1. Coming from behind, it’s the new missionary position.
Manchester United & City are sat at the top of the league table this weekend looking down at the other teams and laughing. Utd have hit top gear twice all season and City haven’t even got out of 3rd. Yet, the former are top of the pile and the latter are somehow still unbeaten. In the 30 games that both have played in the Premier & Champions League this season they have come from behind to claim points in a barely plausible 18 of them. Of course, it helps when you don’t bother playing until the last half hour of matches to have a super sub on the bench. Edin Dzeko has scored more goals than any of City’s strikers and cannot buy a starting place. He has scored the winner in a third of City’s Premier League games this season. He is better than Sunderland on his own. Javier Hernandez meanwhile has scored more goals in the last ten games than the ENTIRE of Manchester United's team combined bar Van Persie. He is currently averaging a goal every 54 minutes. His goals per minute ratio is the best of any striker ever to play for Utd in the modern era. Let’s look at this another way, Edin Dzeko and Javier Hernandez have already this season won more points for their team than the whole of QPR, Reading & Southampton put together. And neither of them start games. Ah who cares, it makes things much more interesting if you give the opposition a chance first.
2. Big Sam, the manager Mark Hughes wishes he was.
Say what you want about Big Sam, his knack of taking supremely average teams into the top half of the Premier League is peerless. His teams aren’t always easy on the eye and often tread a disciplinary tightrope, but time and time again he manages to deliver. West Ham sit in 6th position in the table, above Spurs, Arsenal and Newcastle, and the worst thing about it is they actually deserve to be there. They have the second best defence in the league and have been outplayed just once to date (away at Swansea). Allardyce knows how to win Premier League matches and West Ham are organised and committed with a smackering of flair around the edges. In Kevin Nolan, they have the most consistent uncapped midfielder in England, certainly now the equally impressive Leon Osman has been called up. Mark Hughes on the other hand, can’t even remember how to win football matches. QPR are bottom of the table, winless and shit out of luck. Hughes has won just 8 of his 34 games in charge, a ratio of less than 24%. Lower than Neil Warnock managed in his time in the same league, with a lot less money and time. Hughes vowed last season that you would “never, ever see a team in that position whilst he was at the club.” He may well be proved right, but only because he won’t be there come May...
3. Chelsea have to ship out Torres in January.
Chelsea may have posted their first profits under the Roman Empire, but if they’re to harbor any realistic chance of winning the title this season, they have to take what they can for Torres and buy a genuine centre forward, not an ex one. Torres may have scored four league goals, but only one was a genuine strikers finish and given the talent behind him, it’s a pretty meek return. Ask yourself, would Torres get in the first team of any major club in European football? Would he even get in the match day squad at City or Utd? No. He’ll still score the odd goal, who wouldn’t with Mata, Oscar and Hazard running riot, but he is simply not a game changer in the way that top strikers are. It’s time to put him out to pasture. I’m sure Spurs will buy him... or PSG, just for a laugh.
4. Everybody, even Arsenal fans, need Arsenal to not finish in the top four this season.
With the top three all but certain to remain as they are, a battle for 4th of epic proportions is currently being fought beneath them. Everton, easily playing the best football, are surely the most deserving of the spot to reward them and their manager for a decade of over achievement. Right now though, I’d take just about anyone in the league (not West Ham) finishing in 4th spot ahead of the Gunners. Why? Because Arsene Wenger needs to leave; and them finishing 3rd or 4th year after year after trophy less year is only prolonging the inevitable. Arsenal at least used to challenge for the title. Now they rise slowly to the surface like a dead, bloated whale corpse scaring away all the little fish at the latter stages. Arsenal are now so average that Aaron Ramsey has started to look ok again, just because he runs more than the others do. When their strikers find their boots, the defence collapses. When the defence keeps a clean sheet, they can’t hit a barn door. Sure they’ll go on a sneaky little run at some point and fool a few people, but when it comes to the crunch they aren’t good enough. For a team with their recent history, charging £150 a ticket, with a magnificent stadium, an army of supporters and turning a bigger profit than any UK bank... that’s unforgivable. Wenger out. The campaign begins here.
5. A nod to Andrea Pirlo.
Juventus’ unbeaten run came to an end last week one short of the magic 50 mark. For Pirlo, it marked the end of a streak that had stretched back to December 2010. One month shy of two years, Pirlo was beaten for the first time in sixty league matches. An astonishing run whichever way you look at it. Pirlo is a romanticists footballer, a throwback to days when people treated the ball like a fine woman, gently caressing it around the pitch with elegance and grace. His range of passing is exquisite, and his pass percentage during the last two years is better than Toure, Xavi, Alonso... even Michael Carrick. This summer he dragged a very average Italian squad to the cusp of greatness. He even managed to get a penalty renamed after him en route. Being far too much of a homosexual to play in this country (thank you Phil Brown), we are left to admire him from afar as he weaves his magic across Italy. He won’t win the Ballon d’or, it’s likely he won’t even make the top five, but he’d still walk into any team in the world at the age of 33 and slowly, gently, make love to the ball.
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