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

Pep’s tactics finally unleash the Foxes of old
In truth, Leicester’s tactics were figured out about half way through last season. They got over the line thanks to the failings of others and to superb defensive resilience forged from the fires of the incredible feat they saw before them. You would have thought Pep Guardiola had watched any of the footage from that title run before rolling up at the King Power Stadium. If he did, he certainly didn’t relay that to his players. As it was, City set up with a high press, high line attacking side with possibly the slowest back three you are ever likely to find. They were three down before they’d even fashioned a shot themselves and the 4-2 scoreline flattered what was a display of such tactical ineptitude it beggared belief from a coach as highly regarded as Guardiola. City still have plenty of time to rally this season and prove their critics wrong, but right now they can at least lay claim to one enviable record. They are the only team in the history of English football to have nearly 80% possession in a match and concede 4 goals.

I just made that stat up. But I’d bet you the entire of John Stones £50m (not a typo) transfer fee it’s correct.

Chelsea need to be stopped.
This Chelsea run is now bordering on the ridiculous. They were supposed to struggle against Spurs and City, they beat both with ease. Even when they play poorly, like they did this Sunday, they keep clean sheets and have a striker so on form he is winning games on his own almost each and every week. Costa was fed on scraps against a well marshaled West Brom side, and was finally forced to take matters into his own hands to get the job done. His goal was a microcosm of his season in a nutshell and worth noting once again, quite what a shadow of this player he was for much of the last. Conte and his players have thrown down the gauntlet to the the teams behind them and after 15 games only Arsenal have bothered to rise to it.

Only Arsenal emerging as a challenge in a title race? That is quite literally the definition of ffs.

Palace can’t keep defending like this

Only Liverpool fans have seen more goals go in than Palace this season. Their 15 matches have produced some 56 goals. Just to put that into comparison, Middlesborough fans have seen 29 for the same number of points. Palace have scored more than any team outside of the top four but their chronic inability to defend has meant they have thrown away points time and time again. This was the case against Hull on Saturday when once again 3 points flew past them with the same grace that Robert Snodgrass flew himself to the floor to win (Citation: steal) a penalty. Palace couldn’t blame that act of theft on their draw though, much as Pardew tried to. They are an absolute shambles of a side defensively but if you’re going to be that, kudos for being entertaining at the other end to boot. Palace have too much fire power to go down, but they seem hell bent on giving their fans several heart attacks on route to safety this season.

Super Saturday gave way to 1-0 Sunday

29 goals flew in during the six fixtures on Saturday in an almost collective fuck you to the morosely dull predictions of Mark Lawrenson. One clean sheet was pretty much par for the course in a season that just won’t do dull. It was a shame then, that that made way for three pretty uneventful 1-0 wins on Sunday before, you guessed it, Liverpool turned up to change all that. Conceding two goals to West Ham right is bad enough, but only scoring two against them is just downright awful. Pool have come unstuck a little since the injury to their talismanic Brazilian. The problems appear to be as much positional as personnel however. Origi has played up front in the last two matches and whilst he has down nothing wrong in that role, scoring two goals to boot, it denies Klopp’s team of having Firmino to dictate their high press. Liverpool are half the team without the pressing and passing axis of Firmino, Coutinho and Lallana and right now, their squad just doesn’t look deep enough to sustain a title challenge with injuries too often curtailing that trinity.

Why do Bournemouth defenders keep scoring?
I don’t have the answer to this. I’m genuinely asking. Bournemouth’s defenders have been involved in more goals this season than their midfield. What are they doing down there on the South Coast? Is is some sort of progressive new wave of football that bypasses the midfield and makes the back four do the work of every other aspect in the team? Seriously without their defenders Bournemouth would be bottom.

That sounded less obvious in my head.

Answers on a postcard please.

Team of the Weak:

Bravo - the worst signing of the season to date. Has yet to make a single save that has won a point for City. Has made several errors that have lost them.

Dann - he might be a goal machine Palace fans, but if can’t defend what fucking good is that.
Elmohamady - does anyone remember when he was good? Like really good for a time? Pretty sure we all dreamt that.
Ndong - so many puns...
Stones - can I just put 11 defenders in this week? Or just one £50m one? Okay I’ll stop now.
Alli - not booked for as cynical an attempt to injure a player as you’ll likely to see. He’s just, you know, not a very nice player is he.
Pogba - will be in here every week until he dictates a match befitting a player of his status, apparent ability and ludicrous price tag.

Firmino - not involved and doesn’t look hungry enough wide on the left, Klopp has to get him back integrated into the spine of his side.
Snodgrass - cheats, form an orderly queue, you will be named and shamed here every week for the plague on the game that you are.
Long - he must be due one of those two or three games runs when everyone thinks he’s amazing again soon...

Kane - if you looked up anonymous in a dictionary, you wouldn’t see Harry Kane.

Goodnight

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

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

Anthony Taylor made for great football
Generally refereeing has been of a better standard this year. A tweak in some crucial rules and better consistency has meant far less controversial decisions than at this stage last season. All that was blown out of the window this weekend in a slew of rancid decisions across nearly every game. The upside? More goals, more drama and more madness than ever. None of this was more prevalent than in the opening match up at the Etihad, where Anthony Taylor got almost every conceivable decision wrong in an attempt to encourage an open game. From the opening moments Taylor set his stall out by refusing to book players for charging in with little regard for winning the ball. It was little wonder then that he bottled what would have been the correct decision to send off David Luiz in the first half for a clear step across in front of Sergio Aguero when clean through on goal. Barely 30 seconds went by without a wrong decision, everything from penalty calls to incorrect throw ins were counted up as Taylor just carried on waving play on with reckless abandon, hungry for more goals, more glory… more great football. In the end it took somebody drop kicking an opponent at pace to get a red card, although even then Taylor had little answer to the comical melee that followed. All told, this was one of the worst performances by a major official I’d witnessed in some time… and football was the winner for it.

Oh and Pep, you can’t blame the referee when your main striker couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo when clean through for the 8^th time and your number 10 misses an open goal from 4 yards. That’s just not football. It’s not even cricket.

Diving… retrospective… anybody… listening…
Not to sound like a broken record every season, but can this happen now please? It’s a very hard thing to see at pace and I’m not blaming referees for getting a lot of these decisions wrong. So analyse them after the match and then implement the bans retrospectively. Three match ban for anybody who was found to dive to win a penalty; like three people did this weekend alone. The question what should define a dive is a silly one, given 99.9% of human beings with able eyesight would agree that say, Alli dived this weekend. It wasn’t close. It wasn’t open to debate. It was plain and simple cheating and he should be banned for three matches for it. It doesn’t need rule clarification. It just needs the law makers to be brave enough to start calling players out for doing it.

Either that or line the cheat up against a wall after the match and let every player from the opposition kick a ball as hard as they can at them from ten yards. Playground justice people. If you’re going to act like stupid little boys, you can be treated like them.

West Ham are in real trouble
Conceding 5 goals to Arsenal this weekend was pretty embarrassing, but conceding 4 mid-week to Manchester United was arguably even worse. West Ham are in a horrible rut and sit just one point above the relegation zone in 17^th. They cannot defend, they cannot stay organised for more than twenty minutes at a time and they cannot score the chances that an increasingly more bored Dimitri Payet is creating. The playmaker has been criticised this season but can you really blame him looking a bit annoyed when he knows that yet another great ball into the box will be spooned over, miss-kicked or sliced wide. The only silver lining for West Ham lies in the short term. Andy Carroll is back fit… and wasted no time in showing once again how much his side needs him. Expertly converting a chance served up by, you guessed it, Payet. West Ham will probably get four games out of him before he’s injured again. At this rate they will need to win all of them.

That’s Howe you mount a comeback Jurgen
It’s hard to imagine any team but Liverpool managing to lose 4-3 with 15 minutes left in a match they were leading 3-1 in. Thanks to what must rank as one of the all-time great substitutions, Eddie Howe brought on Ryan Fraser for the injured Stanislas on 55 minutes and watched the young Scot run absolute riot. Creating 2 and scoring 1 of his team’s 4 second half goals, Fraser tore into Liverpool’s shambolic excuse for a defence like a hungry Lion to a pack of injured Gazelles. Liverpool really are a fantastic team to watch, having now averaged almost 4 goals per game in either end this season. If this was a step back for them after a fine run, it was another step forward for the talismanic Howe. The Bournemouth manager is as positive and as likeable as his football, and the Premier League is a better place with both him and his club in it.

Will the real Tony Pulis please stand up
10 points out of 12 and with the same number of goals to boot, West Brom are up to 7^th in the league and playing their best football for years. Has Pulis finally thrown off the shackles and decided to allow himself to be entertained in his latter years? West Brom aren’t just scoring goals, they’re playing extremely attractive counter attacking football not unlike a certain Leicester from last season. What is happening? How has the world come to this? What next? Sunderland to start a season well? Swansea to stop shooting themselves in the foot? Odion Ighalo to score a goal? Manchester United to win a league match? Alan Pardew to stop winning football matches convincingly at the last possible point every time to save his job? Place your bets people… this season, anything goes.

Team of the Weak

Karius – How hard is it to buy a decent keeper Liverpool? I just don’t understand.
Reid – Was absolutely torn apart by an on song Sanchez. Painful to watch at times.
Fonte – Battered by Benteke.
Amat – A genuinely terrible defender.
Rojo – Possibly a red card ref? I mean, you were five yards away so… you know…
Lovren – Looks comically clueless at times, like he genuinely goes through periods in some matches where he doesn’t know where he is. It’s like the first two minutes of a Quantum Leap episode out there.
Arfield – Looked out of his depth against a well organised Stoke.
Pogba – An absolute abomination of a performance for somebody who cost that much money.
Cleverly – God awful. Still better than Pogba.
De Bruyne – You can’t miss those Kevin. Not at 1-0 you can’t lad.
Vardy – No goals in 16 games. Sixteen. Problems.
Aguero – As everybody’s fantasy football team changed overnight… Merry Christmas Sergio. See you on New Years Eve. What… were you thinking…

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

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

Feathers fly in Welsh bird shit battle
Usually a 5-4 scoreline suggest a fluent game of pulsating, end to end attacking football. You can normally take defensive errors as read, but this weekend’s match up between the Swans and the Eagles contained 7 of the scruffiest goals you’re ever likely to see. Even the two before that featured a miskick, a defender falling over and a keeper just stepping to one side to allow a free kick to go past him. No, this was a rubbish game of football featuring two teams who cannot defend and who are both highly likely to go down unless they can arrest that fact. Swansea will at least be buoyed by actually winning a match for the first time since the opening day, and the fact that a striker of theirs scored twice in a match for the first time since Wilfried Bony left. Palace meanwhile, led by “the best header of the ball in Europe” Christian Benteke (no Phil Neville… just no) need to find a way to win matches again and fast. Continuing with a back four who haven’t kept a clean sheet in 8 matches isn’t really working for starters. And allowing Yohan Cabaye to keep that haircut and get booked every single match isn’t helping either.

Strikers will determine this season’s title
The common consensus is that Liverpool won’t have enough to get over the line. Their merry band of midfield maestros will eventually come unstuck, get injured and realise that the defence they have behind them is made up of balsa and James Milner… who along with Gareth Barry, possibly remains the best worst (not a typo) player ever to play in the league. That leaves City, Chelsea and Arsenal – all of which have their main man playing in the number 9 role and currently leading by example. However, should Aguero, Costa or Sanchez get seriously injured, it becomes very difficult to make a case for any of those teams to sustain a title push. City and Chelsea have young, talented but largely unproven strikers in reserve and Arsenal have Oliver Giroud. Actually he might be the best worst player ever to play in the league. Or the worst best. It’s hard to say. Either way, if Sanchez gets fucked, so does Wenger. Bring on the winter break Arsene…

The Saints Academy keeps on going
Keeping the likes of Shane Long out of the starting line up, Josh Sims stepped into the limelight this Sunday and made short work of a tired and ailing looking Everton team. The Southampton Youth Academy has produced too many great players over the years to list here, but as managers come, go and move on to apparently better things, the work behind the scenes keeps going and Saints make a mockery out of the lack of first team youth players at Manchester City and Chelsea, to name but two clubs at random. Full marks then to Les Reed, once dubbed the worst manager in Premier League history, who has been the Head of Football Development on the south coast for the past six years and has been instrumental in the revival and continued stability of the club. As for Everton, Koeman cut a frustrated manager post-match. He looked like many before him, who have struggled for consistency in a team that blows hot and cold with alarming regularity. It’s not all bad news for the Blues mind, they have Manchester United up next. Who need 58 chances per goal…

Spurs need to find their rhythm
That pulsating demolition of Manchester City aside, Spurs have often looked lethargic this season. Their poor form masked by drawing most of their games rather than actually losing. Having finally ended that streak on Saturday, in a funny way that might be the best thing to wake them from their slumber. Alli, Eriksen and Kane have all flickered rather than flared so far… and Moussa Sissoko has been flat out appalling. Although it’s hard to see how one of the laziest people ever to play professional football was likely to be a good signing for a high pressing side like Spurs. Tottenham have three hugely winnable home games in a row, with a trip to Old Trafford sandwiched in between. 10 points from that and everything looks a lot better, but much less and it will be hard to make a case for how they can improve on last season and not find themselves back in the Europa league once more. Not allowing Kevin Wimmer anywhere near a football pitch until he’s gone back to defensive school might also be a good move.

Deeney and Ighalo need a time machine to this point in 2015
It was about this time last year when Deeney and Ighalo hit their stride and propelled Watford to early safety with a terrific goal scoring run. The pair ended up with 29 goals to their name last season, but currently sit on just 4 this time around. Indeed, the two have them scored just 3 times in open play in over 2,000 minutes of football. A goal every 675 minutes between them. Which is garbage. Watford are a good team. Well organised, creative and fit. If their two strikers can just find anything resembling last season’s form, they’ll be very difficult to beat indeed. I said this a month ago… and they’ve not scored since. Come on lads, at least try and prove me wrong.

Team of the Weak

The entire back lines of Swansea and Crystal Palace

And Lukaku

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

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

Chelsea look the real deal
11-0 last week, make that 16-0 now. Chelsea are on the sort of run that must have their manager cursing for yet another near meaningless international break (just play all the games in June lads, come on now). If they’ve been impressive of late, they were down right unplayable on Saturday. They tore through Everton like a pack of wolves, scoring five goals on their way to their march to the top of the table (if only for a day). Conte is the master of 3-5-2 that all others should aspire to, and one wonders when it will become the league’s default formation of choice. The 4-2-3-1 is so 2012. And absolutely bollocks when you have an immobile striker in the pivotal role. Chelsea were the only team to keep a clean sheet this weekend and you can’t see any team scoring against them the way they are playing. They have an incredible blend of solidity, creativity, pace and power and have, in Eden Hazard, a streak of absolute pure genius. I wrote Chelsea off at the start of the season and am starting to regret such words now. If they can keep Hazard and Costa fit for the whole campaign, a la Leicester with Mahrez and Vardy of last, then there is a very good chance at least one Fox will retain his winners medal next year.

Which brings us to...

Leicester are already being forgotten
It already seems like an illusion that Leicester won the title last season. Their implausible Champions League form has kept the dream going a bit longer, but it seems to have been barely mentioned that they are now 14th in the league and playing largely rubbish. Had United or City offered up this sort of title defence they would be getting abuse left, right and centre and rightfully so. Leicester have won 3 games all season, the same number as Hull. They are only 2 points off the relegation zone with both Burnley and Watford sitting above them. The lure of Europe was always going to be a distraction and nobody expected them to win it again. But Leicester need to rally a little to stop this being the worst defence of a title in history. Get the pizza out Claudio, and find something to put on it.

Alan Shearer doesn’t know what World Class is

A few years back, had Alan Shearer proudly announced that Sergio Aguero was the league’s “only World Class player” there probably wouldn’t have been too much arguing about it. But things have changed a bit since then; and with the football now being played under the likes of Guardiola, Conte, Klopp and Pochettino - it does feel as if the league is slowly, but surely lifting from it’s slumber of mediocrity and is ready to challenge on the European stage again. Both Leicester and Arsenal have already all but qualified from their Champions League groups with two games to spare, and City have just beaten, nay, soundly beaten Barcelona. De Bruyne, Coutinho, Sanchez, Ozil and Hazard are all World Class players - no matter what Shearer says - and that’s straight off the bat. And Kante? Payet? David fucking De Gea? These are players who any team in the world would have in their squads. Firmino would get in Real Madrid’s starting 11, he’s potentially the most underrated player in World football right now. And if we’re going to take Shearers lame definition seriously that to be World Class you have to do have “done it at the top level for years” - then I’m pretty sure Mr “I thought it was just me who had scored 25,000 career goals” Zlatan has a claim. You know, that guy who won 37 titles in a row. Or something. I forget. Shearer is a wanker. That was my main point...

Boro continue to make the case for the defence

Back to back away draws against City and Arsenal, with a home win over Bournemouth in between; Boro looked out of their depth a few weeks back but have since picked up an improbable five points from their recent fixtures and conceded just one goal en route. Middlesbrough came up from the Championship with a very solid defensive base and after a tricky spell, Karanka has settled on a line up that has begun to treat this league in the same way as they did the last. Boro are incredibly well organised and were disciplined throughout their draw at the Etihad. The points away at City and Arsenal have not been freak shows, with ridiculous goalkeeping performances or hundreds of shots flying at their goal (see Burnley to both Liverpool & United). Far from it, they have been examples of teams going away from home and following a plan from start to finish. Both manager and players deserve full credit for that, and if they can keep free flowing Chelsea out next up, they truly will be worth paying attention to.

Rooney and Ibrahimovic put pension plans on hold
Following a truly luckless run of results, Manchester United finally got back to winning ways after an Ibrahimovic brace returned them to the dizzy heights of 6th in the table. Set up for both goals by Rooney, the refusing to retire gracefully pensioners of world football ensured that a desperately poor Swansea team were dispatched with enough ease not to raise any further questions about where in god’s name Henrikh Mkhitaryan is being kept. The Armenian could not even make a squad list which included at least six players who were expected to leave the club this summer. It’s hard to think of a United back four as poor as the one that Jose named for this match, almost as if he’d tossed all his defenders in the air to see which ones would land on their feet... and was still left with Phil Jones to choose from. Thank heavens then for Michael Carrick, who could do a lot worse right now than take Paul Pogba out to a training pitch and show him how to pass a ball over... and over... and over again.

Granted, Pogba would probably flick it up and smash one in on the volley for a laugh. But you know, let’s do the simple stuff first eh Paul.

Team of the Weak:

Fabianski - when you concede three goals and don’t make a single save, it’s not your day
Jagielka - that got ugly, real, real quick Phil
Holebas - but not as ugly as that
Kelly - when you’re dragged because you’re defending so badly against Burnley, you’ve got problems

Yoshida - a terrible footballer. Just terrible. How does he still get games? Southampton must have 25 academy centre backs just ready to be better
Navas - just... no
Bolaise - been in good form of late, but was destroyed by Alonso and Hazard and his early substitution felt like a mercy killing
Eriksen - was utterly anonymous and could not influence the game. Not for the first time this season
Drinkwater - awful error gifted West Brom the match and never grabbed the game as he did last season. Looks lost without Kante
Deeney - looks overweight and overpaid right now. Watford need him to start scoring. The defence can’t keep bailing the side out. Especially not against Liverpool
Lorente - allegedly playing up front for Swansea City

Until we meet again

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

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

Sanchez revels in new found role
Sunderland are pretty easy pickings for anyone right now; even West Ham, who are absolutely bloody terrible, managed to beat them. It was little surprise then that Arsenal emerged as 4-1 winners in the weekend’s early kick off. More of a surprise, was that it took them so long to make the scoreline so emphatic. But for better refereeing decisions, the game would have been out of sight before Defoe gave the Black Cats the falsest of false hopes from the spot. Key to the victory, and much of Arsenal’s good work of late has been the form of Alexis Sanchez up front. The Chilean has hardly rested on his laurels since moving to the club, but what has impressed this year is his ability to adapt so successfully to a lone striker role. Sanchez buzzes around like an angry bee and with pace and power key components in his game, he is a far more mobile spearhead for Arsenal’s flowing attacks than Oliver Giroud. Who, despite his heroics from the bench here, should be confined to that role for the foreseeable future. Sanchez averaged a goal every 185 minutes for Arsenal in his previous two seasons, but this is down to 136 minutes so far this one. That’s an average of a goal every 1.5 games which, if he keeps that up, might finally be the answer to the 25 goal a season question that has flummoxed Wenger for the best part of the last decade.

Firmino is the best false 9 in world football

Woooooooah hold on their partner. In world football? Calm the hell down… next you’ll be telling me it’s “Liverpool’s year.” Well maybe not that just yet, certainly not whilst they continue to employ park goal keepers and their centre backs are booting it in the air and then spinning around comically to see where it’s gone. But that aside, it’s hard to see how Liverpool will finish outside the top four with no European distractions and scoring as many goals as this week in, week out. Key to their attacking intent has been the success of Roberto Firmino up front. Firmino has been transformed into the false 9 which every other would be false 9 should aspire too. The Brazilian presses relentlessly, never stopping as he moves from keeper to defender until the ball has gone past him. He wins back possession, he retains possession and he is key to the entire team being able to employ a high press in the opposition final third. Only Barca under Pep have pressed the ball as aggressively as Liverpool do under Klopp (although Spurs were similarly successful at home to City last month). Once in possession, Firmino’s movement is a constant blur. He never stands still and the reason why Lallana and Coutinho have been so successful attacking from deep is because of the space opened up by the man ahead of them. In a straight race Firmino isn’t the quickest, but he’s lightening over 3 or 4 yards such is his speed of thought. For all the brilliance of Sergio Aguero, it’s tempting to think that Guardiola is casting envious eyes over to Anfield about how his team might look with the Brazilian up front. Pep has searched his whole life, spent his whole life trying to find a midfielder which can play this role to such perfection. Turns out Brendon Rodgers found him instead.

Defence gives Watford breathing room
Having changed their manager 28 times in the past 3 years and getting rid of their last boss for having the nerve to safely keep them in the division; it’s safe to say that Walter Mazzarri was high up on many peoples betting slips when it came to the first manager sacked this season. After a horrible set of fixtures to start the campaign, Watford have settled nicely into their groove with a 3-5-2 system with genuinely attacking wing backs. Three clean sheets in a row and unbeaten in four have pushed Watford to 7th in the table, ahead of both Manchester United and the champions Leicester. Mazzarri has his team playing with high intensity and with excellent organisation. If he can just get his strikers to do anything in front of goal, in particular trying to find the Odion Ighalo who took the league by storm last year, who knows what they might be capable of.

Conte brings the Italian polish to Chelsea

It was rumoured a few weeks ago that Conte faced the sack if things didn’t improve at Chelsea. His team had been well beaten by both Liverpool and Arsenal in succession and it looked like the fickle trigger finger of Roman Abramovich was going to claim another victim. Since then Chelsea have beaten Hull, Leicester, Man Utd and Southampton by a collective score of 11-0. The true sign of any great coach is how you react to defeats. It is something that the greats have made an art form of, using defeats as a learning process to improve their team for the better. Another great sign, one which has eluded England National Managers for 20 years, is picking the players to fit the system rather than the tried and failed approach adopted by say, Manchester United, of just getting the best players on the pitch and hoping it works. Conte has moved to a 3-5-2 formation and brought in Moses and Alonso to play as wing backs. Two names which nobody would have guessed would have been key to Chelsea playing well this season. With Kante covering every blade of grass that’s ever grown in front of his back 3, Chelsea have evolved into a tight-knit unit which can protect the relative lack of pace of their centre backs. Matic and Hazard have been re-born and up front Diego Costa is close to unplayable. Chelsea have a difficult few games coming up before a run of matches leading up to January so gentle it could be renamed Ben. If they can remain unbeaten after playing City and Spurs, we really could have a sensational title race on our hands.

Everton cannot lose Lukaku and Barkley if they are to progress
I’ve been critical of Everton of late. Having seemingly turned the corner of the post Martinez debris they went five games without keeping a clean sheet and Koeman had appeared to shrunk within himself a little regarding the teams creativity. It was refreshing then, that after a nervous opening twenty minutes Everton came to life to dominate the rest of the game and remind their fans what it feels like to win football matches again. Key to this was the sort of performance that people want to see more of from Ross Barkley. The Englishman was fantastic here. Picking up the ball and finding the men out wide before bursting into the box in a way any good number ten should. Lukaku was also excellent and Everton fan’s won’t mind their talisman drifting in and out of games if he remains so lethal when in the penalty area. In truth, he could have had another hat trick here, missing one guilt edged chance to double his tally and being only a simple, overhit pass from Coleman away from being clean through. Everton look a more solid unit under Koeman, witness the sensible decision to close out the game at 2-0 rather than continue to pile forward and invite pressure on the counter, but they HAVE to keep Barkley and Lukaku in order to progress forward and be the sort of team that can finish in the top six. Sadly, the Catch 22 is that for every performance like this, that looks an increasingly less likely prospect.

Team of the Weak:

Pickford - hard to single out a keeper this week in truth, but Pickford was often nervous when the ball came into the box and is yet to keep a clean sheet this season
Olsson - destroyed by an on song Aguero and looked every bit his age
McAuley - as above
Obiang - lucky to stay on the pitch and couldn’t cope with Barkley’s movement

Lovren - nice goal son, but I’m sorry that was as comical a mistake as you’ll ever see
Cabaye - an absolute shadow of the player that Newcastle sold to PSG
Pogba - could well become a permanent fixture in this column if he continues to treat the Premier League with the intensity of a kick around in his private six a side pitch
Eriksen - has yet to get going this season and Spurs badly need him to find his clinical edge if they are to press on
McClean - An attacking midfielder who gets booked for fun and averages a goal every 1000 minutes
Zlatan - has not scored now in what, for God, must feel like an eternity. Had a dizzying 12 attempts on his own this weekend and missed one at the death that my mum would have buried. In her wheelchair
Benteke - he can head the ball, but he makes Zlatan and Rooney combined look mobile. Breaks into a run once very 3 games

Adieu 

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

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

Jose needs to evolve, fast.

Since Ferguson retired United have been like an aging, punch drunk heavy weight boxer who keeps putting down the millions to have another shot at the belt. If Moyes was the wrong personality for a club of such stature, both Van Gaal and now Mourinho smack of right manager, wrong time. Football has evolved greatly in the past few years and the Premier League has become an even fiercer and faster battle ground. Jose looked lost at his old stomping ground this Sunday. Like an award winning director who no longer knew how to make a film that was relevant. His players didn’t carry out his tactics well enough, and he was not clever enough to change them to affect the game for the better. United have had too many “wake up calls” over the past four years for this to be classed as another. This was simply one, well managed, expensively assembled team showing another how to play football. The penny needs to drop at Old Trafford. None of this is working. The big signings, the big managers, the big money, the big egos. The fans deserve better than somebody who cost £90m; enough to pay for our NHS to have another 2,500 doctors, or home the entire homeless population of Manchester overnight; wandering aimlessly about the pitch like it doesn’t give a flying fuck what the result is. You see, the trouble with punch drunk boxers, is that sooner or later, they’re going to come back fighting, or stay down on the canvass for good.

And so does Guardiola

In a different way, these are suddenly not easy times on the other side of Manchester either. Winless in five after storming out of the blocks with ten wins on the bounce, Manchester City seem to have been worked out alarmingly early in Guardiola’s reign. Whilst Barcelona away is no benchmark for any side, City have failed to beat both Everton and Southampton at home off the back of that away defeat to Spurs. After scoring with reckless abandon they have managed just two goals in four matches. They have looked bereft of ideas and are making silly mistakes too often at the back. The Premier League is unlike other leagues in it’s harshness... and the expression that was etched across Pep’s face this weekend has been seen many times before. This was a face of man who couldn’t believe that a team expected to finish mid-table were coming away to his Galacticos and playing with this much verve and menace. Why weren’t they rolling over? Why were they fighting tooth and nail for every ball? Welcome Sir Pep... now you truly have arrived... 

Your move.

Fire in the Hull
After a strong start to the season, Hull have fallen away with alarming pace to the relegation zone to which many predicted they would be in from the off. Indeed, they have lost their last 5 matches by a collective scoreline of 19-4. Conceding the last 8 of that figure to sides who were, at the time, in the bottom two scorers in the league. Hull need to rally and fast before open season is declared by anybody rolling up to play them next. They play none of the current top 7 in the next 6 fixtures and they don’t get points from that run, they may as well give up now and start planning for life in the Championship.

Burnley deserved their win
If Burnley are going to stay in the Premier League this season it will be because of their form at Turf Moor. Desperately unlucky to come away with nothing at home to Arsenal, it was they who snatched three points this time around by catching Everton with a late sucker punch. The Clarets are a genuine force on their home patch, where players leap into tackles, passes are snapped around quickly and Tom Heaton turns into a sort of Gordon Banks reincarnate near every home match. They simply wanted the victory more than a leggy Everton, who took far too long to get going and played for long patches as if the game against Man City had been an hour before kick off, not a week. Burnley have a tricky run up of fixtures in the run up to Christmas, so these three points were exactly what their fans would want as an early present.

When your luck is out... it’s out
Sunderland remain rooted to the bottom of the league with two points and no wins after nine matches. Even by their tragicomic standings of how to start seasons... this is awful. How cruel it was then that West Ham scored with their 95th attempt this weekend to break their hearts in the final minute of the match. It’s tempting to say that Sunderland didn’t deserve this... but really, they did. West Ham were the better team, created more chances and only looked vulnerable when it got to the I can’t quite believe we haven’t scored yet zone. With Payet ready to serve up assists like bacon at a breakfast buffet, it’s never over till it’s over. Except for David Moyes, who surely can’t carry on much longer and has Arsenal up next. Chin up David... it could be worse.

Actually it couldn’t. Fuck me to think the greatest manager who has ever lived thought this clown was the man to carry on his legacy. Whatever next? A hard Brexit.

No, wait.

Team of the Weak:

De Gea - Quite possibly a team of the weak debut for the greatest football team on earth’s player of the year for the past three seasons. But this was a bad day at the office for him and it’s not often he will have to pick the ball out of the net that many times in one match.

Smalling - Not a debut however, for some of the garbage that was selected ahead of him. Oh Chris... you were so shit. So, so shit.
Stones - English centre backs rejoice!
Delaney - ran ragged by the pace and movement of an on song Leicester.
Blind - Appeared genuinely blind for most of the match.
Fellaini - An embarrassment to his parents.
Huddlestone & Livermore - Used to play for Spurs. I know, right...
Pogba - Could not pass water if his life depended on it.
Zlatan - Looked every day of his 46 years.
Aguero - Has there every been a more prestige front 3 in the team of the weak? Two of the best strikers in world football this past decade... right now both looking like they couldn’t score in a a Baltimore high rise.

Goodnight

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey

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

That’s Howe you do it
Six goals, wonderful football, an attacking defensive masterclass (not a typo) and an in form English striker banging in the goals up front. In fact, Eddie Howe’s side are littered with Englishman. Not least “Felix” Junior Stanislas who bagged two goals and two assists, and Jack Wilshire. Yes that’s right, Jack Wilshire. Remember him? He was absolutely brilliant here. Although right now Hull are probably not a benchmark for anyone. With the current national side in disarray, Howe’s name has been put forward by many as the answer to our desperate prayers. My advice, don’t bother Eddie... you and Jack are better off without that circus.

You can’t put a price on an in form Costa

The Premier Leagues top scorer continued his fine form this week, bagging his 7th of the season in another impressive display. Costa is a truly horrible footballer at times, wandering around the pitch like a forgotten Bond henchman who never got his big break. But when he is firing, he is as close to perfect as you can get for a target man. Costa is obviously strong, but he is surprisingly quick and he is a very composed finisher. He is incredibly unselfish and watching him you can see why he is exactly the sort of player that that oldest of football cliches was born. You love to play with him, but fuck me you don’t want to play against him. Right now, that statement is more true than ever.

Cresswell should be a lesson to the FA
One of the stranger laws that exists in football is that you are unable to appeal two yellow cards. If one case should throw that into the scrapbook it’s the two yellows that were awarded to Aaron Cresswell this Sunday. Cresswell got his first yellow for bursting into the box and having both his legs hacked from beneath him. Less than a minute later, he was booked again for going shoulder to shoulder with a Palace attacker. And so, what should have been a penalty and a second West Ham goal, ended up being a red card for the player who was arguably the man of the match up to that point. Carlsberg don’t do Red Cards, but if they did... this wouldn’t be it. 

Unless they were trying to do Red Cards which tasted as shit as their beer. In which case... they nailed it.

Charlie Austin was not a flash in the pan
Charlie Austin spent almost all of last season injured, and if you remove that from his CV his goal scoring record is 100 strikes in his past 184 matches. Messi and Ronaldo might turn their nose up at such statistics, but most strikers would happily bite your hand off for that record. Austin remains a curiously underrated forward. I remember watching him playing for QPR against Man City a couple of years back and he was absolutely unplayable. He ran their defence ragged with his strength, energy and ingenuity. This season Austin already has 7 goals in 9 appearances, which given half of those matches started on the bench is no mean effort. He bagged a brace this weekend and was the difference between Saints winning and hitting the seemingly never ending save machine that is Tom Heaton. If Austin stays fit, he is probably a better all round striker than 90% of English forwards out there, and is well worth a place in our national team over say... to name someone at absolute random... Wayne Rooney.

Monday night football
After a first half of such desperately dull football we all wanted to slowly forgot we had given up our evenings for such an affair... we were treated to a second half... of pretty much exactly the fucking same. Even writing about this game seems like an insult to the memory of this... so I’m not really going to bother.

Besides leaving you with two fun facts.

Fact one. The Referee blew up for a free kick 18 million times, a new league record.

Fact two. Paul Pogba cost Manchester United 90 million pounds.

I mean seriously... that is more laughable than Brexit.

Team of the Weak:

Hull. And several referees.

That is all.

https://twitter.com/HinduMonkey