the concise, sleep deprived with sickly child edition
1. The fallen one trumped the special one.
Jose Mourinho has never won at Newcastle, and this weekend he was once again outdone in the grim, post-apocalyptic wasteland that is the North East. Alan Pardew is many things, questionably human being the first that springs to mind, but he remains a fine manager and this was a good a tactical performance as this season has yet offered. Pardew dropped his most creative player and instead played with highly disciplined wingers that tracked back and offered continuous cover to the defence. He matched up with Chelsea in midfield, dropping one of his strikers deep to pick up Lampard or Ramires and gave constant, fine tuning instructions to his troops throughout the match. Chelsea started well but appeared to give up after the break, as if lacking the mental nous to break down such stubborn resistance. Jose was lost as to why, but he shouldn’t have been. This was very much the Chelsea team who have finished 15-20 odd points off the pace for the past two years. This was Newcastle’s day and they, and their manager, deserve full credit for the win.
2. What are Crystal Palace doing?
Rock bottom and with little to no chance of survival anyway, you’d have thought Crystal Palace would have sped up their search for a manager a little by now? Since sounding out Tony Pulis they have turned their attention to Alex Mcleish (for no reason) and Chris Coleman (for literally no reason). Pulis is a hugely unlikeable manager, both in terms of persona and playing style. But at least he’s decent at his job and is a miles better option than those two? They also spoke to Martin O’Neill. A call which probably lasted about three seconds. Perhaps they’ll just give it to Millen for the hell of it. Palace’s squad is just about the worst I’ve ever seen in a Premiership and if they stay up this year it will be the footballing equivalent of the Titanic emerging from the sea 100 years later with everyone on board alive and well. I mean... Marouane Chamakh. Why Palace? Why?
3. Why can’t Daniel Agger get a game?
Liverpool started the season with a centre back duo of Agger & Toure and kept three, successive clean sheets. Following an injury Agger then missed the next game and only played part of the one after. Since then though, he has been fit as a fiddle and benched for five games on the spin. Two further things have also happened in the 7 games since his injury. Firstly, Liverpool have changed to playing 3 centre backs rather than 2. Secondly, they have not once kept a clean sheet. Is Rodgers suggesting that Agger cannot play in a back 3/5 and only in a 4? Or has he genuinely forgotten the Dane is comfortably the best defender at the club? Given how flat footed Liverpool’s defence was on Saturday, it is fast becoming an inexplicable omission that almost nobody seems to be mentioning.
4. Aston Villa lack creativity of any description.
West Ham being involved in a 0-0 draw with anyone isn’t news (4 out of 10 matches so far... expansive) - but whilst Villa have taken big strides to shore up last seasons leaky defence, they seem to have done it at the expense of going forward. They created next to nothing on Saturday and have now scored in just one of their last six games. Indeed, they haven’t scored at all in over 6 hours. Paul Lambert needs bodies back and fast. And he needs to make someone to supply the goals to Benteke the absolute priority in January. Villa’s new found resilience will probably be enough to keep them up, but the big Belgian won’t be around again come the summer if he is starved of service to this level.
5. The stats never lie.
I’m so tired I’m now barely capable of speech, so instead of a final point here is the Opta/Premier League Stats team of the season so far. Based on algebraic formulas that nobody understands... and goals. Mostly just scoring goals.
Boruc
Walker Lovren Fonte Vertonghen
Ramsey Ya Ya Toure Lallana
Aguero Rooney Sturridge
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