1. Times Up Mario
Mario Balotelli was on thin ice for City last season, his match winning performances were too few and when he was suspended for the run in, City kicked on and eventually won the league. His erratic form and behaviour would be hard to take for a club who had no other decent strikers on their books, but given City have Aguero, Tevez and Dzeko... not to mention bottomless pockets, he needs to be shipped out in January and forgotten about. Balotelli’s selections in the big matches, often at the expense of the successful Aguero/Tevez axis are bordering on the perverse. What on earth had Roberto Mancini seen this season to justify selecting the Italian for the game on Sunday? It’s clear that the two have a bizarre father/son relationship going on, but at the risk of agreeing with Alan Hansen, now really is the time to ship Mario out. Perhaps City are too big for him, with too many accepted stars on their books. Would Balotelli be better at a club where he genuinely was the number one guy? Certainly he has played well for his country since being told he’s the first striker on the teamsheet. How all of City’s strikers must look enviously towards Robin Van Persie, bought by Ferguson in the summer and barring a chronic lack of form or injury, has been told he’ll start every major game. All four of City’s strikers have no idea whether they’ll be playing, or who they’ll be playing with in any given gameweek. Tevez was rewarded for a match winning performance and two goals a month ago, by being dropped for 3 games. Dzeko doesn’t start successive games ever and even Aguero, clearly the guy who should be the RVP for City, has been needlessly rotated when fully fit and raring to go. Mancini needs to do what he did last season and start his best players in every game, more so now they’re out of Europe. I’m sorry Mario, but that means your time is up. The Italian may well still develop into a superb, world class player. But doing that at City seems increasingly less likely.
2. Rooney/RVP is beginning to purr
At the start of the season there was talk of whether or not these two would be able to play together. Talk that was never fully answered by Rooney first getting injured and then coming back and playing in midfield. Recently though, Fergie has gone with the two of them upfront and has sat back and watched them not only win games, but dictate them as well. Both got on the scoresheet again on Sunday, Rooney’s first indebted to a wonderful lay off en route by the Dutchman, who then created the best moment of the game, hitting the bar before getting his reward with almost the last kick. The two are starting to look like they could be a real handful, which is probably the least they should be at a combined outlay of almost £60m. RVP played very high up for Arsenal last year but with Rooney and often Hernandez on the pitch as well, he has started to drop out wide again to find space like he did in his earlier Arsenal days. This benefits Utd because his delivery is so good, and with a midfield that is only capable of attacking, it creates space for others to run into. The two of them have already scored or created some 29 league goals this season and Utd’s commitment to attack is, thus far, proving successful in propelling them to the top of the league. For years Ferguson hasn’t bothered trying to sort his central midfield out. Maybe finally he has found the solution... literally not bothering with his midfield at all.
3. The Canaries are souring
The current form table sees Norwich city sitting pretty in 2nd place behind Manchester Utd and unbeaten in 8 games. They have won four of those matches through a mixture of solidity, organisation and now a fair bit of style. Chris Hughton took a few games to bed in his squad but since then he has done a marvelous job; not just carrying on the work that Lambert left, but adding new faces and a new style of play to make Norwich an even better team than before. It always seemed a strange decision by Harry Redknapp to toss away Sebastian Bassong as easily as he did, preferring to play Kaboul (who surely he must be sleeping with) and, even more inexplicably, the likes of William Gallas over the Cameroonian. AVB however, clearly also took this as a sign of his worthlessness and agreed to ship him off to Norwich, again deciding that the 35 year old Gallas was a better option. That deal looked laughable when Bassong was dropped for no reason after the successful, Champions League 2010 season and it looks just as laughable now. Bassong is statistically the second best defender in the league this season, behind the criminally underrated Ryan Shawcross. He has helped Norwich keep three clean sheets in their current run and seems to have added goal scoring to his list of skills as well. Further up the pitch, Hughton has played a blinder in the signing of Robert Snodgrass. The Scottish international has been as good as anyone in the Championship over the past few seasons and scored over 40 goals for Leeds from midfield, as well as numerous assists. Still just 25, bigger clubs have missed out on Snodgrass by refusing to take a punt on a player from the division below. So far their loss has been Norwich’s gain. Inspirational over the last two months, the Canaries are now just 4 points off a Champions League spot. Mind you, so are Liverpool... and according to Michael Owen they’re now the favourites to take that spot...
4. Everton’s luck finally turned
Everton have been playing arguably the best football in the league all season, but whereas Utd and City have had the firepower to get them over the 90 minute line, the Toffees have drawn several matches they really should have won. That finally changed on Sunday after Spurs looked to have picked their pockets following a fortunate and undeserved Clint Dempsey strike. Everton refused to let their heads drop and poured forward for the last ten minutes, eventually winning the goal with a late and instinctive Jelavic finish. AVB had few complaints with the result, which in itself is pretty damning when you’ve been beaten by 90th and 94th minute goals. The result propelled Everton back into fourth and with games against Stoke, West Ham and Wigan up next, they would hope to consolidate that position over the festive period. Hell, by the time Chelsea roll into town on New Years Eve, Everton could easily be playing for 3rd. If they have anything like their usual second half to a season, this could be a very special one for their fans.
5. Michael Owen has no idea what he’s on about
Having already tipped Liverpool for 4th this season, Michael Owen later backed QPR to avoid relegation. Even if you believe wholeheartedly in the power of Harry Redknapp, the safe bet on a team 8 points from safety who haven’t won in 16 games is they’re going down. Owen treated us to all sorts of maddeningly strange comments during MOTD2 yesterday, not least blaming Joe Hart for Man Utd’s winner, but his real gem was saved for after the show when he presented his “Manchester XI.” Selecting any players you could from the bloated squads of the two title rivals, Owen went for this...
Hart - Rafael - Evans - Nastatic - Evra - Cleverly - Barry - Valencia - Balotelli - Rooney - Van Persie.
I don’t even know where to begin with a team that doesn’t include Ya Ya Toure, Vincent Kompany or David Silva. Let alone one which has Mario Balotelli at left midfield. I’m perhaps being a bit unkind to Michael Owen, after all this selection was a touch jestful and actually done via a you pick, I pick system with Hansen. But still, by that rational and going first, you think you’d get at least six or seven players from the best available XI? Owen has four, at best, including none of the defenders. Does he even play football anymore? Oh wait...
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