An Irish hat-trick and the best goal that Alan Pardew has ever seen are just two of the highlights from a weekend of stunning strikes.
5. Goran Pandev (Palermo v Napoli)
Everyone’s favourite balding Macedonian star was on the scoresheet last night as Napoli trounced a sorry Palermo 3-1. With additional strikes from Marek Hamsik and Edinson Cavani, each of the Napoli’s triumvirate of forwards hit the net, though for our money nothing beats Pandev’s flukey/completely intentional (judge for yourself) drag back and finish.
As evidenced below, Pandev controls the ball carefully with his right foot and holds off defender Munoz before striking with his left. Immaculate finishing – push ahead to 0.21 for the goal itself.
4. Anthony Stokes (Peterhead v Celtic)
It’s not often we get to celebrate two Irish strikers hitting hat-tricks but that’s exactly what happened for Anthony Stokes and WBA’s Simon Cox.
Though Stokes obviously benefited from weaker opposition (Scottish third division side Peterhead are a fair bit worse than Cardiff), he still took his goals extremely well and should give Giovani Trapattoni plenty to think about in the coming months. We particularly enjoyed Stokes’ second, which you can find at 0.46.
3. Danny Welbeck (Manchester City v Manchester United)
In the interest of fairness, we’re just selecting one goal from Sunday afternoon’s barnstorming FA cup tie, though Wayne Rooney’s powerful header and Alexander Kolarov’s blistering free-kick could have easily slotted in our weekend round-up too.
In our view, however, there was no finer goal at the Etihad Stadium last weekend than Danny Welbeck’s beautiful horizontal volley from inside the box, which benefited from scaredy cat behaviour from Nigel de Jong of all people.
2. Arnaud Mendy (Macclesfield v Bolton)
They say that the romance of the FA Cup is dead and bar a Swindon win over Wigan, ‘they’ may have a point. However, there’s always a few incidents to prove the old adage wrong and Arnaud Mendy gave giant killers everywhere hope with what was nearly the best goal of the weekend.
With a valiant 2-2 draw and upcoming replay, we’re wondering whether Mendy really is that good or if Bolton actually are that bad.
1. Hatem Ben Arfa (Newcastle v Blackburn)
Demba who? Though Newcastle’s Senagalese striker is off to the Africa Cup of Nations, the Toon Army barely missed him after an incredible mazy solo effort from Hatem Ben Arfa.
“Lionel Messi or even Maradona would have been proud of Hatem’s magnificent goal,” said teammate Jonas Gutiérrez afterwards, while YouTube user ‘mehdibabyface76’ offered somewhat overenthusiastically for the below clip: “The best french player of the history after zidane!!”
Either way, Newcastle boss Alan Pardew was postively purring over the Frenchman’s striker, stating: “It’s the greatest goal I’ve ever seen. You can volley into the corner or smash a goal from 40 yards, but to score a goal like that you need to be a special talent.” Believe us when we say that all the above superlatives don’t begin to describe Hatem’s not Arfa bad strike – judge for yourself below.
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