When You Are Tired Of Football, You Are Tired Of Life

True, I may not be completely tired, but I am somewhat exhausted. Three full weeks of Prem in 9 days has taken it out of me and, it would seem, the teams and players. How else can you explain the events of Week 13? How else can you explain that no one, not one team, managed to score 3 wins? The best attempt being  from mid-table mediocrities Bolton and Sunderland, who both took a commendable 7 points. And, yes, I know that the best teams should be used to playing weekends and midweeks, but there was something about having a full set of Prem matches midweek that seems to have piled on the pressure. And not in a good way.

The result? A plethora of nil-nils of various shapes and sizes and more draws than we’ve seen since the middle of October. Sure there were some upsets, but they too seem to be the result of overload as much as ambition on the part of the victors (and make no mistake there was ambition in places). But now we’ve got an international week and everyone can take a break as top stars pull out of ‘meaningless friendlies’ with an assortment of strategic niggles, knocks and pulls. Naturally, all will be fit again come next Saturday.

Evolution Or Revolution?

That said, it has been interesting seeing how teams have been developing over the course of the season so far. And this season that development has  seemed more apparent than ever. Just as teams grow into World Cups and European Championships, so teams in the Prem have to adapt and grow as the season progresses to take advantage of the strengths and weaknesses of both themselves and others. Take how Wolves have evolved from dour hack and kick merchants to vaguely pacey wingplayers as Hunt and Jarvis come into fitness and form. Or how Sunderland have adapted their play to the talents of Asamoah Gyan as Darren Bent has been injured. And if the story of this week is about anything its about the effects of these little revolutionary adaptations. Certainly those teams that are seizing the day are being rewarded.

Gimmie Games

Possibly the best example of both the exhausting effects of the last 9 days and the evolution of teams was the Chelski Sunderland tie. Chelski, fresh off an away slapping from the Liverpool Redsox and a home win against Fulham, looked like a spent force, the heart might have been willing but there was nothing left in the tank. And in some cases there was little evidence that the heart was there either. With Essien out of their midfield there appears to be little backbone there, Ramieres being somewhat spindly while Obi Mikel still appears more lumbering than lethal. Add to that a makeshift central defence and you’ve got a recipe for trouble. Still with The Drog, Anelka, Malouda, Cole, Bosingwa and Cech in the side they should still be formidable. And yet they were thoroughly bossed by a Sunderland team who’d been utterly destroyed by Newcastle earlier in the month. Playing two up front and harrying Chelski mercilessly, Sunderland showed that Chelski, like Arsenal, don’t appear to enjoy it when sides take the game to them, pressing them all over the pitch, denying them time and space in their own half. And with Onuoha’s outstanding ‘dribble through the defence’ goal we saw the first signs of a defensive collapse at Chelski.

Some have suggested that Chelski’s problems stem from their summer ship out of ailing and aging former greats, citing the presence of youngsters like McEachran, Kakuta and Van arnolt on the bench as evidence of their less capable extended team, but I disagree. Sure they’ve lost Bollocks, Deco, Joke Cole, and Carvalho, but it’s only the latter who seems to be genuinely missed, being the outstanding defensive mainstay alongside Titface for a number of seasons. The rest aren’t pulling up trees in their new clubs and seem to be spending more time on the treatment table than the pitch to be honest.

The real kudos has to go to Steve Bruce for tactically outsmarting Chelski with his attacking two up front line up and to Gyan, Onuoha and Wellbeck for taking their goals so well. Make no mistake Sunderland have got over the psychological damage of that Newcastle result and have inflicted considerable psychic pain on Chelski too.  Chelski’s next match, away to Boremingham looks like it could be pretty tasty.

The only sad thing for Sunderland was that Onuoha’s goal won’t be Goal of the Season as, astonishingly, it wasn’t even Goal of the Week. That was Bolton‘s second against Wolves. Now previously we may have given the impression that Elmander was a useless waste of space who couldn’t score if he was given an open goal, but here he gave an impression of Messi-like omnipotence as he danced his way through an apparently impenetrable box of four Wolves defenders, none of whom was more than a yard away from him, with some dazzling footwork before sliding the ball into the corner of the net. And with an Arsenal-like defence splitting threesome pass-pass-shoot move from Davies, Lee and Holden for their third, Bolton look like a team transformed. Another case of genuine evolution over the course of the season so far. Wolves, too, look far superior to the  side that was being savaged (and doing the savaging) earlier this season. Admittedly, it doesn’t seem to have done them any good as they still have the worst form in the league and are really down among the dead men, but they have just played all the big teams in the last month. With this form, all they need is someone to slot the ball into the net with something approaching regularity and they should be OK.

If Elmander’s goal was a treat, Stoke‘s first against Liverpool Redsox was a return to the primary school playground. A horrorshow, from Liverpool’s point of view, saw the ball ricochet around the penalty area as pretty much the whole Redsox team went awol, chasing the ball around the box like demented, unsophisticated eight year-olds as first one then another Stoke striker tried to gamely force it into the net. Eventually Pocket Drog Ricardo Fuller toe poked it in to pile on the misery for unambitious Uncle Wroy and his boys, leaving them just 3 points above the dropzone. How this drab, ineffective team beat Chelski is a real mystery.

No mystery to how Arsenal managed to beat Everton. As Phil Neville said, “we just couldn’t boss them”. This time Arsenal won, if not dirty, then certainly muddied and unbowed as they pressed Everton around the pitch and didn’t allow the home side to pressurise them. In the midst of this they took advantage of Everton’s defensive lapses. Their second goal, while not as classically Arsenal as Bolton’s third, was a masterpiece of close footplay, taking out the entire Everton defence in three lethal passes. Possibly the most interesting element of the whole match was the way Arsenal players kept going “Come On!” to their teammates, an indication that, to them, this match really mattered.

Tottingham seem to have got over their post-European blues (about bloody time) as they gave Fat Sam’s Real Blackburn a right good thumping. As they say Real were lucky to only concede four as Spurs missed a hatful of chances and a penalty and gave them two gimmie goals at the end to make Real feel less thoroughly spanked. The notion that Fat Sam might either, manage Engerland, or, successfully manage in Europe, seems like the height of folly and delusion. Oh wait, it was the height of folly and delusion.

Villa‘s own evolutionary project seems to be coming on apace, aided by injuries to useless lumpen forwards Donkey and Carew. Certainly Agbonlahor’s return and his link up play with Ashley Young seems to have sparked the pair into life. And aided by a cohort of new, young players, they gave Man U a seriously painful time before rather predictably giving away a two goal lead in the last ten minutes. When even your manager says, “When I saw them score the first, I knew they’d score a second”, it’s not a ringing endorsement of progress to date.

In the only other three point thriller (oh alright three point slumber), Wigan just about did enough to beat a West Brom team that doesn’t seem to know where it’s going. One week they’re great, beating Arsenal away and moving to 5th in the table, the next they’re playing poorly and losing to an ineffective also-ran side.  On this evidence, both teams look set to struggle.

No goals in the remaining three matches, but what a contrast in style, ambition and verve. West Ham‘s match against Blackpool was a masterpiece of ambition, character and enthusiasm over skill and effectiveness, with apparently 45 shots only 4 of which were judged to be on target.  Truly this was primo knockabout stuff, with Blackpool, as always, going for it and West Ham desperate for some kind of point-related lifeline. However, neither had the skill to really make an impact, and when they did, eventually, have shots on target, their respective keepers were more than up to the challenge.

In total contrast, Man City‘s dour draw with Boremingham was as tedious as the most dreary Italian catenaccio ever. You have to worry that, in a week when Steve Bruce dared to take the game to Chelski away from home and came away with three points, the height of Dullberto Mancini’s ambition seems to have been to take a point at home from Boremingham, who are themselves the very definition of unambitious. Admittedly, this is a man who threw away a top four finish last year when he lost at home to fellow challengers Tottingham in May by playing far, far too defensively. And having spent something in the region of a grazillion pounds revamping that team, he still finds that he has no significant attacking options beyond Carlos Tevez. Just think City could have been playing Inter Milan in the Big Cup this season if only Mancini had some bollocks.

Finally, Fulham‘s nil-niller at Newcastle was a case of both teams running out of steam at the end of this gruelling three match/nine day period. While exhibiting more skill and control than either West Ham or Blackpool, neither team could manufacture that killer blow. Once again, Fulham’s goose-shit green strip failed to do anything more than make them look anonymous and lost all over the pitch. Newcastle, meanwhile, missed the skill of the suspended Joey Barton, which is really damning them with faint praise.

Rob Green Save Of The Day

With exhaustion dogging the heels of every keeper, there wasn’t really any one standout goalline fuckup. Sure, both Wolves’ contribution to Bolton’s first, a spectacularly headed own goal, and Real Blackburn’s contribution to Tottingham’s third, were taken into consideration, but both appeared to be more the result of fine pressing from the attacking team than actual keeping catastrophes. No, the real winner has to be the entire Liverpool Redsox team for their comic efforts to stop Stoke’s first goal. As pretty much the whole team rushes about the box like extras in the under attack Star Trek command centre, now to the left, now to the right, Reina is left as little more than a spectator, feeling, as you would, that with about 9 of his own players slap bang in front of him the ball can’t possibly get through. By the time he sees it it’s in the back of the net.