So it was a dramatic set of fixtures yesterday in the Premier League, and some interesting news coming out of the papers this morning. Despite his side's 4 - 0 thumping of West Ham yesterday, there is still talk that the Zombie could be thrown out at the end of the season, with several key players stating they want to leave if the current regime stays in place. Joe Cole, Andriy Shevchenko, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Ricardo Carvalho are the unhappy bunnies at the club, with Sheva being the most likely to leave seeing as he went home on AC Milan's team bus when he watched the Italians played Arsenal, a move which probably drove the Zombie up the wall. I've got to admit, the list of people that want to leave looks like a roll-call of Chelsea's best and brightest, and if they really want to leave - Lampard has been making noises for months about joining up with Mourinho at Barca if he takes over in the summer - then I think Grant will be sacrificed before Abramovich allows that to happen. Steve Sidwell and a pushing-40 Claude Makelele does not a Premiership-winning midfield make, so Roubles Roman has quite an easy decision on his hands: remove the head or destroy the brain.
Other regimes going wrong in the Premier League include Newcastle, where it's taken just six games for Magpies chairman Chris Mort to give King Kev the dreaded vote of confidence. The city is obviously disappointed because they were under the impression that the Geordie Messiah would work his magic and they'd be grabbing thumping 4 - 0 wins every week and challenging for the Champions League instead of being at serious genuine risk of being plunged into a relegation battle if their game with Liverpool next week goes awry. My prediction is King Kev won't last much longer. I can't see him still being boss at Christmas given his track record of walking away when things go wrong, and even if he is, the way he managed Man City when he was there suggests he is totally out of his depth in the Premiership, so he won't be allowed much of a stay by Mort and co if things get much worse.
The sad part of that is Keegan is a great personality and an asset to football, he just isn't a very good manager. He'd be pretty good in the Championship, but his massive ego won't allow that which is why when he was shown the door by Man City he went and set up a 'soccer circus' in Scotland rather than suffer the indignity of doing anything outside the top flight. Oh well, put your money on him being out inside the year, folks. You heard it here first.
Anyway, on to the actual games. Chelsea, as previously mentioned, gave West Ham a 4 - 0 thrashing to strike back against rumours that they had lost momentum in the wake of the Carling Cup final defeat to Spurs. West Ham old boys Frank Lampard and Joe Cole got on the scoresheet as well as Michael Ballack and Cashley, but the biggest cheer of the game was reserved for when Big Fat Frank got himself a straight red for pushing Luis Boa Morte, which even I admit was a bit harsh on the slap-faced tosser. I wouldn't be surprised if Boa Morte got punished later in the week for his surrepitous kick on the Chelsea man that led up to it, but the gentle handbags that followed in no way deserved a red card. Avram Grant got his revenge on the media for their slating of him last week and, in all honesty, the Blues did completely dominate West Ham and probably could have scored more, even with 10 men. Arsenal's visit to Manchester United late on in the run-in now looks like Chelsea's most important fixture, and they aren't even in it; if they draw, Chelsea could easily overhaul one or both of them in the title race. It's all hotting up now.
Some of that heat is coming from the squealing brakes of Arsenal as they try to slam on the anchors in a bid to halt the terrible vein of form they're on. It's a testament to how well Arsenal have performed all season that two draws in a row is tantamount to terrible form, but the fact remains that their lead has gone from 5 points to 1 point inside a fortnight and they still have Manchester United and Chelsea to play; teams who, on the evidence of their 1 - 1 draw with Villa, will completely wipe the floor with them. The game was scrappy and Villa deserved more than a draw in all honesty, but it all balances out; Arsenal deserved to win this week and didn't, and this week they deserved to lose. With full backs camped constantly in the opponent's half, no real wingers to track back and two central midfielders (Abou Diaby and Aliaksandr Hleb, who might play wide right for Arsenal but never has for previous clubs) playing out wide, Arsenal had absolutely no answer for Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor bombing down the flanks every time Villa got the ball, and with Phillipe Senderos pulling off the finish of his career into the wrong net midway through the first half, it was always going to be an uphill struggle, and NIcklas Bendtner's scrappy finish in the 5th minute of injury time salvaged a point for an undeserving Arsenal team that's going to have to spend every penny of Arsene Wenger's rumoured £70m transfer kitty next season to have any chance of doing what they've done again, but better. First on the shopping list should be two proper wingers, a defensive full-back, a central defender, a goalkeeper and a striker.
The most interesting thing about the match, however, was Sir Alex commenting after his side's game with Fulham that Arsenal scored in the last minute because they were "typical seven minutes of injury time Arsenal". Now, I'm not defending Arsenal's tendency to roll around a little bit more than neccessary, but if there's one manager and one team that has no right to criticise the amount of injury time another team gets, it's Sir Alex and Manchester United, who throughout the late 90s and early 2000s routinely were given as much injury time as necessary for them to score, only for the whistle to go seconds after the restart, meaning they're probably the number one reason behind those electronic boards they have now; definately the number one reason why the boards don't have enough space for 'Play until Man United don't lose'. Maybe Sir Alex has the first signs of dementia? We can only hope.
His team's performance against Fulham, however, can't be faulted. 3 - 0 at a canter and now within one point of Arsenal and Premiership top spot. That said, in current form, I'm pretty sure the rabble I kick a ball about with on a friday could turn up the following day and give Roy Hodgson's side a good thrashing, so perhaps that isn't saying a great deal. There isn't much to say about the match, it was dull and it was more the sheer gulf in class rather than the skill of Manchester United that led to the goals, and it heaped evidence on the pile that Fulham Football Club are not long for this division. Roy Hodgson's appointment was a mistake. He clearly doesn't 'get' English football which is why he buggered off to manage half of Scandinavia in the first place, and his signings seem more than a little illogical - Hangeland is a good player, but other than that it's just a smattering of Norweigans and Finns that have never seen a Premiership ball kicked in anger, which is not the right sort of players to be bringing in for a relegation dogfight.
The signing of Jari Litmanen was particularly odd, with the player who turns 38 later this year and has barely managed 30 games for his last 3 clubs - which happen to be those footballing powerhouses of FC Lahti, Hansa Rostock and Malmo FF - and had to be sent home to Finland because of a suspected heart attack last month being ostensibly signed as a targetman. Why did they need a targetman when they have one of the most experienced and successful lower-Premiership targetmen in the league in Brian McBride? They also had Shefki Kuqi, who is younger and better than a geriatric Litmanen who was never a success in the Premiership even when he was young and fit at Liverpool. Fulham for the drop. Sorry, Fulham fans.
It could also be Newcastle for the drop if their form - and their luck - continues in this current vein. Michael 'worlds greatest striker' Owen squandered at least half a dozen gilt-edged chances and generally showed the form that means he shouldn't be allowed a ticket to see the game, let alone a place in the squad for England's friendly with France later this month (although what are the odds that he'll still be in it, just because he's Michael Owen? - Ed), and the rest of the team had a horrible turn of bad luck to wind up losing 1 - 0 in the final minute to a Matt Derbyshire goal, which clipped over Steve Harper, who's attempted save would have given crocked Shay Given no nightmares about his place, and nestled in the back of the net about four seconds before the end of the game. The Geordies cannot buy a win lately and, as I mentioned above, Kevin Keegan has already been given the dreaded vote of confidence by Chris Mort. He complains about not being able to bring in his own players and having to make do with what he's got, but what he's got includes Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins, James Milner, Mark Viduka, Charles N'Zogbia and so many more - if you can't win games, or even draw games on recent form, with players of that quality, you really do have to look at yourself for someone to blame. Defeat at Liverpool next time out - which is a bit of an unknown quality really, I reckon it will go 3 - 0 one way or the other, although nobody could tell you which - could see Newcastle sucked into a relegation dogfight, especially if the other teams below them start getting their act together.
Talking of lower Premiership teams getting their act together, Birmingham showed that their fluke draw with Arsenal last week wasn't undeserved flattery by thumping 4 past Spurs in a 4 - 1 thrashing. Tottenham played like their season ended after the Carling Cup and might as well have not turned up as Mikel Forssell scored a hattrick past them for his first treble in English football and Seb Larsson scored the other, as Spurs returned to the sort of form that got Martin Jol the boot. Obviously that's not going to happen to Juande Ramos because up until now they have played exceptionally well under the Spaniard, but perhaps his reputation as a cup manager extends a little too far, as now Spurs have a cup under their belts they were playing like there was nothing worth playing for. Fair play to Alex McLeish, I'm happy for Birmingham after the way their supporters clapped Eduardo from the pitch last week and they deserved this victory, but it might have been a different story if Spurs had actually bothered to play.
Two more teams that didn't bother to play were Sunderland and Derby, who fizzled out into a 0 - 0 draw that was one of the most boring games of the season in an indictment of Roy Keane's ability as a Premiership manager. It has become an embarrassment if your team manages to hand any points to Derby in this league, with the Rams now having picked up a grand total of 8 points all season, but Sunderland showed no real bite or desire to take all 3 points from this encounter. Alright, Michael Chopra's goal was clearly onside and should have stood, but against the team that are odds-on favourites for the title of 'Worst Team in Premiership History', you should be able to come out of a game, any game, with more than just a good excuse. Derby were limp and dull as boiled cabbage, but Sunderland weren't much more exciting in a game that I admit I didn't see much of, because even the highlights put me to sleep. Derby are down, and I don't know about Sunderland, but if they can't beat Derby, there is a problem, especially with other teams starting to pick up.
Teams like Reading, for instance, who managed to battle to a 1 - 0 win over Middlesbrough with a deserved and ferverently-celebrated goal from James Harper. With no goals from their strikers in 2008, and the only goals at all in 2008 as far as I remember being Harper's goal yesterday and Nicky Shorey's last week, it was looking pretty grim for Steve Coppell, who's 8 straight defeats actually gave him reason for the glum expression he seems to wear whatever his team have done, but leave it to Boro to hand a struggling team a win. The consistently inconsistent element of the north east football contingent might be doing a great service to English football, with 8 of their 16-man squad being old-style apprentices born within a pint jug's throw of the Riverside, but it evidently doesn't win games. Reading looked for a while to be the team likely to be the third to go down with Fulham and Derby, but they're now back in the fight which includes all the teams up to and including Boro who, with the way results are going and the way the table stands, are only a couple of bad results away from being sucked right into the relegation battle, despite being ostensibly lower mid table.
Speaking of lower mid table, it's where Wigan are and, on the basis of this performance, where Manchester City should be. Booed from the field after the final whistle and struggling to have their strikers score goals, Thaksin Shinawatra's bankrolled team looked like the Man City of old, with Elano still worryingly out of form and no consistent strikers to speak of - protracted transfer signing Benjani Mwaruwari having gone back to his old self as well. Manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has asked his chairman to spend like Roubles Roman in a bid to get City on par with their Manchester rivals, and it looks like he needs to as, for all the money they've already spent, I could pick holes in their team all day long; Michael Ball isn't good enough for a team challenging for Europe, nor is Darius Vassell. Elano is a great player but if he's too tired to play after half a match, you need someone on the bench who can come on and have at least half the impact, and Caicedo isn't that, while their array of strikers wouldn't look out of place at Derby. Money needs to be spent, or Manchester City might be stuck as perennial challengers, not much further up than they were before Shinawatra's arrival. An ambitious billionaire is going to want more than the occasional UEFA Cup qualification run for his investment, but if he wants that, he's going to have to reach into his pocket some more.
Those are all the games that played yesterday, while today Bolton hope to match Reading's forward accelleration away from the drop zone as they face Liverpool in a match that, as with all games played against the red half of Merseyside lately, really could go either way, while the blue half of Merseyside face Portsmouth in what probably looks like being the match of the weekend, and will be a real decider in who gets into Europe, and in what competition. My money is on Portsmouth winning, but Everton are on form so you can't discount them. I hope they don't get nervous and fizzle out as it promises to be a cracker.
I'll be back later with the reviews of those games and the proper news from the real world.
Goodnight.
Other regimes going wrong in the Premier League include Newcastle, where it's taken just six games for Magpies chairman Chris Mort to give King Kev the dreaded vote of confidence. The city is obviously disappointed because they were under the impression that the Geordie Messiah would work his magic and they'd be grabbing thumping 4 - 0 wins every week and challenging for the Champions League instead of being at serious genuine risk of being plunged into a relegation battle if their game with Liverpool next week goes awry. My prediction is King Kev won't last much longer. I can't see him still being boss at Christmas given his track record of walking away when things go wrong, and even if he is, the way he managed Man City when he was there suggests he is totally out of his depth in the Premiership, so he won't be allowed much of a stay by Mort and co if things get much worse.
The sad part of that is Keegan is a great personality and an asset to football, he just isn't a very good manager. He'd be pretty good in the Championship, but his massive ego won't allow that which is why when he was shown the door by Man City he went and set up a 'soccer circus' in Scotland rather than suffer the indignity of doing anything outside the top flight. Oh well, put your money on him being out inside the year, folks. You heard it here first.
Anyway, on to the actual games. Chelsea, as previously mentioned, gave West Ham a 4 - 0 thrashing to strike back against rumours that they had lost momentum in the wake of the Carling Cup final defeat to Spurs. West Ham old boys Frank Lampard and Joe Cole got on the scoresheet as well as Michael Ballack and Cashley, but the biggest cheer of the game was reserved for when Big Fat Frank got himself a straight red for pushing Luis Boa Morte, which even I admit was a bit harsh on the slap-faced tosser. I wouldn't be surprised if Boa Morte got punished later in the week for his surrepitous kick on the Chelsea man that led up to it, but the gentle handbags that followed in no way deserved a red card. Avram Grant got his revenge on the media for their slating of him last week and, in all honesty, the Blues did completely dominate West Ham and probably could have scored more, even with 10 men. Arsenal's visit to Manchester United late on in the run-in now looks like Chelsea's most important fixture, and they aren't even in it; if they draw, Chelsea could easily overhaul one or both of them in the title race. It's all hotting up now.
Some of that heat is coming from the squealing brakes of Arsenal as they try to slam on the anchors in a bid to halt the terrible vein of form they're on. It's a testament to how well Arsenal have performed all season that two draws in a row is tantamount to terrible form, but the fact remains that their lead has gone from 5 points to 1 point inside a fortnight and they still have Manchester United and Chelsea to play; teams who, on the evidence of their 1 - 1 draw with Villa, will completely wipe the floor with them. The game was scrappy and Villa deserved more than a draw in all honesty, but it all balances out; Arsenal deserved to win this week and didn't, and this week they deserved to lose. With full backs camped constantly in the opponent's half, no real wingers to track back and two central midfielders (Abou Diaby and Aliaksandr Hleb, who might play wide right for Arsenal but never has for previous clubs) playing out wide, Arsenal had absolutely no answer for Ashley Young and Gabriel Agbonlahor bombing down the flanks every time Villa got the ball, and with Phillipe Senderos pulling off the finish of his career into the wrong net midway through the first half, it was always going to be an uphill struggle, and NIcklas Bendtner's scrappy finish in the 5th minute of injury time salvaged a point for an undeserving Arsenal team that's going to have to spend every penny of Arsene Wenger's rumoured £70m transfer kitty next season to have any chance of doing what they've done again, but better. First on the shopping list should be two proper wingers, a defensive full-back, a central defender, a goalkeeper and a striker.
The most interesting thing about the match, however, was Sir Alex commenting after his side's game with Fulham that Arsenal scored in the last minute because they were "typical seven minutes of injury time Arsenal". Now, I'm not defending Arsenal's tendency to roll around a little bit more than neccessary, but if there's one manager and one team that has no right to criticise the amount of injury time another team gets, it's Sir Alex and Manchester United, who throughout the late 90s and early 2000s routinely were given as much injury time as necessary for them to score, only for the whistle to go seconds after the restart, meaning they're probably the number one reason behind those electronic boards they have now; definately the number one reason why the boards don't have enough space for 'Play until Man United don't lose'. Maybe Sir Alex has the first signs of dementia? We can only hope.
His team's performance against Fulham, however, can't be faulted. 3 - 0 at a canter and now within one point of Arsenal and Premiership top spot. That said, in current form, I'm pretty sure the rabble I kick a ball about with on a friday could turn up the following day and give Roy Hodgson's side a good thrashing, so perhaps that isn't saying a great deal. There isn't much to say about the match, it was dull and it was more the sheer gulf in class rather than the skill of Manchester United that led to the goals, and it heaped evidence on the pile that Fulham Football Club are not long for this division. Roy Hodgson's appointment was a mistake. He clearly doesn't 'get' English football which is why he buggered off to manage half of Scandinavia in the first place, and his signings seem more than a little illogical - Hangeland is a good player, but other than that it's just a smattering of Norweigans and Finns that have never seen a Premiership ball kicked in anger, which is not the right sort of players to be bringing in for a relegation dogfight.
The signing of Jari Litmanen was particularly odd, with the player who turns 38 later this year and has barely managed 30 games for his last 3 clubs - which happen to be those footballing powerhouses of FC Lahti, Hansa Rostock and Malmo FF - and had to be sent home to Finland because of a suspected heart attack last month being ostensibly signed as a targetman. Why did they need a targetman when they have one of the most experienced and successful lower-Premiership targetmen in the league in Brian McBride? They also had Shefki Kuqi, who is younger and better than a geriatric Litmanen who was never a success in the Premiership even when he was young and fit at Liverpool. Fulham for the drop. Sorry, Fulham fans.
It could also be Newcastle for the drop if their form - and their luck - continues in this current vein. Michael 'worlds greatest striker' Owen squandered at least half a dozen gilt-edged chances and generally showed the form that means he shouldn't be allowed a ticket to see the game, let alone a place in the squad for England's friendly with France later this month (although what are the odds that he'll still be in it, just because he's Michael Owen? - Ed), and the rest of the team had a horrible turn of bad luck to wind up losing 1 - 0 in the final minute to a Matt Derbyshire goal, which clipped over Steve Harper, who's attempted save would have given crocked Shay Given no nightmares about his place, and nestled in the back of the net about four seconds before the end of the game. The Geordies cannot buy a win lately and, as I mentioned above, Kevin Keegan has already been given the dreaded vote of confidence by Chris Mort. He complains about not being able to bring in his own players and having to make do with what he's got, but what he's got includes Michael Owen, Obafemi Martins, James Milner, Mark Viduka, Charles N'Zogbia and so many more - if you can't win games, or even draw games on recent form, with players of that quality, you really do have to look at yourself for someone to blame. Defeat at Liverpool next time out - which is a bit of an unknown quality really, I reckon it will go 3 - 0 one way or the other, although nobody could tell you which - could see Newcastle sucked into a relegation dogfight, especially if the other teams below them start getting their act together.
Talking of lower Premiership teams getting their act together, Birmingham showed that their fluke draw with Arsenal last week wasn't undeserved flattery by thumping 4 past Spurs in a 4 - 1 thrashing. Tottenham played like their season ended after the Carling Cup and might as well have not turned up as Mikel Forssell scored a hattrick past them for his first treble in English football and Seb Larsson scored the other, as Spurs returned to the sort of form that got Martin Jol the boot. Obviously that's not going to happen to Juande Ramos because up until now they have played exceptionally well under the Spaniard, but perhaps his reputation as a cup manager extends a little too far, as now Spurs have a cup under their belts they were playing like there was nothing worth playing for. Fair play to Alex McLeish, I'm happy for Birmingham after the way their supporters clapped Eduardo from the pitch last week and they deserved this victory, but it might have been a different story if Spurs had actually bothered to play.
Two more teams that didn't bother to play were Sunderland and Derby, who fizzled out into a 0 - 0 draw that was one of the most boring games of the season in an indictment of Roy Keane's ability as a Premiership manager. It has become an embarrassment if your team manages to hand any points to Derby in this league, with the Rams now having picked up a grand total of 8 points all season, but Sunderland showed no real bite or desire to take all 3 points from this encounter. Alright, Michael Chopra's goal was clearly onside and should have stood, but against the team that are odds-on favourites for the title of 'Worst Team in Premiership History', you should be able to come out of a game, any game, with more than just a good excuse. Derby were limp and dull as boiled cabbage, but Sunderland weren't much more exciting in a game that I admit I didn't see much of, because even the highlights put me to sleep. Derby are down, and I don't know about Sunderland, but if they can't beat Derby, there is a problem, especially with other teams starting to pick up.
Teams like Reading, for instance, who managed to battle to a 1 - 0 win over Middlesbrough with a deserved and ferverently-celebrated goal from James Harper. With no goals from their strikers in 2008, and the only goals at all in 2008 as far as I remember being Harper's goal yesterday and Nicky Shorey's last week, it was looking pretty grim for Steve Coppell, who's 8 straight defeats actually gave him reason for the glum expression he seems to wear whatever his team have done, but leave it to Boro to hand a struggling team a win. The consistently inconsistent element of the north east football contingent might be doing a great service to English football, with 8 of their 16-man squad being old-style apprentices born within a pint jug's throw of the Riverside, but it evidently doesn't win games. Reading looked for a while to be the team likely to be the third to go down with Fulham and Derby, but they're now back in the fight which includes all the teams up to and including Boro who, with the way results are going and the way the table stands, are only a couple of bad results away from being sucked right into the relegation battle, despite being ostensibly lower mid table.
Speaking of lower mid table, it's where Wigan are and, on the basis of this performance, where Manchester City should be. Booed from the field after the final whistle and struggling to have their strikers score goals, Thaksin Shinawatra's bankrolled team looked like the Man City of old, with Elano still worryingly out of form and no consistent strikers to speak of - protracted transfer signing Benjani Mwaruwari having gone back to his old self as well. Manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has asked his chairman to spend like Roubles Roman in a bid to get City on par with their Manchester rivals, and it looks like he needs to as, for all the money they've already spent, I could pick holes in their team all day long; Michael Ball isn't good enough for a team challenging for Europe, nor is Darius Vassell. Elano is a great player but if he's too tired to play after half a match, you need someone on the bench who can come on and have at least half the impact, and Caicedo isn't that, while their array of strikers wouldn't look out of place at Derby. Money needs to be spent, or Manchester City might be stuck as perennial challengers, not much further up than they were before Shinawatra's arrival. An ambitious billionaire is going to want more than the occasional UEFA Cup qualification run for his investment, but if he wants that, he's going to have to reach into his pocket some more.
Those are all the games that played yesterday, while today Bolton hope to match Reading's forward accelleration away from the drop zone as they face Liverpool in a match that, as with all games played against the red half of Merseyside lately, really could go either way, while the blue half of Merseyside face Portsmouth in what probably looks like being the match of the weekend, and will be a real decider in who gets into Europe, and in what competition. My money is on Portsmouth winning, but Everton are on form so you can't discount them. I hope they don't get nervous and fizzle out as it promises to be a cracker.
I'll be back later with the reviews of those games and the proper news from the real world.
Goodnight.
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