www.Go To The Mountain - Musings of a Potential Guru

Champions Manchester City started their high score with a 6-1 win over Huddersfield with Sergio Aguero scoring a hattrick. When you look at the table now it reads: (20) Huddersfield (19) West Ham, (18) Fulham, (17) Arsenal and (16) Cardiff. The top four are (1) City, (2) Liverpool, (3) Chelsea and (4) Watford. Huddersfield were expected to be found wanting. West Ham have a good manager in Pelligrini, spent quite a bit and got some quality players but not having the start they wanted, Fulham plays a nice passing game, spent a lot of money but found life at the top to be really tough. Unai Emery and Arsenal will need to find more time to get back on their feet. At times tentative, they allowed Chelsea to race to a 2-0 lead and of all people Aubameyang missed a yawning goal but their fight back was admirable but collapse late on when Alonso scored the winner. They now have an interesting player in Guendouzi and Emery is trying new things. Cardiff are all grit and how far can grit alone c...

I have not done this for a long time but it is time to get back more sunshine again. We have to re-invent and re-engineer at certain times in life. Take the story of the eagle I have shared before but take the story with a pinch of salt in that in "the rebirth of the eagle", the eagle by reaching a certain age has to knock off its talons and beak and pluck out its own feathers to be renewed. The story as a whole is good advice but that is actually not true of the eagle. The lesson is on reinventing your life and golf is as in life, you play as it lies. A good shot may end up in trouble and a bad shot can end up very well.  Bobby Jones summed it up well when he said:"Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots - but you have to play the ball as it lies. Mine then is the real story. The sports are drying up as the eagle ages, other than PS4. Only left to sweat the small balls. With age catch...

Game Week One was dusted and done. The top three most outstanding teams in the season opener were Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Liverpool. Palace too have the most shots followed by Liverpool and Manchester City. Liverpool have the most passes with the highest pass succession rate of 90% followed by Fulham and Chelsea. Fulham proved they could pass/play with possession of 66.4%, Liverpool with 64.8% and Bournemouth with 62.9%. 26 goals were scored on opening weekend. Some players started on the bench after returning from the World Cup.  Cardiff v Newcastle - Neil Warnock and Rafa Benitez renews their rivalry.  Cardiff had a good last season in the Championship one level down and as predicted they found the going tough when they went down 0-2 to Bournemouth away. Their struggle will continue even as they host the Magpies. Though Newcastle lost 1-2 at home to Spurs last week , I thought they played really well and could have salvaged a point. Even so early in the season, thi...

Everyone of us has his historical moments or we are part of history somewhere or somehow. Some create history. Others end up as   history. If you are part of the Kallang Roar in the 70s to early 80s soccer craze or squash craze then you will know those  sweet moments that could not be recreated or replicated. The history of our local street food is very much the same.  For example, take the humble 'chee cheong fun'. The original food peddlers do not even have stalls. They were hawking their food within a vicinity moving from one place to another at various places and time. The original "chee cheong fun" street food peddler would balance their home-made wooden carriage on a pole at both ends where they placed all the  food including their charcoal stoves. The chee cheong fun have bits of dried shrimps and spring onions scattered in them and stored in a piping hot container covered by cloth. They serve the food using a folded leave held together by what looked lik...

No sooner after the World Cup has ended, the mad scramble is on. The transfer market is abuzz, some overwhelming and some under. It will be yet another intriguing season. Three new teams have been promoted - Cardiff, Fulham and Wolves. They have been here before and now play the big money league. In a World Cup year, some reputation have been ruined others enhanced. How will players fare after returning from the World Cup? How will the teams gel with their new signings or manager? There are some interesting changes too like Arsenal having a new manager in Unai Emery after sticking so many years with Arsene Wenger. He is experienced having won trophies with Sevilla and PSG and handled some top players and have released some players and now added some like Stephan Lichtsteiner (Juventus), Bernd Leno (Bayer Leverkusen), Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Borussia Dortmund) who alone will be a mouthful for commentators to pronounce and Lucas Torreira (Sampdoria) who bites like a ter...