Tea time kickoff

September 18, 10:10 AMSoccer ExaminerNicholas Richards

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Adebayor after scoring. He also tried to kick out someone's eye (AP Photo/Jon Super)

Here's a little tea for ya. I've missed this the last couple of weeks, so here we go.

Manchester United-Manchester City. Red vs. Blue. Champions vs. a perpetual mid-table side. Money vs. even more money. They battle Sunday at Old Trafford. If you aren't too hungover from Saturday night, check this match out early Sunday morning. There's usually fireworks, and with Carlos Tevez returning to Old Trafford - he may or may not play after picking up a knee injury on international duty with Argentina - and City's new-found financial status as the richest club in the world, it won't disappoint.

Despite their ridiculous spending spree, City might be without some of their biggest players. Emmanuel Adebayor is out three matches after trying to remove Robin van Persie's eye with his cleat. Robinho is out with a stress fracture that could sideline him for another month. Tevez may or may not play with his aforementioned injury on international duty. Roque Santa Cruz - who has to be upset with the spending spree, as he went from a hot commodity at Blackburn to a 4th or 5th striker at City - is also coming back from injury and is a question mark. So after spending all of that money the last 12 months on Robinho, Santa Cruz, Tevez, and Adebayor, they're now going into the biggest Manchester derby in recent memory with Craig Bellamy leading the line, as this article outlines.

It's time for the annual "Is Arsenal capable of winning the league?" articles you find on Soccernet once Arsenal have lost a game or two. Seriously, this happens every single year once they've moved 4 or 5 games into the year and points have been dropped. This article by Norman Hubbard looks at Arsenal's style of play and their perceived inability to win ugly games and that they have to play the beautiful game, that they have to win with style. Meanwhile, Chelsea and Manchester United can take a punch or fall behind (both fell behind last week at Stoke and Tottenham), can face adversity (United had Paul Scholes sent off for another in a long line of goofy Paul Scholes "tackles"), yet both teams won big matches away from home, while Arsenal lost 4-2 at Manchester City. United and Chelsea will sacrifice style to win, while Arsenal won't (though you can certainly argue that Chelsea never win with style). It's an interesting read. The timing of the article is funny, as Arsenal lost a big match on the weekend and looked set to fall to Standard Liege in the Champions League on Wednesday, but fough back and won, 3-2, through a late Eduardo winner (who was going to be suspended for the match, but had his controversial "witch hunt" diving ban overturned to the relief of Arsenal supporters everywhere).

Lastly, here's a head-scratcher of a headline from Soccernet's coverage of Madrid's 5-2 win over FC Zurich in their Champions League opener. How is a game a rout and a narrow victory at the same time? That will probably be the story of Madrid's season: they'll score a ton of goals, but if they come up against a side that can actually defend and hit Madrid on counters, they could have some rough games this year (and there are a few sides like that in La Liga; Barcelona of course, Valencia can score, Villarreal are still tough, and Sevilla have some solid players).