Granada were playing suicide football for the first 10 minutes of the second half. Keeper playing them into trouble deep in their own half twice in 5 minutes. Let's hope he learns from that for future games!
Anterior cruciate ligament broken for Alexander Merkel in training. Already successfully operated but season is over. Very unlucky, poor lad. This year he had found a space in team and debuted recently as full international for Kazakhstan. I hope for him he'll recover completely. Also Guilherme is out for a long term injury for at least two more months. Slight emergency in midfield then. Today it's the great Pozzo's Triad afternoon: - Newcastle Watford - Real Madrid Granada - Udinese Empoli all within 4 hours. Also, the Primavera (U21) team plays against Perugia at 10PM and is live on http://udinese.it/portal/IT/handle/?hil&page=redazione_udinesechannel Armenakas played well and scored a goal in the first winning match Milan-Udinese 0-2 and he's likely to be again in starting 11.
Watford win. Granada hardly embarrassed at the Bernabeu, succumbing to a 1-0 defeat to Real Madrid who put 6 past their opposition last weekend. Udinese currently 1-0 up at home to Empoli. Zapata from a Di Natale assist.
According to paper Madrid goal was offside and Granada had a correct goal ruled out. Madrid always get a helping hand when they are not 4-0 up.
Nothing new in the sight, Madrid always getting helps. By the way: Granada B is, right now, leader of their league!
Do you follow Granada B games? This year it has several players formerly from Udinese Primavera and I'm curious about how they're playing. Dimitrieski (GK), Bochniewitz (captain at 19YO!), Jaadi, Aias (came last season).
I don't see all of them, but this season i've seen 3/5 for example. Dimi isn't a surprise now, he has great manners, personally I like him a lot, but he still needs more time, he do great saves but suddenly "eat" a basic shoot, still needs to improve his regularity. Jaadi is a great surprise, he is fast, offensive and he really has skills, Sandoval has his eye over him. Bochniewitz is doing great too, but don't take the captain thing too serious, because with our new mister, every player is playing and the captain lace had went to some more players. Aias still didn't gave on me a great impression. And another great player is Peñaranda (Venezuela), reminds me to Jaadi, they both are really hard to defend and I think they could be in 2nd division easily. LOL
I always thought that Colantuono (hope I've got that right) was an unambitious and uninspiring appointment. Thought I'd misjudged him after that 1-0 win over Juventus but I fear I was correct. Please prove me wrong because I really don't want to see Udinese and Granada struggle again this year.
Abysmal FH against Milan (unlucky too, they had 3 shoots and 3 goals). Then a wonderful SH with 2 goals in firts minutes and a largely dominating 45' with lots of chances but, unfortunately, not the third goal which would have given a well earned draw at least. 3-5-2 seems not working anymore, leads to a too defensive and blocked team. In SH Coilantuono, out of desperation, played a much more aggressive module and the difference was huge. Voices of a divided dressing room and some players not really willing to be here don't help optimism. The fact that some players seem to give 100% only when playing against the big teams (so they are not in a match but in a shopping window) is equally troubling. Pozzo Sr. has already menaced that, if some players don't give it all, it's easy to substitute them with others more motivated as soon as January transfer window arrives and then they can rot on bench or stand. Colantuono is risking if we don't take some points very soon (at Bologna away next hopefully). Donadoni (very good IMHO) or Del Neri ready in line for the job probably. In table we are in a bad but not desperate position (in a group of 4 at 3 points between 15th and 18th). It's lucky that Carpi and Frosinone don't really seem to have enough to stay up (yet yesterday both gained 1 point with Napoli and Juventus respectively). A few points and some more luck and crisis might be over. Yet ... worrying times.
Worried Granada may putting the performances without the results this season. Currently had 6 shots on target to Valencia 1. Valencia lead 1 nil.
FT Valencia-Granada 1-0. A good but unlucky match by Granada. They were well worth of 1 point at least. Very bad position in table, but if they continue to play this way I hope points will come soon.
The bottom half of La Liga is so close though it's pointless reading too much into it at this stage. Rayo Vallecano were 18th before Wednesday games, won and are now 10th!
I confirm: three wins in a row, two of which away. Also Panos is playing a lot and quite well. About 180' played in the three matches: one goal, one pen gained and good talent shown.
Losing 1-0 to Bologna. Could be in real trouble this season and not really surprisingly as they didn't seem to strengthen much. Who actually runs Udinese on a day to day basis, their equivalent of Gino? Is it Pozzo Sr.?
Excellent. Do you think Armenakas has a chance of playing for Udinese in Serie A this season, Sherlock? Am I just imagining it, or did you say that the CM position in the Udinese senior team this season is quite weak?
About Armenakas: no, not yet IMHO. Unless of course (I hope not) there's a huge emergency of bans/injuries that forces us to take players from the Primavera team. About CM: yes, we don't have much quality around. Guilherme has a long injury (a couple of months). Evangelista injury. Fernandes ban (he'll be back next match). Pontisso too young and inexperienced. We are short of a "playmaker" in midfield and overall we seem to have more "quantity/holding-midfielders" than creative players in the mid.
A decent point against a very in form Depor (6th in table now). Yet the performance seemed to me worse than in previous less fortunate (in term of points) matches. Anyway, at least a small step up in table. This afternoon Udinese-Genoa, both at 6 points. Breaking the curse of the new stadium (0 points in 3 matches so far) would be really, really welcome.
