Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week 30

1. Wigan ride their luck
It’s almost become a cliché to say that Wigan come alive in the last quarter of the season, certainly as much as one as saying that Spurs will fall apart; but the Lactics didn’t play well against Newcastle and were indebted to a truly woeful refereeing performance to claim the three points. Mark Halsey was culpable throughout the game, regularly deeming “advantage” to be one person on the halfway line vs four opposition players. He let cynical tackles go unpunished, gave at least three wrong goal kick/corner decisions and failed to spot a clear hand ball in the build up to Wigan’s winning goal. But those errors paled into comparison to his refusal to even give a free kick for the foul of the season by Callum McManaman on Haidara. In the defence of McManaman, it looked accidental rather than malicious and he was so distraught by the incident he was almost in tears when taken off as a substitute. But that can’t take away from what was a true “leg breaker” in every sense of the word. Halsey deemed the tackle a “coming together” which can only mean he didn’t actually see it. The assistant however was just a few yards away, looking directly at it and surely able to see a tackle that was wild, high and ludicrously dangerous. It was worth two red cards, that it wasn’t even deemed a free kick is genuinely offensive. A run in the Championship should beckon for Halsey, whilst Newcastle fans will be hoping their player returns from hospital sooner…

2. Thriller at the Villa
Earlier on in the season neither of these teams could score and their games were only worth watching if they were being comically thrashed. As the relegation dogfight heats up however, these two served up the match of the weekend in an end to end “six point” thriller. If Villa do stay up, it will be no thanks whatsoever to their defence. Guzan is a very decent keeper, but he has had to marshal schoolboys all season and the return of Vlaar has not arrested a run of 14 games without a clean sheet. Thankfully for Villa fans, they have Christian Benteke. The Belgium has been awesome since the turn of the year, firing in 8 goals which have accounted for 12 points, a match winning effort not bettered by anyone in the league. The game looks to be up for QPR and “Harry Houdini,” whose numerous loyalists were chirping as if his team were safe just last week. QPR have the worst record of any of the bottom six against the bottom six; and that is something which is going to have to change over the next two months for them to have even a sniff of a recovery. The real story of the weekend though is that with Villa, Wigan and Saints all winning, not only do QPR and Reading look doomed, but suddenly other teams are looking nervously over their shoulders. If Wigan win their game in hand there will be just four points separating Stoke in 11^th to the relegation zone. For teams like Sunderland & West Ham, who have been awful for much of the season, 40 points suddenly looks a long way off.

3. City are going out with a whimper
Contrary to many people’s belief, there is little pleasure to be had from winning a title with five or six games to spare. Those games become total dead rubbers, effecting results throughout the league and it’s a nightmare for fantasy football fans trying to predict who will play on any given week. The real way to win a league is how it was won last season, with the last kick of the last game. If that was the pinnacle of Premiership drama so far, this season has been the complete reverse. Man Utd are going to win the title despite having a pretty terrible defence and an invisible midfield. It’s hard to think of anyone defending their crown so limply as Manchester City, unless you’re counting Chelsea’s attempt in the Champions League this year as well. 15 points looks more likely to be 20 come May and Utd remain on course to win the league in record time on a record number of points. City have never really got going all season, riding their luck early on with some late comebacks but since going out of the Champions League they have appeared sorry for themselves and have fallen away without so much of a fight. Everton played superbly on Saturday, making the boo’s the weekend before more pathetic than ever, but City never took the game to them even when they had the man advantage. They have looked like a team playing more in hope than expectation and when compared to the mind-set of the Utd players, they have been found badly wanting. Whether Mancini is given another chance, especially with Jose lurking around, remains to be seen. But whoever is in charge next season needs to get a highly talented squad back on track again. Only Ferguson and Mourinho have won back to back titles since the Premier League began… money can buy you immediate success, but it takes a manager of supreme talent with every player on board to build a dynasty. For all those people who said City would dominate for “ten years” following their win last May… where are you now? Nowhere to be seen it would appear, much like the career of Scott Sinclair…

4. RVP needs a break… and not an international one
Van Persie was probably due a bad spell. After two years of averaging almost a goal a game for Arsenal and Utd he has finally hit the wall which veers up toward every player, the freakish Messi or Ronaldo aside. After bagging a dozen goals in a dozen games over the festive period, Van Persie has scored once in his last ten appearances, and that was deflected. He hasn’t been especially unlucky during this period, he has missed chances in almost every match, not least against Real Madrid. He looks off the pace, out of form and nowhere near as sharp as he did two months ago. In short, he looks fucking knackered. With the title all but sewn up then it will be interesting how Fergie uses him over the next two months. Having been injury prone for much of his career, the Dutchman has never played with the regularity he has over the past two seasons. It’s hard to ever “drop” your best player, but resting them is entirely different. Hernandez has been brilliant this season and must consider himself incredibly unlucky to still be benched almost every game. The Mexican tops the goals per minute league table for the second time in his three seasons with the club and one does wonder how many he might score if he was playing at a club like Spurs or Arsenal where he would play 50 matches. Van Persie is a superb player and the last two months don’t suddenly make him Fernando Torres, but ending his season early (certainly if Utd go out of the FA Cup) and giving him a long summer in the sun, may well see him back to his blistering best come August. 

http://www.sportskeeda.com/2013/01/02/premier-league-goal-per-minute-ratio/#

5. It’s time to get behind the Europa League
I’ve not been a huge admirer of the Europa League for some time, mainly due to its bloated format, bizarre double group stage and the ridiculous rule that allows Champions League teams to join it half way through. But with three English teams into the last eight and none left in Europe’s premier competition, it’s probably time to stop mocking it and cheer everyone on. Ok probably not Chelsea, but certainly Spurs, who went through thanks to the now barely functional away goals rule despite being hammered in the San Siro. And indeed Newcastle, who many people seem to have forgotten were still in the tournament yet are just a Benfica result away from being in a major semi-final. None of the eight teams left stand out as being considerably better than the others and one hopes that the final set of fixtures play out in a Carling Cup style hotpot of thrills, spills and goals a plenty. I spoke last week about judging teams and managers before a season is finished and the Europa League highlights that stronger than ever. Newcastle have struggled badly this season but winning the Europa League would elevate Pardew’s status to beyond his current one of competent man manager and the Prince of Darkness. Likewise Villas Boas, a manager who people appear to change their opinion of every week. For Spurs to finish 5^th and devoid of Silverware would be a major step back after so much good work. But come 3^rd/4^th and win the Europa League? Suddenly you’ve had a good a season as anyone. Whatever happens, it will be worth watching. Even if that means tuning into Channel 5…

hindumonkey.blogspot.co.uk 

Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week 29

1. You should wait until the dust has settled before passing judgement.
Man Utd’s exit from Europe this week sparked a flurry of spectacularly baseless articles from journalist up and down the country. The focus wasn’t Nani though, or Ferguson, or even Utd themselves. It was Wayne Rooney only being on the bench. More of him later, but the point here is people jumping to conclusions and judgements long, long in advance of any possible events. Man Utd have already been the subject of many articles this season – praising them one minute, slating them the next – but surely the time to write such pieces is in May once silverware has been won or lost? Chelsea have been slammed this season but could still end up 3^rd and winning two trophies. Likewise Utd, considered by many to be genuine treble contenders at half time against Real this week, could well end up with nothing. This week also sees the votes for player of the season collected, despite a quarter of the fixtures still to be played. As it is, Van Persie may well win despite being pretty terrible in the past month. Indeed, he could well get injured or not score in his next ten league games and still be crowned player of the year based on his first 20 matches. Which is stupid. In a world where journalists are on more pressure than ever to get stories out as fast as possible, is it too much to ask for theories and hypothesis rather than “facts” that aren’t facts? Granted, I may have gone overboard against Arsenal this season, but that has been because of a gradual build-up of failure over a 7 year period rather than one season long failing. I don’t believe Arsenal will finish 4^th, but even if they do I think Wenger should leave. I’ve meandered off the point, but to conclude - the time to judge whether a season has been successful or not is in May and not before. Especially when the margins of success and failure are often just one inaccurate decision against the run of play away. And no Roy Keane, it wasn’t a red card. You eminently watchable prick.

2. Can Wayne Rooney really be considered a failure?
Back to those articles again… whether or not Rooney leaves Utd this summer (he won’t) an awful lot has been written about whether or not he has ever truly fulfilled his potential. Rooney is 27 and 4 months (despite many articles reporting him as already 28) and should be in the prime of his footballing career. In many ways he is, given at his best he maintains the ability to dictate a game in such a way that very few players possess. Rooney is the 6^th highest English scorer of all time and the 4^th highest Manchester Utd one. If he stays at Utd, he is on course to break the all-time club record before he is 30. In his 8 seasons with the club he has won four titles, two league cups, three charity shields, a world club cup and the champion’s league. In his last five seasons he has scored 110 goals in 195 games and created numerous, numerous more. What exactly should Wayne Rooney have achieved by now? The answer lies in two things… and this is where it gets interesting, because the problem isn’t Rooney himself… it’s England and Cristiano Ronaldo. Let’s deal with England first, for which there is no doubt Rooney has been a complete failure when it’s truly mattered. Since he stormed onto the scene at Euro 2004 as a teenager, Rooney has been useless at three tournaments. There are mitigating circumstances though. Firstly, Rooney has been injured coming into all three of those tournaments and has proven time and time again to be a player who is at his best when he has a run of games under his belt. Secondly, well… England have been useless at three tournaments. It’s not like Gerrard, Lampard, Beckham,Terry and Ferdinand, all supremely talented at club level, have lit it up whilst Wazza has stumbled. Lampard was so bad at one point he was booed for two entire years despite being the best box to box midfielder in a virtually unbeatable Chelsea. So yes, Rooney has failed at International level, but so have his peers and to blame all of England’s failings on him would be harsh in the extreme. The second point is that because he played in the same team and is the same age, Rooney’s career trajectory is forever being compared to Ronaldo’s. Who, since leaving Utd, has left his friend trailing in the distance as he goes after Lionel Messi’s title as the greatest current player on the planet. But is it really fair to compare Rooney to such a freakish player as Ronaldo? Did anyone see Ronaldo’s rise coming seven years ago? He looked good sure, great even, but 188 goals in 186 good? No chance. Take Ronaldo out of the picture and statistically, Wayne Rooney is as good as any player in the world over the past 8 years bar Messi. We love to build stars up in this country and looking back it’s hard to see what heights the likes of Joe Cole and Rooney should have hit. Wazza may not be Pele, Maradona or Cristiano Ronaldo, but for people to continue to label him a failure is grossly unfair. Just let the boy play.

3. Where did Harry Redknapp’s reputation come from?
As QPR completed back to back victory’s for the first time in what feels like forever, the twitter boards, phone ins and forums were alive with the talk of “another act of escapism from Harry Houdini.” This is all quite amusing for a while, but Redknapp’s reputation for being some sort of relegation expert is based on a single, cash rich season at Portsmouth. Redknapp has been involved in two genuine relegation struggles since moving to West Ham in 1994 and has only succeeded with one of them. He took Southampton down with a woeful win ratio of 26% (which includes 4 months in the Championship) and only got Portsmouth up thanks to a series of inspired transfer window deals in January. Those transfer dealings also earned Harry as reputation as some sort of wheeler dealer, a reputation he never had prior to that moment and one that he himself has stoked to perfection since for the media’s (and his own) benefit. Harry kept Pompey up, won them the FA Cup through a series of lucky 1-0 wins and then jumped ship to Spurs whilst his “spiritual home” went bankrupt. Way to go Harry. Now, with QPR still bottom and 4 points from safety he is again being heralded as some sort of messiah (see point 1). This despite the fact that QPR have spent around a billion quid in the past two seasons and have a squad who should be collectively embarrassed by their performances so far this year. I like Redknapp, he is relentlessly entertaining and has become almost a parody of his own parody. But seriously folks, can we stop with the “Harry’s working his magic yet again” bullshit. It’s like America claiming they won the war for fucks sake.

4. It’s just not working at Sunderland.
30 points from 29 games is not a great return for a team with the money, supporters and manager that Sunderland have. Martin O’Neil was brilliant for his first ten games in charge of the Black Cats but has been getting progressively worse ever since. The odd big win has masked their failings at times and just when they look like they’re turning a corner, they’ve started to lose games again. Sunderland aren’t just losing games though, they’re barely competing in them. They have scored just 32 goals so far and Steven Fletcher has a third of them. Sessegnon has flattered to deceive for much of the year and Adam Johnson’s transfer can only be considered a success if you compare it directly to the impact Scott Sinclair has made. Sunderland play turgid football and are reliant on long balls and quick wing play which hasn’t really got going. They’re not quite Stoke City, but right now they have a lot more in common with the Potters then simply wearing the same shirts. Sunderland need to arrest their form sharpish and go again next year. O’Neill’s total refusal to rotate continues to cost his teams over a full season and it remains baffling that a manager of his obvious ability refuses to at least experiment with some of his squad to see what they can do. He has played Sebastian Larsson in central midfield for an entire season. He cannot run, he has scored once in over 2200 minutes and David Vaughn is on the bench. Colback & Gardner are both playing at fullback and all are palpably better options to play centrally than a guy with a good delivery who has played wide his entire career. Sunderland probably won’t go down, but lord hopes they get interesting again sometime soon.

5. Managers in the Wilderness – Case Three: Les Reed
On 14^th November 2006, Iain Dowie was sacked as manager of Charlton Athletic and Les Reed was promoted up to replace him. One of the more baffling decisions in Premier League history (Reed had never managed a club and had worked largely as a technical director over the past decade) soon became six weeks that would live in infamy. Reed managed Charlton for just 7 games. Winning one, drawing one and losing five, famously going out of the Carling Cup to League 2 Wycombe Wanderers. A poor record for sure, but many managers can boast similar opening statistics and go on to greater things… or at least be given more of a chance. Reed, in an unofficial poll, was voted the worst manager of “all time.” You have to look beyond the results though to see the true magic of Reed. I’ve watched football for 30 years and I’ve never to this day seen a manager who looked less like they knew what they were doing than Les Miserables. His interviews were desperate, his tactics non-existent and he seemed to give off an all assuming aura that he was the most ill-suited person for football management in history. It was one of those true, “you had to be there” moments. It is little surprise that considering all this, Reed has never managed again. He actually now sits on the board of Southampton and overseas their scouting and recruitment alongside, more bizarrely, their sports medicine and kit requests. Reed, a former director of the FA, clearly knows something about the ins and outs of the beautiful game… but no manager ever proved in so short a space of time… that that wasn’t how to manage a football club.

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

Five Things We Learnt From Watching Football This Week - Week 28

1. A victory for people who change their tactics.
Yesterday’s pulsating North London Derby told us several things we already knew, but didn’t really mind hearing again anyway. Firstly, AVB can alter his tactics to correctly change a game. Secondly, Arsene Wenger cannot. Thirdly, Gareth Bale is now a brilliant finisher. Fourthly, Oliver Giroud is not. Fifthly, playing a high line with slow defenders against a team with rapier like attackers is really stupid. Sixthly, Aaron Ramsey is all sorts of rubbish. Seventhly (are these even real words now?) Arsene Wenger is making Arsenal football club worse, not better. Given I’m not supposed to be talking about Arsenal let’s just leave it at this. Arsenal are currently in the same situation that Liverpool were during Benitez last year in charge. Their regression has been slower, but it has been coming. Like Liverpool, they are not suddenly going to bounce back and challenge for titles and Champions Leagues based on history and name alone, they are going to wallow around in mediocrity for a long, long time. Getting rid of Wenger at least gives them a shot at getting out of the mire. If I were an Arsenal fan, I would get him out now and get someone else in who can take this young, talented but mentally pathetic squad in a new direction. They may well fail, they may well do even worse than Wenger is doing… but better to have aimed for the stars than not to have bothered aiming at all.

2. Is Michael Owen the most inane twitter user in the world?

[“What is your favourite soup Michael ?? Mine is Minestrone.” Great question!!! Pea and Ham!]

Apparently, when Michael Owen isn’t eating Pea and Ham soup, he’s playing football for Stoke City. If by playing football he means being injured. Or not bring selected because he doesn’t meet the six foot quota. Or both. Either way, the man spends an unholy amount of time of twitter… and almost none of it is worth reading. I wouldn’t mind so much if Owen concentrated his efforts on providing cut rate football analysis. For example, in yesterday’s North London Derby Owen logged on to let us all know that Spurs had scored “similar goals.” Just in case, you know, we weren’t sure about that. But he doesn’t, Owen also tweets such spectacular junk as “watch Family Fortunes! The Owen Family are on tonight. Can't tell you how we did though!” and “Just done an hour solid of listening to The Beatles on my way to training!” Maybe I misunderstand the point of twitter, is it not to spread worthy news articles, trend breaking stories and add your own, carefully digested soundbite to such events? For most retired footballers like Owen, it seems to be just a sounding board for every banal thought that goes through their head. Still need convincing? In a clearly bored moment this January, Michael Owen invited his followers to send him their snowman pictures, saying he’d pick his top 20 favourite ones. Why? I’ll tell you why. Oh wait I won’t. Because there was no fucking reason in the world.

3. The league needs Suarez
Whilst it’s almost impossible to look at a picture of Luis Suarez and not recoil, there is little doubting his outrageous talent. His hat-trick on Saturday took him to the top of the Premier League scorers charts and confirmed him as the most in form number 9 in the league. It’s hard not to fall back on things that have been said before about the Uruguayan. His dribbling and close control are phenomenal, his speed of thought above almost anyone he steps onto the pitch with. Having regained his finishing touch following last season’s personal love affair with the post, Suarez looks lethal.  In the last 6 seasons for club and country he has now scored 190 goals and created over 70 more. That is a ridiculous record, especially given his troubles last year. The man makes or scores a goal almost every single game on average over a six year period. He plays for Liverpool for Christ sake? Crucially, people like Suarez are the reason why journalist, bloggers and fans have something to talk about. He is the perfect box office entertainer, being both supremely hateable and supremely talented. He scores amazing goals and he does stupid things. In a league that has already lost Mario Balotelli, it can ill afford to lose Luis Suarez as well. He should be cherished for the wonderful footballer he is. And hated like the sewer rat he could have become…

4. A quick entry in the style of how entertaining Stoke v West Ham was

5. Managers in the Wilderness – Case Two: Tony Adams
After the potential damp squib of O’Leary last week (nobody, literally nobody, cares about him) I’ve gone for a safe appointment this week by casting light on the current career of one Tony Adams. There are few, if any, native English speakers who find it so hard to get across what they’re actually trying to say as Tony Adams. I don’t dislike the man, far from it, on the pitch he was a born leader and was amongst the finest and most fearless centre backs of the past 20 years. But off it… well you have to admire his effort for wanting to give management a go. Adams started off at Wycombe back in 2003, who got relegated in his first season. He then knocked around in a few coaching jobs before joining Harry Redknapp’s staff at Portsmouth. Successful as the number two, Adams was disastrous in the hot seat when ‘Arry left for Spurs. He lasted just 16 games, picking up just 10 points and coming out with the immortal post match quote “I just don’t know what else I can do.” His next move however was straight out of left field, as he accepted the job of managing Galaba FC; that well known club from Azerbaijan. Here, Adams resigned for “personal reasons” a little over a year into the role and boasting the worst win ratio in the clubs history. Bizarrely, Adams returned to the club late last year in an “advisory capacity” – which is surely the worst of all world’s? Either way, it’s high time some demented Billionaire at a far more prominent club than Galaba splashed his cash on allowing Adams to live out his dream as a top flight manager. Adams talks almost relentless shit, is insanely entertaining in a car crash like way and named his first born son Atticus. Hell, I’d give him the Arsenal job.

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey