TERRACE TALK: Reaction from the weekend's top Premier League action
There were mutterings amongst even the most faithful of the “Arsène knows” brigade about whether le gaffer’s long tenure has run its course. But much in the same manner as the United fans who booed the “Moyes Out” fly past at Old Trafford, when push comes to shove, our obligation as supporters is to get behind the team. All such overt expressions of discontent are best left in the pub, or to the ravings of the social media sycophants.
There are the odd exceptions, in those peculiar supporters who seem to revel in venting their fury at every match, but the vast majority of us are hoping for a positive experience.
Therefore the last thing you want prior to kick off is to permeate the air with a mood of negativity, especially when we were up against a side that, man for man, is the best in the land.
Arriving early for once, eager to soak up some rays while sitting in the glorious sunshine, I was watching City warm up, coveting the likes of Kompany, Zabaleta, Touré and Silva. It made me think: While Pellegrini fell on his feet, walking into a job managing all the money no object, world-class stars amassed by his predecessors, “the Engineer” and all his Premier League peers appear to be struggling when it comes to the trick of motivating their troops to consistently perform to their maximum capabilities.
Whether John Terry’s culpability was down to karma, or poetic justice, as much as I relished the coup that Tony Pulis managed to pull off at Selhurst Park, ultimately it was the source of even more frustration.
With both favourites seemingly falling over themselves to throw the title, one can’t help but feel that this precious prize was there for the taking this season.
With the competition all set to throw the kitchen sink at it this summer in terms of spending, the Gunners appear to have blown what might well prove to be our best opportunity. If only Wenger had been willing to push the boat out in the transfer window, instead of stubbornly refusing to concede to the consensus of opinion about our limited striking options, it might’ve been us and not the Scousers who are set to take advantage should the two favourites fall at the last.
Obviously further spending would’ve been no guarantee of success and if there were any strikers worth their salt available, doubtless they’d have been snapped up by Jose. Yet with £30 million left in the £70 million kitty that was supposedly available to our manager after the purchase of Özil, I just wish Wenger had spun the wheel, instead of guarding his chips as if he was spending his own dosh. Who knows, we might not have ended up facing the best team in the planet with all our hopes resting on the shoulders of the untried and untested Sanogo, and Arsène might’ve silenced his critics once and for all, by walking off into the sunset with the elusive big-eared trophy? My fears that City might be inspired by Chelsea’s defeat seemed well founded for the opening 15 minutes on Saturday, as Silva and Navas carved apart our left flank. Mercifully we responded with a valiant effort, determined to recover some pride. But with Flamini having more than made up for his last-minute mishap in midweek, as the unlikely scorer of the equaliser, with City under the cosh, I was baying for us to risk it all on securing a winner.
Sadly Liverpool ended up as the sole beneficiaries, when both managers appeared to succumb to their pragmatic instincts, as they settled for the point, which would enable the two of them to come away with honour intact.
No matter how infuriating for the more partisan amongst us, the beautiful game’s seemingly infinite capacity to surprise does at least guarantee the most enthralling denouement in the weeks ahead.
One minute complaining their team is dull, rubbish and never in title races or cup finals, the next whining about headaches, ulcers, high blood pressure and heart stoppages. Make your minds up.
I was going through this stuff throughout the 70s and 80s, and am not quite sure how I’ve made it this far. The resilience of youth I suppose, or maybe a 20-year ‘rest’ can do you a power of good. Whatever it was, I’m back to feeling absolutely dreadful now.
Before the Sunderland game Poyet “did a Paisley” by throwing a bit of toffee in Suarez’s direction. Sure enough, Luis bit (so to speak) by trying to do everything himself to cover up for his hopeless, mid-table team-mates and making a right old hash of it.
By the end, John O’Shea was having his Gudjohnsen moment while 40,000 Liverpool fans had the air sucked out of their bodies all at once. Having waited five years for something like this, suddenly it felt like a bad place to be.
Then Tim Sherwood thought he’d muscle in on this mind game action and referred back to his frantic title chasing days of yore with Blackburn. He was actually quite sweet about Liverpool fans, but needless to say the papers zoned in on the “pressure” comments and transformed it into something sly.
“He can say what he likes, I’ll let my team do the talking” said Brendan Rodgers, never. By Saturday evening, things were becoming all too real. With Everton still snapping at our rump and City and Chelsea dangling a nice juicy carrot in front of our faces, it felt like the only thing for the Reds to do was keep moving forward, but could they?
Spurs do not have the best of records at Anfield and Sherwood does come across as a Sunday League nutjob sometimes, but then so does Pulis (snigger). With that amount of talent on hand they weren’t coming to wave us on our merry way, surely?
If anything it was worse than that, as if they were waving goodbye to the manager. They were unsettled by the second minute. Yes Anfield has become a fortress again, but something about their body language before the game began bellowed “surrender”.
Rose did not fancy it against Sterling, and Kaboul’s early strike set the tone. Glen Johnson abandoned defending because he wasn’t needed. When Suarez struck for 2-0, you began to feel Tottenham had some masterplan to lull us into a false sense of security, or maybe a coma. If they were playing the part of clueless, disinterested impostors, it was almost Stanislawski-like.
Vertonghen was limping and wasn’t hanging around once the exit beckoned. By the time Flanagan dummied Lennon and Coutinho made it three, Spurs were no longer pretending. They really were atrocious. Lennon left the field almost jubilantly, while Soldado’s impeccable Berbatov impression (all impotence, laziness and five o’clock shadow) ended when he too limped from a battle long since lost.
It’s really hard to gauge Liverpool’s performance since it was all too easy, but certainly Sterling looks unstoppable. What a transformation his has been.
Hugo Lloris was the only one battling now. A rare Spurs attack was ended with a crunching Flanagan tackle and mass high-fiving. This was a team winning 4-0 at home with five minutes to go. That mattered as much as any goal.
It’s spooky that it was 50 years to the day Liverpool beat Spurs en route to their first title in decades. Two forwards got over 50 league goals between them that season, too. This is happening. This is real. My blood pressure rocketed through the roof, and now my vertigo’s acting up too.
Thanks, Reds. Thanks.
Rarely can an Old Trafford match have taken place in modern times that so many of us expected to end in humiliation, such as is the case for tomorrow night’s visit from the European Champions.
It’s like a spoof pitch for a bad movie: “So, you didn’t like The Night Before Man City? Well, you’re going to just hate The Eve of Destruction, starring Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery.”
Perversely, this could actually help the man we are now contractually obliged to refer to as Poordavid. Because everyone is expecting Bayern to slaughter us, I think it’s almost been ‘priced into’ the Moyes share value.
I wonder whether, say, a 0-3 tomorrow would create quite the crisis point that some have been hoping for — not least because that wretched plane has galvanised support for the status quo and stiffened the waverers.
Ah, yes: ‘the plane, Boss, the plane’, as the trollish Phil Neville may have been shouting on Saturday, in homage not so much to Fantasy Island as to F**kwit Central. Hiring a stunt-banner fly-past was already passé five years ago. Now it stinks like haddock left to run rancid in the Salford Quays sun. Even most of those who want Moyes out deemed it to be OTT for OT, and the combination of boos, tuts and headshaking that greeted its limp arrival on Saturday spoke volumes.
It was the biggest own goal we’ve seen at United since the signing of Bébé. The organisers had not only succeeded in strengthening their enemy, but had also made themselves the subject of widespread ridicule into the bargain. Bravo: Moyes must almost have wished he’d thought of it himself.
So what now for the prospects of a “conscious uncoupling” between us? Obviously, should some sort of miracle happen against Bayern, Poordavid would not only be safe until the summer, but it would also rightly challenge for a podium position the three greatest-ever European exploits by United (viz. Benfica ‘66, Real ‘68 and Turin ‘99).
And if I may adopt a patriotic posture, we Brits often do pretty well when alone in desperate straits against seemingly all-conquering Germans. But let’s not kid ourselves — nor be fooled by the 4-1 against Villa, which hugely flattered to deceive, welcome though it was. The overwhelming probability is that we will go out, and quite possibly by the sort of margin that seals fates. Be that the fates of many of the players on the pitch, or of the coaching and management staff.
Manchester had already been spectacularly rife with rumour in the week following the surrender to Liverpool; you can imagine how much worse it was after the derby disaster. The shadowy ‘1992 Committee’, as it has been cleverly and knowingly dubbed, was widely reported to be poised for action — speculation fuelled by a spectacular front page story in Thursday’s ‘Sun’ — whilst the off-record mutterings of Ed Woodward and ‘friends of Fergie’ have given us Red kremlinologists plenty of deciphering work.
There is a lot of executive buckpassing and distancing going on, I can tell you that. Listen hard, and you fancy you can hear the ticking of an unexploded bomb. No-one wants to be caught with their pants down, wirecutters in hand, if and when it goes off.
So over the top we go: helmets on to face Fritz. I leave you with a flickering hope, as usual. If there’s one club that knows all about achieving the impossible against a dominant Bayern Munich, it’s this one. Now, if only we still had Solskjaer on the bench...
This display was so typical of us: the big Hollywood performance followed by a showing that leaves us scratching our heads looking for answers.
How can we go for the throat against Arsenal from kick-off, yet be so pedestrian against Palace?
Why could Matic and Luiz steamroll Arteta and Cazorla one week yet be so ineffective against a so-called “inferior” side the next?
How could our passing be so fluid one week and so ridiculously comical the next?
It looks like we struggle against teams who come to put in a physical shift — and that’s worrying because for every one team like Arsenal or City who come to play football, there are four sides who will come to fight, defend, battle for whatever they can get.
What’s worse is that it’s mainly those sorts of sides that we have left to play in this campaign. Didn’t I say that our “easy” run will do for us in the end? I didn’t even make the Palace game due to sickness which some may think may be a small mercy in view of the outcome but I would always rather be raging with fellow fans rather than stomping around the house arguing with inanimate objects.
When I see the kind of game Torres had on Saturday, followed then by the desperate introduction of Ba, I can’t help but think of Daniel Sturridge again.
Regular readers of this column know I was not happy when we sold him. I’ve had all the discussions with fellow Chelsea fans: yes, he was greedy; yes, he was a moody; yes, he didn’t come over as a particularly likeable human being. But I bet most would take him now. Because despite everything, if he was scoring even half of the goals he is scoring at Liverpool we would be walking this league.
Rumour has it that the club sold him when they did to afford a financial return while they were still able as he had already decided to leave the club at the end of the season anyway. Being a free agent Chelsea would have got nothing — bet the £12 million we got for him seems pretty paltry now in the grand scheme of things.....
Speaking of Torres, it’s looking more and more that he’ll be used as part of the deal to lure Costa to Stamford Bridge in the summer. He will leave as a bit of an enigma as far as I’m concerned. There are those that haven’t taken to him from the start (I can understand that but think it unfair) even now.
Others, like me, gave him our full support throughout his time, always believing (and hoping) that the avalanche of goals were coming......
Of course that avalanche never came though he gave us some moments of true bliss — that goal in Barcelona being the one that most readily comes to mind. It has been impossible to predict from one week to the next whether we would see selfless, hard-working, animated Torres or sullen, immobile disinterested Torres. The quote I have associated with him most since he joined us is “hope is tomorrow’s veneer over today’s disappointment”
I’m sorry it’s been such a down-beat column but I am beginning to doubt the strength of character of some of our players. That’s not something you can teach or drill into players — it’s certainly something you can nurture but it needs to be there initially. I’m worried the players didn’t care enough to put a shift in against Palace, not even after a woeful first half, and if that’s the case then our problems lie deeper than a lack of performing strikers.
As I write this I see that Liverpool have already taken the lead against Tottenham. As unpalatable as we Chelsea fans may find it, if they win this league they will have earned it. With the exception of their strike-force they have a pretty average side but are destroying opposition week in week out.
I will be in Paris this week, hopefully trying to put our Premier League woes aside in the hope of Euro glory. Okay, it sounds pretty hollow to me too.
