TERRACE TALK: Reaction from the weekend’s top Premier League action
I was going to compile some fans’ comments for you that I picked up about United’s performance yesterday. Unfortunately, after removing all the swear words, death threats, and suicide jokes, I was left with only this: “The way it’s going, are we going to be like Eskimos and snow — except that in our case, it’s about poo? As in needing about a hundred different words for the various shades of it?”
I tried to make my own list of failings, but it turned out to be a copy ‘n’ paste from last week’s column after the Swansea humiliation: “slow, unimaginative, craven...” You get the picture.
Let’s draw a veil over it and move on. We were very glad of the point. It kept us out of the relegation zone. For now.
Grasping for straws whilst drowning, one could at least say young Blackett did pretty well for a kid making his first appearance away from Old Trafford. Some have also suggested Phil Jones occasionally looked the footballer he once promised to be. Other than that, they played as though determined to prove that LVG wasn’t being melodramatic last week when he said that our confidence had been “shattered”.
Last season, we beat Sunderland away and Swansea at home, so LVG is already five points worse off on the Poor David scale. Of course, that’s a bogus if amusing comparison, because Van Gaal still has seven days to achieve something Moyes never managed: to badger Ed Woodward into earning his ludicrous salary in the transfer market, and give him a decent squad for the challenge ahead.
Last night, we are apparently engaged in a fishwife spat at the market stall with Real Madrid over the price of Di Maria. I’m choosing to believe that even Eddy can’t muck this up now, given the player wants to come and Real are happy to sell. Ed did, after all, eventually manage to close out the Rojo deal, despite all the comical last-minute argybargy with the Argy’s third-party owners.
Would those two alone be enough? Not judging by the last two games. Does anyone really want to see any more of Messrs Young, Cleverley and Fletcher in red shirts? And does anyone think we have anywhere near enough defenders in the squad? One cannot overemphasise how important it is United get this week right.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Louis has decided to announce he will require two seasons grace before he will allow judgment to be made. This made some of us chuckle, remembering Poor David said exactly the same last September. Most of us were prepared to give him that leeway last season, no matter how awful life got; it was Eddy and his cohorts who decided to go back on their word, not us.
The politics are such Van Gaal is in a better position to make such a request for patience — United could hardly pull the same shabby stunt again next spring.
So off we go to carpet-bagging Milton Keynes, the last-but-one appointment to be fulfilled during this grisly limbo period before the transfer window closes, with the equally unlovely Burnley around the corner. Two horrible clubs with horrible fans, no doubt besides themselves with knicker-wetting excitement at the prospect of possibly felling a failing giant. The second ‘losers’ round of the League Cup is not somewhere we ever expected to be again, and let us hope it is the last time. It’s up to you, Eddy.
Can we stop getting carried away? Leaving Turf Moor last Monday and Stamford Bridge on Saturday there seemed to be a bubbling excitement amongst fans about the season ahead.
I’m not trying to be a killjoy but we do have to remember that, with all due respect, the games were just against Burnley and Leicester — although I think the latter are going to surprise a few people this season.
All that said, these two games were exactly the kind of fixtures we would have struggled with in the last campaign.
That early goal at Burnley would have rattled us while the organised display by Leicester would have had us struggling to score.
That was then and this is now. Diego Costa has been integral to the new approach, along with some healthy competition throughout the ranks.
One thing we may have to get used to (again) though is Jose’s obsession with controlling the game for long passages of play with only the odd probe forward.
With Burnley, the second half was just a masterclass in possession — which may get Mourinho’s rocks off but, for the majority of fans, is about as exciting as a night out with Steve Coppell.
Against Leicester too we saw this patient (dull) possession play in the first half. I accept it’s necessary for the time being at least but do hope it’s a prelude to something a bit more exciting further down the line — remember the football we played with Robben and Duff? We have the players capable of producing that exhilarating style of play; the likes of Hazard, Oscar, Fabregas and Willian can all give us that feelgood factor but Jose wants to ensure their defensive and possession play is first and foremost in their duties.
No Chelsea article these days seems complete without a mention of Torres, it seems. An unused sub at Burnley, he didn’t even make the bench against Leicester. Is this a clear indication he is off to pastures new?
Mourinho insists his weekend decision was a question of ‘balance’ in terms of the bench — but this at the very least now tells us that Torres has slipped down to third-choice striker and the Spaniard surely cannot be accepting of that fact? For the sake of the remainder of Torres’s career and his sanity he needs to get out there and find another club. We still need to ditch a foreigner in less than a week to comply with Premier League regulations.
We have had a relatively soft start to the season but Everton are going to be tough. Goodison has often been a tricky hunting ground for us and under Martinez they are more than just physical bullyboys. We are a better team than them though but we need to start with a bit of vim and vigour.
A physical and energetic start to games was something we failed at last season with often predictable results, so it would be good to put Everton on the back foot quickly.
Over to you Jose.
At 2-0 down with only seven minutes remaining at Goodison on Saturday, the travelling Gooner faithful were facing an utterly miserable schlep back home from Merseyside.
Perhaps a mere point in this instance, but mercifully, for the second successive week, we were extremely fortunate to salvage anything from the ashes of another lamentably lethargic display.
Mainly thanks to the home side knocking off early, Giroud’s glorious 90th-minute equaliser resulted in an explosion of euphoria over another smash and grab comeback.
Despite the comeback, this doesn’t disguise the fact that our woeful form leaves all that pre-season optimism looking somewhat misguided at present.
Here’s hoping it’s not 13th time unlucky, but perhaps the Gunners are a little too accustomed to cruising through our annual Champions League qualifiers? There was a frustrating absence of intensity in Istanbul in midweek, aside from the overly zealous endeavours of Alexis and the injection of energy from his replacement, with the Ox producing the only effort that came anywhere close to fruition. This encounter was more akin to a friendly, than potentially the most significant outing of the season.
Yet as a result, I was quite excited when Saturday’s starting XI was revealed and I realised Arsène had somehow found a way of including Özil, Alexis and the Ox. That was until it dawned on me that this was to the exclusion of any other strikers. I adore Alexis’s wholehearted attitude and his willingness to graft like a Trojan, but neither he nor Özil are the sort of natural wide-men capable of occupying the likes of Coleman and Baines sufficiently, out on the flanks, to prevent the Everton full-backs from rampaging forward all game long. I was delighted at the prospect of seeing the Chilean get an opportunity to impose himself across the width of the penalty area at Goodison. But sadly, operating on his own, Sanchez was starved of the ball and struggled to make an impact.
Following the disappointment of conceding a second only moments before the break, my unconfined joy at seeing le Gaffer react (instead of waiting until the last 15) was soon dampened, upon discovering he was substituting Giroud for Sanchez. Arsène needed to be bolder and with Wilshere watching his third successive game drift by, we’d have been better off if he’d taken Jack off and gone for it, giving the Toffees defence more to think about by playing 4-4-2. Wenger might feel vindicated by the fact that we managed to rescue a result, but truth be told, with Giroud needing three efforts before finally working Howard in goal, for the vast majority of the second half if felt as if the home side was far more likely to put the match to bed with a third than we were of turning this game on its head.
Watching Chelsea’s powerful performances thus far, it’s hard to imagine us lining up in the tunnel and no longer being intimidated by our London rivals. Although Fabregas wouldn’t have offered us more muscle, he has the sort of world-class aura, which left me fearing that even if it was just to prevent him pulling the strings in Mourinho’s midfield, passing on our option to bring him back might prove the costliest mistake of the summer.
I can’t help but wonder if Wenger let his feelings take precedence over his customary pragmatism in this instance. Although the Gunners are still struggling to get bodies in the box, at least our late goals have staved off the mood of despondency that would’ve enshrouded us by now, without them. But never fear, if we can overcome Besiktas and add a significant signing or two before the week is out, we Gooners will be back on top of the world.
A journalist from the London Times said “Balotelli and Rodgers met for two hours on Friday evening... and removed any remaining doubts over the signing.”
Phew, that was easy. Thanks goodness, for a minute there I was concerned. Everyone else on planet earth is still wondering why Milan don’t want to keep him and why he’s cost a mere £2 million more than LFC were expecting to receive from Sunderland for Fabio Borini.
I’ve no idea what the age limit is for drinking in the last-chance saloon but I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be 24. That’s if you agree with his agent of course, who seems rather the chatty sort — but then he should know, and I suppose life in Marioworld will do that to you after a while. That and the pulling out hair...
Liverpool fans already seem to have become seriously infected. Having been the team to watch last season for various reasons, cynics regarded the move as more tabloid appeasement than common sense. Bye Luis, but every Reds match will still be scrutinised like a ticking bomb in a Bond movie.
That would hugely benefit the get in/sit down/type/clock off/get down to the pub sort of journalist who doesn’t have to work at all with the likes of Suarez and Balotelli. Manna from heaven. When it comes to the largely forgotten subject of football and how it’ll all pan out, a whole new set of problems arise.
It’s Sturridge I feel sorry for. He was the number one for five whole minutes. At least with Suarez that Tasmanian Devil approach to the game provided our ‘other’ forward with some passes and some chances. You suspect he’ll be pointing skywards more often this season, for vastly different reasons.
Despite every media outlet willing it so, Mario won’t be available for tonight’s visit to the Etihad. That’s probably just as well; he can come in next week and try mop up the almost inevitable heartbreak.
We do not like this place. At all. Even before the new regime landed in the impoverished half of Manchester and Cinderella’d them all to hell, Liverpool struggled there — as opposed to Maine Road, which was Anfield East most of the time.
We have come a long way though since that dismal Monday night on the second game into Hodgson’s watch, when Mascherano didn’t fancy getting injured before his big move and left it late in telling everyone. Already finding life in Rafa’s loafers excruciatingly painful, the less than wise old owl soon found the hate turned up to 11 and never recovered.
They’re still ‘Citeh’ of course, 30 years of comedy can’t be completely erased, but nobody’s laughing much nowadays. Why is this game so early in the season? It’s almost as if the planners simply didn’t expect Liverpool to play such a big part in the scheme of things this season.
Still regarded as the flukiest pan-flash of all time, it’s probably better for us to still be ignored at this stage. I’m not sure how that’ll work after acquiring £130m worth of new players, but we’ll give it a go nonetheless.
Being treated as irrelevant after the season we’ve just had ought to ruffle a few feathers in the away dressing room tonight but the Etihad isn’t usually a gracious host to anybody, top-quality nor underdog.
Anyway, just appreciate the calm before the storm. Savour those halcyon few days before the name ‘Balotelli’ did not instinctively shoot your eyebrows into the stratosphere, while your mouth uttered “oh God, what the f**k now?” before you can stop it and your mum gives you a thick ear for swearing.
Tonight is a chance for other players to stake their claim and also draw a line in the sand. To listen to some this season is a two-horse race already and it might even be appreciated by the rest of the nation if the Reds weren’t to validate such rhetoric by Game Two.
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