Arsenal Jump Chelsea and Man. U, Mets Go Bargain Hunting at the Winter Meetings



Super Samir Nasri

We're heading towards Christmas and Arsenal are top of the League!  While all the haters are burying them, the Gunners are two points clear of the suddenly vulnerable Chelsea and one point up on Manchester United (United do have a game in hand as their fixture with Blackpool had to be postponed last week).  A 2-1 home win over Fulham was highlighted by 2 AMAZING goals by Samir Nasri. (Check them out: Goal one, Goal two).  A cool note on this game was that all Arsenal players were donating their day's pay to the team's selected charity, Centrepoint, London’s largest youth homeless charity.

On Wednesday the Gunners defeated Partizan Belgrade 3-1 securing their place in the final 16 of the Champions League.  On the positive side, they are through and have qualifed for the final 16 for the 11th straight year in a row.  The bummer is that they looked very sluggish against a lousy Partizan team and by finishing second in their group, they will face a tougher match up in the next round.  The team's possible opponent will be either Schalke or Bayern Munich from Germany or, god forbid, Real Madrid or Barcelona.  I'd rather be heading to Germany next.

Coming up on Monday, Arsenal travel to Old Trafford where they have to show their true title credentials.  Here's hoping for the best.

Random crazy events in the EPL this week:

• After guiding Newcastle United back to the Premier League where the team is so far having a good season, club owner Mike Ashley fired manager Chris Hughton out of the blue inciting an insane stream of vitriol from the fans.
• Trouble keeps popping up at the Billionaire Boys Club...a.k.a. Manchester City.  This past week saw Carlos Tevez almost come to blows with manager Roberto Mancini upon being substituted.  It seems that money has not yet bought happiness to the blue half of Manchester.

  

  D.J. who?

  

On the baseball front, the Winter Meetings have come and gone and while the Red Sox were making a splash by signing Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford and the Yankees were throwing around the money, my beloved New York Mets were showing their continued post Bernie Madoff hangover.  New GM Sandy Alderson came back having signed reliever D.J. Carrasco and backup catcher Ronny Paulino.  Analogy...the Yankees and Red Sox are shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue while the Mets are checking out the discount racks at Walmart.  But, in the imortal words of Tug McGraw, "You Gotta Believe".