Ronaldinho may not be playing at the moment but Barcelona and in particular, Lionel Messi, proved far too hot for Real Zaragoza on Wednesday night. Messi, still only 20, inspired Barcelona to a 4 - 1 home victory at the Camp Nou with two goals.

Barcelona’s Lionel Messi

The young Argentine striker has stepped up to lead a side that started the season poorly and, in the absence of an out-of-sorts Ronaldinho, he has been the central figure in their three wins over the last seven days.

The game at the Camp Nou started at a break neck pace with Messi terrorising Zaragoza’s defence. It didn’t take long for the damage to be done as Messi scored twice in the first 11 minutes. Messi cut in from the right, ran across the edge of the area and curled in Henry’s deft lay-off, that was after 5 minutes.

However, Real soon levelled the scoring after Messi’s first through Alberto Zapater on 10 minutes. However only a minute later, the action was back down the other end of the pitch as Deco tried to get through a crowd of players on the edge of the area. Messi nipped in and tucked the ball away.

As well as scoring two of his own, Messi also set up the third Barca goal for Andres Iniesta. The fourth was added by the Mexican defender Rafael Marquez just before the break as Barca left Zaragoza chasing shadows and wondering what hit them.

Barca had a whole host of chances in the second half to add to their tally however, Henry in particular was guilty of missing excellent chances.

After the game the Zaragoza coach Victor Fernandez said of Messi, “He is probably the best player in the world at the moment, not only for the goals but for his all round play.

With this victory Barcelona climbed into third place in La Liga on 11 points, one point behind the leaders Villareal and Valencia.

Villareal moved into the top spot for the first time in their history with a 2 - 0 win at Racing Santander. Valencia Beat struggling Getafe 2 - 1 at the Mestalla with goals from the Spanish duo of David Villa and David Silva.

The current Champions Real Madrid have 10 points from 4 games and are in fourth place. They host Real Betis at the Bernabeu on Thursday night.

Meanwhile Real’s neighbours Atletico Madrid climbed into fifth place on eight points with a 2 - 0 win at Athletic Bilbao.

What’s interesting to me is when will Ronaldinho be back for Barca? When will Rijkaard pick him and will he be back to his best form? If he is, it will be a mouth-watering prospect with Messi in this form.

The Soccer Blogger

Not a good night for Alex Ferguson and Manchester United as Iain Dowie’s Coventry City gave Utd the Blues at Old Trafford with a 0 - 2 win to the Championship side. Coventry hadn’t won at Old Trafford since 1989 and it was the first time Alex Ferguson had been beaten by a lower league team in a cup competition since he took charge at Utd way back in 1986!

However, Man Utd were not the only Premiership casualty to fall to lower league opposition as Aston Villa were also dumped out of the Carling Cup after suffering a shock home defeat to Championship side Leicester. Slightly ironic for Martin O’Neil considering he managed Leicester for many years and didn’t he win the Carling Cup (or whatever it was called with Leicester? I think he did!)

Coventry certainly deserved the victory. They were equal to Utd in all departments. Yes, Man Utd had made 11 changes from the team that beat Chelsea at the weekend however Ferguson will still be very disappointed to have seen his side succumb to two Michael Mifsud goals. After all, if the players he picked are good enough to wear the shirt surely they should be good enough to put on a better performance.

Maltese striker Michael Mifsud celebrates his brace at Old Trafford

However, the goalscorer, Mifsud, a Maltese striker, was a constant thorn in the side of United’s reformed defensive unit and the Malteaser (sorry couldn’t resist!) fired Coventry ahead midway through the first half when he slid home after an excellent cross from Michael Doyle. His second goal which clinched a memorable victory for Coventry was a quite sublime finish. The ball fell to him just inside the box and he fired into the far corner - leaving Utd’s keeper on the night Tomasz Kuszczak helpless and sending the 11,000 visiting Coventry fans into absolute raptures. You can’t really blame them can you? However, I doubt Sir Alex was in raptures after the game. Don’t be fooled! He may have put out a completely different team but he would have expected them to win all the same. The Scot does not like losing and gone are the days of fielding second string teams in this so called Mickey Mouse cup.

Anyway, as I said, Utd weren’t the only top flight side to fall to the gremlims of the lower leagues. Aston Villa also bowed out to Leicester, again from the Championship. The only goal of the game in the Second City arrived just 14 minutes from time. The ball came for Matty Fryatt and he finished with a neat left footed strike across Stuart Taylor.

The current holder Chelsea had no such problems with their potential banana skin at Hull with a comfortable 4 - 0 victory to record the club’s first win for Avram Grant in the post Jose Mourinho era.

Grant said after the game, (god, he’s boring compared to Jose), “It could have been better, it could have been 5 - 0. [I think that was supposed to be a joke.] I was happy with the performance of the players. These kind of games you make one mistake and you are out. All the goals came from combinations and that;s what I want from the team…they all enjoyed it, including me.” Steady now, don’t get too carried away!

There were more potential upsets on paper but Everton avoided their blushes as they sealed a comfortable 3-0 win at Hillsborough to struggling Sheffield Wednesday. Scotland hero James McFadden, who is in excellent form at the moment, opened the scoring on the hour as he tapped in from close range after he was played in by Yakubu. McFadden then added a second not long after when he headed home after a nice cross from Phil Neville. Yakubu wrapped up the win with five minutes left with his second for his new club.

In the all Premiership clash at Ewood Park, Blackburn eased past rivals Birmingham with a 3-0 victory. And you have to say the result never looked in doubt. I have said in the Soccer Blog before that Mark Hughes is doing an excellent job at Blackburn and he has turned them into an extremely competitive side. Just like he was as a player really. No one will want to pick them out of the hat on Saturday in the next round, especially at Ewood Park.

Anyway, Blackburn’s opener came on 66 minutes and it was a spectacular strike from England’s David Bentley. He picked the ball up about 40 yards out and then rifled the ball home from 30 yards. Matt Derbyshire added a second from the penalty spot and Roque Santa Cruz scored a third in injury time to seal the win.

Middlesbrough kindly handed Tottenham manager Martin Jol a little more time thanks to a 2-0 victory at White Hart Lane in another all Premiership clash. Although Boro defended resolutely they were undone by Gareth Bale on 71 minutes as he sprung the offside trap before rounding Brad Jones and slotting home. Listen to Gareth Southgate’s interview after the game however and you’ll hear that he had a slightly different interpretation of whether it was offside or not. Spurs’ second came just moments later when Tom Huddlestone headed home after good work from Aaron Lennon down the right.

Ian Holloway’s and Plymouth hearts were broken at Upton Park as West Ham grabbed a last-minute winner to seal a 1-0 win. It looked like Holloway’s men were going to take the game to extra-time, when up popped in-form Dean Ashton to fire home a superb volley from a slightly acute angle. It was an excellent finish and deserved to win any game.

The only game that did head into extra-time on the night was the final all Premiership tie between two of this season’s strugglers as Fulham took on Bolton at Craven Cottage. Danny Guthrie had curled Bolton ahead, only for David Healy to come off the bench and level matters to send the game into added time. However, the winner came after 112 minutes when Stelios Giannakopoulos pounced to give his manager, Sammy Lee, a huge boost. Is Lee starting to turns things around at the Reebok? Hmm, only time will tell.

Full Results from last night’s Carling Cup 3rd Round Games:

Aston Villa 0-1 Leicester
Blackburn 3-0 Birmingham
Fulham 1-2 Bolton
Hull City 0-4 Chelsea
Man Utd 0-2 Coventry
Sheffield Weds 0-3 Everton
Tottenham 2-0 Middlesbrough
West Ham 1-0 Plymouth

The Soccer Blogger

Liverpool’s new records signing, Spain’s Fernando Torres, recorded his first hat-trick as the Reds came out on top in a six-goal thriller against Reading at The Madejski Stadium on Tuesday evening.

The scoring was opened by Israeli international Yossi Benayoun, his first for the Mereysiders. It was a stunning solo effort after 23 minutes. He first nutmegged Andre Bikey then fired the ball beyond Reading’s goalkeeper Adam Federici. it was an unstoppable shot.

But as we know Reading are not a side to simply lie down and Bobby Convey equalised just five minutes later with an equally spectacular strike, volleying home low from the edge of the box giving Charles Itandje, Liverpool’s young debutant goalkeeper, little chance. It was turning into a game of great goals!

But it was then left to Torres to show his class and great strength as he held off Ulises de la Cruz before coolly side-footing the ball into the bottom corner of the net to put Liverpool back in front.

Fernando Torres celebrates one of his hat-trick goals, his first for Liverpool

Most of the Liverpool fans watching must have been asking themselves why Torres was left out of the starting eleven that face Birmingham at Anfield at the weekend as they watched him produce a wonderful performance. And it was the Spanish international who felt he should have had a penalty moments later after he went down under Bikey’s clumsy challenge in the area but referee simply waved play on.

Itandje then put a black mar on his debut by failing to gather a corner and John Halls forced the loose ball home. 2 - 2, never underestimate Reading!

But Torres had the final say when he superbly fired the ball into the top corner after John Arne Riise had escaped down the left flank. He then rounded the perfect evening off by racing clear from a superbly weighted through ball by Steven Gerrard three minutes from time. It left Torres one one one with the Reading keeper. Torres dropped his shoulder a couple of times, left the goalie on the floor and coolly slotting home.

Elsewhere, Arsene Wenger, as he has so often in the past in the Carling Cup, sent out a young side to see off the challenge of Newcastle. The young hero was Nicklas Bendtner who scored his first-ever Gunners goal.

Bendtner struck with seven minutes remaining, but the home side were indebted to Philippe Senderos who produced a superb goalline clearance to deny Obafemi Martins moments later before Denilson kiled the game off with the second. Of course Newcastle were without, yet again, Michael Owen after he went off on Saturday. It just looked as though he stumbled and fell over. He is due to have another operation on Friday, for a hernia and will no doubt miss England’s next two qualifying goals.

Georgios Samaras took advantage of his first start of the season for Manchester City to score the only goal of the game against Norwich at The City of Manchester Stadium. I never know whether to call it that or Eastlands! Anyway, Norwich had threatened to upset Sven Goran Eriksson’s side and enjoyed much of the possession but were made to pay in the last minute when Samaras raced clear and slotted the ball beyond David Marshall. City are certainly becoming a hard unit to beat under the former England boss, a nice habit to get into!

David Nugent was another player to take his chance after being picked for the Carling Cup as he helped Portsmouth overcome Burnley 1-0 at Turf Moor. Harry Redknapp’s side were on the back-foot for long periods but made the breakthrough with 21 minutes remaining when Nugent chased down Mendes’ ball and beat Gabor Kiraly.

Cardiff cruised into the fourth round after racing into a four-goal lead inside half an hour against West Brom at The Hawthorns. The extremely experienced strike partnership of Robbie Fowler and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink continues to reap rewards with the former Liverpool forward opening the scoring after just four minutes.

Hasselbaink lashed home a second after 23 minutes, Fowler added a third from the penalty spot and Trevor Sinclair sent some Baggies fans heading for the exit in the 30th minute. Ishmael Miller pulled one back three minutes later and added a second from the penalty spot at the death but it was all in vain.

Tuesday Nights full results:

Arsenal 2 Newcastle 0
Burnley 0 Portsmouth 1
Reading 2 Liverpool 4
Man City 1 Norwich 0
West Brom 2 Cardiff 4
Sheff Utd 5 Morecambe 0
Blackpool 2 Southend 1
Luton 3 Charlton 1

The Soccer Blogger

Poor old Avram Grant, I swear he could hear Jose laughing on Sunday afternoon!

Chelsea’s troubled week didn’t get any better for them and it ended on a very low note as Grant lost his first game in charge of the Blues after taking over following the departure of the “Special One” and what made the defeat worse, it against Man Utd.

If Grant had come away from Old Trafford with some sort of positive result it may have softened, just a little, the blow of Mourinho’s somewhat shock departure after his three successful years in charge. Jose averaged 2 trophies a year in that time, pre-Mourinho you could count the trophies won in the previous 50 years on the fingers of one hand! Talk about the life of a Premiership manager being cut-throat and fickle!

But a Chelsea win never really looked on the cards, especially when the referee, Mike Dean, decided to flash a red card at John Obi Mikel on 32 minutes after the Nigerian caught Patrice Evra with his studs and secondly when Tevez struck seconds before the half-time whistle to record his first goal for Utd.

The victory was wrapped up late on by yet another dodgy penalty involving Chelsea, however, this time they were on the receiving end of it! Louis Saha converted the spot-kick, 2-0 game over and goodnight Mr. Grant! You kind of always felt this was going to be a “loose / loose” situation for Grant.

Tevez celebrates his first goal for Man Utd. I think he’s waving to Avram!

Grant, just in case you don’t know, is a former Israeli International manager. But with 10 men for the majority of the game Chelsea never looked like recovering from the hammer blow that was Tevez’s first goal, a header right on the stroke of half-time.

Chelsea are now in trouble, if you didn’t already realise. This was the second Premier League defeat in three match and the fourth game in a row without a win. And let’s be honest, they should have left Anfield with another defeat. Not good!

Plus Utd themselves have hardly enjoyed the most fluent of starts to the season. Despite enjoying a numerical advantage for almost an hour, they didn’t really fire on all cylinders and it looked as though they were perfecting their old Arsenal impersonation with yet another 1 - 0 win. It would have been their fifth in a row! Even though Saha converted the penalty it was a far from convincing performance which also goes to show how far Chelsea have fallen so quickly. Unless they do something very soon, their season is going to be over and full of misery.

One thing you can say about Sunday’s game was that it was another highly charged encounter between these two teams that have dominated the domestic scene over the last few years. I’m not sure what satisfaction Grant will take from the game but Alex Ferguson will certainly be happy at the result and that Tevez is finally off the mark in his sixth Premiership start.

The Argentine has still to reproduce the sort of form he showed at West Ham last season, the major factor that the Hammers are still in the Premiership actually, just ask any Sheffield Utd fan and they will tell you!

It is going to be very interesting to see which directions these two teams take. However, I’ve a pretty good feeling that they won’t be travelling the same way. I will bet you the mobiles of such players as Lampard and Drogba have been red-hot over the last few days with conversations to their agents. I bet they can’t wait until the January transfer window opens. I also can’t imagine that John Terry is too thrilled to signed a new long term contract recently that will basically keep him at Stamford Bridge for the best part of his professional career! Whoops!

Without Mourinho the whole air of the club has suddenly changed overnight and Chelsea look as if they are going to go backwards this season. Roman has, in my opinion, shot himself in the foot whilst Jose in £12m (approx $24m) richer!

Sunday’s Full Results:

Newcastle 3 - 1 West Ham
Aston Villa 2 - 0 Everton
Bolton 1 - 1 Tottenham
Blackburn 0 - 1 Portsmouth
Man Utd 2 - 0 Chelsea

The Soccer Blogger

Arsenal kept on scoring and won again on Saturday, this time at home to what must now be a shell-shocked Derby County. Liverpool put six past them a few weeks ago now Arsenal scored 5. It’s not doing much for their goal difference, although I suspect goal-difference is really going to be any kind of factor in whether they stay in the Premiership or not.

Togo striker Emmanuel Adebayor scored his first hat-trick for Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium adding more evidence that he is more than ready to replace the Gunners former captain and main goalscorer, Thierry Henry, as the team’s attacking talisman.

The win consolidated their position at the top of the Premiership table. This was another performance that left me in no doubt that Arsenal are in no way missing Henry, who of course was sold to the Catalan giants Barcelona in the summer.

Adebayor, still only 23, has flourished since being given his chance to succeed Henry his the Gunners main attacking option. He struck once in the first half and then twice in the second as, what can only be described as a hapless Derby, were yet again easily swept aside.

After the game Arsene Wenger the Arsenal manager said, “Yes, he [Adebayor] has great potential. But we have him and Robin van Persie scoring goals and we have others who are also very capable of scoring. Now it is down to us to prove we can go on and go as far as we want to. We kept our focus after the Champions League [an excellent win in mid-week against high flying Sevilla] and it was nice to see the players enjoy the game so much.”

There is no doubt, Arsenal are playing very well at the moment and it was all started by French defender Abou Diaby when he opened the scoring for Arsenal with a powerful diagonal right foot shot from 25 yards after only 10 minutes. From there it was nothing but one way traffic, with Derby permanently on the back foot.

Diaby celebrates Arsenal’s opening goal with his team-mates.

It was then Adebayor’s turn. He ran onto a pass from Cesc Fabregas to score the first of his three 15 minutes later. His second came early in the second half by way of a penalty. His third came 10 minutes from time but before that it was Fabregas who scored the fourth with a long range swerving shot. Fabregas is another Arsenal player in a rich vein of form at the moment, one of many it must be said.

So what of one of Arsenal’s major threats for honours this season, Liverpool. After an excellent start to the season the last week, following the international break, has seen the Reds drop 4 points in the Premiership and two points in their Championship League Group. Last week Benítez went yet again for squad rotation for a tricky away fixture at Portsmouth and yesterday he did the same at home to Birmingham by leaving the club’s record signing Fernando Torres on the bench.

I have to say I don’t quite get it. You pay all that money for a top quality striker and expect him to score at least 20 league goals a season to help you win the league, and what do you do with him? You leave him on the bench! Torres is in his early 20s, surely he can manage a couple of games a week! Plus, no disrespect to Birmingham, but aren’t these the type of fixtures you can put a player like Torres on for the whole game in the knowledge that there is a good chance he will score a goal? Goals mean confidence, not just for the player but for the team as a whole. Confidence breads momentum and momentum breads success. I’m not a Premiership manager and you can’t really argue too much with what Benítez has achieved at the club, but I don’t think that “rocket science” myself!

Anyway, Liverpool never looked like they turned up on Saturday. Birmingham arrived at Anfield with a specific game plan of containment and to be fair to them, they were well organised and carried it out perfectly and frustrated a far more talented side. Benítez said after the game, “It was very disappointing. When you have that much possession and chances, you need to score, but sometimes it can be very difficult against such well organised teams.”

In other games on Saturday, Reading beat potential fellow strugglers this season Wigan Athletic 2 - 1 thanks to a late goal by James Harper. It was the result of a very clever little reserve pass from Dave Kitson. It was also Kitson that put Reading ahead in the first half before Marcus Bent, who also hit the bar, equalised with a header from a excellent cross from Jason Koumas.

In the North East derby at Middlesbrough, Roy Keane’s Sunderland earned a point in a closely and hard fought game, after sub Liam Miller, scored with a left foot volley for the Black Cats in the 89th minute.

It was Keane’s 50th game in charge as manager and he said after the game, “I am very happy with the result because we looked to be buried before that goal. I was not so happy with the performance, but we did show great courage.”

There was a thriller in the later kick-off on Saturday as Danny Murphy scored a late equaliser for Fulham in an excellent 3-3 draw with Sven Goran Eriksson’s Manchester City at Craven Cottage.

Simon Davies put the home side ahead and after Martin Petrov levelled for City, Fulham went in front for a second time through Hameur Bouazza.

Emile Mpenza quickly equalised again for City before Petrov slammed in his second of the game, only for Murphy to beat Kasper Schmeichel for a share of the points.

On Sunday, the defending Champions Man Utd welcome Chelsea to Old Trafford without a certain Jose Mourinho! Unless you’ve been on the moon all week, you will know about Jose’s sudden and very unexpected departure from Stamford Bridge and that he has been replaced by that well-known manager Avram Grant. Huh? The man who isn’t even a household name in his own living room! I love that quote! Anyway, here is Sunday’s full fixture list:

Aston Villa v Everton
Blackburn v Portsmouth
Bolton v Tottenham
Man Utd v Chelsea
Newcastle v West Ham

The Soccer Blogger