Weekend Observations 4th - 6th December 2010: Part Two

Part One Here



On Monday, Gerrard Houllier, former Liverpool manager of early noughties plastic treble winning fame returned to Anfield with his new club Aston Villa. The home side were missing their 'spine' of Jamie Carragher, Stevie Gerrard and Fernando Torres through a combination of injuries and impending childbirth but any hopes of a shock evaporated in less than 20 minutes as a makeshift forward line of David N'Gog and Ryan Babel gave the Scousers an early two goal lead.

Given their form this season, it wasn't really a surprise to see Villa concede two goals that any defence not consisting of James Collins and Richard Dunne may have prevented. Although, in fairness, there was a big shout for offside with Babel's goal.

The life had been sucked out of the game and for the next 25 minutes the most entertaining thing going on was the creative swearing coming from the dugout area where the TV crews seemed to have inadvertently placed one of their microphones. Unfortunately, this was moved in the second half so all us fans of needless profanity were left disappointed.

Instead, we got a great example of how to offer nothing to a football match by Villa before Maxi Rodriguez iced the Liverpool cake with a sublime third. Forgotten signing of the season Joe Cole came on as did random signing of the season Robert Pires who did nothing but still looked more accomplished than worst signing of the season Stephen Ireland.

The 3-0 win saw Liverpool shoot up the table to the dizzying heights of 8th place – Interestingly, 3 points closer to top spot than at the same stage last season. Villa stay just two points off the relegation zone.

Just when you thought that peace had broken out at St. James' Park, Newcastle United leaped out from the shadows and soared to the top of their own self-erected pedestal of incompetence as if to say to the rest of us, "Hey, you've forgotten what a massive joke we are. We could no longer allow this. Point and laugh til your belly's are sore for we are the laughing stock of all of football!". Yes, following Sunday's 3-1 reverse at West Brom, Chris Hughton was sent packing from the Magpies managerial hotseat by trigger happy Mike Ashley and his cronies.



At the time of writing, Martin Jol seems to have cast aside his Ajax shackles and is primed to take over on Tyneside. As a fairly decent manager with the 'experience' they seem to so desperately desire. IF he does get the job, this will look like a good appointment on the face of it but you have to ask if changing a manager who was popular among players and fans alike is going to cause at least some level of disruption? What Hughton seemed to provide was some much-needed stability; something more important than a big name.

The West Brom defeat coupled with the recent humiliation at Bolton may well have contributed to the sacking but given the fact Hughton not only masterminded last years successful promotion campaign, but also this season's a 6-0 battering of Aston Villa, the emphatic Tyne-Wear derby win, wins at Everton and Arsenal and most recently a draw at home to the current league Champions (who they also beat in the Carling Cup), one would think he'd done enough to deserve a little more respect and his much sought after contract extension. Sadly, only in football do these kind of achievements get 'rewarded' in such a way. Needless to say, the reaction has initially been one of anger and disbelief. As a result, many 'neutrals' wouldn't be too disappointed to see the Loony Toon Army plummet down the table once more and find themselves back in the Championship where they were when Hughton was originally appointed caretaker manager.

If Newcastle are to be drawn into a relegation battle, they will have to go some way do wrestle the wooden spoon away from either West Ham or Wolves. You have to wonder if these sides are actually trying to finish last following a bizarre weekend when West Ham moved off the bottom of the table on goal difference despite not playing on Saturday thanks to Wolves' 3-0 defeat at Blackburn. However, the Hammers returned to the foot of the table following their 1-0 defeat at Sunderland 24 hours later.

Wolves can feel hard done by given the fact they were by far and away better than their Lancashire conquerers but due to a fetish for pinging the ball off the goal frame and making Paul Robinson look like a competent goalkeeper (a crime worthy of relegation in itself) they instead came away on the wrong end of a hiding. Another good performance from Mick McCarthy's men but no result to match. The annual hard luck story of at least one side doomed to the dreaded drop.

West Ham haven't won away from Upton Park in the league since the first day of last season and this most recent bout of travel sickness has piled yet more pressure on Avram Grant. The winning goal from Jordan Henderson capped off a fine team move and was worthy of winning any game although in truth, I'm not sure many people realistically expected West Ham to get anything against a Sunderland side who are quite formidable on home soil. Any 'extra' pressure on the diminutive Isreali is not really justified in my eyes.



That said, the Irons are looking something of a shambles in the league and you imagine that if it wasn't for last week's hugely unexpected victory over Manchester United in the Carling Cup, Sir Avram would be standing alongside Chris Hughton in the dole queue right about now.

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Results

Saturday

Arsenal 2-1 Fulham
Birmingham 1-1 Tottenham
Blackburn 3-0 Wolves
Blackpool P-P Manchester United
Chelsea 1-1 Everton
Man City 1-0 Bolton
Wigan 2-2 Stoke

Sunday

Sunderland 1-0 West Ham
West Brom 3-1 Newcastle

Monday

Liverpool 3-0 Aston Villa

Weekend Observations 30th October - 1st November 2010: Part Two

Part One here

When it was decided that Blackpool v West Bromwich Albion was to feature as the Monday night game on Sky, no-one in their right mind could have envisaged that a win for the home side would catapult them into the top half of the table nor would they have guessed that The Baggies would be ruing missing on three points that would have put them into the top four.



An entertaining and eventful game at Bloomfield Road on saw the away team play most the match with 9 men having had Pablo Ibanez and Gonzalo Jara dismissed before the half hour mark. Ian Holloway's men wasted a hatful of chances and almost squandered a 2-0 lead when Yousouf Mulumbu grabbed a late consolation. The most impressive aspect of the game was the willingness of both teams to attack. Blackpool could have easily sat back and kept possession with their two man advantage but still went out trying to score more goals even when winning comfortably. West Brom, although forced to set up with a 4-4-0 formation for over an hour still managed to get forward on enough occasions to make a game of it and were almost rewarded in the dying moments for their endeavour. Both teams ought to be praised for their positive attitude and some of their more pragmatic Premier League counterparts would be wise to sit up and take note.

That final sentence would have been a nice segue into discussion of the dull, scoreless West Midlands derby between Aston Villa and Birmingham City but this sentence is about all I could muster on the game. I’ll quickly move on the admittedly only fractionally more exciting game at the Reebok Stadium where Liverpool beat Bolton 1-0. Interestingly enough, despite their terrible start, should the unexpected happen and the scousers beat Chelsea next week, they could theoretically jump up to as high as fifth. However, watching their unconvincing smash and grab victory at Bolton, I would say that Hodgson's team have very little to be optimistic about. Maxi Rodriguez' 86th minute toe-poke merely glossed over what was another poor performance.



Take out Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard and you would struggle to convince many people that the rest of the Liverpool team are any better than their vanquished opponents on Sunday. Speaking of Torres, don't let the assist fool you, his overall contribution to the game was minimal and his lack of interest couldn’t be more apparent if he ran around with a huge neon sign with flashing text which read: "CANT BE ARSED" on it.

Many fingers have been pointed in many directions at Anfield but let's face it, on the pitch is where the main problems lie and the majority of the personnel in that line-up are just not up to the task of helping Liverpool return to past glories. For the likes of Lucas and Konchesky to name but two, their glaring deficiencies were once more exposed as they faced a team who are probably their equals at this point in time. The end result was a turgid, awful advert for top flight football which would have been just as 'entertaining' if all 22 starting players took a sedative pre-match and kept passing out at random moments during the game until the last man was left standing. Even Jamie Carragher readily admitted after the game that neither side deserved to win and apologised to everyone forced to put up with that drab 90 minutes as he realised we all died a little inside. Ok, maybe I made up the bit about the apology but I will never get that time back and that depresses me somewhat. But I digress, on the evidence of the game, any talk of 'turning the corner' ought to be curtailed until a later date.

What made the game look even worse was the fact that the first televised game on Sunday was the Tyne-Wear derby between Newcastle and Sunderland at the Sportsdirect.com@St. James Park Stadium – to give it its full name – which was a cracker of a game. The Magpies rolled back the years and almost looked something like Kevin Keegan's original entertainers from days of yore. The star man in the 5-1 battering was Kevin Nolan who nabbed himself a hat-trick. The rest of the Newcastle forward line weren't too bad either with Shola Ameobi grabbing a brace and Nolan's court-enforced flatmate Andy Carroll at the heart of everything good the home side did. I imagine they are just like Joey and Chandler from Friends except instead of Manhattan based hi-jinks with various members of the opposite sex, Andy Carroll just assaults them (allegedly). And rather than the all too frequent trips to the same coffee shop, I imagine Andy Carroll just decides to glass people (allegedly) irrespective of the beverage of choice or the establishment he happens to be in.

Without trying to take anything away from a Newcastle side very much deserving of a famous victory, they couldn't have had a bigger helping hand form their arch-rivals who looked about as lively as a bunch of red and white striped barber's poles. I guess that would explain why some of the defending was hair-raisingly tragic! Not to mention their terrible tackling which saw six players booked and Titus Bramble sent off. I alluded to the fact that certain teams seem to be over dependant on their star man and there is no greater example of this than at Sunderland where Darren Bent seems to be the only person who actually knows how to find the back of the net. Naturally, it was the England striker who grabbed the Black Cats' consolation late on.

Lack of goals aside, it's difficult to see what Steve Bruce is actually doing with this Sunderland team. They don't appear to have any sort of football philosophy in their approach nor a discernible style of play. They aren't really defensive nor are they particularly dynamic on the attack. They don't lose a lot but don't win a great many games either. Currently in 12th place, there isn't much to suggest that they won't be hovering in and around this position for the duration of the season.

Mid table obscurity has however, has allowed Sunderland to hold the Northeast bragging rights for the last year or so following the relegations of Newcastle and Middlesbrough in 2009. The Toon have returned and you'd think that after the indignity of playing in the second tier for the self-professed big club, you'd want to try and keep well away from that dreaded relegation trap door.



After all the various controversies, embarrassments, managerial changes and general instability down the years, it would surely be sensible to steer clear of anything that may cause more problems at the club, right? Wrong, Newcastle United FC is apparently the first football team to openly embrace it's masochistic tendencies. When no problems are present, the club will actively seek them out.

Despite sailing to promotion last season and maintaining something of a healthy position in the Premier League to date, Chris Hughton continues to be undermined at every opportunity. The growing speculation about his future has been greeted with silence by the board and the reported delay in offering him a new contract all point to yet more imminent changes at the club. A massive derby win will give Hughton some breathing space but a few dodgy results will be the only excuse Mike Ashley will need before turfing him out and doing something daft like bringing back Sweary Joe.

Results

Saturday
Arsenal 1-0 West Ham
Blackburn 1-2 Chelsea
Everton 1-0 Stoke City
Fulham 2-0 Wigan
Man Utd 2-0 Spurs
Wolves 2-1 City

Sunday
Aston Villa 0-0 Birmingham
Bolton 0-1 Liverpool
Newcastle 5-1 Sunderland

Monday
Blackpool 2-1 WBA


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