Five Things we've learnt from the Premier League - Week Six

Hapless Hammers, hammered... again

It’s safe to say that West Ham have not had the best start to the season. Knocked out of Europe at the first stage, by the same set of part-timers that turned them over last year, they have since won just a single game against Bournemouth. More concerning, is that Watford, West Brom and Southampton - teams not known in the slightest for heavy figures in the “goals for” column have all torn them apart scoring 11 goals en route.

West Ham were appalling against Southampton this afternoon. Like a deer frozen in headlights they looked like a bunch of boys playing their first professional match under the big lights. They were nervous, casual and, most worrying for their manager, they appeared to give up once Saints scoring a deserved second. It’s hard to image Dimitri Payet ever playing this badly in a West Ham shirt, but in truth nobody in claret and blue excelled. They were over-run in midfield, exposed in defence and the performance of Zaza up front must have made their fans pine longingly for the return of Andy Carroll. 

West Ham need to get past their over achieving hang over from last season, wake up and start the hard work all over again. The Premier League is a cruel and unforgiving world... and form as bad as this is going to be punished every step of the way.

Wenger reminds his critics of his strengths

20 years, broken largely down by many in to two halves of contrasting fortunes. Say what you like about Wenger (and I have) - but he’s stubborn and he’s still here. The frustrations with his Arsenal team over the past decade haven’t been mediocrity. There are no middle of the road bore jibes to throw at Wenger. He has just time and time again promised to deliver greatness and fallen too easily when the real battles have been there to be won. So on the one hand it was refreshing to say his team cut apart a potential rival early in the season with guile and grace. Arsenal were everything Chelsea weren’t in a breathless first half. Ozil and Sanchez the chief tormentors supported by the increasingly more promising Alex Iwobi and the world’s best right back, Hector Bellerin (not a typo).

But on the other, we have been here before... notably last season when Arsenal tore apart a then unbeaten Manchester United in the first half, before going on do the double over Leicester... and still contrive to not win the title. This was an exhilarating and cathartic result for Arsenal fans... but caution should still be applied. Chelsea are a poor team, I don’t care how good a manage Conte may be. They have bought poorly this summer, with only Kante an improvement on the current first eleven that fluffed their title defence so spectacularly last season. If Arsenal play like that against Pep and his merry band of Sky Blue Champions elect assassins... then I might stand up and take notice.

Lambs were slaughtered all over the country
The 10 games this weekend involved 32 goals and 5 of those matches were one sided slaughters. Before Arsenal and Southampton got stuck into their hapless opponents, Manchester United had reaffirmed the belief that they may have spent enough money to finish second this season by re-legalising fox hunting. Who would possibly have thought that dropping Rooney for players capable of sprinting faster than a wounded tortoise could have resulted in an improved attacking display? What genius let the United manager know that maybe putting somebody who could actually pass the ball behind Paul Pogba might liberate him to produce his best form? Sometimes football really is the most simple of games... and when everybody is screaming the same thing... it’s normally because they are right.

And a word on Liverpool... those little swashbuckling midfielderteers that duck and weave and shoot and press and pass and all look so handsome when they do it. How long can this free-flowing lets share the goals around between everyone little escapade go on for before it comes crashing down in a defensive shambles again? Perhaps we should just enjoy the ride whilst it lasts. Pool have had an utterly preposterous 118 shots so far this season, an average of near 20 a game. So if you’re a Swansea fan heading to the Liberty Stadium next week and think it’s going to get better after being put to the sword by Manchester City... you’re probably shit out of luck.

Burnley need a win
Burnley don’t play until tomorrow night but are one point above the relegation zone and are home to Watford. After that they play Arsenal and Everton at home, and Southampton and Manchester United away. It’s hard to see more than a point or two coming from that run so three against the Hornets would be a nice buffer heading into a tough run. Burnley do have a good record at Turf Moor, even from their last stint in the Premier League. They have conceded just 2 goals in 5 matches there and remain the only team in any competition this season to have stopped Liverpool from scoring. Tom Heaton is a hugely underrated goalkeeper and he will need to be at his very best tomorrow to keep out the leagues top’s striker... Etienne Capoue...

Burnley are a likeable club who have shown unswerving loyalty to their manager during a period where every club bar Arsenal and Stoke have done otherwise. The league would be a better place with them in it. And not, you know... to name a club at random... Sunderland.

Hold on a Son Heung-minute

I’ll be honest I’ve got nothing bar the pun...

But seriously though. 4 goals in 3 matches. Keeping Lamela and Eriksen out of the team en route. I mean, this kid isn’t half bad. I know what you’re thinking right? We all thought by this time we’d all be sat here talking about how amazing Moussa Sissoko is?

Who knew right? Who knew. 

Football... bloody hell.

Team of the Weak: The dear Christ how much competition was their this week edition

Pickford - The youthful stopper has made a flurry of saves in recent matches, but he was a bystander here as Palace helped themselves to an implausible smash and grab 3-2 comeback. Probably won’t play again.
Elmohamady - Because when you’re playing Liverpool’s midfield maestro’s on song... what you need is a man sent off early.
Reid - It is now impossible to believe that West Ham ever kept a clean sheet in a football match.
Cahill - Hideous error gifted Sanchez the first goal and never recovered after. The inability of him and David Luiz to even come close to defending a 2 on 2 break was an utter embarrassment.
Amat - At this stage any defender associated with my fantasy football team really does need to be given the day off.
Huth - An error ridden horror show from start to finish. The Rashford goal alone should have seen the Leicester defence personally reimburse their fans.
Hazard - I said at the start of the season that Hazard HAS to be firing in order for Chelsea to prosper and after a promising start, their star has faded badly
Albrighton - Was absolutely shocking from start to finish. Couldn’t pass water.
Payet - Couldn’t have played worse if he tried. Which he didn’t for most of the match. Shameful.
Vardy - Complete toilet.
Zaza - Didn’t hold the ball up, didn’t win a header, didn’t play a key pass, got rightfully booked for diving. All in the all the sort of forward display that must have had Oliver Giroud giving him a standing ovation from the sidelines.
Lukaku - In here on genuine merit this time. If there is a more frustrating striker in the league than Lukaku I’m yet to see him. Veers between the unplayable and well... UN-playable with reckless abandon.

Goodnight.

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

Five Things we've learnt from the Premier League - Week Five

This one is going to get ugly...

Mark Hughes is on borrowed time
Back to back 4 goals reverses is never a good sign, more so when you consider that Stoke have now been thrashed in half of their last dozen matches. They are in free-fall. A shadow of the side that shimmered with menace midway through last season. The defence, shorn of Jack Butland, looks woeful and whatever blend Hughes is going for in attack he can’t find anything like the right mix.

Stoke’s manager has been here before. He has always had a higher opinion of himself than others, almost like a mini, Welsh Alan Pardew. He will need all of his self confidence to drag the Potters from this current rot. Stoke have West Brom, Hull, Sunderland and Swansea in their next five matches. If Hughes is to be in charge come the end of that run, his team needs to find the winning formula again soon.

Rooney stinks strongest in sea of excrement

After winning their first three matches and signing the most expensive player in the world, United fans could be forgiven for thinking the dark days were gone for a while. United have since lost the next three and have been largely dreadful in all of them. Mourinho’s team rallied after the break against City and their were signs of that again here following another Marcus Rashford strike... but another Watford goal saw United fall apart and the stench of the post Fergie era loomed large once more across the pitch. 

This was a desperately poor performance from United. The fullbacks did not get behind the Watford defence, Smalling and Bailey were clumsy and Marouane Fellaini neither tackled, headed or passed to any degree expected of a professional football. What must Paul Pogba be thinking? £90m and you play the guy with a basketball thug on one side and the decrepit Wayne Rooney the other? Granted Pogba was terrible... but he still stood out like polished diamond compared to the mountainous pile of shit that was the United captain.

I said at the start of this season United will win no major honours until Rooney is removed from the starting eleven. Under his captaincy both United and England have gone backwards; despite near billions being spent on his club’s squad and a sea of talented youngsters coming through for the national side. He is a millstone of feces around the neck of this club. Mourinho spent pre-season warmly telling the press that his captain was a ‘9 or a 10”, but certainly not a midfielder. Anybody could spray passes from deep unchallenged he said. What then Jose was Rooney doing playing on the right of a midfield three, spraying (largely inaccurate) passes from deep for the first half? Jose avoided the question, as he has avoided the Rooney/Zlatan/Pogba through the middle conundrum all season to date. But why did he avoid it? Jose is brutally honest at times and no stranger to calling out his players when they perform as badly as this. Rooney has played terribly for three years yet remains this sides captain for no reason anybody who watches the games can fathom. At the risk of starting a conspiracy theory, one wonders if his contract directly prohibits him being dropped for x number of matches? His presence and form has already helped claim the scalp of one former great manager... surely he cannot be allowed to claim another.

Having been given the job, Phelan now needs to be given time
Mike Phelan is expected to be formally announced as Hull’s manager in the next 24 hours. Which may come as a slight surprise to anybody who assumed he already was their manager. Apparently not. After one of the longest caretaking stints in history, certainly for the opening part of a season, Phelan will be given the responsibility of keeping Hull in the top flight this season. He must therefore, be given just that... the season. This is a job that nobody in football wanted to touch and who’s former manager walked away from it with the season about to start. Hull were written off from day one and it would be hugely insulting if Phelan was shown the door having steadied the ship and earnt the loyalty of his players.

After a superb start, Hull have fallen away of late and aren’t exactly helped by a trip to free-flowing Liverpool next weekend. After that though, the fixtures turn in their favour and Phelan needs to bring out the best from an experienced back line and hard working centre. It is up front though where he really needs to work some magic. Robert Snodgrass has been involved in virtually all of Hull’s goals this season and keeping the mercurial winger fit will be vital. The strikers ahead of him need to find their feet too. Abel Hernandez is a talented player and having itched for a summer move that never came, the Uruguayan  needs to get his head down and realise the best thing for both him and his current club, is to start scoring.

Man City are going to be tough to beat
City have made a mockery of the loss of their star striker in the last two games, winning away at their rivals and then thumping Bournemouth this Saturday. Guardiola has eased his way in to English football nicely and with five wins out of five and only Everton so far keeping touch with them, the Spaniard has sent out an ominous early warning to the other title pretenders. Their squad is deep, their pockets deeper and Sterling and De Bruyne are playing like £50m players. 

That is how much they cost? Really? £50m for Raheem Sterling? That can’t be right. Well... I guess if you’re managed by Pep, that doesn’t look too bad after all...

Foxes aren’t going to go away quietly

Anybody who has written Leicester off as an afterthought to this season should probably remember who is writing their scripts. After a dreadful opening loss to Hull and being humbled by Liverpool it would be easy to condemn the Foxes to an inevitably poor title defence and a probable mid table finish. Whilst that might still happen, the Foxes screamed back to life this week with resounding 3-0 victories in both the Champions and Premier League. Leicester have brought well and Ranieri has been careful not to incorporate all his players into the side too quickly, letting them acclimatise to the league’s pace whilst keeping his loyal band of troops onside. Slimani looked extremely good this weekend. The Algerian striker plundered 31 goals for Lisbon last season and looks tailor made for the style of football his new team play. Leicester play Manchester United and Mourinho next. Whatever happens... it will probably be worth watching.

Team of the Weak 

Given - Stoke must have a better keeper on their books? They must have? Given is 40 for fucks sake. Come on.
Livermore - Has started the season well but this was not his day. Torn apart by Sanchez all afternoon and eventually dismissed.
Smalling - Awful error early on and never covered himself in glory thereafter. Can we have Blind back now please.
Martins Indi - Dominated by Andros Townsend. Words nobody wants on their CV.
Ayala - Given the once over by a free flowing Everton attack and never looked comfortable
Fellaini - A genuine horror show. Literally did nothing right.
Rooney - Somehow, someway, even worse than the above.
Wilshire - Well, he didn’t get injured I suppose...
Hazard - Couldn’t influence the game and in the bigger matches Chelsea badly need him to.
Llorente - Apparently is playing up front for Swansea but evidence remains sketchy.
Lukaku - Just for the absolute nerve of claiming a goal when you didn’t touch it... and then actually being given it? Sort it out Premier League, you can’t just give goals to people who want them more.

Jokers. Goodnight.

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

Five Things we've learnt from the Premier League - Week Four

Full disclosure, I spent all weekend at a wedding and the only game I’ve watched is tonight’s thriller at the Stadium of the Light. As such, this week’s blog may well lean heavily on pure stats, huge assumptions and generally the sort of accuracy normally associated with Garth Crooks

Rashford must start for club and country
I am not normally somebody who calls for the fast track of youth, or for burdening the young with undue expectations - but such is the porosity of pace, creativity and reckless abandon for both Manchester United and England, that it has now become a must that this fearless and splendidly talented youngster helps both sides to climb out of their general malaise. Quite what England were thinking sending Rashford to the under 21s whilst they continued to select Rooney as captain and a visibly jaded Harry Kane was anybody’s guess. England toiled, Rashford slammed in a hat trick in a sort of this level really is a bit beyond me but go on then kind of way and then he was sent back to Manchester where, fresh from winning the game against Hull, he was benched.

Jose cannot stand there and keep a straight face and say that the players he initially selected let him down when, in truth, he just selected the wrong players. How far United go this season will ultimately depend upon how quickly Mourinho can integrate Rashford into his side. If Zlatan the ageless destroyer is nailed on up top, the three attacking positions behind him have to go... Rashford... plus two others.

Costa deserves no sympathy

Costa has been in imperious form this season - let’s start with that. He has led the line brilliantly, taken his chances and has been lucky to stay on the pitch in every match. It always amuses me when a manager claims his player has been targeted because of their temperament. We are not talking about people scything down Ronaldo or Messi in mid flight, we are talking about defenders fouling Costa because it often provokes a reaction. That has to begin and end with the player. If Costa didn’t react, players would stop kicking him. Rooney was heavily targeted when he was younger owing to his questionable temperament. He didn’t need to be protected, he just needed to grow up. Given Costa never, ever gets sent off... the case for him being persecuted and not actually quite protected, grows ever thinner.

I like you Conte... you’re passionate, you’re fun, you’re so Italian I half expect you to have a red, white and green scooter on standby for when your team score... but don’t go here... you’re better than this.

West Ham vs Watford was probably a thriller
Six goals, a comeback from 2 nil down, a masterclass in counter attacking, away football. I have no idea in truth having witnessed none of it. But any game which featured 32 shots and 4 goals scored in 20 minutes must have been worth watching. West Ham continue to be a comically unpredictable team, sort of like a baby Liverpool. You know, with even more annoying fans and delusions of grandeur based on past glories. They are blessed with a rich pool of attacking, injury prone attackers and defenders who seem to have little interest in their day job. As for Watford, hands up who thought Capoue was going to be this season’s Mahrez? A defensive midfielder who had scored 1 goal and assisted 1 more in his previous 5,000 minutes of league football is currently sitting pretty at the top of the Opta midfield stats with 3 goals and 2 assists for the season? Where in God’s name has this come from? Is Capoue going to go on and net double figures for the season? Or is this planet aligning anomaly going to come to an abrupt halt soon so we can all go back to our lives and forget about his bizarre, fantasy football wrecking affair...

West Brom didn’t need new signings, they needed a new manager
Tony Pulis has publicly bemoaned his club’s transfer window... and whilst there is no doubt that his chairman’s utterly perverse stance on refusing to ever sell Saido Berahino has not helped things, Pulis has signed ample attacking players over his time only to see none of them magically turn his troops into anything resembling an entertaining side.

Since joining West Brom at the start of 2015 Pulis has signed McManaman, Pritchard, Rondon, Gnabry, McClean, Lambert, O’Neil, Samaras, Chadli and Phillips in attacking roles. Only Rondon can be considered a success, the others, to date, mustering together a massive three goals between them. Although granted “record signing” Chadli has only played one game.

Yeah, that’s right. I just typed the words “record signing” when talking about Nacer Chadli.

Sometimes, you just don’t need to say anything else.

Something about Sunderland v Everton

Has any player in the history of sport scored an easier hat trick than Lukaku? An unmarked header from six yards. An unmarked header from three yards. And then a one on one with all the time in the world. Oh Sunderland... you are so shambolically predictable no matter who your manager is you really are. Go and have a season in the championship and think about what you’ve done.

Team of the Weak 

The City keepers - I mean, have a thought for Hart - watching the guy who replaced you come in, flap at everything, make a huge howler and the manager not care because he can pass the ball out of defence has got to hurt... but when you then go and cost your new team the match the day after as well...

Whoever played in defence for Stoke and West Ham - 8 goals conceded, I can’t believe any of you played well. The stats don’t lie people.
The Arsenal midfield - pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, miss, get a late penalty, claim “team spirit” was the difference.

The Pulis attack. Rubbish. Oh and Wayne Rooney. Slower than me Nan in her broken wheelchair. And keeping Rashford out of the team. If he had any self respect at all he’d sub himself.

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey