Football: Prem 2011 Week 5


Are You Arsenal In Disguise?

Plenty of defences were lining up to challenge but none could come close to the stunning level of ineptitude and chaos managed by the Gunners. Exhibit A, Liverpool – came the closest, boasting a back four that was way too slow and down to the customary threesome following the sending off of nitboy Skrtel. Admittedly this was matched by their midfield which had Scotch hacker Adam sent off too. Exhibit B, Stoke – conceded the kind of comedy defensive goals usually reserved for Koscielny, as Sunderland somehow managed to slip four past them. Those European awaydays do have a habit of coming back and biting you on the arse, although credit to Pulis, who refused to accept that as an excuse. Exhibit C Naarich – who are so poor defensively that they’ve conceded a penalty in every game.

Still, worst defence, worst disciplinary record, genuine relegation form, this is the modern Arsenal. It used to be that one-nil to the Arsenal was the end of the game. Now they don’t look like they can ever hold a lead. Look on my works ye mighty and despair.

That Secret Ingredient? Pace

Man U, Spurs and, bizarrely, QPR seem to have it. It’s this season’s must have game-winning accessory, kind of like rocket propelled tattoos. More importantly, lack of pace is a killer, just ask the nitboy who was repeatedly skinned by Bale until he was sent off, or look at the increasingly useless Djourou being left in the trails of Blackburn’s vaguely speedy wingers. Lack of pace should spell the end of Lampard, Terry, Carragher, Skrtel, all of the Arsenal back four bar Sagna and numerous mid table monkeys.

Bad Tackles Are Back In Fashion

Still if you can’t beat ’em, or even keep up with ’em, simply hack ’em. Henry’s last minute lunge on Barton had all the hallmarks of a deliberate assault, if I don’t get the ball, my opponent isn’t getting up. After doing a couple last year, it’s safe to say Henry IS that kind of player, slow, dangerous and thuggish. Ashley Cole on Chicarito, not a genuine attempt to injure, just a fantastically bad challenge. Charlie Adam on Parker, let’s just say, like Kevin Davies, the boy has plenty of previous. Once again the Prem has to decide whether it wants to preserve it’s archaic ‘manly’ regime of dangerous tackling or if it would like to protect talented players. I’ll go with the good players.

Is Rebuilding A Two Year Cycle (Minimum)?

Man U aside, who appear to be in a constant process of successful rebuilding (and by the way the £17 million they spent on recruiting ‘fourth place’ defender Phil Jones is starting to look like the deal of the season), it appears to go like this.
Three years ago Spurs were lying in the relegation spots with two points from eight games, last season Uncle Wroy’s Liverpool got off to a shocker after Benitez had led them out of the top four, before the club changed hands and Kenny completed his putsch, now Arsenal are having that early season free fall feeling (having spent large parts of the end of last season practicing and having lost their two key midfielders during the summer). The key question now is, can the team realistically recover to secure a top four finish or are they condemned to a two year rebuilding cycle?

The omens for Arsenal aren’t great. It appears that Spurs have only just completed their transition to genuine top four challengers, and while Liverpool one year on appear further along the restorative path than Arsenal, judging by their performance this weekend it’s not much further. Maybe it does take two entire seasons to turn things around.

Or maybe it’s simply the money. Is it any coincidence that Spurs’ best striker since Berbatov is being paid waaaaay more money than Spurs’ normal wage structure would allow as he’s being subsidised by Man City? Quality apparently does cost. How long before other key players like Modric want a piece of that?

Or maybe it’s more complicated, as Spurs finished fourth after almost two seasons of Redknapp, then faded a bit last season as the big cup had its effect. And despite being a year further along than Arsenal, Liverpool looked every bit as turgid, if not as defensively incompetent as North London’s finest.

Meanwhile Arsenal are still in that strange state of denial that precedes the ‘moment of clarity’ that catalyses genuine change. Arguably to follow the Man U constant revolution they should have turned the corner and acted TWO years ago, when it became clear that their defence wasn’t up to it and Vermaelen, even when fit, wasn’t enough on his own. Who knows, if they’d done that rather than spend the entire summer convincing Fabregas to stay another year, they might actually have won something.

The purchase of Koscielny and Squillaci, in addition to reinforcing the view that Wenger is reluctant to spend big or trust outside Ligue 1, simply confirms the view that success in French Ligue 1 is no longer any indication of Prem level success or even competence (which doesn’t bode well for either Chamakh or Gervinho). Certainly the days when Arsène could happily raid French clubs and expect immediate results have long since gone. Now they’re stuck with a defence that’s both slow and tactically incompetent, a midfield that’s just lost its two best players, while reinforcing poorly and an attack that looks largely toothless. Add to that zero morale and relegation form and you’ve got to be concerned. This is Arsène’s biggest challenge so far.

Whose Euro Draw Was best?

While Arsenal’s draw away to the German champions appeared to be the best bit of Eurobiz (you only had to see the reaction of the German side to their late equaliser to see how big a point they felt it was), on balance it has to be Man U’s point away to Benfica or ‘Appy ‘Arry’s draw away to POAK that stand out. Both played a ‘second’ team away, nicked a point, and most importantly won at the weekend, probably the single most important requirement of a successful Euro awayday.

The key to going through the Euro Group stage being to win at home without sacrificing your league performance as nine points will pretty much guarantee going through, albeit not necessarily as group winners. Playing the percentage game away from home and then winning in the Prem is the critical tactic. At the end of the season no one will care if you won all your group matches if you keep losing or drawing in the league and miss out on the big cup next season. The Inter games aside, who remembers Spurs’ group stage matches last season? Who remembers that Spurs aren’t in it this season?

And Next Year’s Champions League Teams Will Be

If last year is anything to go by, and here we should mention the obligatory “the past is no indication of the future” disclaimers, then next year’s Big Cup Boys will be Man U, Man City, Chelski and, er, Newcastle.

Yes, this time last year the top four at the end of week 5 was the top four at the end of the season, albeit in a different order. Indeed, the top five at the end of the week 5 was the top five at the end of the season. And, despite both Man U and Man City getting off to flyers, the points totals don’t look that different either. Which doesn’t bode well for Spurs, Liverpool or Arsenal. Unless they’re particularly fond of the Europa League.

A Great Weekend’s Football

After all the malarkey with the transfer window and the international week, it has been a pretty mucky start to the Prem, with just the odd game each week to keep us interested. Not any more. This weekend kicked off with the shock of the week, if indeed you can call Arsenal throwing away a lead a shock (or even an upset) any more, and just blew up from there.

Sunday was a genuinely outstanding football day. Spurs’ demolition of Liverpool was the Prem at its best, pace and ability crushing a static defence with no midfield, while Man U’s match with Chelski was one of the most entertaining Big Four clashes for a long time. It’s been a while since any top English team has had the balls to simply go at Man U at Old Trafford. And on another day Chelski could easily have won.

Arsenal showed that it really is two steps forward six steps back (as the Gang of Four used to say). They started out really well against Blackburn, pressing them high up the pitch and denying them space and time on the ball. If this was their response to their poor run of form, it was outstanding. Their first goal, after 10 minutes of pressure, was fully deserved. They were undoubtedly in command and it just seemed a question of how many they were going to tap in. Then, inevitably, they collapsed. It was like Newcastle 2010-11 Redux. A single, sweet flick from Yakubu trundled its way between Mertesacker and Koscielny, past Szczesny and into the net. It was almost slow motion, yet there was nothing anyone could do. Two own goals, some appalling defending and a crazy last ten minutes of chance after chance for Arsenal meant it finished 4 – 3 to Blackburn. As Arséne put it, “we scored five goals and we still didn’t win”.

Saturday was also New Boys’ Day, with all the promoted teams winning. Swansea finally scored a goal. Then got so carried away they scored two more and did for a poor West Brom. Both will be scrapping it out in the relegation pit at the end of the season.

QPR have adapted fast. Normally I don’t have much time for their manager, but he’s far more enjoyable when he’s in charge of a team that can actually play. It’s tempting to say that they’ve taken on board both the best bits of Blackpool’s open, attacking play and the need for a resilient, experienced spine. Certainly they’ve been ruthless when it comes to replacing the Championship level back four that was so brutally cut to pieces in Week 1. And like Joey Barton, they go for the jugular. They were really unlucky not to win on Monday and they tore an average Wolves apart. Not quite up to the standards of Man U doing Arsenal, or Spurs doing Liverpool, but enough to make you wonder what this team could actually do. If they keep this up there’s no way they’ll be involved in the dogfight. Wolves, meanwhile, seem to have reverted to type, trundling out the ‘physical’ card after a couple of weeks of playing football.

Naarich, the final new boys, will find it much harder. Yes they won, beating a very poor Bolton side, but their style of play is still very much Championship. Their tackling is agricultural at best, often involving no more than charging into people, and they haven’t adapted well to the speed and mobility of the Prem. It’s no coincidence that in five matches they’ve conceded five penalties, and I wince every time I see the challenge on Klasnic or the one on Drogba earlier this season, where a Naarich player simply assaults them in midair. Guaranteed relegation fodder. Bolton, top of the league earlier this season, look thoroughly poor.

Everton celebrated, if that’s the word, their offloading of Arteta to Arsenal by caning Wigan. Usually Everton are asleep until November at the earliest. This time, they seem to have woken up at the start of the season. Unusually, given they really haven’t had any money to spend, it feels as if they have refreshed the squad and they now seem almost revoltingly perky. New boy Drenthe has the body of Ballotelli, but has somehow married it to an actual brain.

Sadly Saturday wasn’t all excitement as Newcastle took their ‘draw away from home’ mentality to Villa. And they duly ran out 1 all drawers in a match of scant excitement or indeed interest. Still, they’re the ones in the Big Cup place, so yar boo sucks to anyone who complains.

Sunday was the day though. All of the top four playing, with Man U facing Chelski in the first big clash of the season, with an aperitif of Spurs v Liverpool and a side dish of Fulham hosting Man City. Oh and Stoke, the final member of the Big Four, going to winless Man U Old Boys.

Spurs have flattered to deceive before, but they seem to reserve their best performances for the big(ish) teams. Think of their match last season at home to Inter, where they simply ran at the Italians. For 90 minutes. Spurs were out of the blocks and one up before Liverpool even made it into their half. They ruled the midfield, dictated the game and only won by 4 because it was clear they’d stepped down a gear after about an hour when it was clear that Liverpool were no threat. In the same way that Man City totally tore Spurs apart in week 3, so Spurs laid into Liverpool.

It was one of those games where everything one team does went right and everything the opposing team tries (if you can call what Liverpool did trying), fails. Both of Spurs’ new boys, Parker and Adebayor, were fantastic, while none of Liverpool’s new signings seem to have made the journey down from the North. Carroll continues to fail to live up to his reputation, Adam was ponderous enough to be sent off, Downing had his usual one good foray upstream before vanishing, even Suarez looked irritated and off-form. And if £20 million man Jordan Henderson was on the pitch he must have been in hiding, because he never touched the ball. Easily the worst Liverpool performance in years, made more worrying by the fact that this was a ‘strong’ Liverpool team beaten by pace and midfield dominance.

Man U then cranked things up a notch by letting Chelski come at them, while somehow contriving to be 3 – 0 up at half time. Once again the scoreline and the match stats fail to tell the whole story. Chelski created chance after chance and only a profligacy in front of goal and some great defensive play kept Chelski at nil. It wasn’t that Man U were particularly dominant at any point, more that, like Spurs, everything they touched turned to goals. Even when Chelski’s defence went all Arsenal in its incompetence, Man U didn’t look as if they were really in charge.

The second half was more a tale of amazing misses than it was of a great goal by Torres and a stirring comeback by the Blues. First, Rooney missed a penalty, sliding on the turf and ballooning the ball John Terry-like over the bar, then Torres did the hard bit, latching onto a through ball and rounding the keeper, before amazingly putting the ball wide of an open goal.

The match reinforced two things. First, this Chelski side is genuinely threatening, something it hasn’t been since about this time last season. If Villas-Boas builds on this, he will have something special on his hands. Second, this Man U side is starting to look exceptional. In contrast to last year, where they looked dull, but managed to scrape wins and draws together, this group of players looks like a real team and plays with both all the skill and all the luck. Unless they implode even more spectacularly than Chelski did last season I can’t see anyone in the Prem matching them.

Man City have begun to hit the wall so beloved of teams in the Big Cup. And while a draw at home to Italian high flyers Napoli might not be a total disaster, it puts them under pressure in a group that was always going to be harsh. And drawing a game away to not-quiet-so-high flying Fulham simply reinforces the sense of bad week anti-climax. For the first time this season it felt like David Silva wasn’t in total control of the midfield, while Nasri put in another one of his ‘phoner’ performances and the defence looked somewhat shaky. Still a good point for Fulham.

If City were feeling the effects of a Euro tie at home, pity poor Stoke, who’d had to travel to the Ukraine (and back) to play Dynamo Kiev. They clearly hadn’t quiet made it back to Man U Old Boys although all the players bodies were apparently on the pitch. And they were taken apart by the Old Boys, who managed to put 4 past a defence that had previously only conceded a single goal. Admittedly most of the goals were unlucky scuffers that seemed to slip through the massed ranks of Stoke players, but it was a pretty poor performance from both sides.

Plus Ça Change Corner

Everything changes. Apparently.

  • Huth – booked. At last.
  • Arsenal – still the worst defence in the Prem, still the worst disciplinary record, but managed to keep all 11 players on the pitch (again)
  • Cattermole – benched
  • Henderson – anonymous.

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