Something Of An Own Goal Methinks

What do you give the man who has somehow alienated everyone? Aside from playing badly, public drinking, smoking, whoring and pissing in the streets, what has Wayne Rooney done for us recently? How about calling his teammates useless and his club unambitious? How about questioning the amount the club is investing in new talent before demanding that, fuck that he’d actually prefer it if they spent all their money on him? Greedy, insensitive, arrogant and condescending, Rooney managed to piss any remaining reputation he had up the wall, while somehow performing the most unbelievable U-turn in history. As he so charmingly put it, ‘Later Wankers’. He’s got to hope that his previous talent hasn’t gone west along with all his other qualities.

It’s All Coming Together

It looks like the Prem is becoming a Top 6 and a lumpen rump of stunning inadequacy

Arsenal’s excellent win over Man City, along with Man U’s win over Stoke has condensed the top of the table, while six points separates seventh from the bottom of the table. It seems that none of the ‘second string’ teams really has the gumption, the cojones or the ambition to do more than wring out regular draws and the occasional win with the central aim of remaining in the cash rich, talent poor league that the Prem has somehow become.

Looking at the teams that make up seventh downwards, I was curious as to how many genuinely talented players there were, players who can both change a game and are exciting to watch. The list is pretty sad and really bloody short. Sunderland have Asamoah Gyan, Villa have the emerging Marc Albrighton, Everton have Arteta and Cahill, Blackpool have Taylor-Fletcher and Varney, and Liverpool have a whole stable of malfunctioning would-be-goods. Aside from that it’s all journeymen and no hopers held together with the occasional adequate defence or keeper. Certainly if I was one of the top five, I’d be pretty sure of a continued European campaign come the 2011-12 season.

Bring On The Games

Over-hyped prima donnas with delusions of grandeur flatter to deceive, yet somehow conspire to continually let you down. But enough about Man City, let’s spend a bit of time considering Arsenal. Having effectively qualified from their Big Cup group with 3 matches to go (with 3 wins, 14 goals for, 2 against), they’ve had a minor hiccup in the league, with defeats to Chelski and West Brom and this was definitely a must win match for them, especially since their awful record against top 4 teams is what scuppers their title winning credentials. Their 3 – 0 victory away from home to a team they lost to last year is both a statement of intent and an indication that Plan Wenger might actually accomplish something with the kids sometime soon.

Equally, it pricks the bubble that is Man City’s title hopes. Having beaten Chelski at home they were looking like the number one challengers, now they’re looking more and more like a second tier World Cup side, who are practically unbeatable once they’re ahead, but very poorly set up to actually chase a game. To me the key point of the game was not Arsenal’s ability going forward, or City’s inability to change the game with their wealth of talent, but Arsenal’s ability to keep a clean sheet. That’s not to say that their defence has shed any of its apparent frailty, just that this week they played well and didn’t make any stupid mistakes. Fabianski was, if not outstanding, at least effective.

Man U‘s ‘team of wankers’ (© Rooney) somehow managed to conjure a win over a staggeringly inept, hugely unmotivated Stoke side. I can remember years when teams would raise their game against Man U, especially at home, but that’s obviously not the case anymore. Stoke were unbelievably poor, not one of the four defenders hanging around the petit figure of Javier Hernandez bothered to get their feet off the ground to challenge him for the first goal. Instead they seemed content to mill about aimlessly and watch him head the ball, salmon-like into the net. Equally they are toothless upfront – if your main goal threat is Tuncay you are in deep, deep trouble believe me. Meanwhile given that this season they usually manage to extract draws from winning positions, it was interesting that Man U went on to win this match. It’s also interesting that Man U’s recent form, which is seen as ‘a bit of a wobble’, is just as good as Arsenal’s, which apparently suggests that the latter are realistic title contenders. Another case of perception outweighing reality.

Chelski carried on carrying on. Wolves were never going to trouble them and despite having a number of shots from outside the box they didn’t do anything to force Chelski to move beyond 2nd gear. Like so many teams around them the limits of their ambition seemed to be to ‘gain a draw’ and once they’re a goal down they rarely make it up. Wolves’ fundamental  problem is that they are just incapable of scoring, while also being unable to adequately defend.  Chelski’s great challenge was to wake up for long enough to put Wolves to bed. 2 points from the last seven matches is a great return for Mick McCarthy’s boys, so much so they could actually rival the performance of his Sunderland team that was relegated in 2003 with a total of just 15 points.

Everton failed to capitalise on their good win over Liverpool at Spurs. Still a draw wasn’t too bad given they were without Arteta, who is their sole genuinely creative player and that Tim Howard once again gifted their opponents an easy goal – that’s 5 points his blunders have cost them. For Spurs it was handy that they could count on Van De Vaart playing following his Big Cup suspension to ensure they avoided another post-European slump. He certainly manages to elevate their performances in a way that players like Crouch, Defoe, Bale, Lennon et al don’t.

Sunderland and Villa just proved that neither of these sides are going to be significantly challenging for anything other than mid-table mediocrity this year. Sunderland are the draw specialists, in a season that seems to be filled with more of them than usual and they were gifted an own goal, while Villa simply have no genuine attacking threat. Thoroughly dreary.

It’s no coincidence that Newcastle‘s kit looks increasingly like a jail uniform as another one of their players emerges from pokey. After being bailed for yet another assault charge on the condition that he lives with Kevin Nolan (surely a cruel and unusual punishment if ever there was one), Andy Carroll couldn’t conceal Newcastle’s absence of real attacking threat. Sure, he set up his housemaster for the first and scored the second, but West Ham are looking less defensively capable by the match. It seems that club owners Gold and Sullivan’s plans to get a free stadium after the Olympics could be scuppered by the very real chance they will be relegated imminently.

Boremingham taught Blackpool a valuable lesson in Prem survival, showing them exactly what they will need to live up to if they want to succeed in this division. Like Hull before them, Blackpool play a nice game in the right way, but they are incredibly naive sometimes. Certainly their gift of a second goal, scored while defender Adam was faffing around in his own penalty box, was an abject lesson in when to play the ball and when to simply hoof it out of the area. Still they’re not in the drop zone yet.

Another badly executed scissor tackle from behind succeeded in crippling the defender’s opponent and taking them out of the game. This time it was Bolton midfielder Muamba’s lunge on Wigan‘s McCarthy, which saw the latter taken off for ankle ligament damage. Another tortuous, skill free draw the result.

If we learned anything from West Brom‘s win over Fulham it was that Fulham’s goose-shit green away kit is almost as abominable as Everton’s perky pink one. Meanwhile their lack of forwards (all of whom are still injured thanks to dangerous tackles) isn’t really helped by the return of Andy Johnson. At most a 10 goals a season striker, he looked painfully out of form (not that he had much anyway).

Finally, Fat Sam really enhanced his Engerland manager credentials with a stunningly inept performance at Liverpool. Deprived of their two ‘big men’, Samba being suspended and Ryan Nelson being ill, Real Blackburn looked staggeringly one dimensional and utterly devoid of threat. They ceded almost total possession to Liverpool and barely had an attack, let alone a shot even if they did somehow manage to get Carragher to score an own goal for them. More than any other team, Blackburn sum up the lack of imagination, skill and ambition that seems to categorise the Prem this season. Liverpool were there for the taking, but Blackburn simply couldn’t be bothered and if this is the limits of Fat Sam’s coaching abilities, then he’s got a relegation dogfight coming, while being a cert for the national coach’s position.

Rob Green Save Of The Week

Everton’s Tim Howard came close, with a misguided leap at a cross which failed to connect and gifted Spurs a goal. As for a second week did Man U’s Van De Saar, who took a long stroll to the corner flag, only to hoof the ball to Stoke’s Delap and present him with an open goal (sadly Delap is no Alonso and his shot went well wide). But the winner is West Brom’s Scott Carson, who leaped to his right to spectacularly save an incoming shot from Zoltan Gera, turning it onto the post with a fingertip save, only for the ball to ricouchet off the post onto his arse and bounce into the net.

Football, Bloody Hell

It’s on, it’s not on, no it’s been injuncted, no it’s on again. The Liverpool takeover seems to be monopolising everyone’s interest only slightly more than the impending Rhino leaves Man U stories. Suddenly football is dangerous and exciting all over again. Then we watched Blackburn v Sunderland and were reminded of the wretchedness that the Premiership delivers on an all too regular basis.

Now’s The Time To Look At The Table

Now that we’ve got over the weird situation where a single win can catapult a team to the higher echelons of the table (viz the appearance of Blackpool and West Brom in the top 5), it’s time to look at the table with renewed vigour. Stats tell us that by this point in the season it’s pretty set which teams will be challenging for the top and which will be beating it out at the bottom. Certainly the top is looking fairly familiar and you’d be hard pushed to say that the top five this season won’t consist of Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City, Man U and Tottingham, preferably in that order. More challenging is that the bottom five will consist of Newcastle, Birmingham, Wolves, Liverpool and West Ham – I’d argue that on the performances I’ve seen, West Ham could ease their way out, while Liverpool’s next two matches, against Blackpool and Bolton seem to be critical otherwise they will be down among the dead men for a while.

Bloody Hell My World Cup Hangover Is Killing Me

A while ago I wondered why pretty much no one from the Prem (bar Kevin Prince Boateng, little Carlito Tevez and possibly Cesc Fabregas) actually showed up for the World Cup. It’s clear that there is something about the rigours of the Prem that severely knackers key players. Certainly they don’t seem to be able to play 12 months of pretty intensive football for a number of years at a time and it’s no surprise that players like Lumpy, Rio, The Drog, Titface and others have both failed to perform at the World Cup and come back with injuries or what can be euphemistically called ‘performance anxiety’.

However, the chief malingerers of the World Cup have to be Torres and Rhino. Both went into the tournament having played through injury at the tail end of the season, both failed to make the anticipated impact and both have failed to return to anything like their former glory. It’s hard to say whose downfall has been the most severe. Rhino looks like he’s got the mother of all arse-faces on, doesn’t seem to be making an effort and seems to have lost the ability to control the ball. It’s clear that he needs a change or a kicking. Torres, meanwhile, who must be gutted at the minimal role he played in Spain’s World Cup win and must be devastated that he went into the finals with that Liverpool induced injury, seems to be even less interested in playing football. He’s not making runs, not showing up for his teammates and when he does get a chance he’s not putting it away. Both players look like they need a long rest, but with the demands of their clubs and the lack of cover, neither will be getting it any time soon.

Howzabout Them Games

Yes, it's a note from the bank manager, but compare Match Day income for the English sides

Hard to overemphasise the importance of this weekend’s Merkyside derby. Liverpool seem to have exchanged one gang of Yankers who promised them the earth and a new stadium for another bunch of Yanks who haven’t promised them a new stadium, but might be committed to redeveloping Anfield. Sure their debt seems to have been wiped out, but as top football financial writer Swiss Ramble points out in this analysis of Arsenal’s finances, Liverpool are only making half as much money on matchday tickets as Arsenal and Man U. They need a new stadium as much as they need a revitalised team and a return to the Big Cup and a redeveloped Anfield ain’t going to get you 60,000 seats. A win against Everton barely a day after the takeover would have papered over the cracks quite nicely thank you. However, the rude truth was that Liverpool were so bad that an average Everton team was able to play the classic Mourinho Discipline game, play better, score first, shut up shop and totally boss the game.

Based on this performance I can’t see Liverpool challenging for anything this season. Although if they win their next two highly winnable games, they’ll be comfortably midtable. Just remember that two seasons ago Tottingham had a mere two points from their first eight matches and ended up finishing eighth. Whether this Liverpool side, which has spunked talent like Alonso and Mascerano only to replace it with has beens and non-performers like Joe Cole, Poulsen and Maxi. Quite how Uncle Wroy, who seems to have been brought in simply as the bank manager’s option – a safe pair of hands until the whole ownership situation is sorted out, is going to help things is a bit of a mystery.

Arsenal showed that they can, in fact, both bounce back against inferior opposition, in this case Boremingham, and be as physically inept as any other Prem side. Their conversion rate of only two goals from 13 on target chances is typically Arsenal and really needs to be addressed. As does Jack Wilshere’s incompetent tackle on Zigic, which was a classic late, studs up lunge for a ball he’d just lost and staggeringly similar to the Ryan Shawcross lunge which broke Aaron Ramsey’s leg. Credit to Wenger for making it clear that the red card was thoroughly deserved.

Man U continued their poor run by ceding two goals to an accomplished West Brom side, who seem to have found their feet after their 6 – 0 spanking by Chelski. Rhino again failed to inspire, but then neither did Berbatov, Anderson or Carrick.

Man City, meanwhile, compounded the pressure by stealing a win over Blackpool and sneaked their way into second place. Not only was their win once again the result of the continuing bullish nature of Leetle Carlito, but they were able to seal the game by bringing David Silva off the bench. How United must wish they had that talent on the bench instead of Rhino and Scholes.

Chelski showed that, if pressed, they’d prefer to play Arsenal every week as they continued their slightly wonky period against Villa. Left without The Drog and presumably a bit puffed out after the international week, Chelski were largely toothless. Villa were merely mediocre, but would have won it if only Reo-Coker was able to finish properly.

Tottingham managed to scrape a win over previously unbeaten Fulham thanks to a useful interpretation of the offside/active play rule. The most interesting thing about Spurs is that they’ve managed to make Van De Vaart, who was actually an impediment for the Dutch team, into their key player. Whether they can keep this up is the key question here.

The usual lumpy tedium emerged with Stoke and Bolton, Newcastle and Wigan, and the previously cited Blackburn and Sunderland, none of which did anything to enliven the reputation of the Prem. Wolves, meanwhile, did manage to scrape a point out of West Ham thanks to a poor piece of refereeing, but they’re still lingering at the bottom of the form guide. Looks like it’s Adios Suckers.

Rob Green Save Of The Day

Not, surprisingly the Rob Green punch that gifted Wolves with a goal, after all Spooner Bob has tons of previous form, so it was almost to be expected. Instead it’s the totally inexplicable two handed waterbucket ball drop from Man U’s Van De Saar, which gave the game to West Brom. Sweet.

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Went on a nice little bike ride from my gym. I’m trying out a good little cycle GPS app called Cyclemeter, which does everything a basic cycle computer does – speed, duration, pace, distance – but not the highly complex stuff like cadence and presents it all in a much more intuitive way than even high end bike computers. You’ll need a contraption to attach the iPhone to your bike, but there’s a small company in the States, Bicio, that produces a great mounting system. Admittedly it’s for the 3G/3GS version, but it does for the iPhone 4 just as nicely.

It’s another example of the iPhone and their developer partners like Abvio exterminating the opposition by making things simple and well designed. It does everything a £50 – £150 bike computer does, but it’s in colour, in real time and generates a pile of easy to understand, easy to use and share online statistical information, none of which my former bike computers could be arsed with. All for a total cost of approximately £25 (iPhone not included obviously).  In the same way as I’m worried about Nokia’s future as the World’s premier mobile phone manufacturers, I’d be very worried for specialist sports computer manufacturers like Polar and Cateye, who can look forward to losing a large chunk of their market to smartphones like the iPhone.

There’s A Big Vacancy (All Over The Pitch)

Rhino shows unusual close control ball skills while remaining unaware of flying Montenegran to his right

It appears that premonitions of the emergence of a decent Engerland side are somewhat, well, premature. While the superficial successes of the wins over Bulgaria and Switzerland appeared to suggest an improvement in midfield and attack, this thoroughly tedious and poor quality performance emphasised the poverty of Engerland’s ambition.

It was the same sorry story for Engerland. An inability to accurately pass the ball to a colleague, an inability to effectively control balls lumped up from the back, an inability to work the ball through midfield, failure of movement off the ball, failure of ambition. In fact a general level of failure that was utterly depressing.

You would have thought that after the dismal performance in the World Cup, the entire Engerland backstaff would have sat down and tried to work out an effective alternative strategy to improve the team. During the World Cup there was an interesting interview with Jurgen Klinsmann, about his tenure as manager of Germany and how he worked with both clubs and the national association to determine the footballing philosophy for the national team as a whole. Klinsmann was impassioned, articulate and intelligent about developing the team, but above all he was convincing. You suspect that English football is a long way from having anyone so effective in charge of the team.

Same Problems (All Over The Pitch)

We got a bit stat-tastic a while ago over some fantastic graphic that Umbro had come up with to illustrate the balance of play during World Cup matches. One of our conclusions was that in true Animal Farm style not all passes are created equal and that percentage of possession is not the be all and end all of game statistics. Engerland’s ability to maximise possession by passing the ball aimlessly around the back when given time and space by their opponents is not the same as, say, Arsenal’s or Barcelona’s ability to dominate games by intricate possession play in the opponent’s half.

As usual Engerland started out by maintaining possession, but wasted this opportunity by simply passing the ball around the back, bringing first Gerrard then Rhino back into the Engerland half in a desperate attempt to actually get the ball. Meanwhile the Montenegrans were content to drag their entire team into their own third and cede possession in favour of a tight defence.

Once Engerland had failed to create a chance from possession in the first five minutes (it’s hard to score from your own half they discovered), they immediately fell back to their old, tired failings, with first Gerrard, then Ferdinand quickly resorting to the 40+ yard hoof n hope pass. Now these have an approximate 20% success rate of actually reaching their recipient, with another 40% of balls flying over the heads of the intended target (victim?) and a further 40% simply giving possession to the opposition. Again this supposed master tactic resulted in absolutely no chances and definitely no shots on goal. The only reason Engerland persist in this is that they appear to be too incompetent to pursue any other means – namely effective close control and quick pass and move to break up close knit, well marshaled defences. When we did attack, Ashleys Cole and Young and Ian Curtis were neutralised by the lack of support they received and the inability of any players to actually get into the box or show up for a pass.

The paucity of Engerland’s ambition is best illustrated by the call up of Kevin Davies. Not only does he reinforce the belief that Crapello has some kind of aversion to youth (Kev is 33 and has no chance of being part of Euro 2012), but that he has an aversion to creativity. It took Kev about 5 minutes and one touch to confirm what anyone with a footballing brain could have told you years ago, as an international he’s a yellow/red card liability, with none of the goal scoring talent necessary to justify this risk. His stats were, two or three touches, two fouls, one booking, no shots or assists.

You could argue that if Crapello really wanted to investigate English talent in the ‘lesser’ Prem teams, he could have done a lot worse than call up Blackpool’s Gary Taylor-Fletcher (29), not least following his outstanding display against Liverpool and that excellent pass for their second goal, which split the entire defence in one go. You suspect that that kind of talent, rather than Kev’s ability to elbow defenders in the throat, might be what Engerland really want.

Or he could have grasped the nettle by subbing Rhino, who had another unexceptional, dreary game, with Wilshere, who seems to be doing the business for Arsenal, pulling defences apart, creating chances and, occasionally, scoring – three more things than Rhino achieved all match. Or pushing Gerrard (who is as wasted playing the holding midfield role as he is as a left winger) further forward, or finding an alternative for useless right back Glenda Johnson (who is as poor going forward as he is at the back).

As For The Montenegrans

They played the classic World Cup Mourinho Discipline, tight at the back, ready to give away fouls and bookings ahead of the 18 yard line, able to break fast when given the opportunity. Unlike Engerland, their close possession was effective, their control was good and it was only luck that they didn’t sneak a crafty one – nil over the English. They remind me of third tier World Cup sides like Greece, Switzerland, Slovakia and Slovenia, who combine effective organisation with tedium. Thoroughly anti-football.

Where Are We Going?

Make no mistake Engerland are in trouble. In Montenegro we have a team with the potential to upset Engerland in the same way Croatia did in 2008. Crapello seems to be placing his trust in the same old players with little tactical insight and no attempt to be preparing for the squad that will appear in 2012. And while his selection has been effected by injuries (Defoe, Wallchart, Jagielka, Zamora, Milner along with losers like Titface and Lumpy), he persists in selecting mediocre players who have little or no chance of playing in 2012. And while it’s important to ensure qualification before we get all excited about the team that’s going to play in 2012, we surely can’t continue to play Crapello’s Old Boys for too much longer.

Some Things We Didn’t Learn

Or more accurately Some Things Arsène Wenger Hasn’t Learned Yet.

• How to deal with Didier Drogba
• How to coach a defence
• What a good keeper looks like
• How to beat the big teams

Or in the language that the Arsènal defence apparently prefers to communicate in, plus ça change, plus c’est la mème chose. If there was anything more predictable than Arsenal losing this match it was that Drogba would terrorise their defence, score and determine the game. After pretty shocking defensive lapses against Blackburn and West Brom, the new partnership of Squillaci and Koscielny really outdid themselves for uselessness this time. Positional incompetence, absence of awareness and a complete tactical naivety categorised this incarnation of the Arsenal team.

You kind of wonder what exactly these guys (that’s the whole Arsenal team, not just Squil and Kos) spend their time on during their training week – possibly conversational French – they certainly don’t seem to be practicing defending. You have to think that after over 1000 Premiership matches, Arsène would have developed (and retained) at least one decent defender (or failing that a defensive coach). His record of Ashley Cole and, er, no one else over a decade doesn’t speak much for his developmental or scouting abilities. Once again Arsenal look like a bunch of pretty passing Premiership lightweights who are only going to win the Not-So-Useless Cup if they play their strongest side.

Meanwhile What We Did Learn

The Prem is descending into a kickers’ paradise. Once again we saw talented, creative players being cynically ‘taken out’ of the game by deliberate injury inducing tackling. This time it was Man City’s Nigel De Jong, whose previous includes a studs up sternum cracking assault on Alonso in the World Cup Final, managed the perfect sliding in from behind scissor tackle which broke Hatem Ben Arfa’s legs. He can join the likes of Wolves hacker Henry (sent off after 11 minutes for a truly classic leaping in from behind on the opponent’s standing leg tackle) and Sunderland’s Crappermole as yet another Premiership defensive midfielder who simply cannot tackle properly. Certainly these guys are redefining the meaning of dangerous play and some kind of new sanction should be used to control this.

Meanwhile the Prem, supposedly the most exciting league in the world, loses another creative player – this time probably until Christmas. While it’s nice to see De Jong being dropped by Holland as a result, at some point soon the Prem needs to decide whether it wants to encourage creative attacking talent or dumbarse assaultmongers like De Jong, Henry and Crappermole. Currently I see this incarnation of the Prem being significantly worse than it was two or three years ago.

And Those Games…

Aside from the Chelski Arsenal match, there were a number of intriguing, if sometimes tedious, matches. De Jong’s violence aside, Man City‘s win over Newcastle sees them sneak up to second in the table. Suddenly their combination of staggering wealth, hugely defensive mindset and more wingers than you can reasonably fit in a team and on the bench seems to be paying dividends. Despite this only Tevez and Ian Curtis look like inspiring, rather than glum steadfast players. You do sense that City, unlike Arsenal, can actually defend.

Also sneaking up on the inside are Tottingham, or to accurately name them Van de Vaart‘s side. He successfully did for Villa with some excellent play, which, luckily for him, didn’t see him replicate his sending off in the Big Cup. You can see that he’s completely replaced Berbatov as Spurs’ talented foreigner of choice. Along with Chamakh, who will take longer to bed in, he is one of the few real additions to the Prem over the close season.

Probably the most satisfying result was Blackpool‘s total stuffing of Liverpool. You can use this match as a bit of a benchmark for both teams. Having been soundly spanked by both Arsenal and Chelski, Blackpool now look to have bounced back and certainly have enough skill to maintain themselves as a decent midtable side. In stodgy dad-looking Taylor-Fletcher, they’ve got a really talented player and his defence splitting pass to Varney for their second was genuine class. Liverpool, meanwhile, look like a bunch of losers who barely recognise one another. Torres looks like he still hasn’t got over his injury last season, let alone his garbacious World Cup performances. It’s not helping that he’s not bothering to make the runs for his new teammates to fail to pick up. Uncle Wroy’s new boys look like they haven’t been introduced to one another let alone told how to play together. Their next fixture, the Merkyside derby against Everton, looks to be something of a six pointer/line in the sand for both sides.

Also managing to live down to expectations, Man U managed to not win at Sunderland in a wholly unmeritorious match. Strange, though, that Arsenal’s draw there a couple of weeks ago is seen as a good result for the Gunners, while Man U’s is seen as evidence that they’re losing their edge.

Boremingham managed to match their talent by losing their ‘not beaten for a year at home’ record to ‘haven’t won all season’ chumps Everton. Frankly this is as unacceptable as Everton’s  perky pink away kit.

Stoke, who are trying to make the conceptual shift from cloggers to creatives, showed that tactical ambition outdoes defensive bloodymindedness by doing for Fat Sam’s Real Blackburn. Nice to see the sourpuss expression back on Fat Sam’s face.

Drawbores for West Ham and Fulham as well as West Brom and Bolton show midtable mediocrity or possibly relegation dogfights beckon for these teams. Certainly they provided no significant moments during Match of the Day.

Wigan and Wolves proved an interesting contrast of tactical styles. Wigan have been roundly thrashed despite playing a creative, expansive game, but seem to be coming good, while Wolves seem to have invested all their efforts in what is euphemistically referred to as ‘character’ but is more prosaically called ‘shit football’. And while it’s nice to see Wigan beginning to reap dividends from quality play, it’s great to see Wolves’ patented Mick McCarthy tactic of cloggidge and intimidation once again paying dividends. Another loss means that that’s one point from the last five matches. Good to see that kind of return for such negative, unexciting football. Strange also that there should be so much outcry over Liverpool’s performance (a whole 5 points over the last 5 matches) and almost no outcry over Wolves’ uselessness.

Rob Green Save Of The Day

Not really a save as such, or a goalkeeping error per se. But Arsenal’s set piece defending against Chelsea was hilarious. Fabienski organises his wall, which is infiltrated by a Chelski player, who subsequently moves out of the way, leaving something of a gap. Rather than filling the gap, they preferred to let Alex slap the ball right through it and score.

You decide.