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

Its already Oktober but no Fest as human kind continue its battle with a deadly pandemic. Soccer stadiums are still empty and all businesses fight for survival. Soccer is the same. In a most baffling and traumatic season, everything has been somewhat topsy turvy. Though we are still in early day, just take a look at the table. (1) Everton, (2) Liverpool, (3) Aston Villa, (4) Leicester, (5) Tottenham, (6) Leeds, (7) Southampton, (8)  Crystal Palace, (9) Wolves, (10) Chelsea, (11) Arsenal, (12) West Ham, (13) Man City, (14) Newcastle, (15) Man Utd.  Now look at the top scorers chart: (1) Son Hueng-Min (Spurs) - 8 goals, (2) Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton) - 7, (3) Patrick Bamford (Leeds) - 6, Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) - 6, Jamie Vardy (Leicester) - 6, (6) Harry Kane (Spurs) - 5, Wilfried Zaha (Palace) - 5, (8) Danny Ings (Southampton) - 4, Raul Jiminez (Wolves) - 4, Sadio Mane (Liverpool) - 4, Neal Maupay (Brighton) -4, Callum Wilson (Newcastle) -4. Just go over to the Italian S...

EPL is like K-Drama with its plot twists and turns, drama, controversies, surprises and all action. Everton came back twice to draw at Goodison Park and showed that this could be their special season under Ancelotti. They will take points from the rest of the teams so they had better watch out. Liverpool played on the front foot and dominated the ball and the early Mane goal was the evidence. They looked shaky at the back at times but the midfield was solid and Thiago was all class in his first full game. Oh, that pass to Mane. The front three were sharp especially Mane who is back with a vengeance and what a strike from Salah who got his 100 goals becoming the 3rd fastest 100 goals in a Liverpool shirt. Both sides showed that they are very good.  But the VAR and the refereeing were bad. So was Jordan Pickford's thuggish two footed knee-high career-ending tackle on Van Dijk rendering out of action with a serious ACL injury that could see him out for many months or ev...

Welcome to pandemic soccer. We have never seen anything like it and it gets interesting. High scores are the order of the day. No advantage for home teams except having to travel a bit for away teams and a wee bit less familiar with the turf. Perhaps lack of a proper vacation, shorter pre-season and signings of better attacking players have changed things. The big boys have been stunned and an emergence of teams who have not been doing too well in recent seasons or the smaller teams are making an unprecedented thrust into the limelight. The big scores and and upsets were already happening. There have been warning signs and the first big shocker was when Leicester had Man City beaten 5-2 at the Etihad. Manchester United followed and was gunned down 6-1 at Old Trafford by Spurs and Liverpool formed the shambolic trio when they were thrashed 7-2 by Aston Villa. Now they could hold hands and say We'll never walk alone. These are records they never wanted or anybody would believe c...

It was a stunning Game Week 3! Both Mancurian clubs put on horrific displays. Chelsea almost matched them but salvaged a point. " Daylight robbery!" a report shouted. Brighton had 53% possession, hit 18 shots at them against United's 7 and rocked their stanchion 5 times but lost 2-3 to a penalty after the final whistle was blown as called by VAR. Brighton were so good I thought United wore blue. Solly March - what a player! You should have watched Maupay's Panenka penalty. Super-cool! Here it is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM7G-_lFjj0 The Red Devils were actually the Lucky Devils. I have no worries for the Seagulls as they will not be easily beaten by others if they could carry on at this level but not many teams would be as fortunate as United. Bruno Fernandes' quote summed up United's attitude by saying that "the point is to score goals not hit the post or crossbar". Humility has gone amiss as Brighton outclassed their opponents that are wort...