The Scrap Heap

Links and news from this week:

Packers

• The Vikings come into town Monday Sunday night, and I keep thinking that it isn't a big deal until I remember that while the Vikings are 2-4, the Packers are 3-3. Ugh. At least they have a few reinforcements coming on defense.


• Midweek injury report at APC. Nearly all of the linebackers are banged up and won't be 100% even if they do play. Hawk is out, Chillar is still banged up, and Matthews might return (but probably won't). Al Harris is back and practicing and might even play this weekend. Bigby is back on the practice field as well but is not expected to play. Tauscher might be ready to come back, but I expect him to do as poorly against Jared Allen as Bulaga will likely fare.

Badgers

• MB21 over at The Hawkeye State has Iowa winning 28-24. We'll see if he changes his mind after my griping about the UW defense and coaching staff and the clear letdown game potential. I think UW loses by 14+.


• Adam Rittenberg of ESPN gives the keys to the UW-Iowa game. He says UW needs to put pressure on Stanzi and make sure James White has a big game, especially against Iowa's apparently banged up linebackers. Rittenberg is completely right that the way to beat UW is to make Tolzien beat you.


• Jay Valai says that Iowa is a bigger rival than Minnesota right now. I'm inclined to agree with him.


• Scott Van Pelt sure enjoyed his time in Madison last weekend. Listening to this makes me miss Madison even more. This is my favorite time of year there and it's not even close. Looking at nothing but highs in the 80s on the forecast here bums me out even more.


• I think this will be a letdown game, but the coaching staff obviously is trying to avoid it. Good luck with that one...
  

Spurs

• Spurs turned shit into shit-ade at Inter today. Spurs went down 3 goals and one player in the first fifteen minutes, thanks to some shambolic defense and an awful, awful red card given by the official on Gomes that should have been a yellow. But then down a man, Spurs Wonder Winger Gareth Bale Scored a short-handed hat trick in the second half to turn a rout into a mere loss on the road. Jermian Defoe can't get back soon enough. Spurs play Inter again at home on the 2nd, with Cudicini in goal thanks to that pants red. They're still second in the group and have 2 more home games, so things are looking better than they could be.


• Spurs picked up a nice away win at Craven Cottage on goals by Hudd and the slightly-more-giving-a-crap Pavlyuchenko. I loved the lineup too, and can't wait until Defoe can join it. Harry put out
  
  Gomes
  Hutton-Gallas-Ledders-BAE (yuck, except for King)
  Modric-Hudd-Sandro-Bale
  VdV
  Pavs (can't wait for Defoe)
  
  Did I mention that I can't wait until Defoe returns?

Cubs

• So, uh.....they hired Mike Quade. My (brief) thoughts can be found over at ACB. Summary: meh

The Scrap Heap

This week's links and rants...

First, the Packers injury recap. S Derrick Martin was added to the growing list of Packers on the IR, further compromising the team's already shredded secondary depth. Clay Matthews appears to be out for Sunday's game vs Miami (he did not practice on Wednesday). But the biggest blow is that TE Jermichael Finley's knee injury was worse than expected and he is expected to miss 8-10 weeks, if not the rest of the season. This is a huge blow for the Packers, as Finley is Rodgers's favorite target and he played a big role in the Packers overall offensive scheme.

On the bright side, QB Aaron Rodgers fully participated in yesterday's practice. However, there were no full-contact drills. I would guess that he cleared to play this weekend.

The big news in Madison is that College Gameday is returning to cover the Wisconsin vs #1 overall ranked aOSU. This should be a fun game. My best football memory is still the Badgers rain-soaked victory over aOSU in a night game at Camp Randall in 2003. Sure enough, College Gameday was there that week too.

This Big 10 Power Poll was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen.

During the international break, Yankee Yiddos has been running a great series called "Yanks we'd like to see at the lane". You can find their pitches here, here, here, and here. This break comes at a good time as Spurs are quite banged up. They play the Cottagers this weekend and then head to Milan to take on Inter in their next Champions League bout.

Midweek Scrap Heap

Spurs lost 4-1 to Arsenal in their Carling Cup match. I had this game on while I was working but missed the extra time goals. No big deal, since the last thing this squad needs is even more games. Phil has a recap up over at Yankee Yiddos.

Bulaga may have passed Clifton on the depth chart at Left Tackle. Clifton has been having some knee issues and was benched for Bulaga in the second quarter of the Bills game. Give him some time to recover, and Bulaga some time to develop and this is a good thing for the Pack. Bulaga is the LT of the future anyway.

Bears fans are riding high after their improbable 2-0 start. I love how they're suddenly Super Bowl bound. Chicago media FTW. Enjoy it while it lasts. Remember that Martz, for all his offensive genius, doesn't have Orlando Pace at LT anymore. The Vikings are at 0-2 and but luckily face the suddenly-frisky Lions at home.

The UW-Austin Peay game will be on the BTN national feed (since I don't get 'extra' channels here). The B10 opener against Sparty will be on ABC/ESPN.

Blake Sorenson will pick up most of the playing time void left by Chris Borland's injury. Expect to see more of James White in this week's game. Nick Toon is also close to returning.

Penn State just received a huge donation to start a hockey program. As they will be the sixth Big Ten school to add a hockey program, this means that there are now talks to start a Big Ten hockey league. That would be pretty cool, especially because it would mean watching UW hockey on the BTN.

Spurs 3 - 1 Wolves

Spurs got off to a great start but couldn't find the net in the first half, largely due to some great saves by Wolves keeper Hahnemann. The most telling stat was shots fired: Spurs took 25 shots to Wolves 6. At one point late in the first half Spurs had posession of the ball twice as long as Wolves. However, after Wolves rammed in a well-executed goal just before the half (yet another just before halftime goal conceded by Spurs), it was looking like it would be another game where Spurs dominated but only came out with a point, at best. I missed most of what led to the first goal but either Kaboul was hurting or Harry was pissed at him, as he subbed him about a minute before halftime.

Spurs finally picked up an equalizer on a Van Der Vaart penalty in the 76th minute. Then Pavs came in for Keane and redeemed his awful start against WBA with the game-winner just before injury time. Hutton slammed in the insurance goal in stoppage time to make what looked like another disappointing game for Spurs into a rout.

Goals:
VdV (pen) 76'
Pavs 87'
Hutton 90'

Game ball: Van Der Vaart
I didn't expect him to be fit enough to play, let alone have the great start he did. He caused all sorts of problems for Wolves defenders in the first half and Spurs looked much less lackluster on offense than they did vs Werder Bremen. I'm excited to see how the offense looks once Modric gets back.

I'd love to see more Pavs in the lineup over Keane. I like that Harry came out with this 4-4-2 lineup but Keane hasn't looked all that great out there. This team really misses Defoe.

Arsenal on Tuesday. COYS.

Tottenham Hotspur Traveling Ambulance at Wolves (preview)

The tattered remnants of the Spurs squad take on Wolves tomorrow at the Lane. So far it looks like the following will be out:

Van Der Vaart
Modric
King
Gomes
Defoe
Dawson

Wolves lost to the Cottagers last week but faced accusations of playing dirty after they broke the leg of Fulham striker Bobby Zemora. It would be just Spurs luck to see someone knocked out of this game in a similar way.

Not much of a preview, but I'm a bit out of the swing of things on footy with all the american football starting up, not to mention that my knowledge of the depth of Spurs and the EPL is still pretty slight. Here's a much better preview) of the match over at Yankee Yiddos.

My prediction: Spurs 2 - 1 Wolves

Spurs draw, Mini-Scrap Heap

Spurs drew with Werder Bremen 2-2. They look great for most of the first half, scoring 2 goals, one off Crouch's giant head from a beautiful ball from Van Der Vaart (via Jenas). The other goal was an own goal (that I missed) but apparently Crouch was very much involved in that one too. Then Culdcini let a soft goal through right before the half, and WB quickly scored again after the half. Spurs hung on for the next half hour to escape with a point. I'll take it for a road game, but you'd love to see them come out with 3 points after starting the game 2-0. Injuries have really bit the team - Phil points out on YY (in a much more informed recap post) that the injury list now consists of Defoe, Gomes, Dawson, Modric, Van Der Vaart, Woodgate, and Bentley, all of whom could be starting if they were healthy. Hopefully Spurs heal up as the league goes on, or they'll be ground down by their grueling schedule.

Speaking of injuries, as expected Packers DE Justin Harrell tore his ACL and will be out for the season. The even bigger news is that starting RB Ryan Grant is out for the season with an ankle injury. As I detailed in my preview last week, I don't think this is a huge loss as I'm optimistic about Brandon Jackson (especially his pass-catching ability), and I think Grant is a mediocre back. However, their depth isn't that great, as Jackson and FB John Kuhn are the only other backs on the roster. They signed former ASU running back Dmitri Nance to add to their depth but no one seems to know much about him right now, and he should take some time to learn the system, as he was previously on Atlanta's practice squad. Brandon over at APC speculates that the Packers could go after retreads like Willie Parker or former Packer Ahman Green, but I don't really see either of those happening.

Some great news out of Madison is that David Gilreath is already walking, only a day after the horrific head injury that sent him to the hospital on Saturday. Petroykus even speculates that he could be back on Saturday, though I would be *shocked* if he even puts pads on. Hopefully White gets more opportunities to run some kicks back (and learned a lesson about holding on to the football last week).

I need to stop criticizing players on these teams. In the past 2 weeks I've mentioned how I think Gilreath and Grant are overrated and should lose time to their backups and they've suffered serious injuries.

Mini-preview: Spurs at Werder Bremen (Champions League Group Stage)

I'm not qualified to comment much on this match, so I invite you to check out the excellent Yankee Yiddos preview instead. This is Mercurial Outfielder from ACB's new footy blog and it looks like it will be great.

Harry is expected to deploy a 4-5-1, though the personnel in it is still up for question. With Defoe out Crouch (ugh) is the likely lone striker, which will mean lots of balls lamely lofted towards his giant head. It sounds like Modric is a game-time decision (I think he doesn't play).

My prediction: Spurs lose 2-0. Too many injuries and general poor play of late. I'd love for them to surprise me though.

Small change in format

Not that it matters much, since I've barely had time to do any posting thanks to this whole PhD thesis thing, but I figured I'd mention that I'm going to expand the scope of things I'm planning to write about. For the most part this has been a stat-friendly Cubs blog and will likely continue to be one (especially in the pre-season). But MB21's new Iowa blog and last fall's failed experiment of a Packers/Bears blog has given me the itch to write about some football (college, pro, and the non-gridiron kind). The Cubs epically disappointing season certainly helped push me in this direction too. I'm hoping to make at least one post a week on the Badgers, Packers, and/or Spurs once those seasons get rolling.