Why Di Maria’s Fee Is All About Timing

The problem with the English transfer window remaining open three weeks after the season starts is that clubs seem to begin their campaigns in a holding pattern.  Teams are stuck in a kind of limbo as journalists and fans speculate about that one last minute player who can transform their club’s fortunes.

That this is rarely successful isn’t the point but it’s tough to think of one recent example where a last minute big money addition has made that much of an impact.  Mesut Ozil maybe? 

It remains far more common to work the other way.  A glance at the highest fees ever paid by a British club will shortly have Di Maria placed just above Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll, hardly the most auspicious of company.

That Di Maria is a fantastic player isn’t really up for debate.  For their reported £60 million Man Utd are getting someone who scored 36 goals and provided 72 assists in 190 games for Real.  Last season despite being moved further back into midfield to make way for Gareth Bale he was still the top assist provider in Spain.

Why then does this seem like a panic buy?  Partly it’s the fee, the general rule of thumb is that if PSG are pulling out of negotiations then you’re probably overpaying.  What hasn’t helped is the sense that Man Utd have pushed for this deal so hard because of their first two non-performances.

Van Gaal himself admitted after the disappointing 1-1 with Sunderland that his team had most let themselves down with their lack of midfield invention.  Di Maria will undoubtedly help with this.  Fixing it by himself is something else.

Also, given that this isn’t a new problem (it’s been evident since some time before Ferguson left) surely something could have been done to remedy it earlier?

Chelsea had two glaring problems with their team last year, a lack of goals from central midfield and not being able to call on a reliable central striker.  They signed Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa early and both are firing and already look settled.

Last season Man City had a plan, signed players early and won the league.  Man Utd ended the transfer window by enduring the disappointment of failing to land Ander Herrera and actually signing Marouane Fellaini.  This is a simplification of course but when you buy as much as who you buy is certainly a factor in their success.

In Germany business is normally done amicably (Dortmund and Bayern aside) and early.  When your club is being run as frugally as possible this is how it works.  Transfer deadline day in Germany now consists of watching the chaos unfolding in England with amazement.

Man Utd fans may well blame Van Gaal not being available until after the World Cup for the delay and there’d be some truth in this.  The two deals concluded early (for Luke Shaw and Herrera) were originally lined up by David Moyes.  Given that the problem was as bad last season under a different manager surely the blame has to lie with Vice-Chairman Ed Woodward?

There’s a sense that for whatever reason Woodward can’t get deals done.  Last year’s window ended with the club fighting the impression that they were panic buying.  This one has done little to alter that impression.

The problem with everything to do with Di Maria’s arrival is that it sums up what Man Utd are being forced to do to catch up on past mistakes.  He may well end up being a massive success (although you could argue they’re still two top class midfielders short).  The timing of it hasn’t helped anyone make that possible.

Premier League Preview

The Premier League is back.  Which of course suggests that it ever really went away.  The best and worst thing about it is that it’s always there, hovering over us at all times like a commercially mega successful Death Star looming over Alderaan.  This year more than most. We’ve already had a Premier League flavoured World Cup (in the early stages anyway) and the now traditional Premier League summer world tour.  Now at least the proper stuff starts again.

Given that last season was the most unpredictable in living memory it’s unlikely to quite reach those heights this again time.  When you’re still marketing yourself as the best league in the world this is impossible to ignore.  The richest?  Yes.  The most unpredictable major league?  Probably.  But the best?  Luis Suarez’s departure has further underlined it can no longer claim to be the home of the best players, the most exciting is their current mission statement.  And there’s truth in this.  The money pouring in from TV has enabled the clubs from the middle down to strengthen.  And mercifully, last season at least, the top teams all had something wrong with them.  Realistically though there won’t be any surprises finishers in the top seven.

At the top Chelsea look the most like they’ve fixed last season’s mistakes with their summer transfers, bringing in Fabregas and Diego Costa to bring goals to last season’s best defensive record.  Mourinho finally has the type of striker he believes in, leaving a manager used to bringing in trophies little excuse not to do so.  No wonder they’re favourites.  Their closest challengers will be Man City, who’ve reacted to conceding too many last season by spending most of their UEFA mandated FFP limit on Eliaquim Mangala.  They’ll never have a problem scoring goals with the strike-force they have.  Much will rest on the fitness of Aguero.  If he stays fit for the season they should win.  After their first trophy in nine years Arsenal will be confident of adding to it.  Decent summer business is headlined by Alexis Sanchez arriving.  Their failing last season was against the other members of the top four.  Sanchez up front offers a far more mobile option than Giroud (for all his strengths) does.  This should be enough for them to offer a better bet away from home in the biggest games. The likelihood is they’ll fall just short again.

Liverpool will hope that they haven’t done a Spurs and wasted their Suarez windfall on average players (although it’s worth remembering that before the start of last season most experts were praising the way they’d spent the Bale money).  It’s tough to think of even one example of a club selling their best player and improving.  Add in the added demands of Champions League football and it could be struggle for them to maintain their place in the top four.  With pretty much the same team Everton will be nice to watch but fall just short.  Pochettino trying to make Spurs start performing anything other than Spurs will likely take longer than a season to take hold.

Man Utd under Van Gaal have been gifted an easyish set of opening fixtures (in contrast to their ones from last season, David Moyes’ conspiracy theorists, if there are any, must be livid).  Van Gaal’s revolutions elsewhere have tended to take their time settling in though.  With a new 3-4-1-2 formation to bed in and players for the Iron Tulip to fall out it’s likely to be a transitional season.  Unless any major transfers are brought in before the deadline passes a top four place will be the best they can hope for.

At the other end of the table Crystal Palace post-Pulis must surely have entered the relegation conversation, something you wouldn’t have claimed if Tony had stayed.  With no money for signings, an owner looking for anyone to sell to and a seventeenth place finish last season Villa look doomed.  Unless new assistant manager Roy Keane can get a response out of them they could finally do what they’ve been threatening to do for the last few seasons and drop down a division.  If a newly progressive West Ham decide that Big Sam isn’t fulfilling his mandate to provide attacking football and sack him you could make an argument for them doing the same.  West Brom are another that might be sleepwalking towards the drop.  Stoke have bought well.  Joining them in mid-table should be the north east clubs who disappointingly look more stable than they have in years.  Whether that remains the case at the end of the season is harder to predict.

Out of the promoted teams Burnley provide the most fairytale of the stories (lacking either a Thai billionaire or Harry Redknapp).  They are sensibly run, have stuck with the players that got them promoted and already look down.   QPR look better equipped to survive, just that bit more streetwise.  Their summer transfers have brought in valuable experience, and not just with Rio Ferdinand either, Mauricio Isla should be an excellent signing.  It used to be said that winning the play offs was the worst preparation for a season in the division above.  For the last three years the play off winners have stayed up while the champions have gone down.  Leicester look well equipped to try and stop this stat continuing.  They have pace throughout their team and almost more importantly money to spend in January if needed to try and buy their way out of trouble.

Will It Be La Decima Or La Primera?

On the eve of the first ever European Cup final to feature anything resembling a derby it’s astonishing the difference in outlook between the two teams.  Real win their tenth European Cup and a twelve year long wait will be over, a period of time when they’ve managed to break the world record transfer fee three times and average a manager a season.  Their European obsession will be temporarily sated and their season a success.  Losing would be impossible to bear.  For Atleti a season that has already delivered an impossible league title will always be savoured as one of their greatest ever.  Winning the cup would be an incredible bonus.  How Real deal with the pressure will be key.

The two games in the league this season were played at an unbelievable intensity, due on no small part to the desire and spirit coursing through Simeone’s Atletico team.  Real struggled to get anywhere near matching them in the game at the Bernabeu, succumbing 0-1 to a Diego Costa goal.  The 2-2 scoreline in the reverse fixture was pretty fair, Atleti’s desire cancelled out by Real’s class.  The game Real are probably trying to focus on least is last year’s Copa del Rey final where an Atletico team inspired by a world class performance from Thibaut Courtois beat them 2-1 in extra time.  If Atletico perform like that again Real will have to be on top of their game to get close.

The two big players missing from either side (presuming Diego Costa doesn’t make it) will probably just about balance themselves out.  Xabi Alonso will be a loss in midfield for Real, their alternate options there not supplying the same mix of intelligent screening and physical presence.  Costa will be a big hole to fill for Simeone, not only for his goals but for the talismanic qualities he brings at the top of their side.  Earlier in the season in the win against Real it was the willing runs he made into the channels either side of centre backs as much as his goal that was key to their win.

The games they’ve played in cup competitions this season have actually both gone Real’s way, winning 0-5 on aggregate on their way to winning the Copa del Rey.  The difference in both those games was that Real were able to get themselves in front.  When Real have to take the initiative Atletico can hurt them.  This Real team are at the most lethal on the break.  Ronaldo, Bale and Di Maria are set up to tear teams apart on the counter (although with an average of 58% possession in the league, above even Barcelona).  Benzema is the unsung hero in this, his movement allowing Ronaldo in particular to exploit his vacated space.  When Real are forced to try and dictate play Atletico tuck their two wider midfielders in and swarm all over whoever has possession in concentrated waves.  So far this season unless they score early Real haven’t shown they can live with their pressure.

If Atletico can do it not only will they have something to hold over Real forever but given the budgets of the teams involved Simeone would be responsible for one of the best seasons for any club side in history.  Glances are understandably already being drawn his way from boardrooms all over Europe.  This Atletico team is so inexorably tied up in his vision you’d worry about their future if he leaves.  Diego Costa is already off at the end of the season.  That’s fine, they’re used to losing a striker a season.  Courtois might well be harder to replace.  Whether they win or lose change is on its way.  You wouldn’t bet against Real getting rid of Ancelotti either way.  Lose and he’ll probably be sacked before the medals have been handed out.  And why would they consider changing the philosophy now?  It’s won them nine European Cups already. 

Suarez’s injury

The most refreshing thing about the build up to this World Cup from anyone with even just a cursory interest in the England team was the for once realistic assessment of our chances.  After a decent but fairly uninspiring qualifying and a group draw that had the chairman of the FA contemplating suicide it promised to be a refreshingly sedate approach to the tournament.  The first sign of this all going out the window was reached as news of Luis Suarez’s injury broke.  All of a sudden we had a chance as long as the Liverpool striker doesn’t make it.

Just to be clear any South American team should start as favourites against a team as notoriously timid in the heat as England.  Although FIFA’s rankings are anything but perfect Uruguay’s position of 5th suggests they might be able to put a decent team without Suarez, as does their status as current Copa America champions.  Plus there’s the fact that Suarez and Caviani in the same team tends to lead to one of them sacrificing themselves for the greater good (normally the positionally versatile and willing Caviani).  After a couple of poor games against Chelsea in the Champions League Caviani seems to be have given the old Zlatan Ibrahimovic role, that of a player with a great reputation abroad who the English press refuse to rate due to him not doing it against the Premier League’s finest.  The odds are more than healthy that this will come back to bite us.  It might have been better for our reputation if we were getting beaten by a full strength team.

U17 European Championship Win

At the end of a couple of weeks that started with a report into the apparently rotten state of the development of young English players what the hell are we supposed to make of the Under 17s winning the European Championship?  This isn’t a one off either, it’s the second we’ve won in four years, beating countries undoubtedly proud of their youth development in the finals of both, Spain in 2010, Holland this year.  Clearly then elite young English players have some talent.  Greg Dyke and the FA would say that it’s the next stage in their progression that we struggle with.  There would seem to be some truth in this.  From the 2010 final sides Conor Wickham started up front for England, Jese for Spain.  While Jese (before his injury) has had a chance this season to make a place for himself in the Real Madrid side Conor Wickham had two spells this season on loan to Championship sides before being given a chance to play for a Sunderland side not overburdened with strikers.  This season the number of English players given a debut by last year’s Premier League top four stood at 0 until Ryan Giggs began his 5 game run as temporary manager.  The talent would seem to be there.  The culture that results in them getting the chance to play less so.

West Ham’s Deal With The Devil

“It’s not if you win, it’s the way you win.” Johan Cruyff

“I don’t give a shite.” Sam Allardyce   

It’s always been an odd fit, Big Sam as West Ham boss, a Faustian contract the club signed at their lowest ebb.  Never mind about the aesthetics I’ll get you promoted he promised, and then delivered (just).  Now after two years of survival and little else the club is in a holding pattern while they wonder if just surviving is enough.

The most fascinating thing about the criticism of the rudimentary nature of his team’s playing style has been Allardyce’s utter distain for it.  To Big Sam any questioning of style over results seems completely alien.  It’s as if he can’t even get his head round the concept.  His job is determined solely through results, the table is there in black and white if anyone wants to question him.  And it says he’s done his job (his complaints about West Ham having an undeserved reputation for attacking, easy on the eye football have some truth to them, although just because they haven’t seen any for a while doesn’t mean they can’t expect to see their team at least attempt to do it).

Stoke of course were in this position a year ago.  Tony Pulis was delivering survival season on season with an increasingly expensively assembled squad and supporters progressively more frustrated by the style of play.  Mark Hughes was brought in with the brief of playing more attractive football and they’ve just finished the season with their highest ever points tally.  This isn’t to say it would work that way at West Ham.  It might just be as likely they’d plummet again without Big Sam’s sobering influence.  It’s a risk either way.

Looming in the background is the 2016 move to the refurbished Olympic Stadium.  When they’re calling that home they’ll have 54,000 seats to fill every week.  Tough to do with the functional football they’ve been playing, pretty much impossible to do outside of the Premier League.

Big Sam might rightly point out that his job thus far has just been to keep West Ham up, one he’s done comfortably.  He might get one more season to prove that he can do this while getting his team playing more football (in fairness to him at this point in his Bolton career he did bring more flair in, although this is relative).  More than likely he won’t care.

The most important factor in top level football is perception.  You’re either a club that’s going forwards or backwards.  The best you could argue for West Ham at the minute is that they’re a club standing still.  And with a stadium move to plan for and paying fans disgruntled that might just be enough to make a change.

Where Will Ivan Rakitic End Up?

For a player to make the step up from being ever so slightly under the radar to being considered world class can happen in a few ways.  They can have a season spent in the very best of form.  They can impose themselves on a competition.  Or they can come up with a defining moment of genius.  For Ivan Rakitic this contains all three:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyzToONTbNs

If there’s a finer example of a backheeled chapeu (which I’m reliably informed is what they’re called) then it’s not easy found on Youtube.  Among the many, many amazing things Rakitic is up to in that clip it’s that by the time the ball has left his boot on the backheel he’s already moving to go past Pepe, certain that the defender has been beaten.  The touch he takes on the run to leave it perfectly in his path isn’t bad either.  To do all that and unleash the perfect pass into Carlos Bacca’s path takes supernatural composure.  To do it at 1-1 against a flying Real Madrid side is almost beyond belief.

It’s been one of those years for Ivan.  12 goals and 10 assists only tell half the story of his importance to a Sevilla team rapidly becoming the fourth best in Spain (Bilbao fans will disagree with this).  Prior to this season he’s been criminally under the radar, even within his own club.  2013-14 has been his breakthrough album.  Before the season started £3 million would have apparently been enough to sign him.  Now his value must be ten times that. 

Part of his importance to his team is in his adaptability.  He can and has filled any position in midfield, although enjoys more influence when he plays central.  Although his most common position for Sevilla this season has been behind the striker his transfer value and probably long term future lies in his ability to operate as a deep lying playmaker.  With the current desire to have sitting midfielders be able to dictate play with their passing putting these players at a premium if he does move he’ll not be short of suitors. 

Rumours of him ending up at Real Madrid are hopefully based on the fact they’ve quite often not been shy about signing up players good enough to hurt them.  Given that playing for the national team his performance in tandem with Spain’s second best Croatian midfielder Luka Modric hasn’t always been successful it surely doesn’t make sense to recreate it at club level.  Outside of Los Blancos Rakitic would make sense for almost every other elite team on the planet.  Just in the Premier League he would walk into any of the Chelsea, Liverpool, Man Utd or Tottenham teams.  And he’d be at least as good as anyone at Man City or Arsenal.

Not that it’s a given he’ll be leaving Sevilla.  Even after being offered around at the start of this season its clear Sevilla realise what they have now.  He’s become far and away their most important player.  His wife and family are apparently very happy where they are.  It’s an exciting time for the club generally, they’re two games away from a Europa League final and hanging around for a possible crack at the Champions League would be apt.  What’s clear is that if he does leave that this time he won’t be undervalued.

Rage Against The Stream

There’s a lad I know, him and his group of mates share the log-in details for a streaming service offering flawless HD feeds of all Premier League matches.  One of them pays a PayPal account £4 per month for the privilege.  They’re all under instruction not to share the password with anyone, the logic being that the more people that access it the more likely it is to get shut down.  They know it will eventually though.  Just as they also know as soon as it is another one will pop right up to replace it.

That’s the world we’re living in.  And all it’ll take is for a host to base themselves in Sweden or one of the smaller island nations existing just for the privilege and there’ll end up being no practical way of shutting it down.  If things continue as they have been we’ll see the Pirate Bay of football streaming before too long.  If the history of the internet has taught us anything it’s that long term it will be pretty much impossible to stop the majority of people accessing supposedly copyrighted material.  And if football broadcasting has it’s that no matter how much you show people will watch it. 

The astonishing thing about the streaming debate is how little the powers that be seem to be doing to stop it.  Or perhaps more accurately how little they’re able to do.  On occasion you might see a press release when 30,000 streams get taken down in a year.  They might just be realising that in every stream they shut down there’s untold multitudes still up and at the fingertips of anyone with an internet connection.  In this they’re not only fighting against the future, they’re trying to hold back the present.

And that’s watching at home.  In pubs if anything it’s more engrained.  Irrespective of the complex verdict in the Portsmouth landlady trial if you want to watch any match this weekend odds are there’ll be a pub a short distance away showing it.  A couple of years ago my local used to tell you what games they had on with a nod and a wink.  Now they’ll be openly advertised in chalk on the sign outside. 

This, as with everything about modern football that we don’t particularly like, is the Premier League and Sky’s fault.  Thirty years ago they didn’t announce what game would have highlights featured on Match of the Day in the fear that no one would show up.  Now there’s at least four out of ten games shown in full each weekend.  It’s only going one way.

More than anything this is a symptom of a larger malaise.  There’s a generation of fans being lost to watching football live in this country.  The reasons for this are broad and complex but can mostly be attributed to cost.  With tickets so expensive is it really a surprise that the accepted way to follow your team at 3 o’clock on a Saturday is now to watch them via a foreign satellite stream in a pub.

The usual reason given for not allowing 3 o’clock live broadcasts on a Saturday is to protect lower league football, the idea being if fans could chose to watch Premier League games on TV then attendance down the leagues would suffer.  If this was true you would have expected to have seen a large drop in the last few years when streaming became widespread which simply isn’t happening. 

Of course the Germans are much more efficient.  Every match from the top two divisions is broadcast live on TV and at the same time their top division is the best attended in Europe.  What Germany also has a pricing structure and ethos built around attracting young fans to viewing matches live in its stadia.  If there’s no chance of stopping people streaming matches, and in a practical sense there’s not, surely it makes sense to offer the same service but regulated?  It shouldn’t be beyond copying what the Germans are doing to simultaneously bring more young fans through the gates while offering armchair fans the option to watch every Premier League game legally.  It shouldn’t but it probably is.

The unspoken criticism of this will be why with all the thudding near constant availability of modern football is even more needed.  This is a fair point.  But at some point in the last 20 years we crossed that particular Rubicon and kept on going forwards so we might as well keep going till the end now.  Rightly or wrongly a generation of fans (myself included) has grown up in a world where the next big match is a short walk to the pub away.  While protecting the atmosphere of the people lucky enough to be inside the stadium is important this shouldn’t preclude allowing fans to get more of what they’re used to getting.

The suspicion is that the authorities are happy enough to bask in the glow of the latest record breaking TV deal and not worry about what the future holds.  For all the signs of a breaking point being reached they can point to that as evidence of the system working.  In their attempts to deal with the issue of streaming so far they’ve resembled the music and movie industries in the early 00s, struggling to understand the scale of the challenge they faced as their business model eroded beneath them.  There is a chance they could embrace providing a platform to allow fans to watch any game live by 2015 to be included with the next round of TV bidding.  With so much money still being made through TV rights alone (News International paid £30 million to show mobile PL highlights for the next three years compared to a combined £3 billion plus from Sky and BT for TV rights) it’s unlikely that any change will be considered until those figures change considerably.  As football’s fan base ages it’s only a matter of time before they’re forced to act. The suspicion is they’ll have missed an opportunity by the time they do.

The Southampton Hipster Club

The Premier League is a desolate place for the football hipster.  Everything about it is just too damn.. mainstream.  Where’s the joy in pledging allegiance to Arsenal say when even your Mum knows who Mesut Ozil is?  What you need is a team just left of centre enough to make following them cool while not being in any danger of actually winning anything (and no, Arsenal don’t count).  For this, Southampton are the only choice.

They’re perfect really.  Their current identity is based around them developing their own players and a bright young manager who insists on a style of football based around pressing the opposition.  They’re like Dortmund but without the reduction in cachet that actually winning stuff brings.  They’re just on the edge of being too mainstream, like a band just before their song is used on a Vodaphone advert. 

Manuel Pochettino’s commitment to making Southampton the league’s coolest club even stretches to insisting on still using a post-match interpreter when he can obviously speak excellent English (as opposed to Pepe Mel, who instantly ruined his air of Spanish mystery by proving he’d learnt our language).  Manuel knows that nothing removes your carefully cultivated aloofness faster than looking like you’re trying too hard.

Southampton stand out in a Premier League increasingly measured in money first and football second with their focus on bringing young players through.  Football hipsters love both developing youth and getting to complain when said youth is sold early for a profit.  Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale, Alex Oxlaide-Chamberlain, Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana, James Ward-Prowse and Calum Chambers are just some of the players to have come through their rightly lauded academy in the last ten years.  This is good news.  Follow them and you can smugly recount how different your club is; we make players, we don’t buy them you can say.  Now that Barcelona have turned evil we’re the only bastions of club morals left.

Their playing style could have been designed with appealing to a better quality of fan in mind.  Possession football is so 2009, never mind Pep Guardiola and his Bayern side’s attempts to bring it back.  Pressing the ball when out of possession is what’s in now, winning it high up the field and counteracting quickly, distilling football down into a game of sprints.  To the level they do it they’re unique in the Premier League.  There’s only Chelsea who get close to their pressure on the ball and they tend to do it about twenty metres closer to their own goal line.  And who cares because they’re Chelsea.

There’s a real catch them while they’re here feel about them.  Bigger clubs are actively circling their talent.  Lallana is in line to be in the first team for England at the World Cup.  Luke Shaw apparently has to choose between Man Utd and Chelsea.  Hipsters should rush to follow them now, before they sell out and move to one of the big boys.

Following Southampton also allows you to ponder the bigger questions of football fandom, namely what is a modern football club actually for?  If it’s to win things then Pochettino’s decision to rest players from an entirely winnable 5^th Round FA Cup tie is indefensible.  If it’s to bring the kids through while finishing in the top half of the table then they’re golden.  You’ll be too busy coming across as cool and mysterious to care. 

Basically Southampton are really the only choice for a football hipster looking at English clubs.  And really isn’t all this following European teams becoming a bit passé?  Liking Dortmund was fine when no one had heard of Shinji Kagawa and Robert Lewandowski’s FIFA stats were stupidly low.  After the Champions League Final and people remembering the Bundesliga highlights isn’t it all a bit played?  Braver to pick the one English team cool enough then.  Unless Marcelo Bielsa ever gets a job over here.  Then hipsters worldwide will be frantically ordering shirts online before he even gets off the plane.

Christian Eriksen Central To Post-Sherwood Spurs

I think we all wanted Tim Sherwood to succeed at Spurs didn’t we?  What a shame it already looks doomed to failure.

Of the many mistakes he’s made since taking over; not seeing the point in holding midfielders, trying in vain to bring the gilet back, not standing by the side of the pitch when his team are losing, the worst must surely be shunting Christian Eriksen to the left.

Eriksen’s one of those players that it takes a while to appreciate just how good they are.  At first glance he doesn’t seem to have much that sets him apart, he’s not especially quick, isn’t that impressive physically and while technically accomplished isn’t hold your breath skilful.  What he does do better than almost anyone in his position is more often than not make the right decision.

The young Dane has been unquestionably the best signing of the seven brought in with the Gareth Bale money.  Even out on the left he’s been decent enough.  When he’s had his chance at ten either earlier in the season under AVB or on the odd occasion under Sherwood he at times has looked far and away Tottenham’s best player.  At 22 already with Champions League and International experience it’s frightening how good he could be.

He sums up a kind of Northern European footballing excellence does Christian, a no nonsense get the ball and pass it the place it most needs to go type of playmaker.  The importance of putting the ball where it most needs to go has been drilled into him from an early age, possibly as a result of the same type of futuristic advanced training area used by Ivan Drago in Rocky IV (which given that his footballing education was spent at Ajax can’t be too far away from reality).  At his best he takes the team where they need to go.

All of which makes you wonder why Sherwood is sticking him out of the on the left.  He’s not been doing too badly there (although he’s been caught out defensively a couple of times) it’s just that his potential to influence games has been so diminished.  When Tim took over and implemented a back to basics up and at them 4-4-2 it made sense to fit him in there, with two strikers already reducing control in midfield there’s no way you would get away with allowing him to drift.  Now though Spurs are set up in a formation with Erikson’s ideal position and still marginalising him.

And it’s not even as if the guy picked as a ten in his place is doing a decent job.  As a winger Nacer Chadli looks decent.  With a free role behind a striker he more often than not looks out of his depth.  Given the obviousness of swapping them I can only guess that this is Sherwood’s attempt at leftfield tactical flamboyance.  It’s enough to make you wonder just what game he’s watching from the stands.

This is just the most obvious part of Sherwood’s increasingly public breakdown.  White Hart Lane is increasingly looking like the setting for a recreation of Falling Down with Tim instead of Michael Douglas.  As shouts at everyone who’ll listen about how his players have lost their passion and that he’s been overcharged for a can of coke he must be aware that somewhere over his shoulder Daniel Levy is emailing Louie Van Gaal and telling him the job’s his if he wants it.  You’d have to think that the first thing he’d do when he takes over is put Eriksen back in the centre.

Van Persie And His Spaces

Never mind Moyes, are Man Utd better without Van Persie?

Van Persie’s absence through injury and a couple of decent Premier League performances in that time (out of three, Man City at home being the exception) have validated his complaints about other teammates running into his space on the pitch, albeit probably not in the way he thought. 

In his absence Man Utd have lined up in the same 4-2-3-1 formation that they would with him available, just with Rooney moving one position further forward to take his place as the main striker.  Whether this is now Rooney’s best position or not is a (lengthy) debate for another day.  What’s undeniable is in the three games without Van Persie in front of him Rooney has scored 4 goals, just under a third of his total for the season.  He can more than do the job there.  In an alternate footballing universe where Mourinho got his wish and Rooney had been playing for Chelsea this season this is undoubtedly the role that he had in mind for him.  Chelsea already had a squad stocked with tens.  They needed a striker.

With Rooney pushed forward Mata’s freed up from his position on the wing to come inside to undoubtedly his best position, floating behind the striker.  The difference in his performances in the two games he’s played there has been enormous (against City he was shifted out to the wing again to accommodate Tom Cleverly as an extra central midfielder).  He was the best player on the pitch against Villa, providing a goal and two assists.  More importantly he linked midfield and attack in a way that has been almost totally absent for the rest of the season.  Mata was also free to switch positions when required with Kagawa on the left (a position he regularly fills with distinction for Japan).  Rooney’s header against Villa is an illustration of this; Mata’s run through the middle draws defenders away from Rooney as Kagawa cuts in from the left to cross.  Without the movement and understanding from the three Rooney doesn’t score.

What Ferguson meant with the signing of Kagawa we’ll probably never know.  It’s fair to say that as the second biggest close season arrival (together with Van Persie) on what turned out to be his last ever summer in charge he was expecting more than watching him sit on the bench.  Taken together with him leaking Rooney’s transfer request it’s likely that Ferguson might even have planned for him to take Rooney’s place as the team’s ten.  Now though, with Mata signed and the three of them playing well together it looks like it should be a choice between Van Persie and Rooney rather than fitting them both in.

And it’s the lack of this that Van Persie was complaining about.  All season Man Utd have lacked cohesion more than anything.  The problem he’s got now is that in his absence Moyes has stumbled onto a solution.  Whether it should have taken this long to think about playing players in their preferred positions is just something else to beat a defenceless Moyes with.  He’s already tried to go more defensive against City (reverting to type and dropping Kagawa after a good performance) and seen it fail utterly.  You’d think for the sake of job preservation he’d stick with what was working.  And long term that could be bad news for Van Persie.

Even before this latest shift there’s been the odd piece of evidence that Man Utd have looked more threatening without him.  During his other injuries Van Persie’s place has normally been filled by Wellbeck, who has extra training or not done quite well.  When fit, and sometimes when not, Moyes has always found room for the Dutchman.  Given so far he’s shown an inability to make tough decisions it’s likely he’ll do the same when Van Persie returns.  To play Rooney and Van Persie together successfully has proven beyond him tactically so far.  It could well come down to picking one of them.  With his freshly minted £300,000 contract Rooney will be confident he would get the nod.  Van Persie brought attention to the problem early in the season.  It could be his bad lack that in his absence they’ve stumbled onto the solution.

But Where Will All The Glory Supporters Go?

English football used to be easy.  You played from August to May and at the end Man Utd won.  With that changing overnight (or close enough) who will the discerning glory supporter turn to now?

It’s the fans who decided to support Man Utd a year ago that I feel sorry for.  All those poor residents of Essex and Ireland and Asia and wherever the rest of the 500 million fans are based chose their team based on twenty years of unqualified success only to see it snatched from them.  Where will they turn now?

Across town is the probable answer.  Man City would be the logical choice, they’ve the money to be sure of being there or thereabouts for the foreseeable future and play a style of football just kamikaze enough to be able to claim you like them for aesthetic reasons.

Or there’s Chelsea.  For fans of mind games played loud enough to become essentially snarky white noise they’re irresistible.  And you can spend £40 million in a transfer window and still claim to be the underdogs.

It comes to something when Arsenal are viewed as the left field choice.  In a world where finishing third is viewed as underachievement the sensible glory hunter would surely balk at backing Arsenal’s boys?

The sad things is any Man Utd fan born from the early 80s onwards has never known anything like this.  They have no coping mechanism, no frame of reference.  A lifetime of being successful is all they’ve brought up to expect.

For the rest of us it’s amazing.  The delight in watching a formerly all-conquering team well and truly stack it is one of the best things about following football.  For Man Utd fans it’s terrible.  For everyone else it’s a dream come true.

If you’re watching the Bundesliga because the pressing is of a much higher standard and can’t understand why people are taking such delight in Man Utd’s failings you’re only half a football fan.  As only Germans can do they have their own word for this, schadenfreude or joy in someone else’s defeat (a word that could have been coined just for the rest of the country laughing at Bayern in the days when they used to implode). 

Not as much fun for Man Utd fans, glory hunting or not.  When the novelty wears off you’d imagine they’ll be left with a lot less than 500 million.  And what’ll gall them most is they’ll most probably turn their attentions across town.

Why The Bundesliga Is Already Over

With the Bundesliga about to return from a four week break you’d be hard-pressed to find a single person who believes that Bayern won’t again be champions.  And if this wasn’t bad enough they’ve managed to already destroy next year’s league by announcing the signing of Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski on a free at the end of this season.  The continued dominance of the Wintermeister (winter champions) is predicted by everyone and has now gotten to the point where serious questions are being asked about how much this is harming the league.

Bayern are back to their old ways, buying up their closest challengers best players whether they want them to or not.  Putting ‘strengthen yourself, weaken your rivals’ into practice as often as possible.  They’re back to behaving like 90s era Vince McMahon, buying everyone else’s talent with the express aim of ruining their challengers.  In Germany in the last couple of years they’ve gone from being a more attractive option for a player looking to get paid and win titles to the only option.  Next year’s title is as good as their already.

Don’t believe me?  Look at the evidence.  They’ve lost one game in the Bundesliga in a season and a half.  They’ve already had their two hardest games this season (Dortmund away and Leverkusen away) and came away with four points from them.  Before this season started Bayern had already taken Mario Gotze, Dortmund’s beating heart, the player they’d attributed more hope to than any other.  Now they’ve signed Lewandowski, just the kind of strong, technical, mobile and prolific striker needed to make Dortmund’s formation work and the player that will probably prove harder to replace than any other.  Given that last season with both players in their team Dortmund finished 26 points behind them it’s hard to imagine them turning it around by next year.

Dortmund of course were the team meant to stop this from happening.  That they’ve become a spent force already is the surprising thing.  After the shock of having Gotze smuggled away to Bavaria against their wishes they had a great close season.  They signed players that seemed to fit their template and system and integrated them well.  They kept the rest of their coveted players for at least one more season.  They had the best start to a season in their history.  And then they ran themselves into the ground.  One theory doing the rounds is that Jurgen Klopp’s hard pressing style (the first stat he checks for after the match is if his team has run further than the opposition) is to blame for the amount of injuries they’ve had to contend with.  What’s clear is that unlike Bayern they don’t have the squad to cope, especially now as an established Champion’s League contender.  With both first choice elevens out they would run Bayern close.  This season they played them with an entire back four absent and lost 0-3.  Seeing if they’ve managed to recuperate after the physical and mental break winter has given them will be fascinating.

This applies to Klopp as much as the players.  In recent months he’s looked like he might be undergoing a slow burn mental breakdown as the boys from Bavaria delight in seeing how far they can push him before he snaps.  At the minute he’s starting to look like Michael Douglas halfway through Falling Down, after abandoning his car in traffic and just before a Korean shopkeeper asks him to pay over the odds for a can of coke.  You fear for fourth officials if things don’t turn around soon.  Arresting the slide permanently rests on him performing another close season rescue job.  Losing Lewandowski is their customary one star player a year.  Any more are tempted away and the improbable really will become impossible.

Leverkusen must be worried.  The last time they had a team this decent Bayern promptly nicked their two best players (Michael Ballack and Ze Roberto from the legendary runners up team of 2001-02).  This vintage is improving faster than most would have expected but in truth are still some distance off living with Bayern.  Outside of a period of 90s era self-destruction it’s hard to see anyone unseating them.

The league wide headshaking over the extent of Bayern’s dominance has come just as the Bundesliga was finally ready for their big world tour.  Driving up undervalued overseas rights is the next logical step for a league on the up.  For this Bayern are both its biggest strength and weakness, especially when the Bundesliga is so associated with a level playing field.  Yes you can see the best team in Europe play weekly but as an overseas fan with no affinity to any club why would you bother watching a league where only one team would win?  Even in Spain there are two (three now with Atletico, a pointer to the kind of drive and luck with injuries that will be needed to even challenge).  The problem is as much about perception as anything.  Once everyone assumes that only one team can win it then that’s as much of a problem as it actually happening.

None of this is Bayern’s concern of course.  They would argue, quite rightly, that their success and profile brings attention outside Germany to a league that needs it.  And if we have anyone to blame for Bayern’s current excellence it’s Dortmund.  It was their two titles that drove Bayern to add their pressing and teamwork to their already formidable individual talents.  It’s the responsibility of the rest of the league to raise their efforts to reach up to Bayern, not to debate ways of trying to bring them down.  The question over whether any of them realistically can challenge Bayern long term mainly boils down to resources.  Financial fair play or not, when your richest club (Bayern) have twice the budget of the second richest (Dortmund) they’re likely to pull ahead of the rest.

Why Man Utd Not Qualifying For Europe Would Be Good For Them

There’s a freedom in failure, a licence to do what’s necessary to get back to success.  Long term it might just be best for Man Utd and David Moyes to properly experience it. 

The Glazers were granted an incredible gift after buying Man Utd when Alex Ferguson decided that his socialist background somehow didn’t mean he should object to the amount of debt placed on his football club (since the takeover close to a billion pounds has been paid out in fees and interest according to some estimates) and got on with the business of winning titles on a comparative shoestring.  This doesn’t bode well for David Moyes’ chances of carrying out the massive surgery on the squad needed to get them back to where they need to be.  With the Glazers’ history of doing just enough it’s easy to see a scenario where they sneak into fourth place and go through another transfer window failing to sign anyone of note.

Better then to fail completely, have a great big bush fire of a season.  Finish seventh and out of Europe completely.  Let the fans and media wail that the Empire of Old Trafford has reached its’ end.  Moyes can hold his six year contract in front of him like a shield and point out that the squad he inherited obviously wasn’t good enough.  With the fear of missing out on Champions League football for another season the Glazers would surely have to grant him the money his rebuilding needs.  Without the demands of Europe to worry about he could ship out the dead wood and replace it with fewer players of higher quality.  Going for the title the season after would be easier without the extra games, especially compared to nicking a Europa League spot and having to do the dreaded Thursday-Sunday schlep.  And it’s not like coming from seventh to win would be unprecedented.  In Italy Juventus’ current dominance was started from finishing seventh the season before their first league title.  Dortmund finished fifth then won the league twice and got to the Champions League final the year after.  They were both clubs in worse positions than Man Utd are now.  They used their failures as fuel for their revolutions.  Does anyone really think that Man Utd don’t have it in them to do the same?

The main question over whether this is possible has to be Moyes.  Dortmund and Juve had Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte respectively, coaches who are now seen as the equal of anyone in Europe.  When they took over they were seen as inexperienced and untested at the highest level, just like Moyes now.  After doing distinctly below average with the team he inherited from Ferguson Moyes should be given the chance to show what a Man Utd team built by him would look like.  Failing in his first season might perversely be his best chance of getting the chance to do it.

And does anyone really think that they’re ready to have a serious tilt at the Champions League anyway?  If Ferguson thought they were anywhere close he would have surely taken the chance to try and add his name to the list of managers to win it three times.  He looked at what was needed to turn the current squad into contenders and understandably decided he’d had enough.  The timing of it left Moyes with problems he had no chance of fixing right out of the gate, problems big enough to require a full scale rebuilding job, not a January top-up. 

Whether Moyes would get the opportunity to rebuild is anyone’s guess.  Man Utd made such a big deal of him being given time to build a legacy as Ferguson's anointed chosen one that it’s unlikely that they’d backtrack so completely now.  And to give the fans credit they’ve taken their first real taste of (mild) failure better than many would have predicted, with very few calling for Moyes to be given the boot.  Whether this good will extends to the Floridian billionaires who call the shots only time will tell.  It’s clear that taking the time and expense to float ten percent of the club on the New York Stock Exchange wasn’t with the intention of having the share price drop through the season often and low enough to make it onto the back pages.

Financially there should be no question that they could afford the hit of one season without Europe.  The commercial deals signed over the last ten years would be enough on their own to keep most Premier League clubs in the black.  And the lure of being Man Utd should be enough to attract high calibre players without being able to offer them Europe.  They would still be Man Utd.  The walls to Old Trafford would still stand.  They’d still be on TV every week.  Ferguson would still be in that odd position in the stands, just over Moyes shoulder.  Giggs would still be knocking about somewhere.  After twenty five years of not having to think about it, a season wasted might be the most worthwhile one they could have.

Just How Good Is Oscar?

After a blistering start to the season the answer has to be even better than we thought.

At the height of all the #freeJuanMata brouhaha Jose would most often deal with the questions over why he dared to leave the Spaniard out with one simple response, Mata wasn’t playing because he had Oscar.  After the start to the season that they’ve had you have to say Jose’s already been proven right.

Last year, in his first season in England as pleasing on the eye as his play invariably was there was always a temptation to wonder exactly what he was for.  In an era where football is taken more seriously than ever and the strict adherence to prescribed formations is almost mandatory Oscar was one of those players who you couldn’t immediately see fitting in.  The fact he looks about fourteen didn’t help.  With the benefit of hindsight a slightly hit and miss debut season spent in apprenticeship on the wing and bench has both player and club now reaping the benefits.

It’s worth repeating that Oscar is their top scorer this season, netting four in nine games, already a third of his total for last season.  At no point in his career has he been unnoticed.  We’re talking about a player who scored a hat-trick in an Under 20 World Cup Final and moved to Chelsea aged only 20 for a reported £25 million.  His biggest achievement might be managing to not be overburdened with expectation since his move.  He possibly has Hazard to thank for that.  Eden signed at the same time as one of the most sought after young talents in Europe, tweeting hints about who he’d sign for like a social media focussed Lebron James.  In comparison Oscar snuck through the back door.  After both having last season to bed in it was always likely they’d improve this season.  In the case of Hazard he was many people’s dark horse for player of the year.  So far Oscar is easily outperforming him.

At 22 he already has the best of pedigrees.  He’s won the Europa League and Brazilian Championship.  He’s scored goals against the very best in the Premier League and a hall of famer against Juventus in the Champions League.  Playing as Brazil’s number 10 he’s already won the Confederation’s Cup.  He is flawless technically.  In short he should already have a bigger reputation than he has.  That he hasn’t is probably down to his nationality, Brazil have that many prodigies that the term next big thing for them is never owned, only ever borrowed.  Attention wise he probably owes Neymar about as much as he owes Hazard.

It’s amazing how instantly pivotal he’s been to Jose’s Chelsea 2.0.  In the three behind the striker he’s been first picked, notably ahead of Mata but also in front of Hazard.  Last season Benitez spoke publically about how it was impossible to fit Mata, Hazard and Oscar in the same team without sacrificing defensive solidarity.  For the big games Oscar was invariably the one to miss out.  Mourinho seems to have come to the same conclusion.  For him though the solution lies in dropping Mata.  From the start Oscar has been his first pick and always at 10.  In a squad that must have claim to more of them than any other that must have given him some boost in confidence.  As Jose says it’s not like Brazil are short of options there either. 

In the past he’s been compared in style with Mesut Ozil.  They interpret the 10 position in similar ways, although Oscar isn’t possessed of such a distinctive languid running style and doesn’t yet interpret the possibilities of space as well as the German.  But then does anyone?  Interestingly Mourinho had Ozil as his 10 throughout his time at Madrid.  Clearly he sees similarities, in result if not style.

It’s tempting to see Brazil’s victory over Spain this summer as proof that the idea of a team of rotating playmakers on a carousel is at an end.  Time and next summer will tell.  The reason Jose gives when pressed about his preference for Oscar over Mata is that the Brazilian will put in more running.  Key for pressing but just as importantly for the speed in which counterattacks can be launched.  At Real and this season with Chelsea the focus on hitting teams on the break is if not everything then pretty damn close.  The most effective way to do that is to move the ball as quickly as possible down the flanks, where the space has been left by the opposition (interestingly Brazil are also increasingly trying to play this way).  A player like Mata with their ability to run games through measured possession becomes less important when playing like this.  Whatever you think of the style, Oscar is unarguably better suited to it.

And maybe that’s why for a player as accomplished as he is he can still be said to be underappreciated, it’s tough to pin down exactly what makes him excellent.  He doesn’t dictate play with a hundred small passes.  He doesn’t rake probing balls the length of the pitch.  He doesn’t burn past full backs with his pace.  He’s merely able to find space and be precise when the ball arrives.  As such he’s close to how other new 10s interpret the game, a further forward Toni Kroos, a more compact Mesut Ozil, a less direct Thomas Muller (and it’s not an accident they’re all German, they’re currently producing more of them than any other country, including Spain).  As with them the proof in Oscar’s ability is how effective his team look with him in it. 

If proof was needed of how his reputation is growing English commentators have started changing how they say his name.  Instead of saying it like it had ‘the Grouch’ afterwards they’ve started breaking it up, Os-car with a gap in the middle.  No clue if this is more accurate but there’s a history of commentators only starting to do this when they’re sure the player in question will be going places.  Os-car has a bright future.

Ashley prefers the sound of silence

For a man apparently so set on never publically explaining his decisions Mike Ashley sure doesn’t like anyone else commenting on them.  Three local newspapers, the Chronicle, Journal and Sunday Sun are now banned from the Newcastle ground for covering a protest march before the Liverpool game.  This ban also apparently extends to away press conferences, as the press officer and Pardew refused to take questions from journalists from the three papers involved after the Sunderland defeat (a sequence of events that apparently had several South Korean journalists present questioning whether they were allowed to ask questions or not).  That Ashley (and other chairmen; Port Vale’s has recently banned their local paper the Stoke Sentinel) think that banning sections of the press will ultimately lead to more favourable coverage just shows the delusion that football can live under.  Wild comments about freedom of press aside, and there’s been some cracking coverage this week, it really does defy belief that Ashley thinks that banning papers is the best way to get his point across.  To contrast with an owner down the road who hasn’t been known for explaining his actions Ellis Short printed an apology in the pre-derby Sunderland program for some of the mistakes he’d made that have left his club in trouble.  Whatever you think of how Ashley is running his club it’s unarguable that more communication from him would be welcome from pretty much everyone.  The visit of an in form Chelsea team on Saturday is the last thing they need.  With Pardew apparently fighting to keep his job and almost certain to face questions about subjects non-football related the attention at Newcastle once again is everywhere it shouldn’t be. 

Arsenal can be contenders

Watching Chelsea beat Arsenal this week was confirmation of what should have been fairly obvious, although their team is good enough to challenge for honours this season their squad isn’t.  While both teams rested players the quality of the players Chelsea brought in was a cut above their opponents.  Broadly it’s tough to see a team with Nicholas Bendtner at its point achieving anything.  And every time Giroud falls under a heavy challenge that what they’re facing.  Against Liverpool this weekend they’ll have their main players back and will probably keep their good run of league form going.  Over the course of the season though it’s no secret what will leave them short once again.

Dangerous times for Jol

For a club the size and position of Fulham the League Cup never assumes too much importance.  That’s the case right up until you get knocked out by a lower league team.  The last thing Martin Jol needed was a visit from a Manchester United team coming off two wins and still having to make up ground themselves.  With the likelihood of a defeat this weekend and tough games coming up he’ll be doing well to keep his job.  There’s also the newly occurring phenomenon of working for an owner that wasn’t responsible for hiring him.  Unfortunately it seems like something that isn’t going away anytime soon. 

City Need To Get Back To Winning Ways

Nothing but a win will do against Evertonon Saturday lunchtime.

It’s a good job that David Moyes is attracting negative attention for his struggles across the city.  Moyes’ labours have allowed Manuel Pellegrini to escape undue pressure for away defeats to Cardiff and Aston Villa.  Any more early slipups and not even Man Utd’s struggles will be able to deflect the questions about another stagnating title bid.

The Everton game is one City have to win.  A performance would be a bonus but a win is essential.  Because of their away form nothing else will do.  At the moment City are a different prospect at the Etihad, close to unstoppable when the mood takes them.  The game against United is a case in point.  They scored from their first four shots on target.  They outran, outpassed and outplayed the champions.  The difference between the teams in performance, desire and ability was staggering.  And then the game after they somehow contrived to lose to a Villa team without their best player.  In a season that promises to be tighter than ever every win could be crucial.  City will have to sort out their away form to win the league.  If they want to have the chance to do that they have to keep winning their home games.

Doing so against the last unbeaten team in the league won’t be straightforward.  The game promises to be tighter than most would have predicted at the start of the season.  Gone are the days that this fixture had a grudge match feel to it, when the nouveau riche City signed Lescott despite Moyes’ objections over how it was handled and got thoroughly up Everton’s noses.  Financially the difference between the oil rich City and the poorest (comparatively) of the top teams is stark.  Everton have always come across as bitter and more than a little jealous about that.  In their most lucid moments they’d admit that they’d love for someone with megabucks to come and be their benefactor.  For whatever reason, it ain’t happening.

It should be fascinating on Saturday.  Both teams have started taking very good care of the ball.  After six Premier League games Everton are averaging 59.4% possession and Man City 54.7%, both comfortably in the top five.  Interestingly City average more possession away from home and the most they’ve had all season was in their 3-2 loss away to Cardiff, presumably due to ineffectively chasing the game.  In their 4-1 defeat of Man Utd they had only 45%.  They would appear to be more dangerous when they’re more direct.

Man City are still adjusting to the change in style implemented by Pellegrini, placing more emphasis on attack.  They play closer to 4-4-2 than anything else.  When it clicks it’s impressive.  When it doesn’t it looks terribly flat.  It trusts Fernandinho and Yaya Toure to dominate central midfield with little assistance.  A few games a season Yaya could do this on his own. A few times already this season he’s almost had to.  Fernandinho is taking time to settle.  Bluntly he currently does not look like a £30 million pound player.  In the system they play they can’t afford him to take time to settle.  Pellegrini is also getting used to the particular demands of the Premier League.  Their two defeats so far have come the weekend before Champions League games.  After their humbling by Bayern Munich they need a reaction.  And all eyes will be on Joe Hart.  After the last few games there’ll be a sharp intake of breath every time an effort trickles towards his near post.  It’ll be tense.

For Everton Gareth Barry will be a big loss (the terms of his loan from City mean he won’t play).  To get a player with his experience and desire to prove he still belongs at the top level for free was one of the signings of the window.  He was the best player on the pitch in their win against Chelsea and not just for his unbelievable block to stop Eto’o scoring.  In his place presumably Martinez will give James McCarthy a start.  How he clicks with young player of the season so far Ross Barkley will be key.  In their previous games Barkley has given Everton an extra dimension going forward.  His interplay with Lukaku on Monday against Newcastle was as if they’d been playing together for years.  His playing time so far this season far outstrips the last player to move between the clubs before Barry, Jack Rodwell.  So far Everton have undoubtedly got the better end of that deal.  With rumours of Barkley already being targeted by a bigger club you’d have to hope that he looks at what has happened to Rodwell and many others (cough, Scott Sinclair, cough) and decides to stay put.  He’s unlikely to find anyone who’ll give him as many chances as Martinez.

The most impressive thing about Martinez’s start at Everton has been how consistent it’s been, which after his stint at Wigan precisely no one saw coming.  Losing to teams they should beat, yes.  Beating teams they should lose to, yes.  But unbeaten after six games, never.  If they get away from the Etihad with the record still intact a great start will become even better.  They’ve proven so far that they’re newly hard to beat.  They should prove a stern test for City’s title ambitions.

And that’s before we even start thinking about the main issue on Saturday, who out of Yaya and Leyton Baines will score the best free-kick?  In a league where free-kicks have suddenly started flying in the chance to see two of its finest proponents on the same pitch is too good to pass up.  That of course means they’ll get nowhere near shooting range for seventy minutes and then shank a couple into row Z.  That’s just how it works.

Who’s next?

Now that sacking season has officially begun you have to wonder who’ll be next?  Although given that Di Canio lasted six games they’re a little late in kicking it off this year.  Even in the Bundesliga, the nice, safe, sustainable, ethically sourced Bundesliga, two managers had been given the boot by the time PDC got his marching orders.  It’s either a sporadic outbreak of common sense or more likely everyone in the Premier League is about where they expect to be.  Bookmakers have Martin Jol the favourite to go next (mind you they also have Steve Bruce at the same odds as Arsene Wenger).  You’d think his collection of languid geniuses (and Darren Bent) need to click soon.  Next his Alan Pardew, who since Joe Kinnear took the big office up the hall has the air of a man constantly mentally filling in a constructive dismissal claim.  Newcastle also were forced to release a statement denying that he’d offered his resignation after the Everton defeat.  Watch this space.  Chris Houghton would have been in the mix before his team won at Stoke.  Really there’s been markedly less speculation than previous years, even counting all the #MoyesOut stuff.  It could be that managers are being given time, that after the mad dash to stay in touch with the increase in TV money last season that clubs have decided to give their bosses time.  Or we could get two or three this month.  For what it’s worth I’d have half an eye on Ian Holloway.  He’s coming across as madder than usual, was cracking up day one and managers have been sacked for the crime of getting promoted before.   Stick a fiver on Ollie and Pards.

Liverpool’s Formation

So Liverpool have begun to bravely break the ubiquity of the back four has over English football and started experimenting with 3-5-2.   Just as Wigan did last season to somewhat less acclaim.  The best thing about the coverage they’ve received is that this might end up helping to break up the hegemony of 4-2-3-1.  Any formation is only as good as the personnel you’ve got to fill it.  At the moment Liverpool’s best chance of getting the best out their players is with both Sturridge and Suarez as out and out strikers.  The only way to do that without sacrificing control in midfield is to play three at the back.  The only player it really doesn’t suit is Victor Moses.  Behind the strikers he doesn’t really have the room to use his pace.  With Liverpool sitting in second and Coutinho still to come back into his favourite position they might really click.

De Bruyne Questions Inevitable

It was always going to happen.  Jose can glare and stamp his feet and storm out over questions asked about players who don’t play as much as he wants, when you’ve got a squad as overstocked in certain areas as Chelsea’s is it’s inevitable that they’ll keep coming.  When you’ve got so many players not playing people will talk about them.  Normally Jose insists on a small squad with two players for every position on the basis that bigger ones are easy to lose control of.  In this and so many other things you can’t helping thinking that Jose 1.0 wouldn’t have let himself get in this position.

Why Jose Is Being More Like Jose Than Ever

Now that he’s settled back in to life at the bridge are we firmly in the era of Jose 3.0?

First there was Jose as the Special One during his first stint at Chelsea, riding into press conferences with the confidence of someone who gets to write his own headlines.  Then there was Jose the eye poker at Real Madrid, dropping legendary players to make a point and speaking to the press only to tell them he wouldn’t speak to them.  Chelsea fans may have thought they were getting version one.  They might have hoped that they weren’t getting the second.  Instead they’ve ended up with someone in between the two.

The attention ahead of their visit to Tottenham on Saturday has focussed on the supposed rivalry between Mourinho and Andre Villas Boas, one that apparently came into being after AVB stepped out from his mentor’s shadow.  Jose’s probably glad for the shift in focus.  Before the hype started for ‘The Master Vs The Apprentice’ questions were being asked with increasing frequency about Chelsea’s poor start (by their standards anyway; it’s worth remembering that they topped the Premier League for twenty four hours last weekend).  He’s brought the creative excuses that don’t really stand up to scrutiny with him from Madrid, blaming the age of his young eggs in the Champions League loss to Basel when the average age of the team he picked was twenty seven.  It sounded good though.

He’s moved on now to blaming the change in style he’s in the process of implementing.  It’s common knowledge, although never actually been confirmed, that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich wants to have his club change to a more pleasing on the eye style.  Roman apparently of the opinion that an investment of over a billion pounds should buy you whatever you want.  Mourinho’s comments have been all but an admission that he’s been tasked to it.  Dealing with Jose on current form is like dealing with the secret service, every question just leads to another question.  For example, if he’s been tasked with developing a more aesthetically pleasing playing style what’s with his treatment of Juan Mata? 

Last season’s player of the year has been ostracised more than any other player, left to contemplate League Cup matches and little else.  As an on form Mata would walk into any team in the league it’s difficult to reason with Jose’s decision, especially to the extent to which he’s been left out in the cold.  Mouriho’s reasoning is that because he has Oscar (after all Brazil’s first choice at number 10 in a country that is blessed with them) he has no space for Mata.  This is based on Oscar covering more ground without the ball than Mata would.  There seems to be no chance of him trying to include both, as even as pragmatic a coach as Rafa Benitez did on many occasions last season.  What seems odd about it is that at Madrid Jose would always include Ozil as well as two other attacking midfield players like Di Maria or even further forward with Cristiano Ronaldo.  Either he believes that he could get away with it with the quality of the competition in the Spanish league or he’s making some other point that we can’t quite see yet.  Time will tell.

Speaking of Benitez Jose has been, taking any chance he can get to chip away at the reputation of his predecessor as Chelsea manager like it’s 2005 all over again, starting with taking Rafa to task for having the temerity to win a competition in the Europa League that they shouldn’t have entered in the first place.  Jose’s been doing this since he came back, running through his greatest hits in an attempt to get his lost mojo back, like a Fleetwood Mac reunion, dusting off that old material.  He’s gone back to some of his less successful newer stuff as well, rekindling his rivalry with Pep Guardiola before the European Super Cup Final then talking about how his whole career he’s been the victim of a UEFA conspiracy (which means he’s done pretty well to win two European Cups).  It can only be a matter of time before he starts looking around for more eyes to poke.

Jose used to only manage but create expectations.  He was a master at it.  His first press conference in England where he declared himself special is proof enough of that.  The first season at Chelsea he told the players before the season started that they’d win the league when they played Bolton away in April.  Then they did just that.  He used to be a master of bringing the pressure on himself to take it from his players.  Now he’s struggling to manage the increased expectation his return has brought and it’s showing in the way his team’s performing (for an example of someone managing it better look at Manuel Pellegrini at Manchester City, telling the press before the first game that he had the league’s best squad at his disposal and if they didn’t win it was his fault).  Jose used to have the press eating out of his hand.  Now it’s not that easy and you can see it rankling.  They’re like a separated couple that have gotten back together because they couldn’t remember why they broke up in the first place.  Now they’re at that awkward stage of not wanting to be the one who brings it up first.

Which brings us to AVB.  Ever since he came to England he’s been billed as a kind of Jose Mark II, Diet Jose, Jose The Next Generation.  They came up through the same clubs and were even both mentored by Bobby Robson.  Even the theory that they no longer get on is that they’re rooted in an Oedipal struggle to replace/subjugate each other.  The worsening of their relationship, although more has been made of it than should have been, has added an extra spice to a game that didn’t really need any.  At the start of the season Jose was already talking about Tottenham being one of the main challengers for not just the top four but for the title.  Chelsea gazumping Willian from under Tottenham’s noses when they plainly didn’t need him still needles (although given the form of the Brazilian since he signed Spurs may have gotten the better end of that deal).

AVB and Spurs should have more reason to complain about a new style bedding in.  Since bringing in their new signings and adjusting to the loss of a certain Welshman they’ve looked close to the real deal, more solid than they’ve been in living memory, reminiscent a little of Mourihno’s Chelsea, the first version.  They’ve only conceded once in five games and that was in a closely fought derby with Arsenal, the other league leaders.  In a league that promises to not have a runaway winner being defensively sound and efficient going forward may be enough to win it.  Right at this moment that sounds more like Tottenham than Chelsea.

It’s not inconceivable that Chelsea could finish fifth or below.  Someone out of last season’s top four and Spurs will have to and Chelsea finished sixth as recently as the season before.  The match on Saturday will go a long way to proving which is more likely out of these two teams to miss out.  With the pressure and attention being on the managers I’m going for a low scoring draw.  And for Spurs to finish ahead of Chelsea at the end of the season.