TERRACE TALK: Reaction from the weekend's top Premier League action

MANCHESTER UNITED

It was with a nervous quiver in the voice that a colleague remarked last night, when he saw the teamsheets: “blimey: brave of Sherwood to go 4-4-2...” Teams coming to Old Trafford and “being brave” has been the leitmotif of 2013’s latter half, and 2014’s clearly going to see a lot more of it, now that Spurs have added to the pile of evidence that it can pay dividends.

For years, we’d grown so accustomed to sides showing up beaten, or being content to park defensive buses, that it’s come as quite a shock to witness the worms turning en masse. “Be careful what you wish for,” I guess, so often did we complain about the lack of entertaining contest at Old Trafford. Well, we’ve had contests a-plenty now: there’s been a lot to whinge about for Reds these past few months but poor value for ticket money should really not have been one of them.

Last night turned into yet another gripper, thanks to Welbeck pulling one back - a player who, moments earlier, had appeared to dive, unpunished. One now looks back on his penalty won at White Hart Lane with jaundiced eye. He, Young and Adnan have all been multiply accused this season, and Moyes repeatedly claiming that he has “had a word” with offenders no longer cuts the mustard. Just tell them to stay on their feet if they can, even if touched: this current policy of ‘going down and hoping’ is not doing us any favours.

So, Spurs beat us at home after a draw at the Lane; the same haul as last season, if that’s some small consolation. And if last night offers one further silver lining, it’s a reiteration of what I wrote last week: this transfer window needs something to go through it. Or it’ll be figurative bricks through Ed Woodward’s.

Sunday’s Old Trafford dusk will be sprinkled with the magical fairydust of the FA Cup, and I’m not being facetious: many of us are looking forward to Swansea’s visit with much more anticipation than most seasons’ apparently routine Cup-ties have engendered in recent times. Some will scoff that it’s just because this is our second-best chance of a trophy this year, after last night’s disaster, but I’ve been struck by how many Reds have opined this week that they really fancy a good crack at the old pot this time.

May will mark the tenth anniversary of the last time we won it, the longest Cup-less stretch we’ve endured since 1964-1975's fallow period. Crossing this desert, we’ve had a couple of painful final defeats and two semi-final losses, one of which was arguably the worst FA Cup experience we’ve suffered since 1979’s ‘five-minute final’, marking as it did the coming to maturity of the new Manchester City. It’s certainly time for some joy.

David Moyes surely won’t need much motivation to pick a proper side on Sunday; it’s an oft-levelled criticism that he’s never won anything, but the corollary of this is that he must have a desperate thirst for a sip from the trophy.

Similarly, Wayne Rooney has often spoken about his desire to complete his medal collection, and is old enough to have been touched by the romanticism of the Cup from the era when it still truly mattered; he was a maximally impressionable nine years old when he cheered Everton on to victory against United in 1995’s final. (Although poor old medal-less Rio Ferdinand, who used to be wheeled out by Alex every season as evidence of how much United's players supposedly wanted to win the FA Cup, now looks unlikely to have his wish fulfilled, even if United go all the way.)

Swansea are open, attractive, and frankly slightly too good for comfort at the moment, so this is going to be no twilight stroll in the park. None of us wants to be trying to console ourselves at full-time with “well, there’s still the League Cup”, given that the City beast is likely to be squatting fatly in our path, so let’s get this done. It's not a time for yet more rotational experiments, Davey, so put your Christmas present kaleidoscope away...”

LIVERPOOL

It’s tenuous, but we’re counting that as a top of the table win. Well, top half. Given the events of previous days, it’s not surprising that straws were clutched.

There was disappointment in the preceding results for sure, but the reaction to them, Chelsea’s orgasmic one especially, produced a distinctly Wildean response. There are worse things than being talked about.

Mourinho’s response, infantile on the surface, was classic deflection. Simulation? Reeeeeally? But Suarez is the gift that keeps giving; we were second best on the whole, but it was close and might have been closer but for the referee.

Defeat wasn’t the really disturbing aspect; it was the depletion of our numbers and a fear of egos shrivelling after being built up to excess. It’s annoying to be accused of never seeing the positive side in anything, because keeping a lid on what’s genuinely expected of this “group” and its manager isn’t the stupidest idea right now.

Immediately there were queries about the arrival of some Barca wunderkind. Hmmm. Cynics suggested the story was planted and like other tales of Spain would die quietly on the vine. Anyway, we’ve a month of this to wade through so pace and brace yourselves.

Losing two on the trot meant a much-needed smother in the comfort blanket of stats. We’ll simply try to keep our bullying going against the lower sides, in an attempt to emulate the foundation of much of United’s success.

There was one tiny problem; Hull are doing okay and aren’t bottom-10. The reason we reacted so badly to the defeat there was that we’ve begun to depend on such points to be in or around top four. It was hard to dismiss it as “one of those days” when we didn’t have any inverted days where we weren’t expected to win but did. Not until Spurs, anyway.

They then gave United a fright and thrashed Fulham, so filing them alongside the fodder was slightly premature. Actually there was another problem; Steve Bruce. His record against United contrasts starkly with various successes against us; even drawn games with Wigan and Sunderland caused us aggravation, and don’t mention beach balls. He may well be inspired by past rancour, but that never did Mark Hughes much good. Bruce might (whisper it) be good at his job, and there’s more than tumbleweed blowing through that Easter Island head of his.

They were organised and energetic certainly, but the main tactics seemed to be maiming Suarez and goading us with a Chelsea strip. Nerves jangled initially because it had all the appearances of “one of those days” for a while.

Aspas offered what little we’ve come to expect, Sterling and Coutinho were infuriatingly sloppy and Suarez seemingly had one eye on every incoming challenge. With good reason; Eto’o, Oscar and now Meyler have got away with stonewall red card challenges this week. It was poetic justice that the opener came from the corner Hull conceded after that. Then he booked Suarez for nothing. Referees seem to get worse. I didn’t think that was possible.

Then we saw just why he’s being targeted with another astonishing goal. It would be nice to give him a breather soon, because he is beginning to look jaded and battered. The second goal gave us a chance to play some neat possession football. The panic was mostly within the support, not on the pitch. Gerrard gave everyone a lift, but every so often we’d start buggering about at the back again and the tension returned.

Coutinho continued to aggravate. Perhaps we expect too much now, as some of his movement and control is still excellent – but his shooting, good grief…

So a timely win then. Back to one game a week soon, though not quite soon enough. Malignant outsiders made too much of our drop to fifth.

You don’t shake us off that easily. Happy new year, everyone.

ARSENAL

Well we certainly managed to make harder work of Cardiff than should’ve been the case. The awful weather conditions seemed likely to favour our guests, but then as my neighbour rightly pointed out, ultimately the Gunners should have enough in the tank, quality-wise, to triumph over such lesser mortals.

Ever since his impressive “man possessed” substitute appearance at Upton Park, we’ve been looking forward to seeing more of Podolski. But sadly, in replacing the unfit Giroud, we were reminded quite how unsuited Lukas is to the lone front man role. With Bendtner seemingly joining the lengthening ranks of our walking wounded, I’m really not sure what striking options will left for Wenger to choose from come Saturday’s massive derby game against Spurs.

Surely Podolski is a non-starter, as he received absolutely no change out of the Bluebirds two behemoths at centre-back (including the increasingly impressive Caulker), with him being unable to hold the ball up and seemingly so uncomfortable with the battering he was enduring, with the net result that we were left with absolutely no one playing up front.

If I didn’t know better, I might believe that the Gunners were guilty of being a little arrogant. For the first hour or so, the game was like a training ground exercise, with Cardiff sitting back and waiting patiently for us to try and pick the lock of their parked bus, while we plodded around the park, as if we were expecting our guests to present us with an Christmas gift of all three points, without ever having to produce the intensity, or the effort to actually earn them.

Meanwhile, with Solskjaer up in our directors box, having been delivered there courtesy of his impending new boss’ private jet, I suppose all the Cardiff players must’ve felt as if they were playing for their futures. I must admit to feeling some sympathy for them at the death, as their earnest endeavours came so close (yet so far) to producing a well-deserved point.

I was shooting the breeze with a bunch of Bluebirds fans on route to the ground, with us all arriving there looking like drowned rats. Any sort of result on their travels, against the likes of the Arsenal would be viewed as a bonus and they were principally there to savour their season long tour of glamorous Premier League stadia. I’m not really au fait with the wrongdoings of their very own “Dr No”, other than the fact that their new chairman has come in and ridden roughshod over more than a century’s worth of tradition. Thus it seems a crying shame that after waiting impatiently for this opportunity of a lifetime, the Cardiff fans are left spending the season protesting, instead of wallowing in the pleasure of their Premier League jolly.

It was indeed fortunate that they turned up, in order to generate some atmosphere, as our gaff was even more library-like than usual, with so many of our number nursing heavy-headed, New Year’s Day hangovers. Still at least some “lucky” individuals at the front of the lower tier benefited from a brisk wake up call, when the unrelenting rain resulted in a leak in the roof that had water falling upon their heads in torrents.

However with City having leapfrogged us by beating Swansea and with news of Liverpool and Chelsea both having taken the lead in their games, there was an increasingly nervous hush about the place, when Walcott’s successive failures to find the target began to have everyone feeling as if this might just be one of “those” games.

Mercifully Bendtner eventually released all this tension with his last gasp intervention and the relief was tangible, as Theo ensured that we weren’t left sweating out five minutes of injury-time, by finally coming up with a supremely competent finish to add a second.

What’s more, I was back home in time to watch Spurs put a spoke in Man United’s recent revival and while a draw at Old Trafford would’ve undoubtedly suited us more, hopefully our neighbours renewed prospects of a shout at a top four finish might mean they won’t be quite so motivated by a Cup run come Saturday?

With seven clubs reaching the halfway mark with continued Champions League ambitions, whatever transpires between now and May, I think we can rest assured the battle ahead will prove enthralling.