Sep 15 |
Archive for September 15th, 2010What We Learned From Prem Week 4Things Are Beginning To Settle Down What with the distraction of the annual Inconvenient Autumn International Week coming hot on the heels of the start of the season, qualification for the Euro leagues and the end of the transfer window, the early part of the season is always a bit traumatic for English clubs. Four weeks in there are still players who have barely met let alone played with their new teammates (hello pretty much all of Man City) and it’s no coincidence that tight, well knit teams who’ve not changed much and have played and won together last season are doing better than teams making wholesale changes. Now, however, the window has closed and the international injuries that always seem to dog the likes of Arsenal’s seasons at this point (say goodbye to Wallchart, Kuyt, Defoe and Van Persie again) have arrived, the teams can settle down and actually do some training together. Overall things in the Prem are beginning to gel although the picture is still far from clear. I recall a time when no one would bother to even produce a league table until five or so matches had been played. Now we have a table from day 1 before many teams have even kicked a ball. But once again it’s becomming clear that the Top Three are going to be Chelsea, Arsenal and Man U, that Tottingham and Man City are going to find it hard to accommodate both European football and a genuine challenge for fourth, that Aston Villa don’t travel well, that Liverpool are already downplaying expectations and that West Ham appear doomed. The Barbarians Are At The Gates It’s also clear that there is a worrying decrease in the quality of defending and tackling, with some teams basing their entire tactical strategy on the blunt force trauma of intimidatory assaults rather than any footballing ability – that’s you by the way Wolves – and the notion that ‘if we do it often enough in a match the ref will have to let us get away with it’. Now I’m all for maintaining a physical side to football, but there’s a big difference between, say, the skillful confrontational tackling of Carlos Puyol and the ill-timed, uncontrolled sliding through the back of a player’s standing leg tackle we see all too often in the Premiership. This week alone we saw Cahill’s studs up, both feet off the ground leap at Arsenal’s Chamakh that could easily have ‘done’ him for the season, Robinson’s assault on Diaby, which saw the latter taken off after just 13 minutes, and Henry’s classic sliding scissor tackle taking out Fulham’s Zamora from behind. Naturally all these tackles came with disclaimers that none of the offenders ‘meant’ them and that any injuries that happened to arise were ‘unfortunate’. However, it’s clear that these are not isolated incidents and that certain teams are basing their entire gameplan around the notion that if they physically abuse their opponents, they will get some kind of advantage. It’s also clear that this behaviour has to be put down and fast. The Henry tackle on Zamora is a perfect example. It’s clear from their last two games that Wolves’ gameplan is to assault their opponents at every opportunity until they are physically restrained or consigned back to the Championship where they belong. Henry’s tackle on Zamora comes at speed from behind with little or no control and catches Zamora’s standing leg between Henry’s. This pretty much forces Zamora’s next step to be an ankle breaker, which it was. There’s a reason FIFA banned tackles from behind in the early ’90s and this is it. The only surprise is that so many players, managers and pundits don’t seem to have got the message yet. What About Them Games Then? Possibly the biggest developing trend is Man U‘s new tendency to concede goals at the end of their games where usually they tended to score them. So far this season they’ve dropped points at Fulham and this week they embarked on an Oscar Wildean collapse against a persistent but unremarkable Everton (to lose one goal in injury time is unfortunate, to lose two reeks of carelessness). Given Man U lost the title last year by a single point, the four points they’ve dropped so far this season may prove fatal. Certainly they threaten to erode Man U’s sheen of invincibility. Arsenal meanwhile are displaying a Lewis Carroll side, apparently believing two seemingly contradictory ideas before teatime. They can amazingly combine a new found robustness against the more ‘physical’ sides with an inability to actually defend consistently for 90 minutes. Admittedly this was probably the first time new boy Squillaci had met, let alone played with any of his back four teammates, but once again it was his partner in central defence Koscielny whose focus seemed to slip, allowing Bolton‘s Lee to put Elmander in to score. Still, that slip up aside, Arsenal came out easy 4 – 1 winners. If Man U and Arsenal are displaying traits epitomise by great Victorian authors, then Wolves are harking back to the 18th Century horrors of Dracula and Frankenstein. Full of beans after their card-happy encounter with Newcastle (which secured them a whole point at home), they once again attempted to foul their way to victory against Fulham thankfully with no success. Wolves’ football is epitomised by the performance of Berra, whose two bookings were for ‘professional’ fouls where he brought down an attacking player with no thought of actually going for the ball. And while Henry obviously didn’t intend to break Zamora’s leg, his violent tackle was clearly the result of a directive from his manager that Wolves ‘get stuck in’, rather than allow their opponents to play football. It’s no surprise that Fulham fans sang ‘You’re a disgrace to the Premiership’ at Wolves. Maybe if the likes of Henry were suspended for the length of time it takes their victims to recover instead of being congratulated for their ‘effort’, we’d see both players and managers being a little more careful with their tackles. Meanwhile, with a grand total of 13 bookings, one sending off and a solitary point from two games to show for it maybe McCarthy will rethink his strategy all by himself. Another personal highlight of the day came in Sunderland‘s somewhat tedious encounter with Wigan and, no, it wasn’t the sight of Gyan’s fantastically taken goal. It was the sight of Sunderland captain and potentially the least capable defensive midfielder in the country Cattermole being sent off again for two utterly incompetent and unnecessary challenges. So far this season he’s played a total of 66 minutes on the pitch and been sent off twice. Which means he’s been off the pitch or suspended for almost four and a half times as much time as he’s spent on the pitch. No wonder manager Brucie is tearing his hair out. In contrast there’s no point in West Ham‘s Avram Grant tearing his hair out, for a start he’s got so little of it and there’s no chance it will improve the Hammers in any way whatsoever. They sacrificed their usual three points to Chelsea, who basically didn’t have to get out of first gear to secure this win. More than any team Chelsea have benefited from being essentially unchanged over the summer. Like Man U in previous seasons they seem to have mastered the art of discarding peripheral players (bye bye Joe Cole, Bollocks, Deco and all) and effortlessly integrating one or two new players (hello Ramires and Benayoun). However, they really haven’t been remotely tested this season, so we will reserve judgement on their overall prospects. In addition to suffering from post-European point-dropping blues, both Tottingham and Man City appear to have joined Man U and added pre-European point-dropping to their repertoire. And while there might be a vague excuse for Tottingham drawing away to an uninspiring West Brom, there’s no excuse for City to drop points at home to Blackburn even if you do allow for Hart’s moment of madness in gifting the latter their goal. Certainly City currently look like a team that’s a lot worse than they look on paper. At this rate they’ll find it hard to get into the European places, let alone the Big Boys’ Club of the top four. Dullest match of the week was a close thing between the much-unanticipated clash between Stoke and Villa and the unbreachable defence of Birmingham meeting the impotent attacking force of the post-Benitez Liverpool. Ultimately, it was the misfiring attack line of Gerrard and Torres that won the day. Highlight of the weekend was Blackpool‘s outstanding win away to Newcastle. In the same way that Arsenal’s mullering of Blackpool meant we had to reassess the value of the latter’s 4-0 stuffing of Wigan, so their win here means we have to reassess Newcastle’s chances following the hype of their 6-0 thrashing of Villa in their last home game. The truth appears to be that Newcastle aren’t as powerful as they appeared and that Blackpool have the capacity to surprise everyone and actually make it in the Prem. Certainly they are the most unusual of Prem teams, with way the lowest home capacity (although it will be a toss up with Wigan to see who gets the lowest average home gate) and wages, but they have a fabulous team spirit. For me the epitome of Blackpool was the moment after their goal when they paraded around a shirt marked ‘4 Parky’ to dedicate their goal to the Youth Team Coach who had suffered a heart attack the previous week. It wasn’t so much the gesture, football is full of players dedicating goals to all kinds of tedious causes, it was that the message had been scribbled on in felt-tip pen. So much more real and personal than going to the local Printa-Shirt and having it embossed. It showed that Blackpool are human and all the better for it. Rob Green Save Of The Day Competition for this accolade was tough this week as the maestro put in another classic spoon for our consideration (aided it must be said by his also-former Engerland colleague Upson’s handy hoof-n-hoper which looped in off Kalou). Now in any other week this would have won it for Greeny, whose bewildered expression is fast becoming commonplace around Upton Park, but it wasn’t to be. This week Joe Hart showed the catastrophic power the current Engerland no 1 shirt bestows on even the most confident keeper as he went on the single most pointless walkabout since the Chilean keeper came out to play in right midfield and gifted David Villa that neat chip into the net in the World Cup. Taking advantage yet again that naughty Kalinic who so neatly did for Tim Howard in Week 1. Next time no going past the 18 yard line Harty. |