Five things from the weekend

Here are a few things I picked up watching games over the weekend:

1) Aston Villa's Gabriel Agbonlahor is something else. He was able to get behind the Middlesbrough defense at will and scored a pretty nice goal. He missed a couple of gilt-edged chances, but he's still young.

I've heard several pundits mention his name as a possible right-sided midfield choice for England, but with the skill he showed Saturday and the fragility of the national team's strikers, I think he'll be capped up front.

2) Sam Allardyce is going to have to move quickly to win over the Newcastle fans. At one point during the second half of a 3-0 loss at home to Liverpool, the touchline cam showed Big Sam furiously chomping on a fresh stick of gum while two of the Toon faithful gave him an earful from the stands.

They had good reason to be upset: the Reds controlled most of the game and really should have won by a bigger margin. Newcastle are short on ideas in the midfield, leaving two excellent strikers in Mark Viduka and Obafemi Martins to put in all the work themselves. I also think Allardyce needs to settle on a back four, since tinkering and swapping isn't shoring up a leaky defense.

3) The shine on Blackburn is beginning to wear off. After a good run winning four Premier League matches in a row, they've drawn two and lost one. Mind you the loss was away to Manchester United and one draw was against Liverpool, but on Sunday against Fulham they were unspectacular to say the least. Fulham could have easily taken the points, but they are quite adept at coughing up leads.

The Rovers did suffer the loss of Benni McCarthy to injury early on and Jason Roberts put in a good performance for the home side, but considering some of the other second tier results (Portsmouth and Aston Villa winning away and Everton demolishing Sunderland at home) they should expect better at Ewood Park.

4) David James should have been the keeper at Wembley on Wednesday. Portsmouth played a poor game against lowly Birmingham at St. Andrews and still managed to win 2-0. James, however, played like the veteran keeper he is: he made no mistakes and made key plays when they were needed. He may not steal the show for England, but nor would he let a 35-yard Nico Krancjar shot slip by him.

Speaking of England's bane, Krancjar showed his class once again in this game, scoring a spectacular free kick to seal the game for Pompey. Another player of note in this game was Sully Muntari, who terrorized the Birmingham defense most of the match.

5) Referees tolerate an awful lot in England. When Mike Riley waved off penalty pleas just before half during the West Ham - Tottenham match on Sunday, he was berated incessantly by the victim, Spurs captain Robbie Keane and a horde of his teammates. This continued up until the break and after the halftime whistle, Keane marched up to Riley to continue his rant.

As captain, it is Keane's prerogative to speak with the officials to seek clarification or speak his mind. I think the officials tolerate the rants far too much and should be looking to flash a card or two more often when things get out of hand. Perhaps there was a case for a penalty, but it was clear Riley had made up his mind. Move on, play the game.

MONDAY:

As a Liverpool supporter, I really hope the two sides in the Benitez/Hicks/Gillett row stop the bickering and sit down to iron out their differences like men rather than whining like children. It does nothing positive for the club and will only have a detrimental effect on the field. Grow up guys.