Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Weeks 18-19

1. Alex Ferguson will likely die, never having grown up.

Fergie is many things, a wonderful manager who’s passion for the game remains undimmed at the age of 70 for one. But he is a terribly petulant, frequently childish man who proves time and time again that age is no barrier to ever wanting to grow up. Utd were involved in two cracking games this Christmas, plundering 4 points where lesser teams would have achieved none. But at both of these seasonal crackers were two incidents that saw Fergie at his worst. The first was Ashley Williams “clearing” the ball onto the head of Van Persie. Williams knew exactly what he was doing and probably should have been sent off, but the claim from Fergie that it was the “most dangerous thing he’d ever seen on a football pitch” was so over the top you had to pause for several seconds to wonder if he’d really just said it. This is a man who managed Roy Keane. Fergie followed up this insane outburst yesterday by unleashing his hair dryer on the entire officiating staff at home to Newcastle for correctly awarding a goal against his team. Ok, so the real guilty party here is the terrible offside rule, but right or wrong, his reaction was over the top, out of order and pathetic. He should have been sent to the stands and banned for 5 matches. The FA won’t do that, because whilst I don’t believe Utd still get the big decisions anymore (if you compare the statistical evidence over the past few years Utd sit proudly in mid table and last season they were the most wronged team full stop*), there is no doubt that Fergie rules the roost regarding the League Managers Association. Other managers respect him, even fear him. I just wish one of them would tell him to grow the fuck up.

*
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/9258810/Manchester-United-have-cause-for-complaint-as-unique-survey-highlights-Premier-League-errors.html

2. Less Zzzz... more WTF.
And to think I called Villa boring. 12 goals in two matches has changed all that; sadly for Villa fans... they’ve scored none of them. Indeed, when you consider the first half was nil nil against Spurs, Villa have conceded 12 goals in 135 minutes of football. One every dozen or so minutes. Well and truly battered by Rafa’s resurgent Chelsea (play David Luiz in midfield... it’s not so hard is it) - Villa’s reaction on Boxing Day was admirable until they conceded the first goal. Then, like at Stamford Bridge, they completely imploded as Gareth Bale showed no mercy to rain fire on this poor, once great Midlands club. Villa have a very young, inexperienced squad. Barry Bannan, a child with 50 odd Premier League appearances to his name, was their most experienced player at Chelsea. But youth is no excuse for incompetence, and Villa continue to look like a team who are only going one way. Backwards. They’ve won four times this season and three of them have been against teams struggling as badly as they are. At least that (and Benteke) should keep them out of a relegation dog fight, but for their fans... there really is very little light at the end of a tunnel that has now gone past boredom and pulled over at despair.

3. Fulham are in a rut. 
Only Reading and Wigan sit below Fulham in the current form table and having won just once in their last ten games, they somehow managed to turn a win into a draw at home to the leagues worst away side. The Cottagers should have put the game to bed long before Lambert’s late penalty and paid for build up play that too often lacked a final, penetrative ball. Just two shots on target was a poor return and indicative of the way Fulham are currently playing. They look lost without the combined guile of Demeble, Dempsey and the injured Brian Ruiz and the midfield is beginning to look two dimensional. It’s all very well keeping calm and passing Berbatov the ball, but Martin Jol may have to look in January for somebody new to actually do that.

4. Just how good is Asmir Begovic?
Stoke get a lot of bad press, not least from me, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have some very decent players. AVB was not joking when he said Stoke had the best defence in Europe (only three top flight teams across the continent currently do) and at the heart of all great defences usually lies a very good goal keeper. Asmir Begovic has only played 73 Premier League games for Stoke City and has kept 25 clean sheets in that period. Only Petr Cech has kept more over the same time frame and he plays for Chelsea, not little old Stoke. The Bosnian is good in the air, rarely makes errors and is a supreme shot stopper. He is brilliant at double saves, making almost one a match and his late effort to keep out Spurs on Saturday was simply world class. At the age of just 25 and with his best years ahead of him, Begovic is as good as any keeper in the world. If that wasn’t enough, the fucker is top of my fantasy football cash league...

5. The Team of the Season so far is not entirely what one would have expected.
It’s been a strange first half to the season, I’m not sure anyone was predicting QPR to implode quite so quickly and it remains a mystery how Man Utd are 7 points clear at the top of the table after playing so badly for 70 minutes of almost every game. Far from vintage fare, there has been plenty to discuss and the next 19 games promise a titanic battle for 4th, a potential late charge from a well drilled Chelsea and a relegation battle involving um... all of four teams. But for now, here’s my mid-season XI, featuring not a single player from the Champions.

Begovic
Ivanovic Shawcross Bassong Baines
Mata Fellaini Santi Bale
Michu Van Persie

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Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week Seventeen

1. Fellaini might be heading for the exit.
Marouane Fellaini was hit with a three match batch yesterday for a cowardly and barely defensible head-butt on Ryan Shawcross. I say barely, because head-butting anybody who fights plays for Stoke is understandable in some capacity. The irony of course, is that having now set himself up to miss the festive period, the Big Belgian, who hardly boasts a brilliant disciplinary record already, could well find himself moving to a new club quicker than before. It was thought by some that Fellaini would see out the season at Everton and then make a move south, probably to Chelsea to join their latest revolution and adding some steel to their currently fast footed but arguably light weight midfield. Now though, open season appears to have been declared by the player’s agent following rumours that Fellaini has told Moyes he wants to leave. Arguably the player of the season so far, Fellaini would command a place at most of Europe’s top clubs, although reinventing himself as a number 10 has meant he would be competing for such a role with the likes of Messi, Ozil, Rooney, Silva and Mata. It will be interesting therefore not only to see where he goes, but where he plays. Indeed, one look at the central midfield of Chelsea, Arsenal and both Manchester clubs presents a great chance for anyone with a passing interest in being a DM to step in and step up. If there is a poorer represented position amongst the top clubs I’m yet to find it. Say the words Michael Carrick, Gareth Barry & John Obi Mikel and then Barcelona, Munich, Real… you just laugh don’t you.

2. Liverpool could do with Christian Benteke.
After a mini revival of late, Liverpool were brought down to earth with a bump this weekend with one of the results of the season so far. Failing to win at Anfield has been common place for a while now, but being soundly beaten by Azzzton Villa ranked as the worst result since Brendan Rodgers took over. Rodgers complained about people being tired afterwards, but has only himself to blame for refusing to rotate and either ostracising or selling 50% of his squad in the summer. Villa meanwhile, despite floundering near the bottom of the table, appear to have pulled off a real coup with the signing of Benteke. The Belgian is young, strong, and fast and seems to be adapting to the league after an initially wasteful start. With 8 goals in 16 appearances, as well as a couple for the national team, he surely won’t be at a club of the ambition of Villa for more than a season or two. Liverpool of course, still being a “big club” will instead spend their hard earned cash on Daniel Sturridge this January. For no reason.

3. Eight years looks like a very long time.
Loyalty is not common in this sport, so Newcastle’s decision to award Alan Pardew with an eight year contract this summer was as much of a statement against that culture as anything else. Talk of him now getting the sack is ludicrously premature, but there’s no escaping the fact that Newcastle are having an appalling season so far. Transfers didn’t happen, injuries have mounted up and on the pitch there has been no fluency or rhythm for too long. One win in eleven speaks for itself and Pardew is running out of ways to claim he saw signs of improvement to take into the next game. Right now Newcastle aren’t taking anything into the next game and without the goals of Demba Ba they’d currently be bottom of the table. As it is, they sit two points above the relegation zone with a horrific Christmas schedule to look forward to. It might be even colder than usual in the Toon this year, and that contract will start to look very long indeed if Newcastle are still struggling come March. Of course, should he get sacked Pardew always has his day job of tending to the armies of Hell to fall back on.

4. Sky need to have a range of names for their Sunday viewing.
I remember watching Sky’s inaugural “Super Sunday” in a pub in Bath sometime around a decade ago. Liverpool played Man Utd, and Arsenal matched up against Chelsea. These were games that actually mattered in what was, at that stage, a four horse race for the title. I can’t remember the results, but the point was it was a “Super Sunday” of top four, top flight football. Since then, Sky have rolled out this “event” to every single time there are two televised games side by side on the Sabbath. In short, the magic isn’t there anymore. It certainly wasn’t there this weekend, as West Brom, West Ham, Spurs and Swansea managed a single goal between them in games that were only notable for Frankie Curran losing £25 and myself making the mystifyingly idiotic decision to have a Spurs player as my fantasy football captain. “Sedentary Sunday” would have been more fitting, but Sky either need to downplay some of the games that aren’t as vital for titles, trophies and relegation or come up with something even bigger to describe matches that… oh shit… that’s what they’re going to do isn’t it? What have I done…  

5. Reading are, for lack of a better word, fucked.
Bottom of the league and having been subjected to a series of heavy defeats, I watched Readings match against Arsenal last night and found myself unable to mount a single credible reason why they could stay in the Premier League. The first 45 minutes was just about the worst I’d witnessed all season and the second half only got better in the sense that they actually began to attack once they’d conceded the 4^th goal. Reading have lost six on the bounce and have shipped a ridiculous 36 goals across a campaign that has shown them to be hopelessly out of their depth. Terrible at the back and lacking in any real guile, the Royals have far too many championship standard players throughout their squad, which should at least make the transition easier come May. In fact I’m willing to state that if they survive I will donate £100 to charity. Sadly for Reading fans, I can’t give them a new defence, new midfield, new strike force… or any Premier League points.

Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week Sixteen

1. Times Up Mario
Mario Balotelli was on thin ice for City last season, his match winning performances were too few and when he was suspended for the run in, City kicked on and eventually won the league. His erratic form and behaviour would be hard to take for a club who had no other decent strikers on their books, but given City have Aguero, Tevez and Dzeko... not to mention bottomless pockets, he needs to be shipped out in January and forgotten about. Balotelli’s selections in the big matches, often at the expense of the successful Aguero/Tevez axis are bordering on the perverse. What on earth had Roberto Mancini seen this season to justify selecting the Italian for the game on Sunday? It’s clear that the two have a bizarre father/son relationship going on, but at the risk of agreeing with Alan Hansen, now really is the time to ship Mario out. Perhaps City are too big for him, with too many accepted stars on their books. Would Balotelli be better at a club where he genuinely was the number one guy? Certainly he has played well for his country since being told he’s the first striker on the teamsheet. How all of City’s strikers must look enviously towards Robin Van Persie, bought by Ferguson in the summer and barring a chronic lack of form or injury, has been told he’ll start every major game. All four of City’s strikers have no idea whether they’ll be playing, or who they’ll be playing with in any given gameweek. Tevez was rewarded for a match winning performance and two goals a month ago, by being dropped for 3 games. Dzeko doesn’t start successive games ever and even Aguero, clearly the guy who should be the RVP for City, has been needlessly rotated when fully fit and raring to go. Mancini needs to do what he did last season and start his best players in every game, more so now they’re out of Europe. I’m sorry Mario, but that means your time is up. The Italian may well still develop into a superb, world class player. But doing that at City seems increasingly less likely.

2. Rooney/RVP is beginning to purr

At the start of the season there was talk of whether or not these two would be able to play together. Talk that was never fully answered by Rooney first getting injured and then coming back and playing in midfield. Recently though, Fergie has gone with the two of them upfront and has sat back and watched them not only win games, but dictate them as well. Both got on the scoresheet again on Sunday, Rooney’s first indebted to a wonderful lay off en route by the Dutchman, who then created the best moment of the game, hitting the bar before getting his reward with almost the last kick. The two are starting to look like they could be a real handful, which is probably the least they should be at a combined outlay of almost £60m. RVP played very high up for Arsenal last year but with Rooney and often Hernandez on the pitch as well, he has started to drop out wide again to find space like he did in his earlier Arsenal days. This benefits Utd because his delivery is so good, and with a midfield that is only capable of attacking, it creates space for others to run into. The two of them have already scored or created some 29 league goals this season and Utd’s commitment to attack is, thus far, proving successful in propelling them to the top of the league. For years Ferguson hasn’t bothered trying to sort his central midfield out. Maybe finally he has found the solution... literally not bothering with his midfield at all.

3. The Canaries are souring
The current form table sees Norwich city sitting pretty in 2nd place behind Manchester Utd and unbeaten in 8 games. They have won four of those matches through a mixture of solidity, organisation and now a fair bit of style. Chris Hughton took a few games to bed in his squad but since then he has done a marvelous job; not just carrying on the work that Lambert left, but adding new faces and a new style of play to make Norwich an even better team than before. It always seemed a strange decision by Harry Redknapp to toss away Sebastian Bassong as easily as he did, preferring to play Kaboul (who surely he must be sleeping with) and, even more inexplicably, the likes of William Gallas over the Cameroonian. AVB however, clearly also took this as a sign of his worthlessness and agreed to ship him off to Norwich, again deciding that the 35 year old Gallas was a better option. That deal looked laughable when Bassong was dropped for no reason after the successful, Champions League 2010 season and it looks just as laughable now. Bassong is statistically the second best defender in the league this season, behind the criminally underrated Ryan Shawcross. He has helped Norwich keep three clean sheets in their current run and seems to have added goal scoring to his list of skills as well. Further up the pitch, Hughton has played a blinder in the signing of Robert Snodgrass. The Scottish international has been as good as anyone in the Championship over the past few seasons and scored over 40 goals for Leeds from midfield, as well as numerous assists. Still just 25, bigger clubs have missed out on Snodgrass by refusing to take a punt on a player from the division below. So far their loss has been Norwich’s gain. Inspirational over the last two months, the Canaries are now just 4 points off a Champions League spot. Mind you, so are Liverpool... and according to Michael Owen they’re now the favourites to take that spot...

4. Everton’s luck finally turned

Everton have been playing arguably the best football in the league all season, but whereas Utd and City have had the firepower to get them over the 90 minute line, the Toffees have drawn several matches they really should have won. That finally changed on Sunday after Spurs looked to have picked their pockets following a fortunate and undeserved Clint Dempsey strike. Everton refused to let their heads drop and poured forward for the last ten minutes, eventually winning the goal with a late and instinctive Jelavic finish. AVB had few complaints with the result, which in itself is pretty damning when you’ve been beaten by 90th and 94th minute goals. The result propelled Everton back into fourth and with games against Stoke, West Ham and Wigan up next, they would hope to consolidate that position over the festive period. Hell, by the time Chelsea roll into town on New Years Eve, Everton could easily be playing for 3rd. If they have anything like their usual second half to a season, this could be a very special one for their fans.

5. Michael Owen has no idea what he’s on about

Having already tipped Liverpool for 4th this season, Michael Owen later backed QPR to avoid relegation. Even if you believe wholeheartedly in the power of Harry Redknapp, the safe bet on a team 8 points from safety who haven’t won in 16 games is they’re going down. Owen treated us to all sorts of maddeningly strange comments during MOTD2 yesterday, not least blaming Joe Hart for Man Utd’s winner, but his real gem was saved for after the show when he presented his “Manchester XI.” Selecting any players you could from the bloated squads of the two title rivals, Owen went for this...



Hart - Rafael - Evans - Nastatic - Evra - Cleverly - Barry - Valencia - Balotelli - Rooney - Van Persie.


I don’t even know where to begin with a team that doesn’t include Ya Ya Toure, Vincent Kompany or David Silva. Let alone one which has Mario Balotelli at left midfield. I’m perhaps being a bit unkind to Michael Owen, after all this selection was a touch jestful and actually done via a you pick, I pick system with Hansen. But still, by that rational and going first, you think you’d get at least six or seven players from the best available XI? Owen has four, at best, including none of the defenders. Does he even play football anymore? Oh wait... 


Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week Fifteen

Why on earth did nobody else look at Michu?

Miguel Perez Cuesta, Michu to his friends, scored his 9^th and 10^th goals of the season this weekend to become only the third Spanish player in history to net 10 goals in a Premier League campaign. To have done that by December, in his first campaign, is a feat only matched by a certain £50m man. Michu cost 1/25^th of that total and is making that fee look laughable. Swansea play controlling, passing football but the Spaniard has added a clinical edge to their play. Against Arsenal they had defended stoutly and looked to be heading for a worthy draw, but a moment of brilliance from Michu won the game before a typical Arsenal error allowed him to add gloss to his earlier effort. Michu wasn’t exactly a complete nobody, he did play in La Liga last season and despite being at low mid table club Rayo Vallecano, managed 17 goals from midfield. 9^th in the scoring charts overall and the highest of any player from a midfield role, outscoring the likes of Di Maria, Ozil, Inesita & Santi. Why then, after just one year with the club was he allowed to leave for such a farcically low fee? And secondly, why on earth was he on nobody else’s Radar but Michael Laudrup’s? Michu has since moved into a striker’s role, the victim of partly his own success but also a Ronaldo esque unwillingness to return past his own half way line. That trait can be forgiven though whilst he continues to win games for his new club. Even if Swansea can’t hold on to him past the summer, they’ll turn a handsome profit… and probably go and buy someone just as good for a third of the price.

Rio Ferdinand will not be missed next year
With his contract running out in the summer there has been talk of Rio Ferdinand moving east for a final and lucrative paycheque. Fergie claimed this week though; that he thought Rio could play for Utd for another “2 or 3 years,” and implied he was keen to use him in a similar manner to Scholes & Giggs once they moved deep into their 30’s. That comment looks, at best, optimistic and at worsts the demented ramblings of a senile pensioner. Ferdinand is way, way past his best and shorn of his pace, lacks the organisational ability of other defenders who can play into their 30’s with a degree of elegant grace. He was static on Saturday evening as Reading became the first team to ever score 3 goals against Utd during the opening half hour of a top flight fixture. The trouble for Utd is that statistics like this keep getting broken every month or so. The team that kept 14 clean sheets in a row three years ago looks like a distant and implausible memory. In fairness to Rio, he has deteriorated at nowhere near the pace that Patrice Evra has. Arguably one of the best left backs in the world 3 seasons ago, the Frenchman is now the worst full back in the league. His passing is errant, his discipline pathetic and his positional sense almost comical. Utd have promising young defenders coming through the ranks and there’s a strong argument to start playing them now. If either Ferdinand or Evra are lining up for Utd next August, the club will be weaker.

Does Gareth Bale need to leave Spurs?
It will be interesting to see how Spurs cope without their inspirational Simian following his ham-string injury this weekend. Bale has been in scintillating form this season, picking up the mantle left behind by Luca Modric and making it his own. Bale had already proved himself loyal, having been courted by bigger clubs for two years, but this summer is probably the time for him to move to pastures new. Bale is not yet the complete player; he goes missing for long periods and struggles when the space around him is closed down. Give him the ball with the pitch to run into though and he’s lethal. His pace and dribbling are well spoken about, but his delivery is unerring for one so young. Bale is currently Spurs best player by a distance, despite the arrival of the impressive Dembele, and it would be fascinating to see if a move to the likes of Real or Munich would improve him still further. People like to knock Bale, myself included, after all he is a shameless diver, has the worst celebration in history and often follows up an amazing match winning performance with touching the ball twice in the next one. But he is just 23 and arguably has everything in his locker that a certain C.Ronaldo did at this stage of his career. A move might just take him to that next level and liberate Spurs from their over reliance on their talisman. They certainly didn’t miss him when he came off on Saturday, pouring forward to win at a canter. The next few weeks will tell us a lot though, both about Bale and the club he currently plays for.

Derby day looms for lumbering giants.
Both Manchester clubs have flattered to deceive this season, but they have been carried to the top of the league by a mixture of prolific strikers… and other prolific strikers. The two clubs have 65 goals between them so far, the same number as Newcastle, Wigan, QPR, Villa & Sunderland combined. RVP is the league’s top scorer, Hernandez the league’s best sub and Rooney added a brace this weekend to take him to 5 so far. City have shared them around a bit more, but Tevez, Aguero & Dseko have all been match winners on a regular basis and it would be a shock if the game on Sunday wasn’t decided by one of those six figures. With Chelsea caught up in their own personal crisis, the league is looking like a two horse race at a worryingly early stage. It would be good then, if unlike the recent games at the Etihad Stadium, we were treated to a proper match. The fear is both managers will resort to their defensive approaches for the game, more frightened of losing than anything else. But with neither team convincing at the back so far, especially Utd, it would be great to see the two best teams in the land, with the greatest collection of strikers in the land, really go for each other’s throats. You never know, Christmas might come early after all.

Wenger out.
I’m getting so bored of saying it I cannot even summon the energy to write this point. Arsenal are an embarrassment and a severing of ties between Wenger & the club is the only way forward. Look at it as a mercy killing. I now refuse to write to about Arsenal until this happens… or they improve at such a dramatic rate I’m forced to eat a piece of humble pie so large I’d choke on it.