goodfootballerornot

This season is looking to be one of the most dramatic for some time with only 8 points separating 20th from 7th and 6th to 3rd only 3 points apart.    A two horse race at the top but there’s a new runner in contention.

Aston Villa 0-0 Man Utd : Tight stuff and not too many real chances.  Villa lost an opportunity to beat a misfiring Man U who would have benefited from Rooney being part of the England squad as Capello seems to have a positive impact on his game and he really needs an upturn right now .

Chelsea 0-0 Newcastle: Newcastle parked the bus and would be much happier with the result than a baffled Scolari.  A better result for Toon.

Liverpool 0-0 Fulham:Liverpool were lucky as they played poor and Chelseas failure to get round the Newcastle bus was unexpected.  A wasted opportunity.

Man City 3-0 Arsenal : The good half of the Man City Schizoid team showed up to make Arsenals week end as bad as it could have without them having more injuries.  The praise heaped on the way Arsenal play thier football is looking extremely misguided.

Middlesbrough 1-3 Bolton: Undone by 2 early goals Borough never really got back into the game.  Bolton were Bolton.

Portsmouth 2-2 Hull: Unlucky for Porsmouth as they were on course for a deserved win until a rather unfortunate own goal.  Encouraging for Tony Adams who just needs a bit of luck to get the results coming in.

Stoke 1-0 West Brom:  A late winner for one of the two Championship sides playing.

All in all a case of missed opportunities and some fairly poor performances all round.

A great derby game, hell just a great game.  Bentlys blinding goal kicked off a roller coaster of a game which had Spurs unfairly down 4-2 until the 90th minute when Jenas scored a brilliant goal followed by a surprising equaliser.

Lots of talk of the naievity of the Arsenal squad and how age lost them the game, lets analyse that shall we;

Woolwich team

Almunia, Sagna, Silvestre, Gallas, Clichy, Walcott, Fabregas,
Denilson, Nasri, Van Persie, Adebayor

Average Age: 24.6

and here’s the spurs team

Gomes, Hutton, Corluka, Woodgate, Assou-Ekotto, Bentley, Modric,
Jenas, Huddlestone, Bale, Pavulychenko

Average age: 23.8.

So in fact the Spurs “Kids” played a good game and made a stunning late comeback.

Depressingly its business as usual for the Prem.  All of the “top 4″ won, with scary good score lines for Chelsea and Man U.

Boro were spanked in the second half and although Chelsea were fortunate for a couple of them Boro had no response apart from capitulation, loosing 5-0 at home is not very good is it. Man U also turned in a far superior second half performace than thier opponents, doing West Brom 4-0.  Everton should be rather annoyed at converting a 1-0 lead at half time to a 3-1 loss, but it does fit thier current form.  Liverpools run of playing badly and winning, with some luck in the form of a Wigan red card, continued with a late 3-2 win over Wigan.

The teams with a shout of breaking into the Champions League spots, Villa and Portsmouth, managed a fairly rubbish draw together, hard fought it might have been but a win is required for the top 4.  Villa who have looked at times like a top 4 team, until they got rolled over by Chelsea, will regret thier lack of scoring here I’m sure.   Jermaine Defoe showed why he won’t get a start for England, we have better play makers and more accurate shooters.   By the end of today Hull, of all teams – come on be honest your thinking the same, could be in the top four with a draw against West Ham and frankly they have a very good chance of doing so.

Later today Spurs play Stoke for Ramos job and anything other than a win must spell the end for him.  Loosing will leave Spurs deep in the shit with only 2 points, no confidence and the players wondering who will be managing them in a couple of weeks.

Yes the worst start for Spurs since records began, or close to it.  Jol was facing the sack at this point and in a better position too.  I guess after spannering so much on players for Ramos the board are stuck with him, for now.  Villa are looking good and could grab that mythical top four slot if they carry on this way.

Posibly the most significant win for Pool since the CL.  Deinied top of the table by a team who steamed past Man City despite being a man down.  Could be Chelseas year?   Very likely.

For Man U a fairly bad start and Chelsea next week.  Should be interesting.

Despite it only being a 2-0 win for England, with the obligatory boos at half time from the morons who seem to think we have some given right to win these games 10-0 and so should be at least 5 up first half, it was telling for me that Capello had to have a go at Rooney and Cole for not playing as they were told to. Rooney in particulalr doesnt seem to have a great brain, although Joe Cole is hardly GCSE material, but the fact that two of our top players can’t follow simple instructions probably explains quite a few things.

For years now it has been often suggested (and an observation of my own) that Lampard probably can’t play to a set of orders. Hes too fond of going forward and thus removing the support that Gerrard needs when going forward himself and then Gerrard who is the type of player to track all the way back to his own area finds himself even further out of position to compensate which is why players like Barry, Hargreaves and Carrick are deemed essential to England being successful.

That Rooney feels the need to play so deep is worrying and also makes a stark case for not playing him as a striker, if at all. If he and Gerrard are our best and most creative players then yes they should probably make up the attacking midfield and play one or even two proper strikers up front. Sure you have to drop Lampard but many people have been saying that for a long while now and it seems there is a good tactical reason for doing so.

Unfortunatly we wont get that situation I would think, which is a shame as it might pay off with Walcott & Cole wide.

Lets see what happens in the proper match, England do play better against better opponents and hopefully the players wont be too intimidated by the supposed England fans and past recent history and make a mess of it.  But lets remember Croatia are ranked fifth in the world, England fifteenth, a draw is a good result frankly.

I had high hopes for this match. Aston Villa had a fresh young team consisting mainly of English talent: Ashley Young, Gabi Ablon… Aglon… Abgon… anyways, um, James Milner, and um, Luke Young? Last season, they attacked with verve and played several high-scoring games. And Liverpool … not, on all accounts. Still, they are my team—and they have Torres, so …

And then there was the Barry Saga. Was he going to go, was he going to stay? Would Liverpool match Villa’s price, would Arsenal sneak in and snatch him from the under Rafa’s demonic goatee? Would Martin O’Neill pop a vein in his brain with all the blood pumping up to his head? It had all been very exciting for the first month or so. The following 4 months were less exciting, but still … would Barry show Liverpool just what they missed? Would Liverpool show Barry what HE missed by not getting into one of the top 4 teams, who challenge in the Champions League every season?

All these questions were running through my mind at the start of the match. Well, of course Arsenal hadn’t bothered paying 18 million quid for Barry. First of all, he doesn’t hail from some tiny African country, he’s not under 18, and he costs more than 3 pounds. But all the other questions were fresh in my mind as the game started.

And they were promptly answered. Aston Villa’s fresh young English talent were showing precious little freshness and talent. They didn’t attack much, and the little attacking they did they definitely didn’t do with verve. And Liverpool … well, Torres pulled a muscle after 20 minutes. Game over. With Torres, Rafa’s cunning plot of employing 8 defensive outfield players, isolating Keane on the left flank (in theory) and keeping just 1 up front might have some chance of working. After all, they nicked 3 points at Sunderland with that tactic. And somehow managed to rob Boro from a deserved point. But with Torres limping out, and young N’Gog limping in … well, you see my point.

Barry definitely showed Liverpool 18 million pounds would’ve been a tad on the high side, and Liverpool did their utmost to prove to him that he didn’t miss a thing by not joining them. If this was a match between one of the top 4 teams vs. one of the teams supposedly most likely to break into the top 4 then I’d say Hull and Stoke have nothing to fear.

I vaguely remember a shot on goal by one of the teams around the 43rd minute. Could’ve been Xabi Alonso from about 60 yards—and fair game, had Villa still had Carson between the posts, it might’ve crept in. As it was, Friedel had enough time to move his zimmer frame to the right position to make the save.

At half time I suddenly remembered I had some paint drying at home, so I left the pub certain that when I’d check the result later, I’d be punished for my folly. Both teams would return from the half-time bollicking with burst eardrums and blood dribbling down from their ear tunnels, and attack with the kind of verve that would make Keegan’s Newcastle from early 90s look like the Greek national side. Goals of the highest quality would fly in at both ends, and Liverpool would just nick the uber exciting second half, with Keane and Babel both scoring hat-tricks.

Instead, challenging all the laws of metaphysics—but working admirably towards the same goal—both teams had managed to maintain the same high level of tedium on the second half. It’s a game of two halves my hairy rear.

Ye gods that was dull. You have to expect this from games every now and then, especially with 2 managers not known for taking risks but as a spectacle it was poor, poor stuff. Villa had a prime opportunity to take Pool apart after their dodgy performances so far and blew it big style. Benetez will probably be happy enough, still didn’t loose and every point is valuable.

Or Lampard Pointless shot count 5, Darren Bent pointless headers forward 5.

Tottenham needed something from this game and could have nicked the full 3 points. Tottenham started well and thier early possetion lead was largely wasted with Bent on his own and support very slow in coming. Why Bent feels the need to head the ball onto a player who isnt there is beyond me, is he that dumb?
Bentlys role and play is strange to say the least. Given a dead ball position and some time he definatly is Beckham lite. But as a player whos supposed to offer attacking runs, well mostly the attacking runs he made started in his own half, and ended there mostly as well. He also seems to be a really lazy player, his tracking back was very poor, as is his ability to stay near the touchline, taking some needed width away. Tottenham lacked width, mainly due to his postioning, even when he was switched to the left second half.
Ramos needs to get the players to understand that if they are going to hoof it to Bent, or any lone striker, then they need to drag thier lardy arses up the field to back him up and the striker needs to keep hold of the ball or at least try and head it back to a teammate.

Chelseas defence is way too organised for Bent to have been a problem on his own, hell most defences are too good for him to be a threat on his own. The goal he scored came from a miskick/pass from Lampard, not some good Tottenham play. When Spurs did get forward in numbers they did play good footbal and look to produce some chances, although really they only looked top 4 good when Ohara, Huddleston and Lennon were on. Bale did some good runs and Lennon looked dangerous going at Cashley Cole who had been rather untroubled by Bently in the first half or by Des Santos after a half time switch round.

For Chelsea Deco had an off day and it was noticable that Ballack wasn’t there either. Anekla squanderd thier best chance right in front of goal and only Lampard produced a shot of note, forcing Gomes to full streatch to tip over a sublime chip. Which doesnt make up for all the wasted chances and pointless shots. I can see the temptation of making use of Essiens versatility in many postions, but the evidence is that Lampard should be on the bench and Essien and Deco should be the forward drive from the midfield, preferably with Ballack. The goal came from a corner which possibly shouldnt have been and Bent failing to clear a simple ball.

Late on there was an incident when Terry fouled Modric, standing his ground I believe its known as. However if hes not tackling then he should get out of the way, I really dislike the notion that you can just stand there and block an opponents movement. Defenders do this a lot when covering the ball to run out, for me if they arnt playing it they should be allowed to be nudged out of the way.

Whether Berbatov would have made a difference is of course irreleavnt, it is likely that he would have held the ball up better while waiting for the rather slow tottenham support to arrive. But if Bently can be coached into doing something better and give Huddleton and Lennon more time on it should give Tottenham the edge they need to turn “not bad performances” into wins.

In the end a good showing for Spurs who are looking like a good unit. After they Sell the pain in the arse that is Berbatv, they should move on with confidence now. Chelsea wasted some opportunities and the Lampard pointless shot count needs to be converted to Lampard decent attacking passes to a striker, how he gets so highly rated is beytond me. Scolari needs to sub Deco when hes playing pants and get Essien further forward more of the time. They are a good team, but not unbeatable by any means.

Arsenal 3-0 Newcastle

Bit of a spanking for Toon who failed to take any of thier scant chances. Barton got the welcome he deserved and Van Persie appears to have made it through without injury.

Bolton 0-0 West Brom

Yep, pretty dull stuff.

Everton 0-3 Portsmouth

Much better from Portsmouth, Everton need some better players.

Hull 0-5 Wigan

Surprise spanking for Hull, Wigin really arnt a five goal better side than them either. Still if it gives them a dose of reality they should be able to get some results like the first two games.

Midlesbrough 2-1 Stoke

Stoke did well for a team a man down after 36 mins but needed an own goal to keep them in it.

West Ham 4-1 Blackburn

Late goals gave the game a much better shine for West Ham than they deserved.