Run ends

So after becoming UEFA's team of the month and having not lost a game and hardly conceded a goal CimBom's run ended thanks to a rather bizarre goal conceded against Eskisehirspor.

This was probably Galatasaray's worst performance so far this season. Even though the game was mostly played in Eskisehirpsors half of the pitch there were not that many real clear cut goal scoring opportunities unless you ignore the 3 gold plated ones that Keita managed to waste. He really should have had a hat-trick before half time and those misses came back to result in 2 points wasted after one of the 2 chances they had resulted in a massive deflection and a goal. Thats football I guess but really we should have been out of sight by halftime. I have a feeling Rijkaard will be reminding the players that they have to play for all of the 90 minutes and that 1-0 is not a good scoreline. So now the Kadikoy mob who have playing dismal football are somehow top of the League with amazingly a 100% record.

Having said that CimBom never appeared to be in danger of losing this game as Eskisehirspor hardly threatened and the GS defence even without Emre Asik and Zan is looking solid with Ugur an able deputy to Hakan Balta who has been playing central defence the last couple of games.

Next up on Thursday are Sturm Graz in the Europa League at Ali Sami Yen and I really hope we get a better result than last time we played them. I would expect to see Elano and Baros starting this one as well as Ayhan who was on the bench for Sundays match in place of Nonda and Mehmet Topal and maybe Sarp. But lets see.

6 more goals

So after the expected win over Besiktas last weekend it was a short hop over to Athens to put the Greeks firmly in their place with a 3-1 win over Panathinaikos in the first match of the Europa League group stage. Elano with 2 and Baros with the other, the only blemish on an otherwise excellent display was the goal conceded.

Then it was back to reality on Monday night with the short trip to Kasimpasa. By the way what is it with all of these Monday night matches? They used to be a very rare occurrence but now seem to happen every week, what happened to Friday night, Saturday and Sunday evening, those are the correct times for football not Monday. Anyway as I was saying reality hit rapidly with the poorest performance of the season rescued by Nonda with three goals in about 20 mins in the second half.

Although its the reality of modern day football with all the matches to be played but the constant changing of the team hardly helps the continuity needed to be consistently good. Still it was three more points, even if I had no nails left after the game and a potentially tricky match out of the way. Next up is Eskisehirspor who have re-established themselves in the Super Lig and a team who embarrassed CimBom last season so lets hope we give a better performance this year.

Lions eat eagles

Well well well.

Last season must have been a vintage year for overachievers as the champions were comprehensively outplayed with a score line that could have been worse. Also Sivas were beaten 3-1 by Manisa leaving Sivas with no points after 4 matches.

Anyway back to the matter in hand. The team was pretty much as expected with Baros as a single striker supported by Kewell, Keita and Arda with Mustafa Sarp and Mehmet Topal as the defensive midfield.

Mustafa Sarp is looking like an extremely good buy as he ghosted in at the rear post in the 4th minute to head Ardas corner in unmarked. Following that were two goals by Baros as the goal king started to fire. Kewell should have had 2 goals as well but somehow failed to convert two excellent chances.

Overall an excellent performance that underlines just where the power has swung in the SuperLig, played 5 won 5 and it looks like a straight fight between GS and Brazilbahce this season, of course things can change but the way Rijkaard has got the team playing it is looking good. Having Elano on the bench was a bonus although when he came on it seemed like the team balance was changed somewhat and it took a later adjustment to balance things up when Baris came on to be the ball winner.

Walk in the Park

Monday night in Ankara, must be 3 points and it was. A routine victory over a somewhat limited Ankaraspor, looks like the rumors swirling over at the Round Ball in Ankara may have an element of truth in them, dismember the team, get relegated and disappear. I mean last season there were 4 teams from Ankara in the SuperLig and looks like this will be reduced to 2 at the end of this season whihc is probably about the right number.

So two goals in the second half from Kewell and Nonda took GS back to the top of SuperLig after the Kadikoy mob had briefly held that position thanks to some rather inconsistent refereeing. Having stoped Manisa because one of their forwards was offside even though the ball was not played to him, 2 minutes later the same happened at the other end with the offside player eventually scoring but where was the whistle??? Of course not...

We added another player to the roster yesterday, Caner Erkin who had been playing at CSKA Moscow. He is a left winger so is Arda on the way out?

Next up is Besiktas in the first Istanbul derby of the season. On from this should be a straight forward win for CimBom but form in derbies tends to go out of the window and last season GS were very bad against their main rivals. I have a feeling it may be different this season as BJK will also have one eye on their upcoming Champions League elimination...