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Olympique Lyonnais 6-0 Marseille

The Olympique Lyonnais women’s team resumed where they left off as the reigning Division 1 champions went straight back to the top of the table with a crushing 6-0 win against Marseille in their opening match of the new season.

Three of OL’s England internationals started the match and it was a dream home debut for Nikita Parris, who scored the opening goal in only the third minute. The game was as good as won within the first quarter as Le Sommer and then Marozsan added further goals.

It remained 3-0 until the 77th minute when Cascarino extended the lead and Ada Hegerberg then opened her account for the season with two in two minutes to complete the rout.

The win left OL top of the nascent table on goal difference at the end of the day, although they were overtaken by rivals PSG the day after when they won their opening fixture 7-0 against Soyaux.

Marseille, Endoume & Montpellier on the menu for OL

The Olympique Lyonnais women’s team get their title defence under way this weekend with a match against Olympique de Marseille.

New coach Jean-Luc Vasseur has named a squad of nineteen for the clash, which could see new signings Nikita Parris and Alex Greenwood make their competitive debuts. The England forward and left-back both joined the club this summer, moving from Manchester City and Manchester United respectively.

They join up with compatriots Lucy Bronze and Izzy Christiansen at the French club, although Christiansen misses out this weekend through injury.

The game kicks off at 15:30 on Saturday afternoon at the Décines-Charpieu Groupama OL Training Center.

Later that evening, at 18:00, the OL men’s reserve squad play the third match of their National 2 Groupe D campaign away at Endoume in the suburbs of Marseille.

Gueïda Fofana’s men will hope to build on last weekend’s 2-0 win over Monaco and move up the table, having lost their opening match away at Nîmes. Victory would see them leapfrog their opponents, who sit on four points and have yet to concede a goal this season.

The Lyon men’s team don’t play their ‘weekend’ fixture until Tuesday evening when they travel to Montpellier. Kick off at the Stade de Mosson is at 19:00.

Montpellier lost 1-0 at home to Rennes on the opening weekend and drew 1-1 at Bordeaux last time out, so they’re yet to hit form this season and Lyon must fancy their chances. It’s the sort of fixture that OL need to win if they’re to genuinely challenge PSG for the title this season.

Jordans Frusli Raisins and Hazelnuts

Jordans Frusli Raisins & Hazelnuts bar
Jordans Frusli Raisins & Hazelnuts bar
  • Size: 30g
  • Pack Size: 6
  • Pack Price: £1.99 (23/08/2019)
  • Verdict: three out of five(3/5)

The wrapper describes this one as a ‘wholegrain oat cereal bar with raisins and chopped roasted hazelnuts’. It’s a decent effort from Jordans, but doesn’t have any distinguishing features to set it apart from the field. It’s fine on the flavour front, but texture wise it could do with being a little more cohesive. I found it fell apart a bit too easily, especially if you’re eating it on the move.

It’s a similar product to the recently reviewed Cadbury Brunch Bar (Raisin) and is at a similar price point, but it didn’t leave me feeling as satisfied as the latter. It’s not as fruity and didn’t sate my appetite as much. It’s a perfectly good bar, but not quite as good value as the Cadbury offering, so I’m giving it a middling score of three out of five.

Typical Values per 100g

Energy1661kJ/394kcal
Fat10g
Saturates1.3g
Carbohydrate67g
Sugars29.3g
Fibre4.3g
Protein6.9g
Salt0.03g

Ingredients

Dried Fruit & Nuts (Raisins (28%), Roasted Chopped Hazelnuts (10%)), British Wholegrain Oat Flakes (24%), Glucose Syrup, Wholegrain Oat Flour, Sugar, Honey, Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed Oil, Palm Oil), Rice Flour.

Jordans Frusli Raisins & Hazelnuts packet
Jordans Frusli Raisins & Hazelnuts packet

Five Brits in 2019 Vuelta

The 2019 edition of the Vuelta a España gets underway on Saturday with an 18 km team time trial from Salinas de Torrevieja to Torrevieja.

Team Ineos have announced their eight man squad for the race, with Spaniard David de la Cruz coming in as a last minute replacement for Kenny Elissonde after the Frenchman had initially been named in the line up.

The squad is as follows: Owain Doull (GBR), David de la Cruz (ESP), Tao Geoghegan Hart (GBR), Sebastián Henao (COL), Vasil Kiryienka (BLR), Wout Poels (NED), Salvatore Puccio (ITA), Ian Stannard (GBR).

In addition to the three with Team Ineos, there will be another couple of British riders on the start line in the shape of climber Hugh Carthy of EF Education First and James Knox of Deceuninck–Quick-Step.

Three former winners will contest the Vuelta this year. They are Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana of Movistar and Fabio Aru of UAE Team Emirates. Steven Kruijswijk and Primož Roglič of Team Jumbo-Visma and Miguel Ángel López and Jakob Fuglsang of Astana are the other big names who are likely to contest the general classification.

Athletic Club weekend fixtures

Athletic Club follow their magnificent opening day win over Barcelona with their first away trip of the new season, a visit to Getafe. The match is scheduled to kick of at 21:00 local time on Saturday night at the Estadio de Alfonso Pérez.

Getafe started with a 1-0 defeat at Atletico Madrid last weekend. It was a fixture they were expected to lose, so it’s hard to assess their form at this early stage of the season, but this is the sort of match that Athletic Club will hope to get something from if they are to challenge for a European place this time around. A draw would probably be a decent result to maintain their unbeaten start.

The reserves, Bilbao Athletic, kick off their Segunda División B campaign this weekend with a visit to Haro, kicking off at 18:00 on Sunday in the Estadio de El Mazo.

The Athletic Club women’s team face derby rivals Real Socieded this weekend in the final of the Euskal Herria Txapela, the summer cup for clubs in the Basque region. That match takes place at the Estadio de Garmendipe at 16:00 on Saturday.

In other news, Athletic Club have announced a friendly match against French Ligue 1 side Toulouse for during the upcoming international break. The game takes place on Thursday the 5th of September at the Stade Didier Deschamps in Bayonne.

Manchester United v Crystal Palace

It’s a rare Saturday afternoon 3:pm kick off for Manchester United this weekend as they face Crystal Palace at Old Trafford.

On paper, it should be their easiest fixture of the season so far, as Chelsea at home and Wolves away are usually both tougher assignments than a visit from the Eagles.

Roy Hodgson’s Palace have had an underwhelming start to the new campaign, having failed to register a goal in their two outings thus far. A 0-0 draw at home to Everton was followed by a 1-0 defeat at newly promoted Sheffield United, so Manchester United should feel that Palace are there for the taking.

Therefore, it already feels like a must win game for the reds, having dropped two points against Wolves last time out. If they are to keep pace with the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City this season, they can’t afford to slip up in home fixtures against the lesser lights of the division. Failure to win this one could see United four or five points off the top of the table at the end of August.

Defenders Diogo Dalot, Eric Bailly and Timothy Fosu-Mensah are ruled out through injury and Alexis Sanchez is still negotiating a possible loan move to Internazionale. Other than that, manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer should have a full squad from which to choose.

Steve Bruce’s Homecoming

Newcastle United recently appointed Steve Bruce as their new manager to succeed Rafa Benitez after the Spaniard left the club in the close-season. Bruce, now aged 58, is a Geordie born and bred and Newcastle was his boyhood club, so in many ways it’s a dream come true for him to finally manage them, having been linked with the job on several occasions in the past.

However, it promises to be one of the biggest challenges of his managerial career so far as there is widespread discontent amongst the fans of the club, principally with the way owner Mike Ashley is running it. So Bruce is in at the deep end with the pressure of high expectations from both supporters and board, and inherits a playing staff who were generally considered to be performing at their maximum potential under Benitez.

Is Steve Bruce the right man for the job? Only time will tell, but his previous record suggests that he might well have what it takes to at least maintain the club’s recent trajectory. It’s twenty one years since Bruce’s first managerial appointment and this is his eleventh such job, with ten different clubs, having had two spells at the helm of Wigan Athletic, making him one of the most experienced English managers currently active.

Bruce also comes with the added baggage of being a former manager of Newcastle’s great rivals Sunderland, but that won’t bother him unduly as he has seen both sides of similar rivalries before, having led both Sheffield clubs as well as Birmingham and Aston Villa.

For all its longevity and the number of different posts he has held, Bruce has spent almost the entirety of his managerial career either in the top half of the Championship or the bottom half of the Premier League. That was a status that roughly matched the ambition of most of his previous employers, but Newcastle is a bigger fish and should really be aiming to challenge for Europa League qualification.

It remains to be seen whether Bruce can re-establish them as a top half of the Premier League club, but his tenure hasn’t started well, with a home defeat to Arsenal followed by a 3-1 reversal at newly promoted Norwich City. It’s still early days, as his appointment came late in the summer break, and he hasn’t had much time to make his mark on the squad yet, but it won’t take many more poor results before the press start talking about his first crisis in the role. Hopefully he’ll be given enough time to turn things around as he’s only really failed once in ten previous jobs.

The Path to St James’

Sheffield United: Steve Bruce’s first appointment came in July 1998 as a player manager for the Blades. In his sole season at the helm he led them to 8th in the First Division and then resigned. They finished two places and seven points below the previous season’s tally, so it was a far from spectacular beginning.
Verdict: AVERAGE

Huddersfield Town: Bruce spent 17 months in charge of the Terriers and was sacked in October of a season that ended in their relegation, having finished 10th the season before he took over, and 8th in his full season in charge, so overall the club went backwards under his stewardship.
Verdict: FAILURE

Wigan Athletic: Bruce had a whirlwind two months in charge of the Latics at the end of the 2000-01 season in which they reached lost in the Second Division play-off semi finals. He was only in charge for 8 games and won 3, drew 2 and lost 3 before resigning to go to Crystal Palace. It was too short a spell in charge to judge as either a success or failure.
Verdict: AVERAGE

Crystal Palace: After one failure and two fairly average performances in his three managerial postings to date, it was really make or break for Bruce at Selhurst Park. Failure here could have spelled the end of his managerial ambitions and left his CV in tatters, but he stepped up to the challenge and won 11 of 18 games in charge over a five month period before resigning to go to Birmingham
Verdict: SUCCESS

Birmingham City: On arrival at St Andrew’s, Steve Bruce’s average stay at a club had been somewhat less than a year, so he was getting a reputation for job hopping. Six years later, all that had changed when he finally moved on to Wigan. He took over with Brum mid table in the First Division and promptly got them promoted. He kept them in the Premier League for 4 seasons before relegation but was promoted again at end of the 2006-07 season and left the Blues in higher a division than when he joined them.
Verdict: SUCCESS

Wigan Athletic: He was only there for a year and a half, but he kept Wigan up in the Premier League and then finished in mid-table the next season to further enhance his reputation.
Verdict: SUCCESS

Sunderland: Bruce spent two and a half years in charge of Sunderland and took over with them having finished 16th in the Premier League the previous season. When he was sacked in November 2011 they were again in 16th place so overall he had a negligible impact on their fortunes.
Verdict: AVERAGE

Hull City: Bruce spent four years in charge at Hull and earned promotion to the Premier League in his first season. He kept them up and reached the FA Cup final, qualifying for the Europa League, but was then relegated the next season, but promoted again via the play-offs the following campaign to leave them in a higher division than when he joined.
Verdict: SUCCESS

Aston Villa: Finished 13th in the Championship in Bruce’s first season in charge, which followed Villa’s relegation from the Premier League. They then lost in the Play-off final the next season and he was sacked after poor form early the following season, having been at the helm for around two years.
Verdict: AVERAGE

Sheffield Wednesday: Bruce took over in mid-season when they were struggling against relegation and guided them to a 12th place finish before leaving for Newcastle in the summer.
Verdict: SUCCESS

Newcastle United: takes over after they finished 13th the previous season under Rafa Benitez.

By my assessment, only one of Bruce’s previous ten roles has been a genuine failure and he has made a success of five out of his last seven, with the other two leaving his clubs in roughly the same state that he found them. His first three jobs were unspectacular, but since cutting his managerial teeth he has developed into a consistent and dependable manager with bags of experience at the top level of English football. He should have what it takes to steer Newcastle clear of relegation worries, but that may ultimately depend on the board giving him the necessary backing in the January transfer window, once he has identified further areas for strengthening his squad.

Neville Announces England Women’s Squad

England coach Phil Neville has announced his latest squad for the upcoming friendlies away to Belgium (29th August) and Norway (3rd September).

Nineteen players are retained from his squad that finished fourth in the Women’s World Cup in France earlier this summer and there are places for four first-time call ups in Bethany England, Aoife Mannion, Sandy MacIver and Anna Patten.

Full squad

Goalkeepers: Mary Earps, Sandy MacIver, Ellie Roebuck, Carly Telford

Defenders: Millie Bright, Rachel Daly, Alex Greenwood, Steph Houghton, Aoife Mannion, Abbie McManus, Anna Patten, Demi Stokes, Leah Williamson

Midfielders: Lucy Bronze, Jade Moore, Lucy Staniforth, Georgia Stanway, Keira Walsh

Forwards: Toni Duggan, Bethany England, Fran Kirby, Beth Mead, Nikita Parris, Jodie Taylor

Cadbury Brunch Bar (Raisin)

Cadbury Brunch Bar Raisin
Cadbury Brunch Bar Raisin
  • Size: 32g
  • Pack Size: 6
  • Pack Price: £1.99 (20/08/2020)
  • Verdict: four out of five (4/5)

This bar is described on the wrapper as “bursting with raisins, oats and a drizzle of honey” and it does live up to its billing. There’s plenty of fruit in it and the taste is great. The texture is also very pleasing as it’s chewy, but not so much as to stick to your teeth, and cohesive enough to not leave crumbs everywhere. The chocolate coating on the bottom half is a luxury extra that doesn’t add much to the overall taste. The bar would stand up well enough without it, but I suppose Cadbury are always going to add a bit of chocolate to their products somewhere. It is reasonably filling for its size and the multipack price is fair, so it gets the thumbs up from me.

Energy1798kJ/428kcal
Fat15g
Saturates7.5g
Carbohydrate67g
Sugars37g
Fibre4.5g
Protein5.3g
Salt0.59g

Ingredients

Oat flakes (18%), invert sugar syrup, sugar, glucose syrup, raisins, vegetable fats (palm, shea), wheat flour, rice flour, cocoa butter, honey (2%), cocoa mass, dried skimmed milk, wheat bran, dried whey (from milk), humecant (glycerol), milk fat, emulsifiers (soya lecithin, E471, E476, sunflower lecithin), salt, barley malt extract, molasses, flavourings.

Cadbury Brunch Bar Raisin
Cadbury Brunch Bar Raisin Packet

Wolves 1-1 Manchester United

Manchester United return from Molineux with a point after a 1-1 draw with Wolverhampton Wanderers. That’s a decent result given last season’s form against the same opposition, and probably something I would have taken if offered before kick off, but given how the game unfolded, United will feel a little disappointed on the way home.

Starting XI
De Gea – Wan-Bissaka, Lindelof, Maguire, Shaw – McTominay, Pogba, James, Lingard, Rashford – Martial
Subs: Mata (Lingard ’81), Greenwood (James ’89), Pereira (Rashford ’89)

Ole Gunnar Solskjær handed a full debut to Welsh winger Daniel James, who replaced Andreas Pereira in the only change to the starting line up from last weekend’s victory over Chelsea. The youngster showed his pace early on, but was also booked for a dive mid-way through the half, which is something that he mustn’t let become a habit.

United were the stronger team in the first period and they took the lead in the 27th minute when Rashford played in Martial, who fired firmly past Rui Patrício in the Wolves goal.

The lead lasted until ten minutes into the second half when Moutinho found Neves on the edge of the box and he expertly curled the ball past De Gea to level the scores. United should have won it in the 67th minute when Paul Pogba was tripped in the Wolves box and took the resultant penalty himself, but Rui Patrício was equal to it.

Four points from two potentially tricky fixtures represents a decent start for Solskjær this term, but it’s still too early to draw any conclusions on where United will be come May. Given the strength of their rivals, getting into the top four is likely to be as tough as ever this season.