1. Is the Partnership back in fashion?
One of the things that interests me most in football is how formations come and go over time. I grew up very much in the 4-4-2 era before modern shifts placed more emphasis on midfield and creativity. Nowadays, most teams line up in a 4-5-1/4-3-3. This season there has been a bit of a shift backwards though, particularly of late. Indeed, there have been almost twice as many goals scored in the last 5 game weeks as there were in the first 4 and, whilst we can’t credit them all to Luis Suarez... he has certainly helped. Sturridge & Suarez looks a real partnership in every sense of the word. They feed off each other, create space for each other and have currently scored ten goals in four games together. Elsewhere, Man City had blossomed with the Aguero/Negrado axis before dropping it this weekend and dropping three points. Swansea have pushed Michu up alongside Bony to good effect and lower down the league Norwich, Fulham, West Brom and Newcastle have all been played 2 up for most of the season. And then there is RVP & Rooney, lauded by Hansen this weekend as the most fearsome partnership in the Premier League. In short, what utter tosh. RVP and Rooney are phenomenal players, but they are not a partnership. Indeed, the Utd striker conundrum is a good example of how important a partnership is. Good partnerships don’t just score goals, they create space for their team mates, work defensively and offensively and set the tone and balance of the whole team. Utd could lay claim to having the three best strikers in the whole league if you look at finishing (RVP), the number 10 (Rooney) and the super sub (Hernandez). But none of the three work together and Man Utd’s lightweight midfield is struggling as a result. It is no surprise that all of Utd’s good performances this season have come in cup games (and the first match vs Swansea) when one of Rooney or RVP have been absent. Ferguson knew this. It is why he bought Kagawa and it is why he tried to push Rooney out of the club. Moyes, ailing as he is, is faced with an impossible problem. Dropping one of his only two genuine world class players for the sake of the balance of the team. He won’t do it of course, and Utd will continue to struggle to dominate games. Even if, ironically, because the said two players are that good... they may well still bail them out of enough games with moments of genius.
2. West Ham. If in doubt... play no strikers at all.
Of course there is always the other option to playing 4-4-2 (or in Liverpool’s case, what appears to be 2-3-1-1-1-2) - and that is going away to the might of Swansea and playing with no strikers whatsoever. Now I’m the Swans biggest fan these days, but going to the Liberty Stadium is not like going away to Man City (previously Man Utd). Indeed, Swansea have a better record away from home this season. Big Sam of course, spent most of the summer buying the same player over and over again (average winger, who can cross sometimes) in order to feed his Plan A - Carroll & Nolan. West Ham’s Plan B hasn’t really got going this season, that freak, planet aligning Spurs result aside. Sure they’re defensively sound, as any team managed by Big Sam would be. But they’ve scored less than a goal a game even including that Norton Coin moment at White Hart Lane. Big Sam had one thing in mind this weekend. Kill the game and hope for a long shot to go in to sneak the points. Part one happened and as part two didn’t, the game was as much of a wash out as the weather. It’s ok though, soon we’re have Tony Pulis back in the league again as well...
3. How far can Saints really go?
Can anyone explain this one, very simple point to me? Fitness issues aside, of which there should be none at the highest level, why don’t more teams press? I mean, people can look at Barca and Spain all they want and say “we’ll never be able to pass the ball like that” - and they’ll probably be correct. But the thing both teams also do so well is harry you all over the pitch to get the ball back once they’ve lost it. Man Utd would sometimes do it under Ferguson, like wise Chelsea under Jose. Arsenal, to name but one team at random, never do it. The mind boggles how good they might be if they did. (Citation: Flamini has been doing it great this year, and they have already struggled badly in the last two games without him). All of which brings us to Southampton. Who press the hell out of you, defend in numbers, are organised in every position and can hit you on the break just as well as from a set piece. The Saints are 5th in the league at the end of it’s first quarter and still boast the best defensive record in Europe. In. Europe. They are ahead of both Manchester clubs and play two of the bottom four next up. What’s more, is that they’re not reliant on any one player. I mentioned a month ago about how they were achieving all this with English players and it’s a point worth reiterating following the weekend. Both of their goals were made in England with Lambert, Jay Rodriquez and Adam Lallana directly involved. Indeed, Saints front four were all English and all played exceptionally well. I don’t expect them to finish the season in the top spots, but a European place remains an outside bet if they carry on playing like this. If they get anywhere near that come May they will deserve every accolade going and their manager needs to be consulted by every young coach in the land about how to get their team playing like this. With... er... a translator.
4. Do Spurs feel lucky?
The league table doesn’t lie is the old chestnut. Perhaps at the end of the season, but right now it puts Spurs in 4th and just 3 points behind Arsenal. You have to go down to Man Utd in 8th to find anyone playing worse than AVB’s side, yet there they remain thanks to the brilliance of Hugo Loris and continuous Roberto Soldado penalties. Spurs have had an easy start, of the two tough games they have played, they have just a point from. They have won half of their games 1 nil and have scored just 4 goals, discounting penalties. But, like Man Utd in the past, they seem to so far have the one quality that you also need to make you champions. Luck. Spurs are not playing fluent football, although they are highly organised. It probably shouldn’t be a surprise given over half the entire team has been changed and, it is worth noting, they didn’t play well for the last ten games of last season either. Then they had Bale to bail them out. Now they have fortuitous penalty decisions. As with Arsenal, the next month should tell us whether Spurs are serious title contenders, or vying for the last champions league spot with an increasingly large number of other clubs. They play Everton and Man City away and Man Utd at home in their next four league matches. Of course, there is an argument that Spurs are being unlucky rather than the other way around. They are dominating games and perhaps it’s only a matter of time before they start opening up and beating teams by 3 or 4 every week? That’s not an argument I’me going to make. But someone could...
5. Where’s the heart Gareth, I can’t see it...
Given I’m bashing Spurs for a change, I’ll round off this week’s elongated blog with a short entry on everyones favourite Simian.
Gareth... it’s not going well is it. That is all.
https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey
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