousness though it wasn't a surprise to see a drab goalless draw and United will definitely have come away the happier with the result. Are Liverpool fans starting to get a little bit concerned with their form, particularly that of the front three? It's true that the goals have dried up somewhat in recent weeks but it is my belief that this is not a long term thing. They are still the leagues top scorers and have the top scorer in their ranks in the form of Mo Salah afterall.

Elsewhere, Man City continue to look impressive and can go top this evening if they beat Villa at the Etihad if only for a couple of hours as I fully expect Man Utd to usurp them once again as they go to Craven Cottage. The team at the top at the moment is the continuously impressive Leicester - they keep picking up decent wins and last nights 2-0 win over Chelsea (who seem to be in freefall at the moment) was impressive. I can't see them staying up there but I would say they are almost a certainty for a top six finish.

There were wins for Tottenham and Brighton and back to back victories for West Ham who are having a cracking season. I was also very pleased to see Arsenal brush aside Newcastle on Monday, I won't get too carried away as Newcastle are looking really poor at the moment but it was a good performance from Arsenal and really important to see Aubamayang back in the goals.

Snooker now and the Masters came to a conclusion this weekend. On Friday, I mentioned that Ronnie O'Sullivan is always worth a watch and on Friday evening he went up against John Higgins. It was Higgins who prevailed with a vintage performance - he always seems to raise his game against Ronnie. Higgins went on to reach the final but was outplayed by Masters debutant Yan Bingtao who became the youngest champion since Ronnie O'Sullivan. Impressive stuff.

I've got to say I was gutted to see in the news this morning that Tiger Woods has once again had to have surgery on his back. This guy is a true sporting legend and to see him struggle so much with injuries over the last few years has been sad. There is no doubt in my mind that he is the best golfer of all time and it's such a shame that he won't overhaul Jack Nicklaus record of 18 majors. Hopefully he can recover enough this time to roll back the years like he did at the Masters in 2019 and go on to prove me wrong.

That's all for today - my next post will preview the FA Cup fourth round fixtures as the mighty Gunners look to retain the trophy and extend their record haul. (we all know it's the only trophy we all want to win)

We're all pundits and we all know best!!

Weekend Sport

It's a big weekend in the Premier League this week as the League's current top two face off at Anfield. This is a massive game for both teams in my opinion, Liverpool will want to reaffirm their authority as the Countries top dogs and Manchester United will be looking to prove that they really are the real deal this season and should be taken very seriously in the title race.

Elsewhere, we have the Black Country derby between a Wolves team who are struggling with the absence of their top striker Raul Jiminez and West Brom who are fighting relegation. A win at Molinuex would be a massive stepping stone for Big Sam and his troops as he looks to avoid relegation from the Premiership for the first time in his career.

Leeds face Brighton in what could be an entertaining game given Leeds gung ho approach, but Brighton will also fancy themselves against one of the Leagues leakiest defences. West Ham host Burnely in a top contender for the last game to be shown on Match of the Day on Saturday night. Southampton travel to Leicester in a battle of two decent counter attacking teams. Both are having decent seasons so far.

Chelsea will be looking to bounce back after a few poor results with an extremely winnable game at Craven Cottage and there should also be routine wins for title contenders Man City at home to Palace and perennial trophy bottlers Tottenham at bottom club Sheffield United.

The clash at Villa Park between Aston Villa and Everton at midday on Sunday could well turn out to be the game of the weekend. Both have been good to watch so far this season. Finally on Monday night Arsenal host Newcastle in a repeat of last weeks FA Cup borefest - let's get it done in 90 minutes this time please Arsenal.

In other sport - the Masters Snooker continues if anyone fancies a nice snooze on the sofa listening to the dulcit tones of John Virgo, Dennis Taylor and the like. Ronnie O'Sullivan is in action this weekend though and he's always good to watch. England are looking to put Sri Lanka to the sword in Test Cricket amongst other events. All in all, enough to keep us busy as we settle in for another weekend in lockdown.

I'll finish with my weekends predictions in the Premier League, just for a bit of fun.

Wolves 2 .v. 1 West Brom
Leeds 3 .v. 2 Brighton
West Ham 0 .v. 0 Burnley
Fulham 0 .v. 2 Chelsea
Leicester 2 .v. 1 Southampton
Aston Villa 2 .v. 2 Everton
Sheffield United 0 .v. 3 Tottenham
Liverpool 2 .v. 1 Man Utd
Man City 2 .v. 0 Crystal Palace
Arsenal 3 .v. 0 Newcastle

We're all pundits and we all know best!!

I'm just a bitter jealous Gooner at the moment!

I was originally going to make my first post on here about the importance of Sport during the pandemic but I didn't want to dwell too much on the very serious situation this country is facing at the moment. It's all I seem to read and hear about. Instead, I'm going to have a bit of a whinge about my beloved Arsenal and have a little pop at those clubs that we used to call our rivals - (where's the fun in complimenting the brilliance of others).

11th in the League at the moment and hosting Crystal Palace at The Emirates tonight I find myself disillusioned with the team. On the one hand - we are in a period of transition, but how long does transition last? My big worry is that whilst we are in this period we are falling further behind. We don't have the spending power of Manchester City and Chelsea, or even the likes of Everton it seems. Liverpool have been through there 30 year transition period and hit the jackpot when getting Klopp on board. Man Utd are finally looking like they are on the way back although I think its still too early to say they are title contenders. Leicester continue to look strong and in Brendan Rodgers have a decent coach and the evergreen Jamie Vardy keeps banging in the goals year after year (especially against us!!) Then there's the bunch across North London who are - lets face it - miles ahead at the moment. It's a worrying time if you're a Gooner - it pains me to say it but this transition period is going to see us out of the top four for a good few years yet!!

On the other hand I do see reason to be slightly optimistic - We had a decent summer in the transfer window. It's too early to tell but I reckon Thomas Partey will prove to be an amazing piece of business. He was the best player on the pitch when we beat the "title chasing" Man Utd at Old Trafford. Signing up Bukayo Saka was good news at the time but with every game he plays it looks like the best bit of business we've done for years and another crucial move for the future of the club. Aubamayang signing his new deal will eventually pay dividends I'm sure, he is still, in my opinion, one of the top strikers in the division - his bad patch can't last forever. Finally there is the emergence of Emile Smith-Rowe - again it's early days but I really like the look of this guy, very clever, skillful and creative and a hard worker to boot!

All in all - I don't expect much this season, top six would be a tremendous finish.

I'll finish by attempting to spark a debate. This is my top eight prediction for the end of the season. Let me know your thoughts.

1. Man City - starting to look ominously good, especially at the back and without a fit striker - Will a returning Aguero improve them further?

2. Liverpool - Great team to watch and still very strong despite van Dijk being injured. Is he really Liverpool's main man?

3. Man Utd - I don't see them outlasting the top two. They can't continue to get the rub of the green with all those penalty decisions surely?

4. Leicester - Is Brendan Rodgers underrated?

5. Everton - Having a really good season and picking up some crucial results. Calvert-Lewin for the golden boot? I don't think so, personally.

6. Arsenal - I don't really believe this will happen, but a bitter man can dream!! (Dreaming of 6th place - what has become of me??)

7. Tottenham - Just because it pains me to put them above us! Is Son now the best left sided forward in the Premier League?

8. Chelsea - I don't think Lampard knows what his best team is and the new signings will need a year to gel in my opinion.

That's it for my first post - I hope I didn't bore you too much - please feel free to comment and let me know your top 8 predictions.

We're all pundits and we all know best!