Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week 27

1. Swans stretch their wings and truly fly
Clwb Pel-droed Dinas Abertawa swept to League Cup glory yesterday at the hands of the former wool capital of the world. For Bradford City, 5-0 seemed harsh and this was clearly one game too many in what has become a memorable and historic cup run. Swansea however, deserve every bit of credit going bestowed on them. It has been a remarkable few years for the Welsh team and they are a club that have benefited from having three successive managers who play the game in the right way. It seemed unlikely in August that Michael Laudrup would be able to carry on where Brendan Rodgers had left off. It seemed impossible that he would take them to a higher level again. Swansea aren’t just safe from relegation, they are as close to Manchester City as they are in turn to Manchester Utd. As it was, Laudrup could save his players both mentally and physically for this match over the past few weeks and his decision to do so was fully justified in a marvellous display of passing, attacking football. Swansea made a mockery of Arsenal and Villa’s botched attempts to get past Bradford. They showed their class not by trying to out-score, out-fight or out-pace the team from league two… but by just keeping the ball. Swansea had over 60% of possession, completed more passes than any team outside of Barcelona this weekend and scored five, well taken goals. Europe beckons and on the evidence of the last 12 months the greatest compliment you can currently pay Swansea, is that they will not be out of place.

2. Chelsea are not guaranteed a top four finish
When Rafa Benitez took over at Chelsea back in November I said he should prioritise the cup competitions because there was no chance of his team finishing outside the top four. That claim now looks shaky. Benitez spoke like a true manager prior to the game on Sunday about how a Chelsea win would see the gap close to just one point between them and City, but what he didn’t say was what would happen if they lost it. Chelsea now lie just two points ahead of Arsenal, who have nothing left to be distracted by and whose players currently owe Arsene Wenger a huge last ten games. Spurs sit in between the two and can rise above the Blues if they defeat a struggling West Ham tonight. Whisper it, but Chelsea could easily finish 5^th. Since Benitez took over from Di Matteo, in what somehow remains only the second most offensive sacking this season, Chelsea have played 15 Premier League games and have won just 7 of them. They have played more games than any other team in England (47 so far) and that number is likely to rise to well over 60 following their continued involvement in both the FA Cup and Europa League. It seems implausible that Chelsea could play over seventy games this season in seven different competitions and win absolutely nothing, but that is what is currently happening and they may not even have the consolation prize of Champions League football to cling on to. I can’t be bothered to discuss their faults again on this blog (defence, attack, discipline, killer instinct, john obi mikel) – but for now let us just lean back and dream, that this may just be the most long winded failure of a football season in living memory.

3. The Toon still know how to party
Over the last twenty years you’d be hard pushed to find a venue that has served up as many top flight humdingers as St James Park. So it proved again this weekend, as the most entertaining looking fixture on paper, for once transferred into the most entertaining in practice as well. Newcastle and Southampton served up a feast of attacking football that reminded us what the Premier League was all about. Six goals, bags of chances and high drama were all thrown into a North vs South hotpot of fun that was capped by a goal of ludicrous quality by Papiss Cisse and an own goal of epic comedic proportions. All in all, more entertainment than Stokes last three seasons in the top flight in one match…

4. Everton have only themselves to blame
The writing isn’t on the wall just yet, but back to back away defeats have all but ended Everton’s hope of Champions League qualification and with it the optimism that this could have been their best season yet under Moyes. Everton have a fine team but a weak squad and have several players who have badly underperformed over the past three months. Moyes dropped Jelavic for a single game before recalling him for no real reason that I can fathom. The Croat has scored 1 goal in his last 1200 minutes and is right now making Fernando Torres look lethal. Johnny Heitinga is another who has stumbled badly of late. Everton have kept just one clean sheet all season when he’s started a game and it seems incredible that he was playing in a World Cup final 2 years ago. Everton have players looking tired at the wrong time and whilst they’re still in the FA Cup, the fans are looking over their shoulders rather than upwards. The thought of Liverpool (3 points behind and with a home banker derby still to come) overtaking them is now no longer an outside possibility, but a very real fear.

5. Managers in the Wilderness – Case One: David O’Leary
Given the Premier League title is all but over and I’m on a continued self-imposed ban from openly discussing Arsenal, I have found myself struggling to come up with relevant, entertaining points of late. As such I am starting a new feature that I’m hoping, at the very least, will be slightly more successful than Andy Townsends ill fated “tactics truck” - Managers in the Wilderness. First up… what on earth happened to David O’Leary?

In the year 2001 O’Leary guided Leeds United to the semi-finals of the Champions League with a strike force of Alan Smith and Mark Viduka. Sure he spent a lot of money at the club (£100m in four years), but he never finished outside of the top six and despite not being in any way responsible for Peter Risdale’s actions, appears to still be held accountable for them to this day. O’Leary had a win ratio of 50% at Leeds, which is a fine effort for any manager in a competitive industry and went on to do a fair to middling job at Aston Villa. Sure Villa hardly punched above their weight when he was there, but at least they weren’t involved in a relegation dogfight either. Since then, O’Leary remained out of work for four years. Then in 2010 he took a bizarre and ill-fated job in the UAE where he was sacked after just seven games, despite only losing twice. Other than that period, O’Leary has been out of work for seven years whilst the likes of Steve Bruce still get continued employment. Even Peter Reid has had more action that O’Leary in this timeframe. Now I’m not saying that O’Leary deserves a contract with the next club looking for a manager, but given he appears to be doing literally nothing else with his time, surely there are worse people out there you could take a punt on?

Yeah. I’m not sure that feature worked either…

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Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week 26

(the censored, no swearing edition)

1. Lampard still has a lot to offer.
It is probably stating the obvious now, such has been the fanfare surrounding the decision by Chelsea to not offer Frank Lampard a new contract, but given I’ve been unkind to the tubby little Londoner before (apparently) - it’s only fair I laud him for his achievements at this juncture. Apart from being a loyal servant, solid role model and but a few deflected shots away from being Chelsea’s all time leading scorer, Lampard clearly still has the ability to play at the top level. In a team that has struggled of late, he has plundered 8 goals in his last 9 starts. His passing range is back up to the level it was a couple of years ago and like Gerrard, he has finally adapted to playing a deeper role. Lampard would get in the midfield of Utd, Arsenal and Man City, so quite why Chelsea are prepared to let him go for nothing when he visibly still has so much to offer is extraordinary. Perhaps Roman has only watched him play for England over the past decade and not his own club? Or perhaps it really is time to clear the decks of the Chelsea old guard and start afresh. Lampard isn’t a box to box midfielder like he used to be, but he is just as fit as Ryan Giggs was five years ago and he is still playing approaching his 40th year. Chelsea’s loss will be someone’s else gain this summer, barring a dramatic and late change of heart. For a man who has given his all to his club and has been vocal in saying he’d like to keep playing for them, he probably deserves a bit better.

2. Will Fulham ever stop giving the game away?

By Fulham’s standards, a nil nil draw to a struggling team is a perfectly decent result on the road; but after several seasons in the top flight, the question remains whether Fulham will ever truly learn to play away from home. Managers and players have come and gone, but the one constant thorn in the Cottagers side has remained. Fulham play attacking, quick passing football at home... and generally seem to forget what to do with the ball away. In their last 100 Premier League home games stretching back across six seasons, Fulham have won 50 times. A hugely impressive stat and one only bested by the Champions League teams. The last 100 away games? 14 wins. A ridiculous discrepancy, which doesn’t even take into account that Fulham tend to lose away, let alone draw. Craven Cottage is a tightly knit and wonderfully old fashioned stadium, and perhaps the players struggle to express themselves on the bigger, more spacious grounds up and down the country. But no manager has come close to solving the problem and in six years Fulham’s best effort has been 4 victories away from the Cottage. Just to put that into perspective, Swansea have achieved that already this season. Fulham are struggling at the moment wherever they play, and whilst they’re unlikely to get dragged into the relegation mire, giving their poor away fans something to cheer about more often would make things a lot easier for them.

3. It could be more remiss than remy for QPR.

Loic Remy is used to talking bollocks (sorry) bullshit (and again) in a potentially inaccurate way... so his comments this week have to be taken with a pinch of salt. This, after all, is a player who announced upon joining QPR for £8m and £80,000 a week that it was in “no way a decision based on financial reasons... it’s an interesting challenge.” Interesting is one way of looking at QPR’s desperate yet seemingly cash laden plight, and they are not being helped by a player who hasn’t been fit enough to play in the last three matches due to a niggling knee injury. This week, Remy was quoted saying “when I have a small problem things get difficult... I’m like an F1 car but when I get a small problem it’s straight in the pits.” Simply looking at his Wikipedia page would have told Harry Redknapp that Remy has been in and out of the treatment room over his career and has also had countless problems off the pitch. Indeed, in the same interview Remy went on to say that “when something’s not right in my head... bothering me... then it becomes a bit difficult.” Well done QPR. You’ve spent £10m trying to stay up on someone who will phone in sick for physical AND mental reasons.

4. Pochettino deserves more than a little bit of praise.

Say what you want about the Nigel Adkins dismissal (I did, but I won’t repeat myself here, mainly because it would be impossible not to swear) his replacement has hit the ground running. Two draws from his first three games didn’t even begin to tell the full story and with Manchester City making up a grueling quartet of opening fixtures, Pochettino has an impressive five points from his first four games. Beyond that though, the manager has added a new layer to Saints play that is straight out of La Liga. Pressing. Southampton didn’t give City an inch on Saturday and it was that mentality that was key to the Champions making critical errors that ultimately cost them probably more than just three points. Saints look like a real team and should be looking up the table not down it on current form. They have lost just twice in a dozen league games and it’s hard to see how any of Villa, Reading, Wigan or QPR are going to finish above them. None of which should discredit for even a second the work Adkins did, but at least the fans can be safe in the knowledge that some genuine thought appears to have gone into his replacement.

5. Europe is crucial for the Premier League.

Over the next five weeks (thanks to a ridiculously drawn out schedule) Manchester Utd and Arsenal will bid to stay in this seasons Champions League at the expense of Munich and Madrid. The odds are not good. Utd have a small chance in that Real have stumbled often this season. In the highly unlikely event that Rafael and um... Phil Jones, can shackle Ronaldo, Utd do at least possess the firepower to outscore Madrid if things go their way over the two legs. Arsenal have no such hope and them beating the German league leaders would represent a huge shock. Arsenal have lost already this season to Bradford, Norwich, Chelsea, Olympiakos, Swansea, Schalke and both Manchester clubs. Munich haven’t lost at all since October. The real problem though, is how such defeats could ripple through the league’s current global standing. Two of our teams have already bailed out in the group stages and to have no representatives at all in the Quarter Finals would be a major blow to a league that still claims to be “the best in the world.” Of course, at the risk of being an “armchair” critic, let us not cast judgement until the die has been cast. After all, Chelsea proved last year that miracles... sometimes really do happen.

Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week 25

1. The title race looks over.
Bigger leads have been clawed back than 9 points over the past 20 years, especially with 39 still to play for… but not often. And not with one of the teams in contention struggling as much as Manchester City have been. It is a damning reflection on the league that the Champions can play as poorly as they have done for most of the season and still be certain of finishing at least second. The league is made to look ever poorer upon closer examination of Utd’s squad. Ferguson has built many great teams over the years, but only the most deluded Red Devil would claim this was one of them. A forward trio of Rooney, Van Persie and Hernandez certainly deserves a debate against the likes of Cantona, Yorke, Cole, Ronaldo, Van Nistelrooy et all… but the rest of the team? A midfield of Valencia, Nani, Carrick and Cleverly simply bares no comparison at all to Giggs, Scholes, Keane and Beckham in their peak. The defence meanwhile, including Evra, Rio and Vidic was great four years ago… but all of that trio are inferior players now and the new additions, not least the keeper, are nothing on the greats that have filtrated the Utd ranks over Fergie’s reign. The main reason why Utd remain on course to break a Premier League point’s record, let alone snare another title, is Ferguson himself. After what happened last season, when Utd threw away victory at the death having fought so hard to regain the initiative, it seems barely plausible their manager will allow the same to happen again. Utd’s gain is the league’s loss, the title race simply looks over, whichever way you look at it.

2. Liverpool are improving.
Two draws away at Arsenal and City is not to be sniffed at in any teams book, but in truth Liverpool deserved to win both games and are slowly, but surely, improving under Brendan Rodgers. The defence remain prone to pace and Pepe Reina is not the keeper her once was, but Liverpool pass the ball well and Sturridge has already formed an impressive looking partnership with the detestably brilliant Suarez. Key to all of this though, has been the form of Steven Gerrard. I’m far from the Liverpool skippers biggest fan and would agree with those who claim he has been a hindrance rather than a help over the past three years, but he has grown into Rodgers system and is regaining the form that made him the player he was 5 years ago. The maths always help, Gerrard has scored five and bagged nine assists in the last ten games, but it is not just the maths in this case. Gerrard has found his role in Rodgers team, he is a far better player with Lucas alongside him and he is finding space between the number ten role and the number eight role. Space that never used to exist, but with the invention of 4-2-3-1 is now amongst the most pivotal on the football pitch. Liverpool are playing the system brilliantly, because Suarez peels off and drags men with him, so Gerrard can make runs unmarked into the last third. Time and time again he is playing a telling final ball or rifling them in from distance. Liverpool still have a long way to go, but their fans are starting to believe that they might just have a team again.

3. Geordies don’t speak French, but they let the funky football to the talking.
Firstly, I cannot apologise enough for referencing a Girls Aloud song in the title of this entry. Secondly, after recording back to back league victories for the first time this season, Newcastle fans are coming back round to Alan Pardew’s unique French Revolution. Utd moved quickly this transfer window to tie up the services of six new players, five of them French; and none of them have settled in so quickly as Moussa Sissoko. The former Toulouse man looked impressive away to Villa, but at home to Chelsea he was dominant. Granted Chelsea’s attacking midfield leave wide open spaces for the opposition to exploit, but Sissoko grew into the game and was the best player on the park during the pivotal last half hour. Scoring two and creating two further clear chances, Chelsea couldn’t handle him. Coupled with the return to fitness of Yohan Cabaye, who was very much in his “velvet boot” mould on Saturday, Newcastle suddenly have reason to hope again after a pretty desperate season. Whether French is now the main language in the dressing room remains unclear, but Geordies won’t care as long as the players keep on letting the football do the talking.

4. Stoke are all kinds of dull.
Stoke aren’t without their merits, but it is very hard to like a team who seem to suggest they would take the starting scoreline within a second of kick off. This weekend was in no way an anomaly, Stoke set up to contain if they’re home to Reading or away at Manchester Utd. They are a negative, boring and agricultural team who are very, very hard to like. Pulis has spent a lot of money at Stoke, more than most people would think, and his signings have been a very mixed bag. Some (Huth, Shawcross, Delap, Crouch, Walters) have been a success, but others (Pennant, Adam, Jerome, Upson, Owen) haven’t. It would be too simplistic to say those who have been successful are those who can adapt to an overtly physical long ball game… but those who have been successful are those who can adapt to an overtly physical long ball game. Nobody has seen less goals than Stoke fans this season. A paltry 54 have flown in over their 25 games, even West Ham have seen 64, Sunderland 65 and Man Utd a bountiful 91. Their top scorer is Walters with 5 and it will be to nobody’s surprise that they sit at the bottom of the Premier League’s fair play table, averaging three times more fouls and cards than Southampton. There remains a strange charm to Stoke, in that you can make a lot of money by betting on nils nils when they play, but on times like Saturday it’s very hard to not come and away and say anything but “fuck me they’re dull.”

5. Does anyone give a flying fuck about the international break?
It is a measure of how far International football has fallen that friendly games are now being played midweek between Premier League fixtures. This Wednesday sees England take on Brazil and despite half-hearted attempts by some to claim that the match conjures up the old whiff of magic and mystery… it doesn’t. England fans have seen the same players fail for their country too many times; the revolution hasn’t yet happened and it is likely that Cole, Johnson, Lampard, Gerrard & Rooney will all line up again alongside some other players who will fail to turn consistent club performances into anything recognising genuine international pedigree. There used to be a debate, even anger about the performances of England over the past ten years, but that has long since turned to apathy. The dependable and deathly dull appointment of Hodgson put an end to any whimsical notion that England would change their ways and anyone who watches them now does so in a vaguely interested slumber. England could well beat Brazil this week and more people will likely watch it than Man Utd v Everton or Spurs v Newcastle this weekend… but when all the chanting and drumming has died away, will anyone really, actually care?

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