Tickle v. Tackle 19

Tickle

• The North London Derby was grand and featured some fantastic goals, with Adebayor's second the pick of the lot. It's nice to have a pretty open derby match when they generally tend to be such a drag.
• I was ready to pencil Michael Johnson into this week's TvT column about 25 minutes into Manchester City's contest with Aston Villa this weekend. And that was before he scored an excellent winner. Citeh have been churning out the young talent as of late and Johnson looks to be the latest find. Great touch, excellent passing, and a danger man coming from deep in midfield.
• Lots of speculation swirling about roster changes for DC United this offseason. This is borderline "tackle" as I'm not sure that Veron is the best use of DC's designated player allocation. He's in his mid-thirties, struggling with injury as of late, we'll probably lose Gomez and/or Emilio in the process, and a formation change would probably be necessary. And all that in addition to the obvious question of whether he's suited to the style of play in MLS. But if he can still bring it . . .
  
• Classy move by Leicester in the replay of their abandoned Carling Cup match with Forest. Read all about it.
  

Tackle

• FSC has killed my enjoyment of Serie A! Not that I follow the league all that closely, but I tune in for the "big" matches and watched GolTV's weekly highlights show last year. Not that "Ciao!" was the greatest highlights show. In fact, whichever of the crappy American hosts took the reigns seemed like he was watching the highlights for the first time as he gave a running, often confused and rambling, commentary. But you still got bona fide highlights and it was still miles better than this nonsense of a half-hour music video that FSC is running Seriously, that thing is a turd. I wonder how much they're paying for the rights to show that monstrous and horrible piece of crap? Only fitting for the home of the demon-spawned Christian Miles.
• Bulls falling apart. Technically, this should have tickled me as a United fan, but it's kind of sad to see an already depth-starved team being so thoroughly decimated by injuries. Altidore may be coming back, but Mendes is banged up and Magee and Goldthwaite may be done for season after dings in a reserve match. And I'd like to concur with Ives - what the hell is up with all the secrecy in this organization? Heck, even the stadium looks like it may be suffering an injury. A secret injury.
• Mexico ditches the green. Is this a move to downplay their obvious envy of the strides soccer in the US has been making , or is Sanchez trying to morph El Tri into Los Merengues? Lame.
  
• "Wednesday are pointless!" Heard on BBC Radio Sheffield. (Rob, Sheffield).