Another bumper weekend of top flight action saw the usual
ingredients of goals, drama and entertainment all thrown into a cash rich
melting pot and served up with a side dish of controversy. So without further
ado, let’s do what match of the day does every week, and start with the
negatives…
The Bug Bear – Has
the gap between football analysis ever been wider?
Discounting BT “Sport” (horribly mundane) and ITV (now just
a condescending, if entertaining, boys club) – it is becoming increasingly
apparent each week that the analysis being served up by the BBC on Match of the
Day, is so far behind that offered by Sky that it is must now be considered
terminal.
I’d love to sit here and blame Alan Shearer for everything, after all, he is terrible in every possible way you can judge someone. He is both stupid yet pompous, forthright yet inaccurate and obvious to the point of complete and utter pointlessness. However, I refuse to believe that the problem is as simple as the BBC just hiring worse people than Sky over and over again. The difference has to be in the message and the focus that is handed down each week. Andy Gray was already serving up analysis more insightful than anything Match of the Day had to offer before his scandal, but since then Sky have reimagined themselves under the guise of Neville, Chamberlin and Carragher. Monday Night Football is the best football analysis show on television bar none, and it has rippled through to all of Sky’s coverage to positive effect.
I’d love to sit here and blame Alan Shearer for everything, after all, he is terrible in every possible way you can judge someone. He is both stupid yet pompous, forthright yet inaccurate and obvious to the point of complete and utter pointlessness. However, I refuse to believe that the problem is as simple as the BBC just hiring worse people than Sky over and over again. The difference has to be in the message and the focus that is handed down each week. Andy Gray was already serving up analysis more insightful than anything Match of the Day had to offer before his scandal, but since then Sky have reimagined themselves under the guise of Neville, Chamberlin and Carragher. Monday Night Football is the best football analysis show on television bar none, and it has rippled through to all of Sky’s coverage to positive effect.
Let us compare this weekend. On Match of the Day we were
served up a feast of attacking football from all the main games. Rather than
focus on football however, five of the
first six pieces of analysis all centred around controversial incidents. I
wouldn’t mind so much if they discussed how these incidents subsequently shaped
the game, but they didn’t. You literally got Alan Shearer showing us a replay
of an incident we’d already seen three times during the highlights, and give us
his meaningless opinion of whether it was right or wrong. The only piece that
did focus on actual football, centred around the performance of Dusan Tadic for
Saints. Did it show us unseen footage, some stats about his attacking coverage,
average position, passes completed? No. It merely replayed the four goals he
set up coupled with such expert punditry as “he’s made a great run there, and
his cut back was perfect.”
Now let’s look at Sky’s coverage of the two games on
Saturday, notably the magnificently barmy end to the Liverpool match. Did they
just replay the goals back and idly comment on them? No. They rewound the
footage and discussed how the goals had been created from step one. That was
for starters, they then used previous footage and stats to back up what had
happened (in this case, Liverpool’s woeful attempts to defend a set piece) and
finally discussed future games, plans and strategies. Crucially, what they did,
was actually analyse the football match and the key incidents within it. Rather
than what Match of the Day does, which is replay the goals and red cards and
essentially ask its two pundits yay or nay.
As a final point, can I also request that Match of the Day
ban this conversation from ever taking place again. Because I have now, without
exaggeration, heard this over 1,000 times:
Presenter: “A fantastic result, but the key question is…
were Team A very good, or Team B very bad?”
Pundit: “For me, it was a bit of both”
Pundit: “For me, it was a bit of both”
OH FUCK OFF.
#teamsky
Stat of Week
Dusan Tadic and Graziano Pelle have thus far got 7 goals and
8 assists between them in 8 games this season; an average of 1.88 key
interactions per game. The much touted Lallana and Lambert, by way of contrast,
achieved their 22 goals and 22 assists at an average of 1.1 key interactions
per game last season.
So to put it another way, Tadic and Pelle are giving Saints an extra 0.75 goals per game. The pair are five years younger than Lambert and Lallana and cost £11m less.
Weren’t Saints supposed to be in crisis…
Team of the Weak
Mannone – Conceded
8 goals, at least 4 of which were his own fault. Passed the ball to Tadic one minute,
threw it in his own net the next. It’s hard to think of a worst goalkeeping performance
in living memory.
Vergini – A wonderful half volley into the corner of the goal with his wrong foot. Shame it was his own goal. And that he conceded seven more following it…
O’Shea – The third Sunderland player to make the team, and in fairness I could have included all 11. Captained his team to their heaviest ever top flight loss in a performance so devoid of fight and effort it simply beggared belief.
Kaboul – It’s hard to believe that Pochettino took a look at all the defenders in his squad, bought three more and still made Kaboul the player to build the team around. Has he been possessed by Harry Redknapp?
Dunne – Ten own goals in the Premier League. Ten!? You just can’t argue with those numbers.
Moses – A shameless, shameless dive that ultimately helped win his team three points yesterday. A despicable cheat.
Arfield – Is showing none of the form that lit up the Championship last year and like pretty much the entire Burnley squad, looks badly, badly out of his depth.
Cazorla – Has gone backwards rapidly since his first season. Overshadowed by Ozil (for better or worse) last time around, Arsenal need him to step up amongst a mounting injury crisis.
Ulloa – Has looked a completely different player since destroying Manchester United last month. Looked tired and off the pace against Newcastle. Who are awful.
Balotelli – This isn’t going well is it Mario. I mean, I don’t want to say Sandra Redknapp would have scored that. But…
Costa – Ruining everybody’s fantasy football team. Especially those who didn’t have Aguero. Forget Chelsea, we’re the real victims here Vincent. Will you please stop selecting him for the national team? You have no right. You bastard.
Vergini – A wonderful half volley into the corner of the goal with his wrong foot. Shame it was his own goal. And that he conceded seven more following it…
O’Shea – The third Sunderland player to make the team, and in fairness I could have included all 11. Captained his team to their heaviest ever top flight loss in a performance so devoid of fight and effort it simply beggared belief.
Kaboul – It’s hard to believe that Pochettino took a look at all the defenders in his squad, bought three more and still made Kaboul the player to build the team around. Has he been possessed by Harry Redknapp?
Dunne – Ten own goals in the Premier League. Ten!? You just can’t argue with those numbers.
Moses – A shameless, shameless dive that ultimately helped win his team three points yesterday. A despicable cheat.
Arfield – Is showing none of the form that lit up the Championship last year and like pretty much the entire Burnley squad, looks badly, badly out of his depth.
Cazorla – Has gone backwards rapidly since his first season. Overshadowed by Ozil (for better or worse) last time around, Arsenal need him to step up amongst a mounting injury crisis.
Ulloa – Has looked a completely different player since destroying Manchester United last month. Looked tired and off the pace against Newcastle. Who are awful.
Balotelli – This isn’t going well is it Mario. I mean, I don’t want to say Sandra Redknapp would have scored that. But…
Costa – Ruining everybody’s fantasy football team. Especially those who didn’t have Aguero. Forget Chelsea, we’re the real victims here Vincent. Will you please stop selecting him for the national team? You have no right. You bastard.
Fantasy Football Disaster
of the Week
This
Manager of the Week
Ronald Koeman – Has
retained the passing football of his predecessors and added an incisive, continental
thrust at the end of it. Plus he has a face that just makes me want to smile
every time I look at it. He’s so cheeky. Naughty even. I’ve said too much.
Worst Post Match Comments
of the Week
Mark Hughes – “Ryan
is the first person to be pulled up for that offence this year, so that
suggests the referee was influenced by the media… for me it wasn’t a penalty
and was very harsh” – followed by “Victor is running at pace, if you look at it
again you’ll see the lads put his arm out, that’s impedement (not an actual
word) and in my view it’s a foul. We can argue about all day, but if you impede
someone in the box it’s a danger of getting a penalty”
So in one interview Mark got two decisions wrong and questioned
the integrity of the referee. Who was apparently influenced by the media before
the game, but not by the Stoke players/fans during it when it came to awarding
them a penalty for a stonewall… A STONE
FUCKING WALL DIVE.
There are many, many hateable managers in football. But few provide so little humour as Hughes upon being so. The man is a despicable bastard.
What you may have
missed
Neil Warnock still conducting post match interviews with the
look of a man who cannot believe he’s here; Christian Eriksen and his dashing
good looks single handily trying to help Spurs beat Sergio Aguero; Frank
Lampard getting two assists in 20 minutes and then going off injured; so still
doing more than the entire Arsenal midfield quartet against the worst defence
in the league; Newcastle winning a game of football so boring and sub-standard
one fan left after 4 minutes; Sunderland giving up after 12 minutes; Liverpool
being carried by the young, tired legs of Raheem Sterling yet again and a nine
goal thriller in the FA Trophy between two of the best named sides in the game…
Kidsgrove Athletic and Loughborough Dynamo.
Dynamo. I mean seriously?
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