The Cruelest Week Of All

Not just for arch philosopher king Arsenal Wenger, whose team of Fine Young Incapables managed to pull a gigantic 2 points out of a possible 9, drawing with first Loserpool, then letting a 3-1 lead magically transform itself into a 3-3 draw against Tottingham before finally delivering the pièce de resistance of losing to a Bolton team who’d just been pounded 5-0 by anti-football miscreants Stoke only a week earlier. Wenger is looking more and more like a distraught King Lear just before his eyes are poked out with sticks. Or maybe he’s just steeling the team up for their seemingly inevitable place in the Race For Fourth (surely that can’t have been the Quadruple he was talking about only five or six weeks ago?).

Not just for bluff bulldog faced dribble merchant ‘Arry Redknapp, whose team seems further and further away from fourth place and Big Cup football next season. His team could only scrape a draw at home against relegation form Arsenal. That’s two points less than ‘stuffed in the semis’ Bolton. Then they went and drew with Uncle Wroy’s Lovely Boys, which pretty much cemented 5th or even 6th place. Sure his prize boy Defoe did manage to score his 100 goal for Tottingham (and Spurs’ 1,000th in the Prem), but that makes a grand total of three whole Prem goals this season from the notorious offside trap and that puts him into the Bendtner, Ngog, Santa Cruz league. And, no Jermaine, it’s not a great day for you if your team doesn’t win. Unless you’re consumed by your own ego that is.

Not just for Wigan’s dainty Roberto Martinez, whose balloon of optimism, so recently inflated by the excellent win over Blackpool, was most severely popped by the once-nosediving Sunderland who stuffed his boys good and proper despite having both their remaining fit strikers carted off the pitch with injuries after barely an hour.

Not just for Real Blackburn’s Fat Sam lookilikey Steve Kean, whose side have taken a whopping 10 points out of their last 14 games and were outdone by an obdurate Man City. Admittedly that’s probably a points ratio up there with Sunderland’s, but the latter a) actually won this weekend and b) have more points than you (although let’s face it not that many more points).

And most certainly not for West Ham mainstay Scott Parker who was voted the Players’ Player of the Year yet wasn’t able to play through injury and saw his side return to the bottom following a thorough beasting by Chelski. Saying the award would be tarnished by relegation is a Defoe-like understatement.

And The Games

Arsenal managed to press the full implosion button at Bolton. True Bolton have been atrocious away from home, but their home form has been good and in Daniel Sturridge they have one of the loanee deals of the season. But no matter how good Bolton were, Arsenal were unimpressive in the extreme, with the usual suspects seeming to be hardly bothered about the game.

Earlier Man U again did what they seem to do best, scraping through a tight game with a last minute goal (or to be fair an 83rd minute goal). So no need for extended Fergie Time against an obdurate if unimpressive Everton. Man U appear to be tightening the screw on the opposition and finding something of the form they lacked earlier in the season.

Stepping up to second place, Chelski had a very successful win over a very poor West Ham on the most waterlogged pitch in the Prem. So successful indeed that even Torres got into the goalscoring act. Chelsea have been sneakily crawling up along the inside where no one seems to have noticed that they have suddenly become the form team in the division once again. It’s hard to recall back to the beginning of the season when they were perceived as the clear leaders and obvious title favourites, before Man City beat them and threw them into the kind of tailspin from which few teams recover, but here they were back to something approaching their best. West Ham, on the other hand, had a vague, bleary moment early in 2011 when it looked like they might actually string together more than a couple of wins at a time. Then they signed Robbie Keane on loan. Although no one expected them to do anything against Chelski, they looked so bad not doing it that you have to fear for those games where they may once have harboured ambitions of points.

Matching Arsenal in the falling from grace stakes are their North London rivals, Tottingham, who seem to be doing their level best to hand Man City the keys to the Big Cup. Their home draw against West Brom might not be as bad as Arsenal’s loss to them, but it’s still an immense handicap in a season that is fast running out of promise for Spurs. Uncle Wroy’s miraculous rehabilitation continues apace.

So, mysteriously, does that of the Loserpool RedSox. Now apparently freed from the shackles of Uncle Wroy’s restrictive formula (not to mention the rigours of competing in Europe or any other cup competition), the RedSox have been storming ahead. Say what you like about international Cheat Superstar Dirty Suarez, there’s no disputing that his energy and determination have rejuvenated a team that was looking irredeemably tired and staid at the turn of the year, so much so that they will be serious contenders next season. They absolutely hammered a wretched Boremingham side, who seem to have reverted to type. The fact that the formerly useless Maxi got a hattrick only emphasises how poor the Bores were.

Wa-Hey! as they might say in the North East. Sunderland, whose plummet down the table was approaching record proportions, managed to halt their slide and bag some points at last. That they did it against the relatively rubbish Wigan and at the expense of their last two remaining strikers, both of whom were carted off with season ending hamstring twinges, will bother none of their supporters. They now have a fabulous 41 points and that’s got to be enough to keep them in the division. So now it’s all suntan and sombreros and the long wait to preseason friendlies. Wigan have got it all to do now to escape the drop.

Untidy draws certainly aren’t the way out of the relegation zone, although Blackpool, who drew with Newcastle and Wolves, who drew with Fulham will be happy that both Wigan and West Ham lost. Villa and Stoke won’t really be too worried about taking a point each. Villa have survived in a season they will certainly want to forget, while Stoke have bigger fish to fry in the FA Cup Final.

In the midweek catchup games Fulham beat a Bolton side that seems to travel incredibly badly, Man City made hard work out of beating Real Blackburn, but still managed to extend their lead in the Race for Fourth, while Stoke probably hammered in one last, final nail into Wolves’ relegation coffin.

Rob Green Save Of The Day

A particularly poor weekend for goalkeeping howlers, but there was at least one game where goalkeepers really stood out. If only because both were Birmingham keepers. First Ben Foster parried Maxi’s shot right back at him for Liverpool’s first. He then went off with what can only be described as an ’embarrassed’ hamstring. His replacement Colin Doyle then managed to not only parry back Maxi’s strike for his second goal but then allowed a tame Joe Cole shot to squiggle under his body.